Mitigated directness in Honglou meng: directive speech acts and politeness in eighteenth century Chinese

This paper is situated within a theoretical discussion that asserts a positive correlation between indirectness and politeness, and uses these claims as a springboard for an examination of polite ways of issuing directives in eighteenth century Chinese. On the basis of an analysis of directive speech acts from dialogue in the novel Honglou meng, it argues that the concept of indirectness, as it applies to the illocutionary transparency of individual speech acts, has no particular value in the culture and language of eighteenth century Chinese men. It is found that other linguistic devices such as particles, the reduplication of verbs, terms of address, and the presence and sequencing of supportive moves are far more significant to the communication of politeness. The findings suggest a need to rethink current theoretical positions on this subject and move beyond the analysis of individual speech acts to examine the role discourse structure and management play in the enactment of politeness. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Enhancing teaching and learning speech acts: action research of Japanese as a foreign language /

This action research observes a second year Japanese class at a university where foreign language courses are elective for undergraduate students. In this study, using the six strategies to teach Japanese speech acts that Ishihara and Cohen (2006) suggested, I conducted three classes and analyzed my teaching practice with a critical friend. These strategies assist learners toward the development of their understanding of the following Japanese speech acts and also keep the learners to use them in a manner appropriate to the context: (I) invitation and refusal; (2) compliments; and (3) asking for a permission. The aim of this research is not only to improve my instruction in relation to second language (L2) pragmatic development, but also to raise further questions and to develop future research. The findings are analyzed and the data derived from my journals, artifacts, students' work, observation sheets, interviews with my critical friend, and pretests and posttests are coded and presented. The analysis shows that (I) after my critical friend encouraged my study and my students gave me some positive comments after each lesson, I gained confidence in teaching the suggested speech acts; (2) teaching involved explaining concepts and strategies, creating the visual material (a video) showing the strategies, and explaining the relationship between the strategy and grammatical forms and samples of misusing the forms; (3) students' background and learning styles influenced lessons; and (4) pretest and posttests showed that the students' Icvel of their L2 appropriate pragmatics dramatically improved after each instruction. However, after careful observation, it was noted that some factors prevented students from producing the correct output even though they understood the speech act differences.

Speech acts, responsibility and commitment in poetry

Philosophy has tended to regard poetry primarily in terms of truth and falsity, assuming that its business is to state or describe states of affairs. Speech act theory transforms philosophical debate by regarding poetry in terms of action, showing that its business is primarily to do things. The proposal can sharpen our understanding of types of poetry; examples of the ‘Chaucer-Type’ and its variants demonstrate this. Objections to the proposal can be divided into those that relate to the agent of actions associated with a poem, those that relate to the actions themselves, and those that relate to the things done. These objections can be answered. A significant consequence of the proposal is that it gives prominence to issues of responsibility and commitment. This prominence brings philosophical debate usefully into line with contemporary poetry, whose concern with such issues is manifest in characteristic forms of anxiety.

Frequency, Form, and Distribution of Illocutionary Speech Acts in Swedish Parent-Child Interaction

In this study, young children’s development of speech acts was examined. Interaction between six Swedish-speaking parents and their children was observed. The frequency, form and distribution of speech acts in the output from the parents were compared with the frequency, form and distribution of the children’s speech acts. The frequency was measured by occurrences per analysed session. The aim of the analysis was to examine if the parent’s behaviour could be treated as a baseline for the child’s development. Both the parents’ and the children’s illocutionary speech acts were classified. Each parent-child dyad was observed at four different occasions, when the children were 1;0, 1;6, 2;0, and 2;6 years of age. Similar studies have previously shown that parents keep a consistent frequency of speech acts within a given time span of interaction, though the distribution of different types of speech acts may shift, depending on contextual factors. The form, in terms of Mean Length of Speech Act in Words (MLSAw), were correlated with the longitudinal result of the children’s MLSAw. The distribution of the parents’ speech acts showed extensive individual differences. The result showed that the children’s MLSAw move significantly closer the MLSAw of their parents. Since the parent’s MLSAw showed a wide distribution, these results indicate that the parent’s speech acts can be treated as a baseline for certain aspects of the children’s development, though further studies are needed.

O diagnóstico da linguagem e a linguagem do diagnóstico : uma perspectiva pragmática

