Pragmatic Change Research Articles

Lang lebe der König! Aber auch der optative Konjunktiv?!

Abstract The now archaic optative subjunctive was common in earlier forms of the German language. This paper examines two questions: Why is the optative subjunctive rarely used today? Which linguistic constructions are presently used in the contexts and functions that originally accompanied the optative subjunctive? The paper goes beyond previous studies on this subjunctive and its substitutes by explaining closely how its context, function and syntax in historical instances may have an impact on the constructions that have replaced it. Furthermore, this paper argues that pragmatic change, economy, analogy and especially expressiveness can explain such displacement by specific constructions.

From I am, with sincere regard, your most obedient servant to Yours sincerely: The simplification of leavetaking formulae in 18th-century Scottish and Irish English letters

Abstract The study in hand investigates the impact of social status on the use and change of pragmatic formulae in historical varieties of English. The study asks which leavetaking formulae are used between writers of equal social status in varieties of English in the later 18th century. Working on a corpus of letters compiled from two subsets of letters each from 18th-century Scottish and Irish English, the study illustrates pragmatic change on the basis of the investigation of leavetakings involving the servant formula. By doing so, the study also helps to widen the hitherto predominating narrow focus on mainly English English. The study shows that the use of formulae is situationally dependant. It suggests that pragmatic change takes place amongst writers of equal social status in the private domain, which then leads to the use of such formulae in the public domain and to the use between writers of different status groups.

Pragmatic overlap and consecutive change: The case of Hebrew (inter)subjective markers yeʃ/en matsav/sikuy

Previous research on pragmatic overlap and change suggests that in cases in which two linguistic items evolve one after the other to express similar functions, the new form may substitute the older one, the older expression may further evolve, thereby differentiating from the newer item, or the two forms may become more alike. In this paper, we present a case attesting to a different process. In this type of path, it is the newer form that further evolves, thus “outpassing” the older expression in the subjective-intersubjective cline. The case in point is the consecutive development of the Hebrew phrases yeʃ/en sikuy/matsav (‘there is/isn't a chance/situation’). In Present-Day Hebrew, these pairs express similar subjective-modal functions referring to possibilities, yet only the relatively new pair, yeʃ/en matsav, also functions as a conventionalized intersubjective marker. We here provide a descriptive account of their development in the cline and the factors involved in the further evolution of yeʃ/en matsav. Our findings suggest that yeʃ/en matsav pragmatically outpassed their counterparts due to a semantic advantage relating to the persistence of a circumstantial meaning. Overall, this research illuminates an understudied type of development, pointing to the multifaceted nature of pragmatic change.

Variation of centennial precipitation patterns in Kuwait and their relation to climate change.

The impact of climate change couldbe inferred by observing long-term climate variables like temperature, precipitation, and evapotranspiration. A local study on the climatic factors such as temperature, precipitation, CO2 emissions, and population was carried out. The temperature records of the study period reflected an increase of 1.3°C, higher than the global average. The relationship between the climatic factors from statistical analysis inferred that local factors did not influence the precipitation in Kuwait but showed an interrelationship among temperature, CO2 emissions, and, population. Therefore, Kuwait's precipitation concerning regional atmospheric processes like sea surface temperature, volcanic eruption, wind direction, and El Nino and La Nina events were studied. The pragmatic change in wind direction in Kuwait from northwest to north after 2005 has enforced to study the effect of the volcanic eruption of Mount Etna on the precipitation in Kuwait. A marked correlation between the precipitation trends and post-eruptive periods of Mount Etna was observed. Similarly, El Nino and La Nina events were correlated, especially with the monthly temperature and total rainfall. Thus, the increase in sea surface temperature and volcanic events influenced the Hadley cell circulation and the shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, affecting the rain events in Kuwait.

Regulating sanitation services in sub-saharan africa: An overview of the regulation of emptying and transport of faecal sludge in 20 cities and its implementation

Onsite sanitation is widely used in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) cities. Safe transportation and emptying of the resulting faecal sludge are essential for healthy cities. Typically provided by an informal and unmonitored private sector, these services are being increasingly regulated. This research provides an overview of the regulatory mechanisms in place in 20 cities across SSA, their implementation and emerging common trends. Findings highlight the diversity of tools, mechanisms, and capabilities. We conclude that incremental and pragmatic change is needed to achieve fully regulated services, with adequate implementation particularly facilitated by support and incentive mechanisms, and participation of all stakeholders.

