Cross-cultural Pragmatics – Research fields, methods and methodology

elective courses

The course will give an overview of the theoretical assumptions (among them speech acts theory and relevance theory), of the research fields (among them im/politeness and verbal aggression) and of the research methods (with a particular focus on the definition of tertium comparationis and on triangulation of data) in intercultural and cross-cultural pragmatics on the basis of selected case studies. In the first part of the course, doctoral students will be expected to explore theoretical issues on the basis of selected readings and expound on them by participating in a discussion. In the second part of the course, doctoral students will have to deepen the field by conducting their own research. They are expected to present their data and the results in the classes. In the end, doctoral students will be expected to write a paper on their research which will have to be submitted in a journal or presented at a conference.

The field of cross-cultural pragmatics (intercultural pragmatics) traditionally aims to compare and contrast linguistic behaviours across different languages and different national varieties of the same language with an emphasis on profiling linguistic realisation strategies and understanding the ways that aspects of social and cultural context influence linguistic choices. On the background of the process of growing globalisation and mediatization of our societies, the classical pragmalinguistic tradition has undergone a process of in-depth rethinking and reconversion both in terms of intercultural and cross-cultural research and of mediatisation and globalisation, thus redefining its objectives and methodology. Nowadays, intercultural pragmatics aims to account for the ways that individuals from different cultural backgrounds use, interpret and evaluate language use in multiple linguistic resources and media, to identify which particular features and cues are due to cultural belonging.

The course will give an overview of the theoretical assumptions (among them speech acts theory and relevance theory), of the research fields (among them im/politeness and verbal aggression) and of the research methods (with a particular focus on the definition of tertium comparationis and on triangulation of data) in intercultural and cross-cultural pragmatics on the basis of selected case studies.

In the first part of the course, doctoral students will be expected to explore theoretical issues on the basis of selected readings and expound on them by participating in a discussion. In the second part of the course, doctoral students will have to deepen the field by conducting their own research. They will be expected to present their data and the results in the classes. In the end, doctoral students will be expected to write a paper on their research which will have to be submitted in a journal or presented at a conference.

The course will be held in English, the analyzed materials will be in English, German, Polish and Italian – a knowledge of all these languages is not required. For the participation, a good knowledge of English (B1) is required.

Required Literature/Literatura obowiązkowa:

Kaplan, David (2004): The Meaning of Ouch and Oops. Exploration in the Meaning as Use. (2004): (Online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaGRLlgPl6w , accessed: 7.11.2021)

McConachy, Troy/Spencer-Oatey, Helen (2021) Cross-Cultural and Intercultural Pragmatics. In: Haugh, M. / Kádár, D, Z., Terkourafi, M. (eds.): The Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 733 - 757

Levinson, Stephen (2000): Presumptive Meanings. The theory of Generalized Conversational Implicature. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.

Potts, Christopher (2007): The Expressive Dimension. In: Theoretical Linguistics 33(2), 165−107.

Recanati, Francois (2010): Truth-conditional Pragmatics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Searle, John (1969): The Structure of Illucutionary Acts. In: Speech acts. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 54-71 (available under: http://www.thatmarcusfamily.org/philosophy/Course_Websites/Readings/Searle%20-%20Structure%20of%20Illocutionary%20Acts.pdf, accessed 20.6.2022)

Searle, John (1975): A Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts. University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis (available: https://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/11299/185220, accessed 20.6.2022)

Elective Literature / Literatura do wyboru:

Allan, Keith/ Burridge, Kate (2007): Forbidden Words. Taboo and the Censoring of Language. Cambridge.

Bianchi, Claudia (2014a). Slurs and appropriation: An echoic account. Journal of Pragmatics, 66, 35–44.

