Wolfram Bublitz

Foundations of pragmatics

Opening the 9-volume-series Handbooks of Pragmatics, this handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the foundations of pragmatics. It covers the central theories as well as concepts and topics characteristic of mainstream pragmatics, i.e. the most widespread approach to the ways and means of using language in authentic social contexts. The articles provide both state of the art reviews and critical evaluations of research in pragmatics. Topics are thus not only considered within their scholarly context but are also critically evaluated from current perspectives.

Transferred negation and modality

Abstract Although transferred negation is a minor topological problem in syntax, it is nevertheless a major problem in the pragmatics of spoken discourse. The concept of epistemic modality is used to bring within a single perspective the syntactic phenomenon of transferred negation and the pragmatic phenomena of involvement and politeness. The effect created by modalizing utterances using I think and related forms can be reinforced by transferring the negative item. It is shown that this is due to processes such as synthetization, incorporation and topicalization, which are direct reflections of more general tendencies which have been productive in the history of English.

Reported Speech: Pragmatic Aspects

While speakers usually commit themselves to the propositional, functional, and evaluative contents of their own utterances, they may also refer to the speech of others and report what they said, wrote, meant, or thought. Reporting, a metalinguistic act, is a powerful communicative strategy. In different degrees of authenticity and correspondence with the reported speech, the reporter exhibits the propositional and functional content, the way in which it was presented, the speakers and/or reporters emotional state and attitudinal stance, etc. Accordingly, reported speech serves a multitude of pragmatic functions; principal among them is evaluation, related to the source, the reporting expression, and the reported proposition(s).

The Pragmatics of Quoting Now and Then

This volume offers a fresh view on quoting in old and new texts. In showing timeless similarities and key differences, its authors adopt both synchronic and diachronic perspectives to pinpoint the formal and functional evolution of quoting and to trace trends in linguistic variation.

Participation as user involvement

The aim of this chapter is to explore the potential of social media for user participation from different perspectives. This includes technical factors that determine how much participation is possible on a given platform as well as the degree and forms of participation that can actually be observed. The chapter also addresses the relation between user involvement that results from interaction and other involvement strategies that can be found on social media, such as the presence of personal content and language of immediacy. It concludes with a case study that illustrates how different involvement strategies are combined in political communication on a social networking site.

Text and Context

This chapter will cover the two related areas of pragmatics (as the study of meaning and acting in social contexts) and text analysis (as the study of structures, functions and meanings of texts).

Sacks, Harvey (1935–1975)

Sacks is best known for his invention of ‘conversation analysis,’ which is concerned with the means and methods employed by interactants to create and act within their own social reality. Based on ethnomethodology, it is an inductive, strictly empirical, data- though not theory-driven approach. Conceptual landmarks of his work include turn-taking and topic organization, opening/closing procedures, mechanisms of self-correction and repair, preferred ways of referring to others, and sequential organization of conversation.

Piaget, Jean (1896–1980)

Piaget held chairs in sociology, philosophy of science, and genetic and experimental psychology. The multidisciplinary nature and multifacetedness of his work and his ability to transcend the boundaries of his fields inspired work in sociology, philosophy, education, and linguistics. His central concern was our knowledge about knowledge, its nature and the conditions of its growth. For linguistics, his studies of the childs cognitive development are most relevant; his constructivist view separates Piaget from strict empiricism and radical nativism.

Wegener, Philipp (1848–1916)

Because of his original development of a communicative and functional approach to language, Wegener is regarded as a predecessor of German pragmatic thinking and British Contextualism. He asked, “How does language function as a means of communication?” and argued that language is not merely an instrument for the representation of thoughts but a means of acting purposefully in particular situations to influence others.