The dissertation is based on the analysis of thirty episodes of the American television series Friends with the focus on the CSIs (Culture Specific Items) and how these differences have been handled by Chinese translators who produced the subtitles for the English-Chinese translation. The analysis was based on the assumption that Mainland China’s culture is different from the US culture so people in these two countries may have problems in understanding CSIs if they are translated literally and if the subtitle translation is not adapted to the target audience. Such adaptation is normally known as localisation. The cultural differences that are ingrained in CSIs might have to be handled with caution in the production of subtitles. The main objective of the dissertation has been to analyse different translation choices which are currently used by the translators in questions, dealing with CSIs where cultural differences between mainland China and the US arise. The research discovered that repetition of CSIs is a strategy which underperformed, failing to help the Chinese audience to comprehend the cultural connotations associated with the CSIs. The paper has provided some recommendations as to how the subtitle translation of such CSIs might be handled in such a way that the audience will have a better understanding of the same.

Politeness Phenomena and Mild Conflict in Japanese Casual Conversation

abstract: Although pragmatic analyses based on empirical data have been conducted throughout most of the Spanish-speaking world, Central America remains the most underrepresented region. This study examines the pragmatic strategies used by female Spanish speakers of Nicaragua and Panama in an advice-giving context. The data consists of eighteen role-plays recorded in Masaya, Nicaragua and Panama City, Panama in June and July of 2011. In the role-play situation, the interlocutor (fixed-role) requests advice from the participant, her best friend, regarding a serious issue in her marriage. The participant's advice-giving strategies are classified according to a categorization adapted from Blum-Kulka's request strategy taxonomy. This allows for a statistical analysis of how these strategies correspond to the three elements of Spencer Oatey's rapport management approach: behavioral expectations, face sensitivities and interactional wants. The results indicate strong similarities between participants from Nicaragua and Panama, both electing to respect all components of the association principle and to violate the equity principle, especially its autonomy control component. These results suggest that, at least in this advice-giving context between intimates, both Nicaraguan and Panamanian Spanish speakers prefer to impose their opinions and suggestions rather than respect the person's right to be treated fairly (i.e. equity principle) as well as to maintain a rapport-enhancing orientation rather than preserve their right to associate with others (i.e. association principle). The results of the pragmatic analysis show similarities with other research on directives in the Spanish-speaking world, including empirical studies in the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Venezuela and Spain. Specifically, these cultures are all associated with direct strategies and less mitigation, positive politeness, conventional indirectness and high involvement. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Spanish 2012

TEIXEIRA, Letícia Adriana Pires. A polidez na conversa de pessoas esquizofrênicas figuratividade, estratégias e faces. 2011. 274f. – Tese (Doutorado) – Universidade Federal do Ceará, Departamento de Letras Vernáculas, Programa de Pós-graduação em Linguística, Fortaleza (CE), 2011. / Submitted by Márcia Araújo (marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2014-08-26T12:45:25Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2011_tese_lapteixeira.pdf: 1908264 bytes, checksum: 1f1f1e2a73ed861e5bd56fc7b628f039 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Márcia Araújo(marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2014-08-26T12:54:03Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2011_tese_lapteixeira.pdf: 1908264 bytes, checksum: 1f1f1e2a73ed861e5bd56fc7b628f039 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-08-26T12:54:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2011_tese_lapteixeira.pdf: 1908264 bytes, checksum: 1f1f1e2a73ed861e5bd56fc7b628f039 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011 / Este estudo apresenta uma análise da linguagem de pessoas com esquizofrenia, em surto psicótico, tendo como foco o fenômeno da polidez linguística, a partir da figuratividade. Para tanto, procuramos verificar como os participantes da conversação interagem uns com os outros, fazendo o trabalho com as faces (E.Goffman), e como eles utilizam o fenômeno da linguagem figurada, mais especificamente da metáfora, como estratégia de polidez linguística. Para compreender a linguagem de pessoas com transtornos mentais, analisamos as conversas de pacientes do Hospital Myra Y Lopes nos anos 2009 e 2010, bem como as conversas já transcritas por Brito (2005), Teixeira (2001) e Picardi (1999). Adotamos, como referencial teórico básico, os postulados de Brown; Levinson (1987), Leech (1983) Goffman (1967), Lakoff (1987, 1989, 1993,), Lakoff; Johnson (1980, 1999), Volker (2001) entre outros estudiosos dessa temática. Como resultado da análise, constatamos que os esquizofrênicos usam a figuratividade como estratégia de polidez linguística e, dependendo do nível de gravidade da doença, não são totalmente alienados aos acontecimentos e às significações ideológicas, nem aos eventos sociais e culturais que envolvem o processo conversacional. Detectamos que eles são polidos e que as estratégias e modos de polidez, usados por eles, não são dotados de valor absoluto, apesar de a polidez ser tida como um fenômeno universal.

