Towards an Alternative Relevance-Theoretic Approach to Interjections

Cruz, Manuel Padilla

doi:10.1163/187731009x455884

Cited by 81 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 25 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Even if there may not be complete agreement about issues such as the procedures that interjections encode, their (lack of) conceptual content, or how prosody interacts with interjections and lexical items (cf. Padilla Cruz 2009a, 2009b, and although Wharton does not address why the items under scrutiny acquire(d) procedural meaning or how such meaning arises, readers with some background in phonetics and phonology will discover in this book many challenging insights into the workings of the not-to-be-despised suprasegmental features of verbal communication which will significantly contrast with previous explanations based on the code model of communication they might be acquainted with. On the other hand, Wharton's proposals are based on a continuum he envisages as an alternative to other continua.…”

mentioning

confidence: 87%

Book Reviews

Cruz

Dynel

2009

Lodz Papers in Pragmatics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Readers will certainly find in this recent volume a most timely work that stresses the importance that non-verbal phenomena and elements lying between the linguistic and non-linguistic, the coded and non-coded, have in communication. Thus, Wharton undoubtedly redresses the balance in their favour after decades in which they have been incomprehensively relegated to a second plane in linguistics and other neighbouring disciplines. By exploring what and how such phenomena and elements contribute to communication, he brings to the pragmatic arena a wide range of items that have often met controversial accounts or escaped systematic linguistic description but, particularly, missed pragmatic unitary explanations. The following sections summarise each of the chapters this volume comprises, after which follows a critical evaluation.The book opens with this introductory chapter-"Natural Pragmatics" (1-17), where Wharton starts by clearly explaining the reasons that encouraged him to write this most interesting work: controlled or unconscious vocal, facial and bodily gestures-which he refers to as "natural non-verbal behaviours"-are omnipresent in human communication and largely contribute to or bias our understanding of discourse. Although they have been approached from different frameworks, such as functionalism, conversational and discourse analysis, sociology or anthropology, they have not been approached from a cognitive perspective that unveils how they might interact with linguistic properties of utterances. Such an approach must answer the following questions: a) What is the relation between natural non-verbal behaviours and intentional communication? b) How are non-verbal behaviours interpreted? c) What do they convey? d) What is the relation between natural non-verbal behaviours and those nonverbal behaviours that are not natural? (3)(4)

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 87%

Book Reviews

Cruz

Dynel

2009

Lodz Papers in Pragmatics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…How then is the conveyed message understood by the hearer? Padilla Cruz (2009) examines cases where a subordinate clause is replaced by an interjection as in ( 25):…”

Section: Interjections and Compressed Clausesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, by using an interjection, the speaker merely expresses an emotion with no intention of communicating; it is the hearer who attempts to understand the utterance in question based on the contextual, encyclopedic, and/or lexical information (cf. Padilla Cruz 2009;Kanetani 2016).…”

Section: Interjections and Compressed Clausesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A grammatico-pragmatic analysis of the because X construction: Private expression within public expression

Kanetani

2022

F1000Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: This article investigates an innovative use of because, called the because X construction (e.g., because homework). Quantitative and qualitative research as well as research about the historical development of the construction have been conducted. The present article aims to determine what motivates the use of the construction. Methods: Based on the data collected from the literature and online sources, the grammar of the because X construction is described in detail. The construction is then analyzed within Hirose’s (2015) three-tier model of language use. Results: A two-layered expressive structure is proposed: The X-element serves as a private expression, which is a speaker’s expression of thought with no intention of communication, whereas the whole construction functions publicly. The private nature of the X-element consistently accounts for the syntactic categories of the X-element and the restrictions on them observed in the literature. Conclusion: The proposed two-layered expressive structure reflects a metapragmatic function of the construction. A private, subjective expression embedded in a public expression has the function of connecting the hearer to the speaker, and it accordingly brings about a joint attention effect. With such a function, the proposed structure is effective especially (but not exclusively) in online communication because one can strategically indicate closeness or intimacy to others, particularly in an environment where nonverbal means are difficult to apply.

show abstract

“…indicate possession or lack of supportive evidence for information. These elements show the informer's different degrees of commitment to the proposition expressed or 7 See Padilla Cruz (2009) for comments on Wharton's (2003Wharton's ( , 2009 relevance-theoretic analysis of interjections. The relevance-theoretic analyses of elements contributing to attitudinal descriptions are part of the second stage in the development of the notion of procedural meaning (Carston 2016).…”

Section: Style and Relevancementioning

confidence: 99%

Evidential participles and epistemic vigilance

Cruz¹

2020

Figurative Thought and Language

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

For communicated contents to be accepted by the audience, they have to pass the filters of epistemic vigilance mechanisms, which check the credibility and reliability of communicators and the information provided.Communicators may lack adequate evidence about the information they dispense. One of the ways to indicate to the audience that they are uncertain about some information (rather than to put their reputation as reliable speakers at risk) is to use participial adjectives, such as 'alleged' or 'suspected'. The chapter discusses the features of such adjectives and argues that they specialise for marking the speaker's epistemic stance towards the information communicated -a function they share with other evidentials.Unlike many other expressions denoting epistemic stance, however, they appear to be confined in their scope to the noun phrase in which they occur.(5) a. Do you think you could take this parcel to the post-office and send it for me? b. I was wondering whether the post-office might still be open.Likewise, if a straightforward congratulation on an unequalled essay (2) was perceived as detached, the speaker could elaborate on the reasons why she praises it as a way of empathising with the hearer and making it clear that she intends to praise his work (Norrick, 1980;Marandin, 1987):(6) Excellent essay! It addresses most of the current challenges in relevance-theoretic pragmatics.Not knowing another person well may render complimenting risky, as the complimentee may think that the complimenter simply seeks to comply with rules of etiquette, is flattering or even making fun of him (Wolfson, 1983;Holmes & Brown, 1987). That riskiness is avoided by means of a more indirect formulation which evidences that the complimenter has noticed a change in the complimentee but does not unveil her real opinion about it: (7) It seems that you've been to the hairdresser's.If a recurrent formula to apologise (4) is thought to sound insincere, the speaker may want to show true regret by adding the reasons for the apology: (8) There was a huge traffic jam and I could not make it on time for class.Dispensing information other people might need or have an interest in impacts their set of beliefs. These may be altered by adducing evidence that certain facts or states of affairs hold or that some of them should be abandoned. Thus, people attempt to convince others of facts or states of affairs, to persuade them to do certain things or believe specific issues, or even to manipulate them.Since information may be true or false, when imparting it individuals are normally interested in appearing competent -i.e. skilled communicators and knowledgeable about specific issues-and benevolent -i.e. reliable or trustworthy informers (Sperber, 1994). Grice (1975) himself captured the intuition that communicators are usually expected to tell the truth or that telling it is beneficial for communication in his 'Maxim of Quality '. 3 Benevolence causes speakers to indicate certainty or lack of evidence about information by means of various ...

show abstract

Towards an Alternative Relevance-Theoretic Approach to Interjections

Cited by 81 publications

References 25 publications

Book Reviews

Book Reviews

A grammatico-pragmatic analysis of the because X construction: Private expression within public expression

Evidential participles and epistemic vigilance

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About