The Discourse of Indirectness

The Discourse of Indirectness
Author: Zohar Livnat
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2020-10-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027260567

Indirectness has been a key concept in pragmatic research for over four decades, however the notion as a technical term does not have an agreed-upon definition and remains vague and ambiguous. In this collection, indirectness is examined as a way of communicating meaning that is inferred from textual, contextual and intertextual meaning units. Emphasis is placed on the way in which indirectness serves the representation of diverse voices in the text, and this is examined through three main prisms: (1) the inferential view focuses on textual and contextual cues from which pragmatic indirect meanings might be inferred; (2) the dialogic-intertextual view focuses on dialogic and intertextual cues according to which different voices (social, ideological, literary etc.) are identified in the text; and (3) the functional view focuses on the pragmatic-rhetorical functions fulfilled by indirectness of both kinds.

Indirect Speech Acts

Indirect Speech Acts
Author: Nicolas Ruytenbeek
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2021-06-10
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1108483178

Explores the fascinating phenomenon of indirect speech acts, highlighting the situations they are used in, and how they are understood.

The Semantics of Free Indirect Discourse

The Semantics of Free Indirect Discourse
Author: Regine Eckardt
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2014-11-27
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9004266739

Free indirect discourse presents us with the inner world of protagonists of a story. We seem to see the world through their eyes, and listen to their inner thoughts. The present study analyses the logic of free indirect discourse and offers a framework to represent multiple ways in which words betray the speaker's feelings and attitude. The theory covers tense, aspect, temporal indexicals, modal particles, exclamatives and other expressive elements and their dependence on shifting utterance contexts. It traces the subtle ways in which story texts can offer information about protagonists. The study of free indirect discourse has been a topic of great interest in recent years in semantics and pragmatics. In this book, Regine Eckardt proposes a new theory of this domain and applies it to a wide variety of phenomena -- discourse particles, exclamatives, and mood -- in addition to the traditional indexical pronouns and tenses. She situates this project within a larger attempt to extend the tools of semantic analysis to fiction. Most formally oriented semanticists have not paid serious attention to this domain, which has resulted in a major gap in semantic theory; this book is thus a pioneering effort and raises many intriguing points. The total result is an empirically rich and exciting work which will be a profitable read for researchers interested in semantics, pragmatics, and formal approaches to literature. Eric McCready, Aoyama Gakuin University

Directness and Indirectness Across Cultures

Directness and Indirectness Across Cultures
Author: Sara Mills
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 114
Release: 2016-01-26
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1137340398

This book analyses the complex relationship between directness, indirectness, politeness and impoliteness. Definitions of directness and indirectness are discussed and problematised from a discursive theoretical perspective.

An Anthropology of Indirect Communication

An Anthropology of Indirect Communication
Author: Joy Hendry
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2003-12-16
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1134539185

Drawing on their experiences in the field from a Mormon Theme Park in Hawaii, through carnival time on Montserrat to the exclusive domain of the Market, contributors explore indirect communication from an anthropological perspective.

Directness and Indirectness Across Cultures

Directness and Indirectness Across Cultures
Author: Sara Mills
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015-10-19
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9781137340382

This book analyses the complex relationship between directness, indirectness, politeness and impoliteness. Definitions of directness and indirectness are discussed and problematised from a discursive theoretical perspective.

Irony and the Discourse of Modernity

Irony and the Discourse of Modernity
Author: Ernst Behler
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Total Pages: 171
Release: 2014-07-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0295801530

Behler discusses the current state of thought on modernity and postmodernity, detailing the intellectual problems to be faced and examining the positions of such central figures in the debate as Lyotard, Habermas, Rorty, and Derrida. He finds that beyond the “limits of communication,” further discussion must be carried out through irony. The historical rise of the concept of modernity is examined through discussions of the querelle des anciens et des modernes as a break with classical tradition, and on the theoretical writings of de Stael, the English romantics, and the great German romantics Schlegel, Hegel, and Nietzsche. The growth of the concept of irony from a formal rhetorical term to a mode of indirectness that comes to characterize thought and discourse generally is then examined from Plato and Socrates to Nietzsche, who avoided the term “irony” but used it in his cetnral concept of the mask.

Broadening the Horizon of Linguistic Politeness

Broadening the Horizon of Linguistic Politeness
Author: Robin T. Lakoff
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 358
Release: 2005-10-27
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027294119

This collection of 19 papers celebrates the coming of age of the field of politeness studies, now in its 30th year. It begins with an investigation of the meaning of politeness, especially linguistic politeness, and presents a short history of the field of linguistic politeness studies, showing how such studies go beyond the boundaries of conventional linguistic work, incorporating, as they do, non-language insights. The emphasis of the volume is on non-Western languages and the ways linguistic politeness is achieved with them. Many, if not most, studies have focused on Western languages, but the languages highlighted here show new and different aspects of the phenomena.The purpose of linguistic politeness is to aid in successful communication throughout the world, and this volume offers a balance of geographical distribution not found elsewhere, including Japanese, Thai, and Chinese, as well as Greek, Swedish and Spanish. It covers such theoretical topics as face, wakimae, social levels, gender-related differences in language usage, directness and indirectness, and intercultural perspectives.

Language, Discourse and Power in African American Culture

Language, Discourse and Power in African American Culture
Author: Marcyliena Morgan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2002-07-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521001496

African American language is central to the teaching of linguistics and language in the United States, and this book, in the series Studies in the Social and Cultural Foundations of Language, is aimed specifically at upper level undergraduates and graduates. It covers the entire field - grammar, speech, and verbal genres, and it also discusses the various historical strands that need to be identified in order to understand the development of African American English. The first section deals with the social and cultural history of the American South, the second with urban and northern black popular culture, and the third with policy issues. Morgan examines the language within the context of the changing and complex African American and general American speech communities, and their culture, politics, art and institutions. She also covers the current heated political and educational debates about the status of the African American dialect.