Volume 22, Issue 3

Neurodegenerative diseases are one of the biggest health challenges of our time. They deprive individuals of their independence, reduce a person’s quality of life, and are a significant health and economic burden on societies around the world. A wide range of clinicians is involved in assessing, diagnosing and treating people with neurodegenerative diseases. But while neurologists, psychiatrists and geriatricians bring extensive medical expertise to the clinical care of patients, they lack knowledge of the language and communication processes that are disrupted by neurodegenerative disease. The assessment and treatment of language and communication in such patients falls within the remit of speech-language pathologists. This article examines what speech-language pathologists need to know in order to assess pragmatic language impairments in adults with neurodegenerative disease. Authentic language data are used to develop an informal ‘checklist’ that speech-language pathologists can consult to characterize the pragmatic language skills of adults with neurodegenerative disorders. The article begins with some general observations about assessment, such as the need to consider pragmatic strengths as well as weaknesses. It concludes with recommendations that, if adopted, can facilitate the pragmatic assessment of patients with neurodegenerative disorders by speech-language pathologists.

As this article shows, Pope Leo’s “first words” – the words with which he opened his encounter with the world as a Pope – are multi-layered and multi-dimensional. In these words the newly elected Pope greets and blesses all people on earth (whom he addresses as “fratelli e sorelle carissimi”, “dearest brothers and sisters”) with the words spoken by Jesus Christ to his Apostles when they saw him for the first time after his Resurrection. Jesus’ words, first spoken in Aramaic and transmitted to us through the Greek of the New Testament, have been translated into thousands of languages. But how have they been translated? And how can they be translated, given that many languages in the world don’t have a word comparable to “peace” and that many speech cultures do not have speech genres such as “greetings” and “blessings”? The article seeks to demonstrate that the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) based on shared human concepts allows us to articulate, clearly and precisely, messages intended for the whole humanity. In addition, the article illustrates the difficulties involved in cross-cultural and cross-temporal communication with one particularly interesting example, the rendering of Jesus’ words “peace to you” in John’s Gospel (John 20:19) in the Hawaii Pidgin Bible (2024). Thinking through the problems and challenges that faced the translators and the solutions that they creatively reached for, the article discusses the intricacies of the connections between semantics and pragmatics, translation and interpretation, biblical hermeneutics and intercultural communication across languages, centuries and cultures.

This study examines ta’ārof as a foundational element of Persian politeness, employing cultural linguistics, cultural pragmatics, and intercultural pragmatics to analyze its linguistic structures and social functions. Through qualitative analysis of natural interactions in Iranian contexts (e.g., family, workplace, public transactions), it identifies three core components: (1) hierarchical address terms (e.g., honorifics like jenāb = e ’āli, ‘your excellency’, or solidarity-driven quasi-proper names like bābā ‘Dad’), (2) self-lowering expressions (e.g., bande ‘servant’), and (3) ritualized exchanges (e.g., gift-refusal loops). Seven defining features – ritualism, indirectness, context-dependence, formulaicity, phatic function, cultural embeddedness, and hierarchical negotiation – are delineated, revealing ta’ārof as a dynamic system that balances social hierarchy with interpersonal harmony. Challenging universalist politeness theories, the findings show that ta’ārof operates through culture-specific strategies such as relational face-enhancement, which prioritizes social bonds over individual face, and asymmetric reciprocity – mutual but unequal exchanges shaped by hierarchy. The study highlights the behavioral dimensions of ta’ārof and its strategic adaptation – or subversion – in response to shifting power dynamics and social expectations. It further positions ta’ārof as both a unifying cultural schema and a potential source of cross-cultural misunderstanding (e.g., Western interlocutors may misinterpret ritual insistence as insincerity or dishonesty). Concluding with a call for context-sensitive politeness research, the article advocates an emic-etic integrated approach that bridges linguistic form, social function, and cultural cognition, underscoring ta’ārof ’s role in mediating power, solidarity, and cultural identity.

This paper addresses the challenging nature of definiteness and indefiniteness, focusing on several non-canonical interpretations of the definite article (ART) in Italian. The core objective is to demonstrate that so-called “indefinite definites” should be unified with canonical indefinites, rather than being grouped with other non-canonical uses like “weak definites” (WDs) or “reference to kind”. Using cross-Romance diagnostics, the paper shows that ART-indefinites—which are exclusive to Italian—are fundamentally different from WDs, which are attested cross-linguistically. Unlike WDs, which often involve singular count nouns, are lexically marked, and sensitive to modification restrictions, ART-indefinites are restricted to mass and plural count nouns and appear broadly in verb-object combinations without modification restrictions. Structurally, ART-indefinites are unified with bare nouns and partitive determiners (di+ART), forming four possible indefinite nominal expressions in Italian. This variation is analysed as resulting from the overt or covert realisation of the indefinite operator (di/ de) in SpecDP and nominal features (ART) in D. Analysis of informal Italian and Italo-Romance varieties confirms that ART-indefinites correlate with weak indefinites and compete with bare nouns. Ultimately, the study supports the hypothesis that the so-called “definite article” in Italian realises nominal features (gender, number, and abstract Case) at the morphosyntactic level, implying that its semantic interpretations are often independent of it.

This paper aims to contribute to clarifying both the concept of bullshit and some debates surrounding this phenomenon. Despite significant interest in the topic, philosophers have yet to reach a consensus on how to define bullshit. The central questions are: what does it mean to be indifferent to the truth – a key feature of bullshit – and why does this indifference differ from lying? I propose a taxonomy of bullshit examples and an account based on the concept of discursive responsibility, offering a comprehensive overview that fills a gap in the literature. Discursive responsibility usually pushes speakers to care about truth. While liars must assume this responsibility, bullshitters remain indifferent to it. I also argue that bullshitters, unlike liars, enjoy a type of tolerance that allows them to evade responsibility. Thus, the study of bullshit will involve analyzing the factors that enable this kind of tolerance. I highlight three factors that may be at play: context, the construction of the utterance, and the speaker’s social position. Bullshitters often exploit these factors to evade responsibility, which suggests that bullshit is not only a linguistic phenomenon but also a social and political one.