abstract: In the study of politeness in Spanish there are some speech acts that have received more attention, such as requests, apologies, invitations and negotiations. In the case of the of congratulation, there is only one published work by García about congratulation by Peruvian Spanish-speakers. This thesis is a first approximation to the study of realization of the speech act of congratulation in Colombian Spanish. The Brown and Levinson model is used for the study of preferences in the strategies of politeness, and the Scollon and Scollon model for the notion of deferential and solidarity politeness. The Blum Kulka et al. model is used for the classification of the categories of principal head acts and supportive moves in the speech acts of congratulation. The following results were found in answer to the basic hypothesis of the research: The Colombians in this sample have positive politeness when giving congratulations and manifest it with such solidarity strategies as pride and approval, expressions of gratitude and support, and they also give the congratulation in an explicit manner. To a lesser degree they request information and make direct criticism. The data analysis shows a 95% certainty in the differences found between men and women. Nevertheless, the differences between younger and older people or between young women and young men are not statistically significant and only show tendencies. In order to corroborate the finding of this research, it is necessary to have a larger sample in terms of the educational level of the participants. Also, the sample should be broader in terms of gender and age, so as to verify if the difference between younger and older people continues being a tendency or if there is a statistically significant difference. To generalize the term Colombian, other regions of the country should be included, especially the contrast between the Andean, Coastal, and Plains regions which are culturally different within the country. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Spanish 2011

Compliments, speech acts used to establish and reinforce solidity in human interaction, are employed extensively in various social situations. The act of giving compliments as well as responding to compliments may differ for various social contexts and cultural norms. Particularly for second language learners, the target environment may influence the way they employ compliments in their second language. This study aimed to investigate the compliment responses of Chinese second language speakers of English in view of their length of stay in the US and topic of the compliment. Four participant groups included a US group, and three Chinese ESL groups with different length of stay in the US. Both quantitative and qualitative results indicated that the four groups shared a similar tendency to employ compliment responses. These results suggest that there may be a new concept of culture developing, which is not bound to geographic location and first language.

Public figures have offered more public apologies since the past two decades. However, very little research efforts have been made to study the use of apology strategies in public apologies. This study aims to find out how Chinese and English public figures use apology strategies to publicly apologize, and highlight the similarities and differences in their use of apology strategies. This study used a modified model that was based on Cohen & Olshtain (1981), Olshtain & Cohen (1983), and Blum-Kulka et al. (1989) and identified a total of 11 apology strategies. 8 Chinese and 8 English public apologies over infidelity were collected and analyzed using the model and the use of apology strategies was compiled. It was found that, in general, the Chinese subjects used apology strategies more often than the English subjects. The most frequently used and least frequently used strategies were the same for both groups of data, which were accepting the blame and expressing a lack of intent respectively. One of the significant differences was found in the preference of IFIDs where the Chinese data preferred an expression of apology while the English data preferred an expression of regret. It was also found that 3 of the Chinese apologies used the strategies expressing self-dificiency and offering an explanation or account together. Since the latter was found to be inappropriate in the case of apologizing over infidelity, the concurrent use of these 2 Strategies might be a unique feature of Chinese public apology. Since this study is a pioneering attempt to study the use of apology strategies in public apologies, further research efforts are much encouraged. It is hoped that this study could serves as a reference for further studies on apology strategies in public apology.

