Volume 6, Issue 1 -

Editorial

Topoi in Critical Discourse Analysis Topos ( topoi in plural) is one of the most widely-used concepts from classical argumentation theory (dating back to Aristotle and Cicero). It found its way not only in philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and linguistics; it found its way in everyday life and everyday conversation as well. In this article, I will examine the role that topoi play in Critical Discourse Analysis. Starting with definitions from Aristotle and Cicero, contrasting them with new conceptualisations by Perelman and Toulmin, and examining the superficial use of topoi in everyday conversation, I will try to show that Critical Discourse Analysis (especially Ruth Wodak's Discourse-Historical Approach) relies mostly on simplified, unreflected use of topoi as found in everyday use, thus neglecting much more productive, theoretical elaborations of the concept.

Peirce's Law of Triviality: The Implementation of the Trivium of Logic, Rhetoric and Grammar. Basic Categories for Linguistics and Literature Studies from a Universal Semiotic Theory This article focuses on the aspects that refer to linguistics in the works of Charles S. Peirce. His pragmatic philosophy implemented many other sciences and among them is the traditional trivium of logic, grammar, and rhetoric, which Peirce divided into different kinds of logic, grammar, and rhetoric. While the impact of the work of Peirce on theses sciences is weak, the integration of the sciences in his philosophy is interesting as a step in the history of science and his work is an example for ecclecticism and historism of science in the 19 th century and the universalism of science deducted from a philosophy that uses the sign as an unitarian principle. Triple constructions are a very common feature in the writings of Peirce, and the trivium is an example of an academic construction Peirce implemented.

A Pragmatic Analysis of Silence in an American Constitutional Issue This paper provides further evidence for a typology of silence, viz conversational, textual and situational silence. Some of the problems in the typology are dealt with, for example, a clearer distinction is made between conversational silence, on the one hand, and textual and situational silence on the other. The distinction between textual and situational silence is further illustrated against the background of controversial court cases in the United States concerning "moment of silence" legislation in a number of states.

The Semantic-Pragmatic Analysis of Persian Modal Verbs Based on Papafragou's Model This paper aims at analyzing the semantics and pragmatics of Persian modal verbs based on Papafragou's (1998, 2000) relevance-theoretic model. Persian modals are defined in terms of logical relations and propositional domains. According to the findings of the research, two of the three modals, namely, šodan and tavân express the logical relation of compatibility with respect to different propositional domains: the three forms mišavad, mišod and mišode are unspecified with respect to their propositional domains and take them directly from the context, whereas betavân and bešavad accept the desirability domain. Mitavân also expresses compatibility in relation to the propositions in the factual domain. However, bˇyad is the only modal that encodes the logical relation of entailment and is unspecified with respect to the type of propositional domain it accepts.

The Pragmatics of Multi-Verb Sequences: The Case of the Verb Go This paper is an empirical investigation into the nature of multi-verb sequences in English. Multi-verb sequences such as V-to-VP and V-and-VP present a natural construction type of investigating recurring patterns of event sequences as conceived situations. This paper focuses on the image-schematic properties of both the go-to-VP construction and the go-and-VP construction to which previous accounts have paid little attention, and it demonstrates that the interpretation of the image-schemas has enhanced research. The go-to-VP and the go-and-VP constructions require different image schemas. With respect to the go-to-VP construction, the SOURCE-PATH-GOAL schema plays an important role; sometimes a compound image schema of that type are necessary. Specifically, the image-schematic properties of the first verb go are incorporated into the event structure of the second verb to allow the speaker to construe the event denoted by the second verb in accordance with the image-schematic meaning of the first verb go. Consequently, this paper offers a pragmatic and cognitive account of the two constructions respectively. Some results in a data-driven analysis in this paper also reinforce selected convincing explanations.

Speech Acts, Criteria and Intentions What makes a speech act a speech act? Which are its necessary and sufficient conditions? I claim in this paper that we cannot find an answer to those questions in Austin's doctrine of the infelicities, since some infelicities take place in fully committing speech acts, whereas others prevent the utterance from being considered as a speech act at all. With this qualification in mind, I argue against the idea that intentions—considered as mental states accomplishing a causal role in the performance of the act—should be considered among the necessary conditions of speech acts. I would thus like to deny a merely ‘symptomatic’ account of intentions, according to which we could never make anything but fallible hypotheses about the effective occurrence of any speech act. I propose an alternative ‘criterial’ account of the role of intentions in speech acts theory, and analyse Austin's and Searle's approaches in the light of this Wittgensteinian concept. Whether we consider, with Austin, that speech acts ‘imply’ mental states or, with Searle, that they ‘express’ them, we could only make sense of this idea if we considered utterances as criteria for intentions, and not as alleged behavioural effects of hidden mental causes.

Conceptual Focus in Social Encounters: the Case of Directives The present analysis focuses on highlighting the conceptual focus on groups as a specific property of discourse in young peer groups of Polish speakers. Its alternative is the conceptual focus on individual interlocutors; the latter is implicitly assumed to be an interactive norm in a vast body of pragmatic studies dealing with the performance of speech acts in both monolingual and comparative setups. The analysis is based on empirical material comprising interaction in young peer groups in Poland, Great Britain and Germany under constant experimental conditions, made possible by the international commercial project "Big Brother" belonging to the genre of reality T.V.