PubData Leuphana Repository: Contrastivity and comparability: pragmatic variation across pluricentric varieties

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://doi.org/10.48548/pubdata-116

Resource type	Journal Article
Title(s)	Contrastivity and comparability: pragmatic variation across pluricentric varieties
DOI	10.48548/pubdata-116
Handle	20.500.14123/136
Creator	Barron, Anne 0000-0003-2962-7985 (Institute of English Studies (IES), Leuphana Universität Lüneburg 02w2y2t16)
Abstract	The recent pragmatic turn in the study of pluricentric varieties marks a shift in analytical focus, with increasingly more research contrasting the conventions of language use and interaction across pluricentric varieties. This turn demands new data types and new methods of analysis which uphold the principles of contrastivity and comparability. Addressing this basic requirement for the case of cross-varietal speech act analyses, the present article examines the contextual factors to be considered in the choice of data types and the potential definition and usability of a pragmatic variable in speech act analyses across data types. These considerations are applied to a cross-varietal analysis of responses to thanks in direction-giving exchanges across English in Canada, England and Ireland. The study highlights the frequent necessity of a multi-faceted definition of the pragmatic variable. In addition, challenges of contextual equivalence which emerge in the course of the analysis highlight a basic need for research to regularly re-examine the linguistic context and the definition of the pragmatic variable and to potentially redefine the variable during the analytical process. The contrastive analysis reveals a more extensive use of routinised responses to thanks in the Canadian English data relative to the Irish English and English English data. A more complex closing, with more continuations and confirmation checks, is shown to characterise the Irish English data, a finding which is suggested to potentially relate to a strong orientation towards hospitality in the Irish context.
Language	English
Keywords	Pragmatic Variation; Variational Pragmatics; Pragmatic Variable; Closings; Direction-giving; Pluricentric Varieties
Year of publication in PubData	2024
Publishing type	Parallel publication
Publication version	Published version
Date issued	2021-11-18
Creation context	Research
Published by	Medien- und Informationszentrum, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg
Related resources	Relations of this publication Relations of this publication

Information regarding first publication

Field	Value
Resource type	Journal
Title of the resource type	Sociolinguistica
Identifier	DOI: 10.1515/soci-2021-0010
Publication year	2021
Volume	35
Issue	1
Pages	189 - 216
Publisher	Walter de Gruyter