This work's main thesis is that a theory of action provides a more appropriate framework than a theory of language for furthering the purpose of Austin's conception of speech acts. The main purpose of that conception was the elucidation of the species of language-use that is exemplified by illocutionary acts and is distinct from those species exemplified by locutionary and perlocutionary acts. Austin's conception of locutionary acts isolates those features of a speech act situation which are amenable to subsumption under a theory of language. This conception is expounded, developed and defended in Chapter One. The orthodox "reject-and-replace" view of the relationship between Austin's performative-constative distinction and his distinction between locutionary and illocutionary acts threatens several of Austin's insights concerning the type of theory appropriate for developing his conception of speech acts. In Chapter Two the performative-constative distinction is expounded, the "reject-and-replace" is shown to be false, and an alternative view, which retrieves the threatened insights, is advanced. Austin's distinction between locutionary and illocutionary acts, and his parallel distinction between locutionary meaning and illocutionary force, are also established in the course of defending them against objections. The terms in which Austin drew the distinction between illocutionary and perlocutionary acts - those of a conventional act distinct from its non-conventional outcomes indicate the theoretical framework required for a development of his conception. In Chapter Three this distinction is expounded and a partial analysis is made of the concepts of some outcomes of acts, viz., effects, consequences and results. Illocutionary acts are not constituted in toto by agents' bodily movements - a point captured in Austin's thesis that illocutionary acts are conventional acts. In Chapter Pour the interpretation customarily imposed on that thesis is discussed and shown to be unfaithful. An alternative interpretation is constructed from points in Austin's own lectures. The solution to the problem of the constitution of illocutionary acts provided by this interpretation is that such acts are constituted by the conventional procedures as part of which locutionary acts are performed. Some other suggested solutions are canvassed. In Chapter Five an account is given of the conventional procedures constitutive of illocutionary acts. In Chapter Six the claim embodied in the main thesis of this work is defended against the counter-claims implicit in Schiffer's, Strawson's and Searle's work. In the Appendix Austin's performative-constative distinction and his later views on truth are defended. An analytical table of contents is included.

This thesis aims to bring together the area of pragmatics in second language learning (SLL), and dynamic assessment (DA), and in doing so offer an alternative way of both assessing pragmatics and providing its instruction. DA aims to provide a detailed analysis of not only a learner’s current stage of development, but also their still developing abilities. Unifying instruction and assessment, the learner and a mediator co-construct a task, with the mediator providing assistance when necessary. By examining both the types of mediation practices and their frequency, insights can be gained as to the learner’s still maturing abilities, and future potential. DA also aims to uncover sources of learner difficulty, offering a diagnostic function as part of assessment. Drawing on conversation analysis research, the work of Gal’Perin and DA methodology, this study carried out a DA of the speech act of requesting in spoken interaction, assessing the effectiveness with which the DA promoted development in the learners. Further, the ability of the DA to uncover specific locations of learner difficulty was examined, as well as the ways in which the interlocutors successfully negotiated the opening and closing of mediation sequences. Six Japanese EFL learners in a university context co-constructed a number of role-play type language tasks with the researcher. In the first stage of the study, the researcher did not offer support to the learners, while in the following stage, mediation was provided when appropriate. The findings were used to inform the enrichment programme (EP) portion of the study, in which the learners met with the researcher for a period of four weeks, receiving tutoring. This was followed by further non-dynamic and dynamic assessments, to allow analysis of learner development. The study’s findings indicate that DA methodology, when applied to the speech act of requesting, can be an effective way to both promote learner development and assess learners’ abilities. Compared with the pre-EP assessments, participants produced more complex interactions that frequently showed evidence of taking the social context of the role-plays into account, as well as assuming greater responsibility for successfully completing the tasks. Participants were also more frequently able to verbally explain their language choices with reference to the target concepts of the assessments and EP. Further, overall, the opening and closing of mediation sequences were accomplished with more implicit negotiation practices, indicating increased interactive competence. The DA was also successful in locating specific locations of learner difficulty.

The thesis focuses on the textual analysis of discourse and its methods. The goal of this thesis is to carry out comparative analysis of selected presidential discourses of Nicolas Sarkozy and Václav Klaus pronounced from 2007 to 2010 and to deduce general rules for the structure of the discourses in question. The thesis is divided into a theoretical part, which defines the subject of study, methodology and individual approaches of textual analysis of discourse, and practical part including the analysis of presidential discourses focused especially on the sequential and argumentation structure, the function of connectors, the use of lexical connotations and on the hierarchy of speech acts.

