Metapragmatics and the Chinese Language

Metapragmatics and the Chinese Language

Author: Xinren Chen

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2022-10-11

Total Pages: 439

ISBN-13: 1527588491

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This volume presents how Chinese people communicate with various meta-level expressions for different purposes across contexts. It demonstrates empirically how the use of these expressions contributes to the management of meaning generation, interpersonal relating and discourse organization. It will serve to shed light on the understanding of how Chinese people monitor their speech in the course of communication, and will function as an important reference for researchers and students who conduct cross-linguistic comparative or contrastive metapragmatic research concerning Chinese and other languages.


Metapragmatics in Use

Metapragmatics in Use

Author: Wolfram Bublitz

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 9789027254092

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This collection of papers fills a gap in current research on both metapragmatics and pragmatics in that it combines data-based pragmatic analysis with metapragmatic theory and focuses on the ways in which metadiscourse is actually used. The 12 contributions investigate speech acts and verbal (as well as non-verbal) expressions which highlight (meta-)linguistic aspects of ongoing discourse and thus provoke a deviation from the latter s original direction and purpose. All case studies discuss ways and means which interactants employ to resolve diverging pragmatic expectations in communication. The papers analyze authentic examples from English and other languages (and cultures), including Thai, Chinese and Japanese, and center around three principal domains of communication: ordinary everyday interaction, interaction in educational contexts and in specialized discourse. The introductory chapter locates the various contributions within a systematically broader theoretical framework. The wide scope of the collection, its empirical orientation and the reader-friendly form of presentation should appeal to anyone interested in pragmatics, whether scholar or student.


Social Identity and Discourses in Chinese Digital Communication

Social Identity and Discourses in Chinese Digital Communication

Author: Hongqiang Zhu

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-11-14

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 1040147259

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Examining how diverse social identities are constructed in digital communication in China, this edited collection provides a multidimensional exploration of the diverse, discursive forms and practices used to construct and present the “self” online. Contributing authors provide analyses of China’s digital communication platforms, such as social media platforms, news websites and short video applications, drawing from a wealth of data to study daily practices of digital performance of identity and maintenance of social bonds. Comprised of nine chapters, this essential volume is divided into three distinct sections, taking a hierarchical approach to analysing social identities within Chinese digital communication at the micro, meso and macro levels. Diverse methodologies are applied throughout, incorporating insights from both linguistic theories and semiotic or textually oriented analyses, while also considering the wider societal contexts. Readers are encouraged to analyse the main features of this digital culture and to investigate how language and discourse are encountered through media. This book will be of value to a wide variety of scholars and students in sociolinguistics, communication studies and Asian studies.


Learning Chinese in Diasporic Communities

Learning Chinese in Diasporic Communities

Author: Xiao Lan Curdt-Christiansen

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2014-07-15

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 9027270244

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This book brings together new theoretical perspectives and bilingual education models from different sociopolitical and cultural contexts across the globe in order to address the importance of sociocultural, educational and linguistic environments that create, enhance or limit the ways in which diasporic children and young people acquire the ‘Chinese’ language. The chapters present a variety of research-based studies on Chinese heritage language education and bilingual education drawing on detailed investigations of formal and informal educational input including language socialization in families, community heritage language schools and government sponsored educational institutions. Exploring the many pathways of learning ‘Chinese’ and being ‘Chinese’, this volume also examines the complex nature of language acquisition and development, involving language attitudes and ideologies as well as linguistic practices and identity formation. Learning Chinese in Diasporic Communities is intended for researchers, teacher-educators, students and practitioners in the fields of Chinese language education and bilingual education and more broadly those concerned with language policy studies and sociolinguistics.


Language and Social Change in China

Language and Social Change in China

Author: Qing Zhang

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-09-11

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 1134610564

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Language and Social Change in China: Undoing Commonness through Cosmopolitan Mandarin offers an innovative and authoritative account of the crucial role of language in shaping the sociocultural landscape of contemporary China. Based on a wide range of data collected since the 1990s and grounded in quantitative and discourse analyses of sociolinguistic variation, Qing Zhang tracks the emergence of what she terms “Cosmopolitan Mandarin” as a new stylistic resource for a rising urban elite and a new middle-class consumption-based lifestyle. The book powerfully illuminates that Cosmopolitan Mandarin participates in dismantling the pre-reform, socialist, conformist society by bringing about new social distinctions. Rich in cultural and linguistic details, the book is the first of its kind to highlight the implications of language change on the social order and cultural life of contemporary China. Language and Social Change in China is ideal for students and scholars interested in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, and Chinese language and society.