Correlated Rod-like Nanostructures: One Rule to Rule Them All

Plasmonic aspects of anisotropic nanostructures have been a subject of considerable interest over the proposition of electromagnetic scattering theories in the past century. Since an accurate description is not possible in the polar coordinates, Gans modified Mie scattering theory for metal spheres assuming the shape of a rod-like scatterer as an approximated case of infinitely elongated ellipsoid (R ≪ L) so that the contributions of end-caps can be neglected. Due to prudent sophistication in the nanoscale synthetic strategies, a plethora of correlated rod-like nanostructures with diverse end-cap geometries have been synthesized. Experimental measurements have elucidated that a seemingly minor change in end-cap morphology of the nanorods imbues distinctly different optical characteristics; therefore, the consideration of adequate contributions is obvious to the electromagnetic modeling of realistic geometry of the nanorods. Since the basic philosophy of science is to dissect similar observations into diverse magnification, we focus to enumerate the pragmatic change in shape toward scattering characteristics employing topology as a general description of the realistic rod-like nanostructures. Two widely different structures, nanodumbbells (extreme case of dogbone-like nanorods) and nanobars have been considered as the two extremities of rod-like geometries. The geometries have been described through proper functional assignment of their shape functions that have been adopted for electromagnetic simulations. These methodologies lead to achieve a general solution to substantiate the observed plasmonic response of the realistic rod-like nanostructures.

Cataract risk stratification and prioritisation protocol in the COVID-19 era

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic halted non-emergency surgery across Scotland. Measures to mitigate the risks of transmitting COVID-19 are creating significant challenges to restarting all surgical services safely. We describe the development of a risk stratification tool to prioritise patients for cataract surgery taking account both specific risk factors for poor outcome from COVID-19 infection as well as surgical ‘need’. In addition we report the demographics and comorbidities of patients on our waiting list.MethodsA prospective case review of electronic records was performed. A risk stratification tool was developed based on review of available literature on systemic risk factors for poor outcome from COVID-19 infection as well as a surgical ‘need’ score. Scores derived from the tool were used to generate 6 risk profile groups to allow prioritised allocation of surgery.ResultsThere were 744 patients awaiting cataract surgery of which 66 (8.9 %) patients were ‘shielding’. One hundred and thirty-two (19.5 %) patients had no systemic comorbidities, 218 (32.1 %) patients had 1 relevant systemic comorbidity and 316 (46.5 %) patients had 2 or more comorbidities. Five hundred and ninety patients (88.7 %) did not have significant ocular comorbidities. Using the risk stratification tool, 171 (23 %) patients were allocated in the highest 3 priority stages. Given an aging cohort with associated increase in number of systemic comorbidities, the majority of patients were in the lower priority stages 4 to 6.ConclusionsCOVID-19 has created an urgent challenge to deal safely with cataract surgery waiting lists. This has driven the need for a prompt and pragmatic change to the way we assess risks and benefits of a previously regarded as low-risk intervention. This is further complicated by the majority of patients awaiting cataract surgery being elderly with comorbidities and at higher risk of mortality related to COVID-19. We present a pragmatic method of risk stratifying patients on waiting lists, blending an evidence-based objective assessment of risk and patient need combined with an element of shared decision-making. This has facilitated safe and successful restarting of our cataract service.

American Norwegian discourse marking: Convergence, detachability, pragmatic change

This paper provides a first picture of discourse marking in American Norwegian, drawing on word order data and native speaker judgments. Like many others since Salmons (1990), we see convergence between the systems of bilinguals, increasing similarities at the expense of differences. Matras (1988) and Fuller (2001) argue that more ‘pragmatically detachable’ material is more easily borrowed, like well / vel vs. you know / vet du. Our results partially align with this expectation, but with a wrinkle: less pragmatically detachable material appears to be borrowed where the two languages have similar pre-existing markers (namely vet du / you know). We find more convergence, regardless of detachability, at points of similarity than of difference (e.g. English anyhow, which has no close Norwegian parallel.) This suggests that convergence may play the bigger role here, so that less detachable forms may be more borrowable in converging systems.