The present study aimed to find out which compliment response types Saudi learners of English would use in particular situations within an academic context and to identify possible cultural and gender differences in the compliment responses between Saudi learners of English and native speakers of American English. In order to examine the two main variables of the present study, which were cultural and gender differences, the study used a Multiple Choice Discourse Completion Task (MDCT). The instrument included four imaginary written situations related to an academic context. Specifically, the first two scenarios involved a compliment on student achievement by a male and a female professor. In the third and fourth scenarios, the compliment was offered by a male and a female classmate, respectively. The compliment response types were based on Herbert's (1990) taxonomy. The participants included 104 American native speakers and 71 Saudi English speakers, all of them enrolled at a US university. The analysis of the data involved calculating descriptive statistics and multiple chi-square tests to elicit possible differences between native and non-native in each situation. Descriptive statistics were used to provide a detailed description of the results in terms of percentages. In addition, the value of Phi was calculated for each chi-square test in order to provide further evidence about the effect size of the observed differences. Overall, the results for the comparisons of cultural differences revealed that there were more similarities than differences between the American and Saudi participants in their compliment responses in all four situations. Furthermore, the results of the gender comparisons showed that there were more gender differences within the American sample than within the Saudi one. The lack of or very small number of cultural and gender differences was attributed to the fact that the majority of the Saudi participants had spent a substantial amount of time in the US and were all enrolled in undergraduate and graduate programs at a US university. Another speculation that emerges based on the results of this study is that the similarities between the Saudi and American students, and the male and female participants, could be attributed to the changing definition of culture in the present day globalized world. Particularly, it appears that cultural differences may be fading away, especially among the younger generations, under the influence of globalization, advanced technology, and the Internet.

Ce travail de thèse s’intéresse au sujet de la normalisation dans le champ de la formation à distance. Parmi les multiples propositions de normalisation, notre intérêt porte plus particulièrement sur l’enrichissement du dernier standard de fait IMS-LD. Nous souhaitons de ce fait introduire la notion de pertinence de la normalisation qui signifie la capacité d’IMS-LD de prescrire des scénarios pédagogiques qui répondent réellement à certains principes pédagogiques. Pour notre recherche, nous nous sommes intéressés à une des composantes essentielles de l’apprentissage (Leontiev, 1981), il s’agit de la motivation à apprendre. Ce travail nous a permis d’obtenir trois principaux résultats qui ont été validés en effectuant des études de cas: il s’agit d’abord d’une démarche de scénarisation à posteriori fondée sur les théories de l’activité ; Elle décrit, à partir des traces, le déroulement effectif d’une activité d’apprentissage. Le deuxième résultat est une taxonomie fondée sur la théorie des actes de langage ; Elle permet de traduire quelques composantes de la motivation en un ensemble d’actes de langage observables dans une trace de discussion par « Chat ». Quant au troisième résultat, il s’agit d’un modèle descriptif de la motivation qui rend compte, à partir des traces, des perceptions et ses origines. Ce modèle se sert de notre taxonomie et repose sur le concept des paires adjacentes issu de l’analyse conversationnelle. Enfin, nos conclusions exposent de plus des résultats secondaires et ouvrent des perspectives pour la poursuite de notre question sur la pertinence des normes. / This thesis focuses on standardization in the field of distance learning. Among the many proposed standards, our interest focuses on the enrichment of latest standard proposal, which is the IMS-LD standard. We would therefore introduce the standardization relevance notion which means the ability of IMS-LD prescribes learning scenarios that actually meet certain educational principles. For our research, we focused on an essential component of learning (Leontiev, 1981), it is the motivation to learn. From this thesis, we obtained three main results validated by conducting case studies: first, is an activity theories’ posteriori design based approach; It describes, from traces, the actual learning activity scenario taking into account its human factors. The second result is a taxonomy based on the speech acts theory; it allowed us to translate some motivation components as a set of speech acts observed in « Chat » discussion. The third result is a motivation descriptive model that reflects, from the traces, the perceptions and their origins. This model uses our taxonomy and is based on the adjacency pairs concept derived from conversational analysis. Finally, our conclusions explain further, our secondary results and provide opportunities for continuing our question about standards relevance.

