Volume 15, Issue 3 -

This paper examines a special pattern of tautological constructions – a is a and b is b – in Spanish and Russian. The phenomenon was first described by A. Wierzbicka, who cited Rudyard Kipling’s “East is East and West and West,” referring to it as “double tautologies” with the associated meaning of “irreducible difference.” Later, J. Meibauer called this pattern “coordinated tautologies” (CT) and suggested that they carry the implicature that “the referents of the respective subject NPs should be kept distinct, should not be confused, etc.” In the present study, we address the issue of compositionality in the construction and interpretation of CT. The data taken from Spanish and Russian corpora listed in the appendix and an Internet survey conducted with 91 native Spanish speakers prove that “irreducible difference” is not a necessary ingredient in the interpretation of and -conjoined tautologies, nor is it its only argumentative point. We also argue that “irreducible difference” is not associated with this pattern alone (it can also appear in tautologies linked by the conjunction but , or without any conjunction) and that the exact number of conjuncts is not limited to two. Later, we discuss how exactly the frequent contrastive interpretation arises. Finally, we conclude that coordinated tautologies are not fixed form/function pairs; rather, the meaning they encode can be accounted for in regular compositional terms, and their different interpretations are the result of pragmatic enrichment in which the encoded meaning is combined with contextual information.

This study seeks to explore (1) how English Language Learners (ELLs) of Chinese, German and Brazilian backgrounds develop their pragmatic knowledge of modality use for advice/suggestion-giving in English, and (2) if they demonstrate some common or diverse pattern(s) of its use. For that purpose, a dataset was developed by analyzing 270 advise-giving ELLs’ essays from the EF-Cambridge Open Language Database for the use of modal devices by learners at elementary, intermediate and advanced proficiency levels; from China, Germany, and Brazil. Three main statistical analyses were performed: MANOVA, VanValen’s test, and Discriminant Function Analysis. The results of this study indicate that the development of pragmatic knowledge of modality use is not a linear process; and that ELLs demonstrate common patterns of modality use regardless of the sociocultural background they belong to.

This study investigated the development of the ability to interpret conversational implicatures in English as an L2. The study followed a cross-sectional design and used a methodologically innovative audio-visual interpretation task with an oral production component. By orally reporting their interpretations, participants demonstrated comprehension of conversational implicatures viewed in a video, rather than employing a predetermined response approach used in earlier studies, which neither explore nor reveal how L2 learners understand implicatures. Fifty participants, forty-five learners at three proficiency levels and five native speakers of English, took part in the study. The results indicated that the comprehension of conversational implicatures showed a significant improvement as L2 proficiency increased. Learner responses were additionally coded based on stages of implicature calculation, which demonstrated that not only learners’ correct interpretations but also their incorrect responses provide insights into their interlanguage development. Such a finding further illustrates the superiority of a free response approach over a predetermined one since the former approach can better shed light on L2 learners’ true pragmatic competence in conversational implicatures.

The goal of this study is to examine the strategies of politeness used in the Qur’an, the holy book of Muslims, to address and represent women. Women have been represented negatively in many different types of texts through face-threatening acts that sustain masculine power and hegemony. This study attempts to investigate the image of women in the most sacred book of Muslims. Two aspects are examined herein: the representation of women in relation to sensitive issues like sex and marriage, and the forms of address and reference to women. A qualitative approach is used to provide interpretations of the hidden meanings in the selected excerpts, adopting Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness and Leech’s maxims of politeness as the guides for the analysis. The analysis has revealed that women all through Qur’an have been addressed and referred to decently and politely. Unlike most of the other topics where bald-on-record strategies are used, the use of off-record strategies and positive and negative face strategies of politeness have been found to be dominant in discussion of issues relevant to women. These strategies have been used to avoid unpleasant communication in spiritual issues, and also to avoid misrepresentation of women, demeaning of their persons, causing any embarrassment, and thereby saving the face of both women and recipients. However, bald-on-record strategies are sometimes used in topics related to legal matters concerning familial and social unity and solidarity. The analysis has demonstrated the means by which language is used in the Glorious Qur’an to courteously address women. Concerning interpersonal maxims, the approbation, modesty, sympathy, tact, and agreement maxims have shown to be evident in addressing and referring to women. This study will contribute to the field of pragmatics and will lead to cross-religious and cross-cultural understanding during a period where Islam and its teachings are being widely questioned and examined.