The objective of this study, based on the theories of Facework (Goffman 1967) and Politeness (Brown & Levinson 1978, 1987), is to observe and establish a classification of mitigating strategies used by two groups of friends to express and deal with disagreement and criticism in French. After a critical review of the development of sociopragmatics and of essential notions for the analysis of interactions, the concept of mitigation is presented, including mitigation used in the context of disagreement and criticism. The fieldwork and the transcription process and new conventions are then presented and discussed. For the analysis, three episodes from recordings of naturally-occurring conversations between friends were selected and transcribed. The data were analysed and classified in context with a view to defining both the pragmatic functions of the various mitigators and how they tend to be used by the speakers. The results of the analysis have allowed us to establish a classification of micro-mitigating-strategies within macro-strategies, and to show that speakers were able to mitigate disagreement and criticism, in order of descending frequency, by converging towards the interlocutor, by using modalised forms, by using a didactic, clarificatory speech style, but also by realising a "décrochage énonciatif" (enunciation disconnection) and trying to avoid or minimise the Face Threatening Acts. These observations contribute to the study of mitigating disagreement and criticism among friends, provide initial evidence of a considerable variation in the use of mitigating strategies in conversational French and call for further analysis of this type of conversation in order to determine to what extent these uses of mitigators result from a social behaviour specific to this type of interactional situation or speech acts.

abstract: The aim in this sociopragmatic study was to identify the linguistic and nonlinguistic types of responses used by Saudi Facebook users in the comments of congratulations on the events of happy news status updates on Facebook. People usually express their feelings and emotions positively to others when they have happy occasions. However, the ways of expressing congratulation may vary because the expressive speech act “congratulations” is not the only way to express happiness and share others their happy news, especially on the new social media such as Facebook. The ways of expressing congratulation have been investigated widely in face-to-face communication in many languages. However, this has not yet been studied on Facebook, which lacks prosodic strategies and facial expressions that help to convey feelings, despite a few contributions on studying various expressive speech acts such as compliment, condolences, and wishing, among others. Therefore, a total of 1,721 comments of congratulation were collected from 61 different occasions and analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively by using the frame-based approach to understand the construction of politeness of congratulation on Facebook. The results showed 23 verbal types of responses used by the users; however, the use of “congratulations,” “offer of good wishes,” “praise,” and “statements indicating the situation was warranted” were the most frequently used strategies. The results also showed 100 patterns of verbal compound strategies, but the use of “congratulations” with “offer of good wishes” was the most frequently used compound strategy. In addition, 42 types of emojis were found in the comments and categorized into seven different functions. However, the function of expressing endearment was the most frequently used one. Finally, the results showed that the posts received 31 sharings and 3 types of emoji reactions, such as “like” (Thumbs up), “love” (Beating heart), and “wow” (Surprised face), but the use of “like” was the most frequent emoji reaction to the posts. The explored different ways of expressing congratulation and sharing with others their happy news indicated that the linguistic strategies are not the only way to express happiness on Facebook. Therefore, users employed nonlinguistic strategies to express happiness and intensify their congratulations. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2017

This longitudinal study focuses on the language production of two siblings, aged 6 and 9 at the beginning of the data collection period, who have been brought up in a bilingual family in New York. The parents of the two girls are native speakers of German and Spanish, respectively, and English for them is the language of education and the larger community. The study specifically examines the phenomenon of code switching, or transitioning between languages, either within one sentence or within one speech situation. I examine the extent to which these switches are caused by deficiencies in vocabulary in a specific language, and seek to identify other possible causes for such transitions. The data collected mainly through recording and transcription of the children's speech within the family home allowed me to identify a number of sociopragmatic functions most commonly fulfilled by producing mixed utterances, such as referring to a specific person, including or excluding someone from the conversation, changing the interlocutor or the topic or explaining or insisting on a certain idea. Lexical need was also an important cause of code switching, although it did not prevail over the other categories. The distribution in the amount and function of code switches turned out to be in a dynamic state, with both quantitative and qualitative changes observed throughout the study period. The age difference between the children and the relationship between the younger and elder sibling were additional factors which influenced their language choice. I conclude that code switching, especially in the case of child speech, should be considered a fluid and multifaceted phenomenon which represents the speaker's role in the conversation and reflects multiple social and pragmatic functions; while elements of two (or more) languages are often combined for purely lexical reasons, this is only one aspect of trilingual code switching, which allows the speaker, consciously or not, to explore the three languages as ways of establishing his or her personality and looking at reality both within and outside the means of each particular language.