Bianchi, Claudia (2014b) The speech acts account of derogatory epithets: Some critical notes. In: Dutant, J., Fassio D., & Meylan A. (eds.), Liber Amicorum Pascal Engel. Université de Genève (465–480). https://www.unige.ch/lettres/philo/publications/engel/liberamicorum/LiberAmicorum_PascalEngel.pdf. (accessed 20.6.2022)

Bonacchi, Silvia (2013): (Un)höflichkeit. Eine kulturologische Analyse Deutsch – Italienisch – Polnisch. Frankfurt a.M. et al.: Lang.

Bonacchi, Silvia (2017): Sprachliche Aggression beschreiben, verstehen und erklären. Theorie und Methodologie einer sprachbezogenen Aggressionsforschung. In: Silvia Bonacchi (ed.): Verbale Aggression: Multidisziplinäre Zugänge zur verletzenden Macht der Sprache. Berlin et al., 3-31

Bonacchi, Silvia (2019) Perche’ le parole fanno male? Considerazioni pragmalinguistiche sull’uso offensivo del linguaggio. In: Barcellona, R. & Sardella, T. (eds.): Violenza delle parole e parole della violenza. Percorsi storico-letterari tra linguaggi che fanno male e linguaggi che fanno paura. Milano: Mimesis 2019, 49-72.

Brown, P./ S.C. Levinson (1987): Politeness: Some universals in language use. Cambridge.

Culpeper, Jonathan (2011): Impoliteness: Using Language to Cause Offence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gutzmann, Daniel (2019): The Grammar of Expressivity. Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics. Oxford University Press.

Langton, Rae (2012) Beyond Belief: Pragmatics in Hate Speech and Pornography. In McGowan and Maitra (eds.) What Speech Does, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Piskorska, Agnieszka (2017): On the strength of explicit and implicit verbal offences. In: Silvia Bonacchi (ed.): Verbale Aggression: Multidisziplinäre Zugänge zur verletzenden Macht der Sprache. Berlin et al., 51-71.

Knowledge: The doctoral student knows and understands:

- The literature to the extent that existing paradigms can be revised. He/she will get familiar with the world output, including theoretical basis and general and selected specific issues of intercultural pragmatics (P8S_WG.1)

- Main development trends of intercultural pragmatics (P8S_WG.2)

- Methodology of scientific research in the field of intercultural pragmatics (P8S_WG.3)

- The fundamental dilemmas of contemporary civilization concerning cultural difference and globalization (P8S_WK.1)

Skills: The doctoral student is able to:

- use the acquired knowledge to independently, creatively identify, formulate and innovatively solve complex problems or perform tasks of a research nature, in particular:

- define the aim and object in own scientific research in the field of pragmalinguistics, formulate a research hypothesis,

- develop methods, techniques and research tools and apply them creatively

- make conclusions on the basis of research results (P8S_UW.1)

- communicate on researched topics to the extent allowing active participation in international scientific environment (P8S_UK.1)

- participate in scientific discourse (P8S_UK.4)

- use the English language at the B2 level of the Common European Framework of Reference in order to participate in an international scientific and professional environment (P8S_UK.5)

Social competence: The student is ready to

- recognize the importance of knowledge in solving cognitive and practical problems (P8S_KK.3)

- maintain and develop the ethos of research and creative communities, including:

- conducting scientific activity in an independent manner,

- respect the principle of public ownership of the results of scientific activity, taking into account the principles of intellectual property protection (P8S_KR.1)

In the first part of the course, doctoral students will be expected to explore theoretical issues on the basis of selected readings and expound on them by participating in a discussion. In the second part of the course, doctoral students will have to deepen the field by conducting their own research. They will be expected to present their data and the results in the classes. In the end, doctoral students will be expected to write a paper on their research which will have to be submitted in a journal or presented at a conference. The final assessment will be made on the basis of a presentation about the state of the art (15 %), of one’s own research (30%), a final written elaboration (40%) to be prepared for being submitted in a scientific journal or presented at a conference, and the active participation in the course (15%) = max. 100 points. The maximum number of excused absences is 3. A minimum of points obtained to pass the course: 60 (60%),