Este estudo tem por proposta apresentar questões concernentes ao debate radiofônico, de modo a caracterizá-lo e, ainda, posicioná-lo na escala de discussão polêmica criada por van Eemeren e Grootendorst (1983/2004), observando a constituição argumentativa intrínseca a esse gênero, também no que se refere à sua estrutura e relação com os atos de fala. Amparamo-nos na teoria da Pragmadialética, a qual considera, sobremaneira, a importância dos atos de fala para a solução da disputa em um diálogo, avaliando os movimentos discursivos entrelaçados com a argumentação, além de criar os conceitos de modelo de discussão crítica e de código de conduta para as discussões argumentativas. Para observarmos a aplicabilidade da teoria, selecionamos um corpus que consta de discursos radiodifundidos, composto de programas do quadro intitulado \"Liberdade de expressão\", veiculados pela Rede CBN, do qual participam os jornalistas Heródoto Barbeiro, Carlos Heitor Cony e Artur Xexéo. / The purpose of this study refers to the debate in the radio, to characterize and relate it to the pragma-dialetical theory, by van Eemeren e Grootendorst (1983/ 2004), especially by means of argumentation and speech acts. This theory considers the importance of the speech acts in argumentative discussions as well creates the notions of critical discussions and a code of conduct for reasonable discussants. In order to apply this theory, we select a corpus of radio transmitted discourse: a show named \"Liberdade de expressão\" from CBN, with Heródoto Barbeiro, Carlos Heitor Cony and Artur Xexéo.

Orientador: Kanavillil Rajagopalan / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-05T17:40:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ferreira_RaimundoRuberval_D.pdf: 10553829 bytes, checksum: 75551f82a2494aecc6ca015ae45d6840 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005 / Résumé: Le présent travail est une enquête sur Ies formes d'appropriation, par Ie discours officiel et par Ies médias, des événements du 11 septembre 2001, aux Etats-Unis. Ce "travail d'appropriation" est envisagé à partir de l'anaIyse de certains processus linguistique s, notamment des types de formulation utilisés pour l'événement Iui-même, pour l'agresseur, pour Ia victime et pour Ie genre de menace que Ies événements en question sont censés représenter. L'ensembIe sémantique de ces expressions constitue ce que j'appelle macro-objet "11 septembre", construction où se matérialise Ies principaIes tensions qui traversent Ie champ du Iangage, et que je qualifie de "guerre dans Ia Iangue". Ce travail en vient ainsi à expIorer Ies mécanismes de construction de ce macro-objet, Ia force rhétorico-performative de ces mécanismes, leur capacité à créer des représentations et Ieurs implications ético-politiques dans Ie contexte des tensions mondiales actuelles. L'analyse s'appuie sur une conception diaIogicoperformative du Iangage, seIon les sens donnés à ces termes par des théoriciens comme Bakhtin, Austin et Bourdieu. Elle utilise égaIement les théories déconstructives de Jacques Derrida, pour qui l' activité de déconstruire consiste surtout à déstabiliser Ies propriétés structurelles d'un objet, afin de souligner, en montrant Ies éIéments qui Ie rendent possible, Ia nécessité de sa transformation / Resumo: Este trabalho consiste na investigação das formas de apropriação dos eventos que ocorreram no dia 11 de setembro de 2001, nos Estados Unidos, pelo discurso oficial e pela midia. Esse "trabalho de apropriação" está sendo visto a partir da análise de alguns processos lingüísticos. A análise privilegia as formas de nomeação utilizadas em referência ao evento em si, ao agressor, ao agredido e ao tipo de ameaça que os eventos em questão supostamente implicam. o conjunto dos sentidos de tais expressões constitui a dimensão do que estou chamando de macro-objeto "11 de setembro", construção que materializa as principais tensões que atravessam o campo da linguagem, e que estou chamando de "guerra na língua". Nesse sentido, este trabalho se volta para investigar os mecanismos de construção desse macro-objeto, a força retórico-performativa de tais mecanismos, no que diz respeito à construção de representações, e suas implicações ético-políticas no horizonte das atuais tensões mundiais. A análise proposta neste trabalho orienta-se por uma visão dialógico-performativa da linguagem, no sentido dado a esses termos por teóricos como Bakhtin, Austin e Bourdieu, e por uma visão de interpretação proposta pela desconstrução, de Jacques Derrida, para quem a atividade desconstrutora é, sobretudo, um trabalho de intervenção que procura desestabilizar as propriedades estruturais de uma construção, para, mostrando os elementos que a tomam possível, destacar a necessidade de sua transformação / Doutorado / Doutor em Linguística