Semasiological cyclicity in the evolution of discourse markers

AbstractThis study addresses the evolution of the Sicilian discourse markermentrito explore the concept of cyclicity in semantic–pragmatic change. Stemming from Latindŭm ĭntĕrim(‘while, in the meantime’), the temporal conjunction develops – like its Romance cognates – an adversative function meaning ‘whereas’, which further evolves from an oppositional to a counter-expectational contrast value meaning ‘though’. The latter serves as a bridging context for the emergence of discourse-pragmatic uses and is examined below.Mentrievolves as discourse marker: formally, it gains greater syntactic and positional independence, and it increases in scope; functionally, it displays both textual and interpersonal values. In its overall path,mentrishows a cyclical change in respect to the adversative function: oppositional contrast emerges out of the temporal meaning, it then develops into counter-expectation, and it eventually fades into the discourse-pragmatic values. The rise ofmentrias a discourse marker is thus interpreted as a case of cyclicity from a semasiological perspective.

The politeness formulasi placetin Late Latin: on the role of pragmatic conventions in discourse traditions

AbstractThis paper analyzes uses, functions, and literary distribution of the negative politeness formulasi placet‘(lit.) if it pleases (you)’ in a corpus of Late Latin texts (third–sixth century CE). Drawing on both qualitative and quantitative observations, it is suggested that the pragmatic enrichment undergone by this conditional parenthetical clause is due to a conspiracy of factors, namely a process of semantic and pragmatic change fostered by a “politeness-induced invited inference” (Beeching 2005), which was triggered by a general process of literary imitation within the very specific discourse tradition of philosophical dialogues. The analysis shows, indeed, thatsi placetis very rarely used in the history of Latin and it is circumscribed to this specific literary genre. This suggests that this politeness formula developed as a genre-specific stylistic feature and as such it was replicated over centuries through the circulation of textual models and the propagation of genre-related practices, as a valuable linguistic device to render the idea of an urbane conversation among educated peers and, ultimately, as a marker of socio-cultural identity.

Supporting practice based evidence in the COVID-19 crisis: three researcher-practitioners’ stories

ABSTRACT This paper describes three linked reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic, a mix of pragmatic change and reflection that can be seen as action research. Our case studies, stories, come from the UK, Spain and Ecuador and describe three different but overlapping actions all focused on making available or using online questionnaires and drawing on counselling, psychology and psychotherapy ideas and practices and technological solutions to help address the COVID-19 crisis and the lockdown. We believe these experiences have implications for our professions.

Applying the Theory of Gendered Organizations to the Lived Experience of Women with Established Careers in Academic Medicine

Phenomenon: The number of women who enter medical school has been on par with the number of men for almost 20 years, but parity in training has not translated to equity in professional life. To capitalize on the perspective of women faculty with established careers in academic medicine and to bring theory to the largely descriptive research on gender inequity in academic medicine, the authors used the Theory of Gendered Organizations to demonstrate how academic medical centers function as inherently gendered organizations. Approach: The authors recruited women faculty with established careers at one academic medical center based on purposeful and snowball sampling and interviewed 30 participants in Summer/Fall 2018. They coded and analyzed data inductively. In later stages of analysis they used sensitizing concepts from the Theory of Gendered Organizations to guide our focus on formal expectations of, and informal interactions in, the academic medical center. Findings: The disjuncture, i.e., “lip service”, between formal expectations intended to be gender-neutral and informal interactions that advantaged men demonstrated how the academic medical center functioned as a gendered organization. Participants experienced these interactions as being treated differently than men and/or being stereotyped. As their careers progressed, participants recognized gender inequity as embedded in the organization, or as they said, “the way things were stacked”. Subsequent to this recognition, they navigated this gendered organization by advocating for themselves and younger women faculty. Insights: Women with established careers in academic medicine experienced gender inequity as embedded in the organization but navigate gendered interactions by advocating for themselves and for younger women. Using the Theory of Gendered Organizations as an analytic lens demonstrates how academic medical centers function as gendered organizations; these findings can inform both theory-based research and pragmatic change strategies.