This study investigates refusals of requests and offers utilised by speakers of Iraqi Arabic and British English, as well as by Iraqi learners of English. It aims to identify the strategies of refusal employed by these three groups of speakers, as well as any differences between them. 60 subjects participated in this study. 20 Iraqi Arabic Speakers (IAs), 20 Iraqi Learners of English (ILEs), and 20 British English Speakers (BEs). The elicitation method adopted for the data collection consisted of a discourse completion test (DCT) and a series of open-ended role plays. In both cases, the scenarios employed varied systematically along the following parameters: social status, social distance, rank of imposition and gender. The data obtained by both methods were categorised into a number of strategies. An attempt was made to provide a comprehensive description of the nature of refusal strategies used by the subjects. The strategies identified were categorised following the Beebe et al (1990) scheme of refusals. In addition, they were classified according to the (im)politeness superstrategies posited by Brown and Levinson (1987) and Culpeper (1996). The results indicate that the choice of refusal strategies reflects characteristics of Iraqi versus British English culture. These results are as follows: 1. Although both groups of subjects displayed sensitivity to the social factors referred to above, the relative influence of each factor differed from one group to another. Thus, Iraqi Arabic Speakers (IAs) and Iraqi Learners of English (ILEs) varied their refusal strategies mainly according to status and distance, while British English Speakers (BEs) did so mainly according to status and gender. Besides, the responses of the three groups were influenced by the degree of imposition.2. The application of refusals employed by the three groups differed according to the eliciting method, namely, the DCT and the Role-Play. Consequently, various refusal strategies collected via the Role Play did not appear in the data collected by the DCT and vice versa. 3. Certain strategies employed by Iraqi speakers of Arabic were nonexistent in the data of British English speakers and vice versa. 4. The study of the interlanguage of Iraqi learners of English as a foreign language also confirmed the hypothesis that there is evidence for pragmatic transfer in the order, the frequency and the content of semantic formulae used.

O objetivo deste trabalho é a análise dos elementos de cortesia e atenuação no Português falado na região de São José do Rio Preto e no Espanhol falado na região de Málaga. Os corpora analisados foram obtidos por meio de entrevistas semidirigidas e fazem parte do Projeto ALIP Amostra Linguística do Interior Paulista, o brasileiro, e PRESEEA - Proyecto para el Estudio Sociolingüístico del Español de España y América, o espanhol. Analisamos um total de 24 entrevistas, sendo 12 de nível médio e 12 de superior, seis em cada idioma, divididas igualmente entre falantes do sexo feminino e do sexo masculino. Os falantes de nível médio tinham idades entre 25 e 45 anos, enquanto que a faixa etária entre os de nível superior era entre 50 e 70 anos. Partindo da teoria pragmática dos Atos de Fala e de estudos mais recentes sobre cortesia e atenuação de teóricos como Leech (2007), Bravo (2001, 2004, 2005), Kerbrat-Orecchioni (2004, 2005, 2006), entre outros, analisamos tanto a fala dos entrevistadores quanto a dos informantes. A partir da fala dos entrevistadores, pudemos observar como as perguntas, as solicitações de informações eram elaboradas em ambos os idiomas. Tal análise possibilitou a verificação de como o entrevistador se posicionava e quais eram as estratégias utilizadas verbos no imperativo, enunciados diretos, uso de atos de preparação ou verbos que visavam a proteger a face do informante. Já a análise da fala dos informantes objetivou a averiguação do uso de outras estratégias, cuja intenção era a defesa pessoal ou de terceiros, protegendo sua própria face ou a do entrevistador. Entre essas estratégias citamos a desfocalização do eu, a proteção à própria face ou à do outro, o uso de elementos atenuadores no momento de expressar opiniões, entre outras. Ao longo de nossa análise investigamos também o posicionamento de cada entrevista no eixo de solidariedade ou poder de acordo com a teoria de Brown e Gilman (1960). Para isso, foi necessário o estudo das formas de tratamento empregadas, bem como o uso ou não de formas nominais. Os resultados obtidos, dentro dos corpora estudados, mostram que a Língua Espanhola é uma língua de mais aproximação com o interlocutor, enquanto que a Língua Portuguesa denota maior distância. Observou-se ainda que determinados elementos como o uso de um tratamento mais formal no caso da Língua Portuguesa se caracteriza mais como uma estratégia conversacional do que uma distância social. / The present paper aims at the analysis of the politeness and attenuation elements in both the Portuguese spoken in São José do Rio Preto region and in the Spanish spoken in Malaga region. The studied corpora were obtained by means of partially guided interviews and are part of the ALIP Project (São Paulo\'s Countryside Linguistic Sampling), the Brazilian one, and the PRESEEA ( Project for the Sociolinguistic Study of the Spanish Spoken in Spain and America), the Spanish one. A total of 24 interviews were analysed, being 12 of those on an average level and the other 12 on a superior one, six in each language, equally divided into male and female speakers. The average level speakers range aged from 25 to 45 whereas the superior level ranged from 50 to 70. Considering the pragmatic theory of Speech Acts and other more recent studies on politeness and attenuation by theorists such as Leech (2007), Bravo (2001, 2004, 2005), Kerbrat-Orecchioni (2004, 2005, 2006), among others, both interviewers\' and interviewees\' speeches were analysed. From the interviewers\' speeches it was possible to observe how the questions, the information required, were built up in both languages. Such an analysis made possible verifying how the interviewer was positioned as well as which strategies were used: verbs in imperative, direct enunciations, preparation acts usage or verbs aiming at protecting the informer\'s face. Yet the informers\' speech analysis aimed at the inquiry of other strategies usage being the intention of such the personal or third parties\' defense, proctecting oneself\'s face or the interviewer\'s one. Among these strategies we mention defocusing the self, protecting oneself\'s own face or the other\'s one, attenuating elements usage when expressing opinions, among others. Throughout our analysis we investigated also the positioning of each interview coming to the axis solidarity or power according to Brown and Gilman\'s theory (1960). For such, it was made necessary the study of the treatment forms applied as well as the use or not of noun forms. The achieved results in the studied corpora showed that the Spanish language proves to be a language of more approximation coming to the interlocutor whereas the Portuguese language denotes more distance. It could also be noticed that certain elements such as the use of a more formal treatment coming to the Portuguese language are characterized more as a conversational strategy than as a social distance element.

