33.2556, Confs: Applied Linguistics, Pragmatics/Belgium

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-33-2556. Fri Aug 19 2022. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 33.2556, Confs: Applied Linguistics, Pragmatics/Belgium

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Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2022 05:29:11
From: Masaki Ono [ono.masaki.ga at u.tsukuba.ac.jp]
Subject: Types and Processes of Conventionalization of Communicative Expressions

 
Types and Processes of Conventionalization of Communicative Expressions 

Date: 09-Jul-2023 - 14-Jul-2023 
Location: Brussels, Belgium 
Contact: Masaki Ono 
Contact Email: ono.masaki.ga at u.tsukuba.ac.jp 

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics; Pragmatics 

Meeting Description: 

We discuss the types and processes of conventionalization of communicative
expressions with focus on the productive and updating effects of the speaker's
considerateness to the addressee(s). For example, greetings are highly
conventionalized, but some are so conventionalized that they are not used any
more (at least in face-to-face conversation). This is the case with sayonara
'good-bye' in Japanese. This panel attempts to clarify the conditions in which
the considerateness motivates and also discourages the speaker to use
conventionalized communicative expressions. 
Previous studies on linguistic conventionalization, as those on
grammaticalization and pragmaticalization, have tended to focus on the
emergence of specific expressions, rather than on their obsolescence. This
emergence-orientation is one-sided, and needs to be complemented by the study
on the process of how conventionalized expressions go out of use. In addition,
considerate expressions have been mainly discussed in terms of personal
relations between the speaker and the addressee(s), but their acceptability
varies with age, gender, group affiliation, and speech situation. This means
that they are conventionalized to different degrees in different context types
or registers: the more limited range of registers a given considerate
expression has, the less frequently it is used in other registers where the
considerateness in question is detrimental to communication. Thus, our working
hypothesis is that conventionalized considerate expressions go out of use
where they come to involve pragmatic difficulties. 
Japanese is rich with partially obsolete conventionalized expressions. Of
particular interest are the pragmatic difficulties brought about by the
mismatch between already conventionalized expressions and young people’s needs
as well as the needs from new styles of communication such as SNS. For
example, tumaranai-mono-desuga ‘although (this is an) uninteresting item (for
you)’ is a conventionalized introductory remark for giving a gift, but it is
almost obsolete among those in their 20’s or younger. Like sayonara, the
introductory remark belongs to a formal register, and causes pragmatic
difficulties to the people who put more importance on their in-group identity
with their partner(s) than on formality and modesty. On the basis of
observations of actual usage, historical change, and register-specific
collocations, we show how and where pragmatic difficulties cause
conventionalized expressions to fade out and at the same time cause new ones
to emerge in their place. Our panel is intended to show that considerations of
considerateness in specific registers help replace and update conventionalized
expressions from a cross-linguistic point of view.
Our panel invites contributions from researchers interested in linguistic
conventionalization, considerate expressions, politeness theory and
sociolinguistic variation. Besides examples from Japanese, those from Chinese,
Arabic and English are welcome to be added.

Selected references:
De Fina, A., Schiffrin, D. and Bamberg, M. (ed.) (2006) Discourse and
Identity, Cambridge University Press.
Hopper, P. and Traugott, E. (2003) Grammaticalization, 2nd Ed., Cambridge
University Press.
Onodera, N. (2004) Japanese Discourse Markers: Synchronic and Diachronic
Discourse Analysis, John Benjamins.
Terkourafi, M. (2015) “Conventionalization: A New Agenda for Im/Politeness
Research,” Journal of Pragmatics 86, 11-18.
 






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LINGUIST List: Vol-33-2556	
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