Pragmatics and the Third Wave: The Social Meaning of Definites

Contextual Variables as Predictors of Verb Form: An Analysis of Gender and Stance in Peninsular Spanish Requests

“…In general, the variational pragmatics approach examines how particular uses of linguistic forms in particular contexts and conversations reflect and construct the social world. This highlights the context-dependency of language that influences language variation and reflects the individual identities of language users (Acton 2021). Additionally, variational pragmatics foregrounds the questions addressed in this article about the varying effects of situations on different speakers, as evident in their linguistic production.…”

“…The theoretical frame of this investigation blends concepts and understandings from pragmatics and variationism. As Acton (2021) argues, pragmatics and third-wave variationism share many underlying principles and provide complementary approaches to understanding social meaning. In addition to adopting a pragmatics perspective of language and context, the current research recognizes the indexical relationship between linguistic variables (e.g., verb forms) and social factors (e.g., gender), a relationship that serves to (re)create social structures.…”

“…Linguistic forms used in social interaction reflect and reconstruct identities, relationships, situations, and cultures. Whereas sociolinguistics has highlighted the social indexing of linguistic forms (Agha 2007;California Style Collective 1993;Eckert 2016), the field of variational pragmatics provides a complementary approach that addresses the relationships among social factors and language use in context (Acton 2021;Barron 2014). The field examines how particular uses of linguistic forms, in particular contexts and conversations, reflect and construct the social world.…”

“…This investigation examines how contextual factors (i.e., power, distance, and imposition) condition verb forms used by men and women in Madrid, Spain; the variation in verb-form use by men and women; and how Peninsular Spanish verb forms contribute to individual speakers' stances when making requests in contexts that vary in power, distance, and imposition. The theoretical frame employed recognizes the connection between contextual variables and linguistic production as well as the relationship between individuals' stances and macro-level sociolinguistic trends, aligning with variational pragmatics (Acton 2021;Barron 2014), third-wave sociolinguistic research (e.g., Bell 2016Eckert 2012Eckert , 2016Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 1999), and Terkourafi's (2005Terkourafi's ( , 2015 frame-based approach to politeness.…”

Creaky Voice in Chilean Spanish: A Tool for Organizing Discourse and Invoking Alignment

“…The aim of this paper is to identify how speakers of Chilean Spanish use creaky voice to position themselves in interactions, with particular attention paid to the meaning being constructed in conversation. As Acton (2021) claims, "what speakers say and how they say it is not merely the product of exogenous forces but also depends on speakers' beliefs about how listeners would evaluate a given variant-and, in turn, how useful the variant would be in helping them achieve their desired ends" (As Acton 2021, p. 2). This attention to the specific communicative goals of the speaker, as well as how their utterances would be perceived, is centrally located within the realm of third-wave sociolinguistics (Eckert 2012) as the speaker's meaning as well as agency are foregrounded.…”