Poetry in Response to the “Disengagement Plan”: Identity, Poetics and Politics

This article will examine the corpus of poems written in the years 2004-2005, in response to the Israeli government’s Disengagement plan that unilaterally evacuated all Israeli communities from Gush Katif in the southern Gaza Strip. These poems are explored as a political speech act, whose purpose is to bring about an extra-linguistic outcome: to impact upon the feelings and thoughts of the addressees, as well as to influence them in relation to issues of identity and social affiliation. Indeed, these poems are part of a long and complex tradition of Hebrew political poetry, characterized not only by a response to political events but also by poets’ attempts to inspire change and shape attitudes—particularly regarding political issues that have moral implications. In this context of this tradition of political poetry, it could be assumed that the poetry written in response to the Disengagement plan would seek to participate in the extensive public protest and to bring about political change. I will argue, however, that this poetry was not political poetry, which sought to bring about an actual pragmatic change, but rather a type of political poetry that sought instead to confront and to process the implications of the anticipated political reality on an Israeli citizen’s identity and consciousness.

Regulating the Scope of Employment in the Gig Economy: Towards Enhanced Rights at Work in the Age of Uber

The growth of the gig economy sector presents challenges for employment lawyers. Firms such as Uber label their workforce as ‘independent contractors’, meaning many in the gig economy often lie outside the parameters of employment protection laws. Fortunately, recent cases show that courts are not prevented by the mere label of ‘independent contractor’ from holding those working in the gig economy as workers. However, as this paper argues, it is not satisfactory to rely solely on litigation to enhance rights at work in the gig economy. The Taylor Review 2017 suggests that updatingstatutory definitions of personal scope is needed to address the issue. Many commentators and think tanks have labelled this proposal as too pragmatic and argue that a uniform testof employment is preferable. The main thesis of this paper is that pragmatic change, building on the progress made in case law, would be more effective. This is because the retention of an intermediary category of worker, or ‘dependent contractor’, allowsfor both flexibility and enhanced rights. Nonetheless, the government has not implemented any form of legislative change, meaning that over one million people in the gig economy remain without the rights they should be entitled to. This paper concludes that legislative change is therefore greatly needed to protect gig economy workers.

Sustainable fashion: current and future research directions

PurposeThe sustainable fashion (SF) literature is fragmented across the management discipline, leaving the path to a SF future unclear. As of yet, there has not been an attempt to bring these insights together or to more generally explore the question of “what is known about SF in the management literature and where could the SF field go from there?”. The purpose of this paper is to bring together the field to identify opportunities for societal impact and further research.Design/methodology/approachA systematic literature review was conducted from the first appearances of SF in the management literature in 2000 up to papers published in June 2019, which resulted in 465 included papers.FindingsThe results illustrate that SF research is largely defined by two approaches, namely, pragmatic change and radical change. The findings reveal seven research streams that span across the discipline to explore how organisational and consumer habits can be shaped for the future.Research limitations/implicationsWhat is known about SF is constantly evolving, therefore, the paper aims to provide a representative sample of the state of SF in management literature to date.Practical implicationsThis review provides decision makers with insights that have been synthesised from across the management field.Originality/valueThis review identifies knowledge gaps and informs managerial decision making in the field, particularly through serving as a foundation for further research.

Pragmatic Mood Variation in Bilingual and Monolingual Yucatec Spanish

While linguists (e.g. Michnowicz 2009, 2012; Solomon 1996, 1999; Klee 2009) have described some of the unique features of Yucatec Spanish related to the lexicon , the phonetic system, and syntactic structure, but no work has focused on pragmatics in this variety. The current study utilizes semantic/pragmatic interviews to investigate four cases of pragmatic mood alternation: Suspended Assertion, Reportative Distance, Individualized Reference, and Reactional Assertions. The results examined suggest important differences between monolingual and bilingual speaker reaction to pragmatic triggers. The bilingual Yucatec Maya/Spanish speakers’ perception of pragmatic change in mood varies between the four groups of pragmatic effects; the bilingual speakers were sensitive to Reactional Assertions and Reportative Distance but not sensitive to changes in Suspended Assertion or Individualized Reference. This demonstrates a difference in pragmatic sensitivity to mood selection between bilingual and monolingual speakers of this contact variety. Specifically, bilingual speakers select mood that patterns with monolingual speakers when it is syntactically motivated, but their mood selection differs in areas where this selection pragmatically motivated.