Following the call for further research on the organisational side of complaint handling, this research aims to explore actual firms’ complaint handling practices with a special focus on the role of politeness in firms-complaints interactions. This research is largely based on a dataset of naturally occurring exchanges obtained from the online public forum Les Arnaques – “The Scams” (www.lesarnaques.com). The setting is similar to a double-deviation scenario: the consumers had already complained once through the relevant company but were unsatisfied with the response. By lodging their complaint on the forum they seek mediation to obtain satisfaction in a second attempt.As a first step, an enhanced conceptualisation of politeness in relation to the concept of complaint handling was proposed and tested. Sociolinguistics theories were used (Goffman’s theory of face, Grice’s maxims) and a quantitative analysis was conducted, to discover how the consumer’s perception of a firm’s politeness is influenced. This conceptualisation, new for the marketing literature, led to proposing a more accurate framework to assess the politeness-related practices of firms when handling complaints.In a second step, this new conceptualisation of politeness was integrated within a larger framework to assess firms’ practices on several dimensions. Justice theory was used as a starting point to define practices within each dimension of justice: distributive, procedural and interactional. Literature from other disciplines (sociology, linguistics, psychology) was used to define precisely the different constructs belonging to the three dimensions. For instance the “empathy” construct was split, based on the literature in psychology, into cognitive and affective empathy, which allowed the precise identification of the occurrences of empathy in firms’ answers. The effects of 33 dimensions were analysed, using a sample of 523 exchanges archived from the forum Les Arnaques. A multinomial regression analysis showed that the most significant antecedent of post-complaint satisfaction was a new dimension, not previously found in the literature: the provision of evidence that the complainant’s problem had been, or was about to be, solved.In a third step, exploratory research was undertaken to investigate possible collinearity effects between three of the most often cited constructs of interactional justice: empathy, politeness and apology. Using the coding guide previously developed, and the exchanges coded, results showed some overlap between the constructs and high Cramer’s V, indicating a redundant concept. Recommendations were provided as to what should be measured, and how, so that researchers can avoid such effects in the future.The naturally occurring exchanges used for the first three steps revealed that firms’ answers were often impolite and littered with spelling mistakes. Two subsequent papers explored the phenomena of grammaticality and im/politeness.In a fourth step, the effects of grammaticality and politeness on customers’ perceptions and behavioural outcomes were explored. Specifically, a survey was conducted to determine the effect of grammar/spelling mistakes and politeness on the perception of professionalism and on repurchase intention. Results from a PATH analysis showed that politeness and grammaticality had low or no direct effect on loyalty. However, indirect effects mediated by professionalism were strong, indicating that consumers’ repurchase intentions depend on a firm’s perceived professionalism.Finally, in a fifth step, efforts were focused on impoliteness and on the role the communication channel plays in expressions of impoliteness. Impolite answers found on the online forum were compared with offline responses obtained in a field experiment. Unexpectedly, results from a discourse analysis showed that the highest levels of impoliteness were not reached in online exchanges, where users can hide behind anonymity, but in postal exchanges. In particular, we found that some companies returned the original complaint letter, riddled with insults. This led us to propose that impoliteness not only a matter of content (the words being used) but also of form. In this case, the letter seemed to act as a catalyst for conflict and was the trigger for verbal violence.In terms of marketing, the following work contributes to theory building by proposing a new conceptualisation of politeness, by defining a more precise framework to analyse firms’ complaint handling practices, and by uncovering collinearity effects that may have impeded previous results. The last two steps of this thesis bring exploratory insights by showing the effects of politeness and grammaticality on consumers’ perceptions.Besides contributing new academic insights, one goal of this thesis was also to serve the business community. The findings show that politeness matters: not only does politeness help reach short-term goals like post-complaint satisfaction, but it also contributes to long-term effort, like forging a professional identity and fostering customer loyalty. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

