Development of pragmatic competence among L2 learners

Although compliments and compliment responses seem to play an important role in discourse of second language (L2) classrooms (Khaneshan & Bonyadi, 2016), the influence of virtual exchanges on enhancing the use of compliment responses remains unexplored. Twelve L2 learners of English from Poland met in groups for six weeks, via video conferencing, with Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) teacher candidates from a university in the USA. During online sessions, the L2 learners’ primary focus was on discussion in English regarding assigned TED Talks. Data analysis consisted of statistical analyses using SPSS on Likert-scale questions while open-ended responses were coded using NVivo 12 into researcher-created categories. In addition, transcripts were analyzed. It is evident from this study that L2 learners have opportunities to utilize virtual exchange to develop L2 pragmatic awareness related to compliment responses.

‘The common good’

In this study, I attempt to propose a conceptualisation of interactive politeness which is anchored in the investigation of a kind of other-criticism known as ‘eršâd šodan’ or being exposed to verbal guidance, which is an important religious value among Muslims. The concept of ‘eršâd šodan’ has an imperative load that is expected to contribute to negative impoliteness (Culpeper, 2016). However, as the data of this study reveal, threatening individuals’ negative face through other-criticism was not interpreted as impoliteness among the subjects. My analysis through one-on-one interviews indicates that politeness among Persian speakers is more than a dynamic construction between conversational partners, for there are macro orders that influence people’s interpretation of politeness. I conclude that politeness in other-criticism is closely germane to how subjects connected imposition to the establishment of orders. This article intends to show that it is reasonable to expect that the criticism of an individual could be for the individual’s own good but also for the greater (group, community) good, reminiscent of cultural facilities that are provided to fulfil the certain interests of a particular community.

Metadiscourse variations in the generic structure of disciplinary research articles

Research articles have begun to occupy the status of a prominent academic genre, as publishing one is a significant way to gain credibility and to establish oneself as a researcher among members of a discourse community. One way to distinguish discourse communities is to look at the linguistic features used in the generic structure of their research articles. One of these linguistic features is metadiscourse which deals with the connection between authors, texts and readers. The present study adopted Hyland’s (2005a) model of metadiscourse to compare the use of interactional markers in the moves of 40 research article introductions from Applied Linguistics and Chemistry. Findings indicated some variations in the way that disciplinary authors employed interactional devices in introduction moves. These findings can be discussed in terms of familiarizing novice writers with discipline-specific features of their research article introduction and interpersonality in establishing a link between a text and readers.

Grammaticalization in action and beyond

As a result of the rapid development of en plan in contemporary Spanish a wide range of recent studies have paid attention to the grammaticalization process transforming this adverbial locution (meaning ‘in a certain way, with a certain purpose’) into a pragmatic marker. However, previous research fails to capture the complex semantic networks and synchronic multifunctionality of en plan. The present study takes on a polygrammaticalization mechanism and describes two main sets of clines. The first set of clines concerns the evolution of en plan into a mitigation device; the second set deals with its grammaticalization as an intensifier. Moreover, the recently defined discursive mechanism of cooptation is thoroughly applied for the first time to Spanish. The contribution deals with written and oral data from different geographical varieties and gives support to a “grammaticalization-cooptation-grammaticalization” hypothesis in the emergence of en plan as a brand-new pragmatic marker in Spanish.

Metaphoric interpretation

This paper compares two different theoretical approaches which have been developed to account for metaphoric interpretation: the comparison approach and the categorisation approach. Following a brief review on the history of the two theoretical approaches, the paper points out in part 5 that these two approaches are not fundamentally incompatible. It is further argued in parts 6 and 7 that while the comparison approach can be improved to provide metaphoric interpretations beyond a focus on words and phrases, similar improvement can hardly be made for the categorisation approach, whether by updating the approach itself or by merging it with non-categorisational processes. As a result, the metaphoric cases accountable by the categorisation approach can only be a subset of the cases accountable by the comparison approach.