Common Ground in First Language and Intercultural Interaction

Common Ground in First Language and Intercultural Interaction

Author: Istvan Kecskes

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2023-03-06

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 3110766779

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In recent years the traditional approach to common ground as a body of information shared between participants of a communicative process has been challenged. Taking into account not only L1 but also intercultural interactions and attempting to bring together the traditional view with the egocentrism-based view of cognitive psychologists, it has been argued that construction of common ground is a dynamic, emergent process. It is the convergence of the mental representation of shared knowledge that we activate, assumed mutual knowledge that we seek, and rapport as well as knowledge that we co-construct in the communicative process. This dynamic understanding of common ground has been applied in many research projects addressing both L1 and intercultural interactions in recent years. As a result several new elements, aspects and interpretations of common ground have been identified. Some researchers came to view common ground as one component in a complex contextual information structure. Others, analyzing intercultural interactions, pointed out the dynamism of the interplay of core common ground and emergent common ground. The book brings together researchers from different angles of pragmatics and communication to examine (i) what adjustments to the notion of common ground based on L1 communication should be made in the light of research in intercultural communication; (ii) what the relationship is between context, situation and common ground, and (iii) how relevant knowledge and content get selected for inclusion into core and emergent common ground.


The Pragmatics of Humour in Interactive Contexts

The Pragmatics of Humour in Interactive Contexts

Author: Esther Linares Bernabéu

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2023-05-15

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 902724975X

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Recent years have seen a burgeoning interest in interactional humour from social and pragmatic perspectives, with fascinating results. Released more than a decade later than Norrick and Chiaro (2009) Humor in Interaction, The Pragmatics of Humour in Interactive Contexts gathers some of the most recent work on humour in interaction, with contributions taking (meta)pragmatic approaches to the analysis of various genres of interactive humour in both online and offline settings. This volume illustrates that a range of methodologies and perspectives can be applied to the study of such a complex phenomenon. These include analyses with a cognitive orientation and with multimodal approaches, work based on Relevance Theory, the General Theory of Verbal Humour, and Conversation Analysis, among others. In addition, all the authors represented here are recognised experts on the subject, and in most cases, are leading specialists in their respective fields. The book can be of use not only to scholars who study the linguistics of humour in interaction but also to students who wish to pursue research in the area.


The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Discourse Analysis

The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Discourse Analysis

Author: Chris Shei

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-01-14

Total Pages: 674

ISBN-13: 1351819399

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Chinese is a discourse-oriented language and the underlying mechanisms of the language involve encoding and decoding so the language can be correctly delivered and understood. To date, there has been a lack of consolidation at the discourse level such that a reference framework for understanding the language in a top-down fashion is still underdeveloped. The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Discourse Analysis is the first to showcase the latest research in the field of Chinese discourse analysis to consolidate existing findings, put the language in both theoretical and socio-functional perspectives, offer guidance and insights for further research and inspire innovative ideas for exploring the Chinese language in the discourse domain. The book is aimed at both students and scholars researching in the areas of Chinese linguistics and discourse analysis.


Exploring Identity Work in Chinese Communication

Exploring Identity Work in Chinese Communication

Author: Xinren Chen

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-10-21

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 135016934X

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There is growing acceptance among pragmaticians that identity is often (de)constructed and negotiated in communication in order to impact the outcome of the interaction. Filling an important gap in current research, this book offers the first systematic, pragmatic theory to account for the generative mechanisms of identity in communication. Using data drawn from real-life communicative contexts in China, Xinren Chen examines why identity strategies are adopted, how and why identities are constructed and what factors determine their appropriateness and effectiveness. In answering these questions, this book argues that identity is an essential communicative resource, present across various domains and able to be exploited to facilitate the realization of communicative needs. Demonstrating that communication in Chinese involves the dynamic choice and shift of identity by discursive means, Exploring Identity Work in Chinese Communication suggests that identity is intersubjective in communication in all languages and that it can be accepted, challenged, or even deconstructed.


The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact

The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact

Author: Salikoko Mufwene

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-06-30

Total Pages: 947

ISBN-13: 1009115774

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Language contact - the linguistic and social outcomes of two or more languages coming into contact with each other - has been pervasive in human history. However, where histories of language contact are comparable, experiences of migrant populations have been only similar, not identical. Given this, how does language contact work? With contributions from an international team of scholars, this Handbook - the first in a two-volume set - delves into this question from multiple perspectives and provides state-of-the-art research on population movement and language contact and change. It begins with an overview of how language contact as a research area has evolved since the late 19th century. The chapters then cover various processes and theoretical issues associated with population movement and language contact worldwide. It is essential reading for anybody interested in the dynamics of social interactions in diverse contact settings and how the changing ecologies influence the linguistic outcomes.