A teoria dos atos de fala, de John Austin, apresenta a linguagem a partir de uma perspectiva pragmática, ou seja, quando os signos têm um compromisso com a produção de realidades, de mundo e de sujeitos. A linguagem possui – nessa perspectiva – força de criação. Em sintonia com os estudos da pragmática da linguagem, defenderemos a ideia que uma classificação não é mera descrição neutra acerca dos fatos, e Ian Hacking será a ponte entre a linguagem (enquanto fonte de produção de mundo) e as classificações (como produtoras de sujeitos). Para esse autor, as classificações tanto transformam quanto são transformadas. Elas, de diversas formas, interagem entre si, com os sujeitos, com as instituições, com os saberes, enfim, com tudo aquilo a que faz referência. A partir de uma revisão, análise e composição bibliográfica, o trabalho se dedicará a produzir um elo entre a problemática da linguagem-ato, tal como postulada por John Austin, e o caráter produtor de realidade das classificações. Dentre as classificações, daremos importância particular ao diagnóstico (enquanto uma espécie de estudo de caso na teoria dos enunciados) e seus efeitos pragmáticos, a partir dos elementos que lhe dão força de eficácia e existência em nosso mundo contemporâneo, tendo em vista o aumento do número e da proliferação de categorias nosológicas no corpo social. Trataremos, em particular, as classificações da medicina psiquiátrica. Abordaremos, por um lado, as condições que contribuem na emergência e na potência de um diagnóstico e, por outro, seus efeitos. Dentre os efeitos que daremos importância, encontramos a formação de novos sujeitos e modos de vida. Sendo assim, tanto as condições de eficácia de um enunciado quanto seus efeitos são estendidos à noção de diagnóstico enquanto uma classificação numa condição sociohistórica particular.

Abordagem crítica sob a ótica da ação comunicativa de Habermas : gestão participativa no campus Serra do Ifes

O estudo teve como objetivo compreender de forma crítica como se caracteriza a gestão participativa no campus Serra do Ifes, a partir do entendimento e do processo interativo dos servidores Técnico-administrativos (TAEs) das classes C, D e E, e das chefias imediatas. Para tanto, a Teoria da Ação Comunicativa (TAC) de Jürgen Habermas, bem como sua proposta de democracia deliberativa foram empreendidas como marco teórico para compreensão desse processo e os conceitos norteadores da TAC (atos de fala, mundo da vida, sistema, colonização do mundo da vida, esfera pública, ação comunicativa e instrumental ou estratégica) foram empregados como elementos de análise das estruturas relevantes identificadas na pesquisa. Esse trabalho caracteriza-se como uma pesquisa de abordagem qualitativa e possui um enfoque crítico com visão dialética da realidade social. A análise foi realizada considerando o duplo efeito que a prática da gestão participativa pode significar: como comprometimento com o desempenho e reforço do sistema capitalista; e como resistência dos trabalhadores organizados às formas de dominação e controle. Os dados empíricos foram produzidos por meio de pesquisa documental, observação participante e entrevista semiestruturada. Foram entrevistados oito TAEs subordinados e 13 chefias imediatas, selecionados conforme o critério da bola de neve. Utilizou-se a análise de conteúdo para o tratamento das informações obtidas nas entrevistas. Os resultados apontam para a construção de ações participativas de cunho instrumental, estabelecidas a partir dos interesses da gestão, de grupos específicos e individuais. Sendo assim, a prática da gestão participativa caracteriza-se como um espaço estratégico para alcance do êxito e não do entendimento, onde os TAEs são corresponsáveis no processo de manutenção e construção dos fenômenos que emperram o desenvolvimento de uma participação democrática.

L'adquisició de l'entonació en català, castellà i anglès

El principal objectiu del projecte és analitzar el desenvolupament de l’entonació de tres llengües, el català, el castellà i l’anglès. Pretenem investigar el desenvolupament dels diferents patrons entonatius que trobem en la producció primerenca, avaluant si, efectivament, aquests primers contorns produïts pels nens reflecteixen o no les propietats prosòdiques específiques de la llengua input dels adults. En resum, l'objectiu és poder esbrinar com l'infant va configurant la seva gramàtica entonativa així com el significat que va associat a aquestes produccions entonatives. Pretenem analitzar dos tipus de dades. Per una banda, un corpus d’entonació que conté els diàlegs controlats entre 36 nens i 36 adults (12 nens de cada llengua de 2, 4 i 6 anys) i que permet de comparar les mateixes frases produïdes pels adults i pels nens. Per altra banda, els corpus longitudinals de CHILDES que ens permeten analitzar dades sobre actes de parla i formes entonatives (corpus Serra-Solé per al català, corpus Ornat i Llinàs-Ojea per al castellà i el corpus Providence per a l'anglès americà i el Forrester per a l'anglès britànic).

Prosody and pragmatics in parenthetical insertions in catalan

This paper analyses the role of prosody in parenthetical insertions, a type of structure that is extremely common in both speech and writing. The materials under study come from a corpus of spontaneous speech acts in Central Catalan (with varying degrees of spontaneity) from which a corpus of oral parenthetical insertions has been compiled. The prototypical prosodic features of a parenthetical insertion in Catalan are: prosodic autonomy, limited extension, production in between pauses or final pause, tendency towards acceleration, fall in intensity, lower pitch range and, finally, falling or rising melodic pattern. While the final fall is the most frequent pattern in spontaneous conversations with a high degree of confidence between interlocutors, a final rising structure is found in interviews in which the degree of confidence between participants is smaller, their roles are unequal, and the interviewed constructs a narrative discourse. We thus suggest that the pitch contour of parenthetical insertions is related to formality and discourse typology (in this case, narrative vs. dialogue). Bearing in mind the discursive functions performed by these insertions, we propose a typology which classifies them with regards to two main functions: completion of information, and modalisation.