The use of hēi diào (‘to turn black’) and its related [V diào] forms in social media

Hēi diào ‘to turn black’ (黑掉) denotes a change-of-state meaning, but in social media, it has a special pragmatic use that emphasizes “bad consequences” following an uncooperative act, whether right or wrong. This metaphorical and new transitive use of hēi diào, which is unique among netizens, has changed the literal status of hēi ‘black’ to other additional accomplishment/achievement meanings. Our study examined the expression hēi diào using data from a social media corpus, the PTT Bulletin Board System. We also analysed all the constructions of hēi diào and similar [V diào (掉)] patterns in the corpus. Unlike most previous work, which analysed the uses of [V diào] only, our study observed pragmatic connotations of hēi diào in social media—uses that only materialized in certain contexts.

‘You would not want to be the murderer of our dreams and options, right?’

Studies of how adult Chinese speakers express disagreement at work or in business have a well-established tradition; whereas, studies on young students and university lecturers are scarcer. In general, the description of relationships with authority figures has been characterised by evidence of greater distance and a greater rituality than equivalent Western uses. The objective of this work is to verify whether, in a mutated communicative situation, students express their opposition to lecturer via email using predominantly indirect and attenuated linguistic forms—as might be expected—or whether linguistics changes are evident. For this purpose, 149 university students wrote a letter to their language lecturer in which they express their disagreement with the grade received. The results of the analysis reveal that, contrary to what was predicted, acts of direct speech are prevalent.

How to riddle by Chinese names

This paper studies how Chinese riddles, esp. how to riddle by a name. Based on lexico-constructional pragmatics, a Chinese riddle is a construction, with the configuration of FACE (P), EYE and BOTTOM (Q). P and Q are to hold a tension between identity and heterogeneity, and the entire riddle is to meet the (six) felicity conditions of riddles. Old means of Chinese riddles are discussed, to seek new riddling manners like use of foreign loans, material props, and face-bottom reversions. It is hypothesised that a rhetor with humour-consciousness, in informal or weak communication, can in principle generate a riddle, for instance, by names of places, people, and things. By some pragmatic constraint or even coercion, the riddler can boost expressibility and processibility of a riddle. With a case study, liberal use of riddles in more ways, for more occasions, is suggested to elevate communicators’ humour competence and humour happiness.

Inviting individual voice to second language academic writing

Our purpose in this paper is to present the findings of a study aimed at investigating how second language (L2) student-writers construct their identities as academic authors in tertiary education. We consider the restraints institutionalized text production can place on the constitution of writer identity, and call for pedagogical approaches to writing to take on board our findings to better help students in the process of finding their unique authorial voice. While the specific socio-cultural and institutional contexts within which people write limit possibilities for their self-representation, we argue that student writers should be encouraged to bring their own life histories and sense of the self to their texts. The study follows the notion of writer voice as proposed by Lehman (2018). She proposes categorising writer voice into three main types: individual, collective and depersonalized. As these three aspects of voice are predominantly cued through metadiscourse features we employed a three-dimensional analytic rubric designed by Lehman (2018) in order to identify and analyze the potential of individual voice in the facilitation and enhancement of academic writing in a second language (see Lehman, 2018).

Institutional perspective on writing for international publication

The paper focuses on the institutional background of the publishing practices of Polish scholars, with special emphasis on publications in English. The University of Silesia in Katowice represents a Polish Higher Education Institution which places significant emphasis on international publications. On the basis of two data collection instruments, a report on point-winning publications (2017–2020) and a survey conducted among 197 faculty members, the author portrays the publication-related situation of the university and its most important determinants. Besides the facts pertaining to the distribution of point-winning publications among disciplines and languages, the article address such important issues as the authors’ strategies employed in the preparation of English language manuscripts, language-related issues articulated by the reviewers, and reasons for not publishing in English. A connection is made between the institutional context in which scholarly texts are composed and the strategic choices made by the authors in the process of manuscript drafting.