This mixed methods study aimed to provide some validity evidence for the use of the ESL sociopragmatics test developed by Roever, Elder and Fraser (2014) for formative purposes. The test developers recommend further validation of the tool, originally developed for the Australian context. In this study, the test items were used to reveal areas of weakness in sociopragmatic knowledge in a group of learners of an academically oriented English Intensive Program in Canada. Analysis of the test scores revealed a lack of knowledge of norms of appropriateness and politeness in English, which was further targeted with an instructional unit informed by the items of the test. Two weeks after the instructional unit was delivered, the participants were asked to complete a follow-up questionnaire. The questionnaire results provided insight into the participants’ perceptions of usefulness of the instructional unit. The learners found explicit instruction on ESL sociopragmatics useful for their language learning experience as well as day-to-day interactions in English. Particularly, they claimed to feel more confident communicating in English after receiving explicit instruction on ESL sociopragmatics. They were able to use information from the lesson in situations such as talking to their language instructors, communicating with university personnel, and participating in service encounter interactions. Therefore, the test proved to have potential for developing instructional materials in an academic context. Based on the findings of the study, suggestions on incorporating sociopragmatic competence into the institution’s EAP curriculum were made.

This research involves three separate studies with the goal of investigating learner increases in the pragmatic awareness when exposed to various degrees of sustained, explicit instruction. Operationalized as a composite construct in the theory of communicative competence, pragmatic awareness includes knowledge of pragmalinguistic forms and sociopragmatic features, with sequential action events representing the former and relationship status categories the latter. Research questions for each study focus on gains learners revealed on a video-based pragmatic awareness assessment instrument delivered in pretest-posttest format. Data collection occurred from fall semester 2013 to spring semester 2015 in one single-sex junior/senior high school and two co-educational universities, one with a first-year focus group and the other with a second-year group, with participates across the contexts enrolled in 1 of 12 intact classes ranging in size from 23 to 33. At each site, data collection included response behaviors for comparison counterfactual groups. Data for the primary analyses of each study were subjected to a one-way ANCOVA. Results revealed a significant difference between the treatment group performances compared to a counterfactual group from each institution: Study 1, F(1,152) = 5.86, p = 0.02; Study 2, F(34, 115.28) = 5.71, p = 0.02; and Study 3, F(3, 77.30) = 8.04, p < 0.00. Relationship strength between the factor levels and the dependent variable, as measured in partial eta squared, accounted for 4%, 14%, and 16% of the variance, respectively. In Study 3 a Bayesian confirmatory analysis revealed that the least explicit treatment, one involving only a focus on pragmalinguistic input, showed the greatest gains. Implications for the three studies are: (a) pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic categories reveal difficulty hierarchies, with particular sequential action events and relationship status categories consistently more challenging than others; (b) learners display differential awareness of pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic sub-constructs, with the former registered as more difficult; and (c) explicit instruction on a limited number of pragmalinguistic categories might result in spillover learning effects to other, untaught categories. / Applied Linguistics

