Pragmatic Approaches to Germanic Languages

Abstract

Elements that have pragmatic functions are, for example, pragmatic markers, modal particles, vocatives, conversational routines (apologies, thanks), interjections, pauses, tag questions, general extenders, response forms, and comment clauses. Pragmatic markers are frequent in English and other Germanic languages. They can be analyzed based on a form-to-function approach drawing on different theoretical frameworks such as conversation analysis, interactional linguistics, or relevance theory. A pervasive change in the orientation of pragmatics has been achieved by its broadening to the study of variation. Pragmatic markers have, for example, been compared across languages regarding their position in the sentence and combinability with other pragmatic markers. Another “red thread” in the development of pragmatics in Germanic languages is the availability of spoken corpora facilitating the empirical analysis of the relationship between form, function, and context. Modal particles, interjections, and hesitation markers are regarded as subclasses of pragmatic markers that can be given a functional analysis. Modal particles are studied especially in German, where they are generally regarded as a special word class distinct from pragmatic markers. Address forms may vary across languages and varieties of languages depending on social factors and cultural preferences. Many Germanic languages (but not English) make a distinction between the informal T-pronoun of address in the singular (Swedish du; German du) and a formal plural V-form of address (Swedish ni; German sie). Politeness and speech acts are another central research area in pragmatics. Some researchers have applied a conversation analysis approach to the study of speech acts such as requests and compliments. The majority of speech act studies are based on discourse completion tests and role-plays. Corpora are less suited to analyze speech acts unless the forms are routinized. One way to solve this methodological problem is indicated by the development of schemes for pragmatically annotating speech acts in corpora.