The Structure Of Discourse Pragmatic Variation

Everyday language use overflows with discourse-pragmatic features. Their frequency, form and function can vary greatly across social groups and change dramatically over time. And yet these features have not figured prominently in studies of language variation and change. The Structure of Discourse-Pragmatic Variation demonstrates the theoretical insights that can be gained into both the structure of synchronic language variation and the interactional mechanisms creating it by subjecting discourse-pragmatic features to systematic variationist analysis. Introducing an innovative methodology that combines principles of variationist linguistics, grammaticalisation studies and conversation analysis, it explores patterns of variation in the formal encoding of I DON’T KNOW, I DON’T THINK and negative polarity tags in a north-east England interview corpus. Speakers strategically exploit the formal variability of these constructions to signal subtle meaning differences and to index social identities closely linked to the variables’ and their variants’ functional compartmentalisation in the variety. The methodology, results and implications of this study will be of great interest to scholars working throughout variationist sociolinguistics, grammaticalisation and discourse analysis.

Introducing a range of new methods and insights for analysing discourse-pragmatic variation and change, this volume aims to inform future studies in the field.

Like is a ubiquitous feature of English with a deep history in the language, exhibiting regular and constrained variable grammars over time. This volume explores the various contexts of like, each of which contributes to the reality of contemporary vernaculars: its historical context, its developmental context, its social context, and its ideological context. The final chapter examines the ways in which these contexts overlap and inform current understanding of acquisition, structure, change, and embedding. The volume also features an extensive appendix, containing numerous examples of like in its pragmatic functions from a range of English corpora, both diachronic and synchronic. The volume will be of interest to students and scholars of English historical linguistics, grammaticalization, language variation and change, discourse-pragmatics and the interface of these fields with formal linguistic theory.

Departing from Schneider and Barron (2008), representing the emerging field of Variational Pragmatics, this volume examines pragmatic variation focusing on methods utilized to collect and analyze data in a variety of first (L1) and second (L2) language contexts. The objectives are to: (1) examine variation in such areas of pragmatics as speech acts, conventional expressions, metapragmatics, stance, frames, mitigation, communicative action, (im)politeness, and implicature; and (2) critically review central methodological concerns relevant for research in pragmatic variation, such as coding, ethical issues, qualitative and quantitative methods, and individual variation. Theoretical frameworks vary from variationist and interactional sociolinguistics, to variational pragmatics. This collection contains eleven chapters by leading scholars, including two state-of-the art chapters on key methodological issues of pragmatic variation study. Given the theoretical perspectives, methodological focus, and analyses, the book will be of interest to those who study pragmatics, discourse analysis, second language acquisition, sociolinguistics, corpus linguistics, and language variation.

The book highlights the expansion of discourse-pragmatic variation and change, especially under-studied variables and languages.

Discourse-pragmatic markers are central to everyday language, yet many aspects of their use and functions remain elusive or under-investigated. Bringing together a global team of leading scholars, this volume presents a representative showcase of work currently being conducted in the field of discourse-pragmatic variation and change, including investigations of features such as uh/um, please, sentence-final is all, and discourse-pragmatic features from a number of languages. The book emphasizes that not only have researchers answered the call to address complex issues such as cross-linguistic reliability, extending research across languages, and expanding and improving on methods and analysis, but that they continue to address perennial questions in the field of language variation and change. With sections on theoretical and methodological issues, innovative variables, and language contact situations, the volume offers a robust overview of best practices for both new and experienced researchers.

The ten volumes of the "Handbook of Pragmatics Highlights" focus on the most salient topics in the field of pragmatics, thus dividing its wide interdisciplinary spectrum in a transparent and manageable way. While the other volumes select specific philosophical, cognitive, grammatical, cultural, interactional, or discursive angles, this sixth volume focuses on the dynamic aspects of language and reviews the relevant developments in variationist and diachronic scholarship. The areas explored in the volume concern several general themes: specific methodological approaches, from comparative reconstruction to evolutionary pragmatics; issues in intra-lingual variation in terms of standard and non-standard varieties; cross-linguistic variation, including its cross-cultural dimension; and the study of diachronic relations across linguistic patterns, including changes in all areas of pragmatic patterns and categories. The contributions document two prominent and interrelated trends that shape contemporary variationist and diachronic research. One, it has moved from situating change within context-independent systems toward incorporating patterns of language use and the speaker s role in language change. And two, it has reoriented its focus away from cataloguing instances of variation and toward seeking theoretically informed accounts that aim at "explaining" variation and change. On the whole, the volume argues for accepting and developing actively a systematic connection between research in diachrony, synchronic variation, and typology, while also incorporating the socio-cognitive perspective in linguistic analysis as a particularly promising source of useful methodology and explanatory models."

On a regular basis people encounter unfamiliar uses of pragmatic features, such as offers or requests with differing levels of directness or terms of address showing differing amounts of solidarity or deference. Variational pragmatics is the study of such uses, according to region, gender, age, ethnicity and socioeconomic status, among national and sub-national varieties of pluricentric languages. Despite the wide focus just outlined, this volume provides the first study of pragmatic variation across different social classes, using naturally occurring, interactional data. The discourse analyzed here was collected in over twenty restaurant service encounters spanning three price points. The aim of this study is two-fold: to provide a potential framework for how pragmatic variables and their context can be defined, using the concept of a communicative activity, and to investigate socioeconomic variation in pragmatics by taking offers, thanks responses and address forms as examples. This study contributes, both on a methodological and empirical level, to the growing body of research in variational pragmatics, as well as speech acts, terms of address, relational work and sociolinguistics.