On Pragmatic Change of nihao in Present-day China and Its Implication in Communicative Language Teaching

On Pragmatic Change of nihao in Present-day China and Its Implication in Communicative Language Teaching

Sustainability Leaders’ Influencing Strategies for Institutionalising Organisational Change towards Corporate Sustainability: A Strategy-as-Practice Perspective

ABSTRACTThrough deductively applying the influencing strategies component of the institutionalizing change model, the article sets out to discover what sustainability leaders do to create a readiness for and reinforcing the institutionalization of relatively large-scale organizational change towards corporate sustainability. This study used the influencing strategies component of the institutionalizing change model as a framework in order to uncover the pragmatic change practices of a group of sustainability leaders in a multi-level organization with several subsidiaries. This article argues that to realize meaningful organizational change, it is important to know the ‘pragmatic practices’ underpinning the ‘theoretical what’. The research drew on the qualitative case study method to realize this endeavour. The study found that all seven influencing strategies identified in the literature were in use and so confirmed their value for change management theory and practice. Findings also showed the unique socially situated practices underlying each influencing strategy. The study concluded that the seven influencing strategies are potentially applicable and of value to other organizations although change agents may deploy these strategies differently as is appropriate for the change agenda in their organization.

A pragmatic reversal: Italian per favore ‘please’ and its variants between politeness and impoliteness

This paper examines a range of impolite values recently developed by the Italian politeness markers per favore, per piacere, and per cortesia ‘please’ in conflictive contexts. In describing this functional development, I adopt Mazzon's (2017) definition of ‘pragmatic reversal’, i.e., a shift whereby a politeness marker is progressively used with confrontational meanings. Drawing on a corpus of online written Italian, this study analyzes the interactional contexts where politeness markers are used impolitely and suggests an explanatory path for their reversal. The corpus-based study shows that typical contexts of confrontational uses are impolite commands, prohibitions, and quotative constructions reporting a content which is harshly criticized and challenged by the writer. In the latter case, the politeness markers (usually prefaced by ma ‘but’) function as extra-clausal markers of disagreement – some also occurring as holophrastic interventions to rebut the interlocutor's argument.The idea developed in this paper is that politeness formulae are prone to pragmatic bleaching precisely in view of their routinization as ‘politic’, conventional, and neutral forms. Once partially bleached, they start acquiring new values within the realm of modulation, even – and this is the interesting fact – in the ‘opposite’ direction, as insistent reinforcement of impolite acts such as urgent pleas, rude requests, rebuttals, and even insults. This pathway of impoliteness-driven pragmatic change has also been documented for some English markers such as please, sorry and I'm afraid, which suggests the emergence of a recurrent pattern of pragmatic reversal involving equifunctional forms in different languages.

Most borrowable construction ever! A large-scale approach to contact-induced pragmatic change

The construction Beste boek ooit (‘Best book ever!’) comes in different forms in Dutch. Variation is not only attested in the absence or presence of determiners and postmodifiers, but also in code choice: English, Dutch and hybrid (Beste boek ever!) variants occur.This article investigates differentiation between instances with ooit and instances with ever. To ensure sufficient signal, we adopt a bird's eye perspective, analyzing over 100,000 observations from a Twitter corpus from the Low Countries (period 2011–2016). Our results reveal that (1) the two constructional variants increase in frequency in the time period under study, (2) this increase is more pronounced for the ooit-variant; (3) the ever-variant undergoes specialization towards a pragmatically marked form.Overall, our account complements anglicism research (Andersen 2014) in four ways. First, we foreground constructional borrowing instead of single-word borrowing. Second, in working with Twitter data, we break with the tradition of print media corpora. Third, we explore NLP based methods for large datasets sampled from big data collections in a field of research that has mainly relied on manual coding of small-scale datasets. Finally, we illustrate how matter and pattern replication can go hand in hand in contact-induced change.