Search

Circumstantial evidentiality refers to the semantic-pragmatic-grammatical encoding of an inference which has been drawn on some physical evidence surrounding the speech participants (cf. Squartini 2008, 2012; Cornillie 2009). Reportative evidentiality corresponds to the pragmatic-semantic-grammatical marking of a proposition as a piece of information the SP/W has been told by someone (i.e. Willett 1988; Aikhenvald 2004; Tantucci 2013). This study will shed new light on the multimodal encoding of both by looking at the evidential meaning which emerges from the interplay of a constative speech act and the physical or socio-cultural situation in which this speech act occurs. The first part of this article is dedicated to some prototypical instances of circumstantial evidentiality. I will argue that the physical situation where a constative speech act occurs crucially constitutes the real evidential marker of a circumstantial-evidential utterance, regardless of the semantic-pragmatic-grammatical encoding of the proposition. I will propose that this sort of unescapable correspondence between a constative speech-act and the physical situation where this is realized, represents a felicitous example of evidential pragmeme (cf. Mey 2001, 2010; Capone 2005, 2008; 2010 on the notion of pragmemes), viz. the evidential meaning of a proposition that is obtained as the result of being conveyed ‘in the situation’. In the second part of this study I will focus on reportative evidentiality. Concerning this latter domain, it is traditionally expected that new information occurring in news report registers should predictably appear in the form of an evidential construction or strategy. Contrary to this common assumption, I will provide corpus-based evidence showing that this is not the case. Focusing on the news report section of the written corpus of Mandarin LCMC (Lancaster Corpus of Mandarin Chinese), this study aims at showing that new information in Mandarin news report often tend

This paper seeks to make the case for a more empirical, situation-based approach to pragmatic analysis. It forms part of the recent move in pragmatics research away from the cross-cultural comparison of speech acts and neo-Gricean theoretical debates towards an analysis of real-life data based on the socio-cognitive and affective implications of inter-lingual conversational exchange. This approach is represented as ‘emancipatory’ in that it is highly contextually grounded and considers meaning from an ‘emergent’ perspective in which attempts at achieving mutual understanding are more or less effectively negotiated between participants. The notion of intention is called into question and emphasis is placed on the importance of metalinguistic commentary by interlocutors as an essential aid to interpreting transcriptions of previous exchanges. Close attention is given to linguistic features which define the attitudes and relationships between the participants: in this case, markers of ‘determinacy’, ‘distance’ and ‘intensity’.

In order to support instructors' work of developing the conceptual base in the target language this paper attempts to explain what makes concept formation difficult for Japanese ESL/EFL students by analyzing data collected from Japanese students with a median exposure of 9 years to the English language. The research focused on the most frequently used verbs of speech and verbs of perception. Analysis of the data revealed that Japanese students'concept formation is complicated by their grammar-centered approach to the language, their language learning strategy based on rote memorization of language chunks and the transfer of Japanese lexico-pragmatics to Englisgh semantics. Conceptual content acquired by Japanese students comprises mainly syntactic features and very little semantic and pragmatic information which hampers the development of a conceptual system in the target language. In the students' interlanguage emerging concepts are usually represented by one possible syntagmatic environmnet only, which is the result of rote memorization of chunks. Japanese students in this project relied heavily upon the pragmatics of their mother tongue when choosing from several options in the English language. This transfer made concept formation very deifficult and usually led to false generalizations.

Circumstantial evidentiality refers to the semantic-pragmatic-grammatical encoding of an inference which has been drawn on some physical evidence surrounding the speech participants (cf. Squartini 2008, 2012; Cornillie 2009). Reportative evidentiality corresponds to the pragmatic-semantic-grammatical marking of a proposition as a piece of information the SP/W has been told by someone (i.e. Willett 1988; Aikhenvald 2004; Tantucci 2013). This study will shed new light on the multimodal encoding of both by looking at the evidential meaning which emerges from the interplay of a constative speech act and the physical or socio-cultural situation in which this speech act occurs. The first part of this article is dedicated to some prototypical instances of circumstantial evidentiality. I will argue that the physical situation where a constative speech act occurs crucially constitutes the real evidential marker of a circumstantial-evidential utterance, regardless of the semantic-pragmatic-grammatical encoding of the proposition. I will propose that this sort of unescapable correspondence between a constative speech-act and the physical situation where this is realized, represents a felicitous example of evidential pragmeme (cf. Mey 2001, 2010; Capone 2005, 2008; 2010 on the notion of pragmemes), viz. the evidential meaning of a proposition that is obtained as the result of being conveyed ‘in the situation’. In the second part of this study I will focus on reportative evidentiality. Concerning this latter domain, it is traditionally expected that new information occurring in news report registers should predictably appear in the form of an evidential construction or strategy. Contrary to this common assumption, I will provide corpus-based evidence showing that this is not the case. Focusing on the news report section of the written corpus of Mandarin LCMC (Lancaster Corpus of Mandarin Chinese), this study aims at showing that new information in Mandarin news report often tend