Volume 6, Issue 2 -

Editorial

Pragmatics, Micropragmatics, Macropragmatics The paper addresses the distinction between micropragmatics and macropragmatics. It is postulated that this differentiation, a consequence of a number of controversies surrounding the core field of pragmatics, does manifest a number of conceptual merits and methodological feasibility. The article also aims to elaborate on the four concepts central to the methodology of pragmatics, i.e. deixis, presupposition, implicature and speech acts, from an essentially ‘micropragmatic’ perspective, describing their contribution to the proposition of an utterance, its illocutionary force, and a wide range of effects the utterance may produce. At the same time, however, three relativities-regularities are indicated and presented as prompts for an integrated study of intentionality at the macro level of discourse/text.

"And I Quote": Direct and Indirect Point-of-View Switches in Clusivity-Oriented Discourse The aim of this paper is to approach the notion of speech/thought representation (cf. Vandelanotte 2004) from a pragma-cognitive perspective. The use of direct and indirect representation in political discourse allows the speaker to construe the speech situation from a perspective other than her/his own. The speaker normally occupies the focal position in relation to other discourse entities in a particular speech situation, and thus presents discourse events from her/his point of view, however, on some occasions she/he allows other "voices." It is the distinction between the Speaker and the Sayer that provides means of capturing the phenomenon in question: the Speaker construes the actual/present speech situation presenting events from her/his own perspective, while in the represented speech situation the Speaker represents the words of the Sayer, i.e. the original speaker of the represented speech situation. Assuming the existence of the Sayer's consciousness separate from the Speaker's consciousness, it is clear that the Sayer's perspective is independent of the Speaker's perspective. The Speaker may employ a series of shifts occurring in spatio-temporal and axiological dimensions of the actual speech situation leading either to a full switch or to an apparent switch to the Sayer's perspective. In both cases, the distance between the Speaker and a particular discourse entity may be reduced or increased to indicate its inclusionary or exclusionary status, as well as to include the entity in or exclude it from the "us" group. The data analysed and samples used for illustrative purposes have been selected from a corpus of 35 speeches delivered by Barack Obama between 10 th February 2007, i.e. the announcement of his candidacy for the presidency of the USA, and 4 th November 2008, i.e. the day of the election. The transcripts of the speeches have been downloaded from the official Obama's website "Organizing for America" (available at http://www.barackobama.com/speeches/index.php).

Unveiling the Other - the Pragmatics of Infosuasion The present paper, starting from the assumption that television news is "the main source" (Robinson and Levy 1986) and a key player in the democratic process explores the media-politics interface, along with the ideological conditioning and cultural embedding of the news discourse, understood both as a process and as a product. The objective behind it is threefold. Firstly, it is to examine the media mechanisms accounting for the process of ‘infosuasion’, i.e. persuading the viewers under the guise of delivering information in the form of neutral and balanced reporting, thereby shaping their perceptions of the self and the "Other". Secondly, it is to demonstrate the dialectics between the news media and political elites, visible in the CNN representation of Iranians and its contingency on the anti-nuclear discourse of the Bush Administration. Finally, it is to maximize the validity of an eclectic approach, combining pragmatic and semiotic perspectives, in the domain of news media discourse along with the processes within this discourse and the practices behind it.

On "Revolutionary Road": A Proposal for Extending the Gricean Model of Communication to Cover Multiple Hearers The paper addresses the problem of multiple hearers in the context of the Gricean model of communication, which is based on speaker meaning and the Cooperative Principle, together with its subordinate maxims, legitimately flouted to yield implicatures. Grice appears to have conceived of the communicative process as taking place between two interlocutors, assuming that the speaker communicates meanings, while the hearer makes compatible inferences. A thesis propounded here is that this dyadic account must undergo a number of fundamental modifications to cover a variety of hearer types, both ratified and unratified, partaking in polylogic interactions.

Impoliteness Strategies in ‘House M.D.’ The research to be presented focuses on the impoliteness strategies used by the main character in the TV series "House, M.D." and the responses to them, as well as the potential reason(s)/intention(s) behind impoliteness use as indicated by (Culpeper 1996) and (Culpeper, Bousfield and Wichman 2003). The data comprised transcripts from Season 1, episodes 1-20, broadcast on Fox TV in 2004-2005, taken from http://twiztv.com/scripts/house. This paper argues that, following Leech's (1993) conception of irony , which is the same as Culpeper's conception of sarcasm , the latter being a pervasive feature of Dr House's conversational style, he does not overtly conflict the Politeness Principle but, according to Partington (2007), tries to be interesting, memorable and show alignment with the hearer. Thus he seems to try to preserve, in a way, social harmony by not causing great damage to his interlocutor's face but allowing him/her to arrive at the offensive point of his remark via an implicature. Furthermore, in the context of the hospital setting, although he has the legitimate power and the expert power , in Spencer-Oatey's (2000) terms, to be direct he opts for indirectness. Regarding intentions , his use of impoliteness towards his trainees might be compared to army training (Culpeper 1996), while his being impolite with his patients to the American adversarial legal system (Lakoff 1989). Lastly, the responses of Dr House's interlocutors, mainly his trainees, which gradually escalated in impoliteness, are in line with the consequences of workplace incivility (Anderson and Pearson 1999).

Illocutionary Force and Romanian Orthodox Sermons: An Application of Speech Act Theory to Some Romanian Orthodox Sermons The aim of the paper is to analyze religious discourse with the use of the instruments of semantics and pragmatics. Essentially, it sets out to identify the linguistic elements which enable the illocutionary force in the Romanian orthodox sermons, especially in the discourse of some important figures which have influenced and still influence the Romanian orthodox theology and the religious life in Romania: Father Cleopa, Father Nicolae Steinhardt, and, nowadays, Father Teofil Pârâianu. It is usually assumed that a sermon implies, on the one hand, a kerugmatik action, that of annunciation, and, on the other hand, a translating action of the biblical induce the human will to practice the words in order to Christian precepts. Mutatis mutandis , the perlocutionary effect depends on the illocutionary act and of the illocutionary force. In theory, the illocutionary force of an utterance is strictly motivated by the pragmatic (Ionescu-Ruxăndoiu 2003). But there are linguistic elements which function as efficient markers of the illocutionary force (Austin 1962: 73-76), for example performative verbs, verbal moods and some adverbs. The criteria proposed by Searle in order to differentiate the illocutionary acts (illocutionary point of utterance, direction of fit, psychological state, intensity, etc.) resulted in the identification of several types inside this class. Searle's taxonomy serves the research purposes: the identification of illocutionary acts found in this kind of religious discourse and, finally, outlining a pattern of manifestation of the illocutionary force inside the sermon.

Political Cartooning Mocking Mussolini's Opposition: The Left Targeting Itself The paper discusses the socialist/Leftist political humour during Mussolini's ascendance to power (1919-1925). I am especially concerned with the part of political satire that was drawn by the Left mocking the Left itself. This type of political satire has a specificity very challenging and interesting at the same time. It makes evident the limits of the fascist censor and draws the line between political satire and crude political propaganda. I will analyse political cartoons of the aforementioned period and Gramsci's theory of hegemony will shed light both to the reading of this humorous discourse and the left's political practices. The paper is divided into four sub-themes discussing the representation of socialism with the bourgeoisie, the Biennio Rosso, the Socialist fragmentation and the Aventino. The narrative across these major events reveals the counter-hegemonic project of the Left to the fascist ascendance together with their share of responsibility for the latter's power.