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Thesis (Ph. D. (Tshivenda)) --University of Limpopo, 2016 / This study examined Tshivenḓa euphemisms from a socio-pragmatic perspective within a framework of Politeness and Indirectness Communicative theories. According to Brown and Levinson (1987), Politeness Theory describes politeness as showing concern for people’s ‘face’ needs where ‘face’ means one’s public self-image. In terms of the Indirectness Communicative Theory, euphemism is a face saving mechanism which emphasizes mutual cooperation in a conversation. Euphemisms are described as substitutions of agreeable or inoffensive expressions for ones that may offend or suggest something unpleasant. They are words with meanings or sounds that are thought, somehow, to be nicer, cleaner or more elevated and they are used as substitutes for words deemed unpleasant, crude or ugly in sound or sense. The study adopted a descriptive and exploratory design within a qualitative research approach, based on the view that qualitative research aims at explaining complex phenomena by means of verbal description rather than testing hypotheses with numerical values. Furthermore, primary data were elicited from 25 participants of different ages, genders, educational levels, social status and occupations who are native speakers of the Tshivenḓa language by means of semi-structured interviews. Since this study involved working with humans, all ethical aspects were ensured. The study, which investigated the use of Tshivenḓa euphemisms, was conducted in seven social domains in Venḓa in the Vhembe District: local courts, churches, homes, hospitals, girls in seclusion, schools and electronic media. The study’s findings show evidence of the use of Tshivenḓa euphemisms in these various domains. However, the court domain seems not to use many euphemisms due to the fact that clear communication is required there; for two parties in a case to understand what is being said during the proceedings the use of roundabout indirect language is avoided – the courts believe in calling ‘a spade, a spade.’ Through the careful analysis of euphemisms, the study’s findings revealed that euphemisms have both positive and negative effects on language, including Tshivenḓa. Some of the positive effects of euphemisms revealed by this study include the ability to avoid directly naming what is deemed unpleasant; they make the language sound more v literary; and they allow people to discuss touchy or taboo subjects with ease. However, the findings also suggested that euphemisms may be disrespectful; they could hinder clear communication; they are deceptive; and they may lead to miscommunication and general confusion. Based on the findings of the study, it is recommended that the use of euphemisms in Tshivenḓa language should be reinforced in all social domains in order to enhance politeness; preserve the public self-image of the participants in communicative exchanges; and facilitate harmonious interpersonal relationships. It is also recommended that further study be undertaken to identify other factors that may affect the use of euphemisms in Tshivenḓa from other perspectives. Key concepts: Politeness; Euphemisms; Treadmill; Taboo; Face work

in English: The Expression of Plea, Request and Order in Spanish (with Regard to Czech) The aim of this work is to examine the language forms for expressing a plea, request and order in Spanish, taking into account their Czech counterparts. The work is divided into theoretical and practical part. In the theoretical part of the work we start from the basic works that gave rise to the modern theory of politeness. These findings then serve as a pragmatic basis for the study of our selected structures. For analysis we choose: imperative, deontic use of infinitive and gerund, deontic use of paradigms hablaré and hablo, performative use of verbs mandar and ordenar, performative use of verbs pedir, rogar and suplicar, interrogative constructions with verb poder, interrogative constructions with por qué no, interrogative constructions with quieres and interrogative constructions with te importa / importaría que. We theoretically describe these constructions and then analyze them on the Intercorp v12 corpus and present their Czech counterparts. Our intention is a qualitative analysis, with special emphasis on the context in which the structure is located.