Esta dissertação propõe-se estudar, em contextos específicos, o fenômeno da polidez lingüística em sheng. Para atingir esse objetivo abordaremos, inicialmente, as teorias sobre polidez lingüística dentro do panorama da sociopragmática, apresentando tanto as teorias mais tradicionais, surgidas nos anos 70, quanto as mais recentes, todas desenvolvidas principalmente em países anglófonos. Em seguida, traçaremos um perfil da situação lingüística do Quênia e trataremos especificamente do sheng em Nairóbi. Finalmente, serão descritas as expressões em sheng utilizadas nas situações de abertura e fechamento de conversações, agradecimentos, pedidos de desculpas e outras que potencialmente podem ser avaliadas como polidas. Essa análise permitirá verificar se, mesmo em uma situação social de extrema exclusão, como a vivida pela comunidade de Mukuru, em Nairóbi, onde a mera questão de sobrevivência torna-se uma luta diária, os indivíduos da comunidade lingüística que hoje \"constrói\" esse novo código lingüístico, estariam preocupados em estabelecer regras de conduta para situações de interação que se refletiriam em seu discurso, e se essas regras seriam formas de \"polidez lingüística\" ou formas de \"comportamento político\", como proposto por Richard Watts. / This dissertation aims to analyze, in specific contexts, the linguistic politeness phenomenon in sheng. In order to fulfill this goal, we will initially approach the theories on linguistic politeness within the scope of socio pragmatics, presenting the more traditional theories, which appeared in the 1970s, as well as the more recent ones, all developed mainly in Anglophone countries. Then we will outline Kenya\'s linguistic situation, focusing mostly on sheng in Nairobi. Finally, we will describe sheng idioms that are used in conversational openings and closings, in acts of returning thanks and apologies, and other actions that might be potentially considered as polite. This analysis will allow us to observe if the individuals from the linguistic community that \"constructs\" today this linguistic code, even living in a situation of extreme exclusion such as the one experienced by the Makuru community in Nairobi, where mere subsistence is itself a daily struggle, are concerned about establishing rules of conduct for interaction situations that would reflect in their discourse, and if these rules would be forms of \"linguistic politeness\" or forms of \"political behavior\", as it is assumed by Richard Watts.

Esta dissertação propõe-se estudar, em contextos específicos, o fenômeno da polidez lingüística em sheng. Para atingir esse objetivo abordaremos, inicialmente, as teorias sobre polidez lingüística dentro do panorama da sociopragmática, apresentando tanto as teorias mais tradicionais, surgidas nos anos 70, quanto as mais recentes, todas desenvolvidas principalmente em países anglófonos. Em seguida, traçaremos um perfil da situação lingüística do Quênia e trataremos especificamente do sheng em Nairóbi. Finalmente, serão descritas as expressões em sheng utilizadas nas situações de abertura e fechamento de conversações, agradecimentos, pedidos de desculpas e outras que potencialmente podem ser avaliadas como polidas. Essa análise permitirá verificar se, mesmo em uma situação social de extrema exclusão, como a vivida pela comunidade de Mukuru, em Nairóbi, onde a mera questão de sobrevivência torna-se uma luta diária, os indivíduos da comunidade lingüística que hoje \"constrói\" esse novo código lingüístico, estariam preocupados em estabelecer regras de conduta para situações de interação que se refletiriam em seu discurso, e se essas regras seriam formas de \"polidez lingüística\" ou formas de \"comportamento político\", como proposto por Richard Watts. / This dissertation aims to analyze, in specific contexts, the linguistic politeness phenomenon in sheng. In order to fulfill this goal, we will initially approach the theories on linguistic politeness within the scope of socio pragmatics, presenting the more traditional theories, which appeared in the 1970s, as well as the more recent ones, all developed mainly in Anglophone countries. Then we will outline Kenya\'s linguistic situation, focusing mostly on sheng in Nairobi. Finally, we will describe sheng idioms that are used in conversational openings and closings, in acts of returning thanks and apologies, and other actions that might be potentially considered as polite. This analysis will allow us to observe if the individuals from the linguistic community that \"constructs\" today this linguistic code, even living in a situation of extreme exclusion such as the one experienced by the Makuru community in Nairobi, where mere subsistence is itself a daily struggle, are concerned about establishing rules of conduct for interaction situations that would reflect in their discourse, and if these rules would be forms of \"linguistic politeness\" or forms of \"political behavior\", as it is assumed by Richard Watts.

<p>The main purpose of this study is to establish a socio-pragmatic categorization of politeness and impoliteness activities in informal interactions. In doing this, we describe the communicative strategies related to (im) politeness phenomena and how they are used to produce certain <i>social effects</i> in face-to-face interaction through the ongoing negotiation of participants’ <i>face </i>(Goffman, 1967). This study is based on informal conversations extracted from a <i>corpus </i>of spoken Spanish gathered in the metropolitan area of Valencia, Spain (Briz and Val.Es.Co. Group, 2002). Focusing on methodology, this study combines a qualitative method inspired in CA with a DA interpretative approach that analyzes communicative acts (Allwood 1995; Bravo, e. p.1). <i>Face</i> contents such as <i>autonomy </i>and<i> affiliative face, role face, group</i> and <i>individual face, </i>are a resource for analyzing what happens during interaction along with the resulting interpersonal effects. The integration of the analysis of context, which includes the co-text, the situational context and the socio-cultural context (cultural settings and shared assumptions), is equally important in this study. The empirical analysis of both the conversations and a questionnaire on impoliteness bring us to propose a series of categories of (im) politeness. The categories are as follow: Strategic Politeness (within this category we find <i>attenuating politeness </i>and<i> reparatory politeness</i>), Enhancing Politeness, Group Politeness, Ritual Politeness (here we differentiate between meeting situations and visit situations) and Discursive Politeness (we divide this category into <i>conventional </i>and <i>thematic</i>). Concerning Impoliteness, we find situations in informal conversation in which impoliteness is expected (<i>normative impoliteness</i>) and when threatening acts (reproaches, criticism, etc.) do not imply directly, <i>per se</i>, a negative personal effect. We next find two types of impoliteness: one produced by threats to the <i>face </i>of the speaker which are neither mitigated nor amended and the other caused by a break from the normal rules of politeness. </p>

The main purpose of this study is to establish a socio-pragmatic categorization of politeness and impoliteness activities in informal interactions. In doing this, we describe the communicative strategies related to (im) politeness phenomena and how they are used to produce certain social effects in face-to-face interaction through the ongoing negotiation of participants’ face (Goffman, 1967). This study is based on informal conversations extracted from a corpus of spoken Spanish gathered in the metropolitan area of Valencia, Spain (Briz and Val.Es.Co. Group, 2002). Focusing on methodology, this study combines a qualitative method inspired in CA with a DA interpretative approach that analyzes communicative acts (Allwood 1995; Bravo, e. p.1). Face contents such as autonomy and affiliative face, role face, group and individual face, are a resource for analyzing what happens during interaction along with the resulting interpersonal effects. The integration of the analysis of context, which includes the co-text, the situational context and the socio-cultural context (cultural settings and shared assumptions), is equally important in this study. The empirical analysis of both the conversations and a questionnaire on impoliteness bring us to propose a series of categories of (im) politeness. The categories are as follow: Strategic Politeness (within this category we find attenuating politeness and reparatory politeness), Enhancing Politeness, Group Politeness, Ritual Politeness (here we differentiate between meeting situations and visit situations) and Discursive Politeness (we divide this category into conventional and thematic). Concerning Impoliteness, we find situations in informal conversation in which impoliteness is expected (normative impoliteness) and when threatening acts (reproaches, criticism, etc.) do not imply directly, per se, a negative personal effect. We next find two types of impoliteness: one produced by threats to the face of the speaker which are neither mitigated nor amended and the other caused by a break from the normal rules of politeness.

The extent to which Swedish learners of English master the formulaic language of greetings and their responses has not been well researched over the years. This study aims to fill the gap by examining how 66 Swedish senior high school students respond to two question-based English greetings: the formal “How are you?” and the informal “What’s up?”. To enable a comparison with greeting responses produced in the native language, another 28 students were greeted in Swedish, with the corresponding phrases “Hur står det till?” and “Läget?”. In addition, 217 students were asked via a questionnaire about their opinions on the most appropriate greeting responses, as well as what greeting phrase they would prefer to use if they were the ones who greeted first. The results indicate that Swedish students have no problem with understanding the formulaic nature of greetings; thus, the high frequency of “pragmatic failure” which has been seen among Polish students greeted with “How are you?” was not found in this study. However, the Swedish students responded somewhat differently than what has been observed in earlier research on native English-speakers, and the answers often came after a moment of hesitation. Swedish students failed to produce responses to the English greetings (especially to “What’s up?”) in an automatic, native-like way. Moreover, the students claimed in their answers to the questionnaire that an appropriate response to “How are you?” and “What’s up?” should include a “thanks” or a “thank you”, but this politeness marker was absent in almost all the cases in the field study.