Pragmatic Domain Research Articles

The Acceptability of Euphemisms Translation Done by Yemeni Undergraduates

This study aimed at exploring the challenges that Yemeni undergraduates face through a tailor-made scale of acceptability of euphemisms. Besides, reasons behind these challenges, and suggested solutions were given rise in this study as well. The descriptive approach was followed to achieve the objectives of this study. Translation undergraduates were, randomly, chosen from SU and UST to be the sample of the study during the first semester of the academic year 2018/2019. To collect the required data, the researchers designed a translation test and administered a questionnaire. The study results revealed that translation undergraduates encountered real challenges when translating euphemistic expressions. These challenges were mostly related to the cultural and pragmatic domains. The respondents believed that there were resolvable reasons behind euphemism translation difficulties such as the lack enough syllabus materials and training. The study recommended that undergraduates, instructors and academic institutions have to pay more attention to euphemisms while teaching translation courses especially English euphemisms.

Supplemental Material for Children’s Use of Majority Information Is Influenced by Pragmatic Inferences and Task Domain

Supplemental Material for Children’s Use of Majority Information Is Influenced by Pragmatic Inferences and Task Domain

Content Equivalence Analysis of Health News Translation: A Bakerian Approach

The primary purpose of the present paper is to investigate content equivalence in the English to Persian translation of General Health News based on Baker's model. A descriptive qualitative study was designed and 10 texts from English and Farsi versions of Iran Newspaper were randomly selected. To assess the translation quality of the selected texts, the researcher compared the original and translated texts at word, phrase and sentence level and tabulated the obtained data and estimated the frequency and percentage of translation inadequacies. The results revealed that most errors in the English translations were rooted in the textual domain where the translators have misunderstood the general concept of the source context. This was followed by semantic errors. The third place was given to the errors in the pragmatic domain which mainly addressed the purpose and meaning of the concepts presented in the source language. The least frequently occurred errors were related to grammatical errors which mainly covered prepositions and tenses. Research on content equivalence, in general, can help experts assess the quality of the translated text. Research on content equivalence of particular texts can lead to detecting translation problems, translation errors and translation inadequacies in that particular field.

Rethinking the Neural Basis of Prosody and Non-literal Language: Spared Pragmatics and Cognitive Compensation in a Bilingual With Extensive Right-Hemisphere Damage.

Above and beyond the critical contributions of left perisylvian regions to language, the neural networks supporting pragmatic aspects of verbal communication in native and non-native languages (L1s and L2, respectively) have often been ascribed to the right hemisphere (RH). However, several reports have shown that left-hemisphere activity associated with pragmatic domains (e.g., prosody, indirect speech, figurative language) is comparable to or even greater than that observed in the RH, challenging the proposed putative role of the latter for relevant domains. Against this background, we report on an adult bilingual patient showing preservation of pragmatic verbal skills in both languages (L1: Spanish, L2: English) despite bilateral damage mainly focused on the RH. After two strokes, the patient sustained lesions in several regions previously implicated in pragmatic functions (vast portions of the right fronto-insulo-temporal cortices, the bilateral amygdalae and insular cortices, and the left putamen). Yet, comparison of linguistic and pragmatic skills with matched controls revealed spared performance on multiple relevant tasks in both her L1 and L2. Despite mild difficulties in some aspects of L2 prosody, she showed no deficits in comprehending metaphors and idioms, or understanding indirect speech acts in either language. Basic verbal skills were also preserved in both languages, including verbal auditory discrimination, repetition of words and pseudo-words, cognate processing, grammaticality judgments, equivalent recognition, and word and sentence translation. Taken together, the evidence shows that multiple functions of verbal communication can be widely spared despite extensive damage to the RH, and that claims for a putative relation between pragmatics and the RH may have been overemphasized in the monolingual and bilingual literature. We further discuss the case in light of previous reports of pragmatic and linguistic deficits following brain lesions and address its relation to cognitive compensation in bilingual patients.

Request Strategies in Indonesian: An Analysis of Politeness Phenomena in Text Messages

A lot of linguists have paid a lot of attention to the phenomena of politenesssome said it should be in the area of Sociolinguistics, while others believe that it belongs to the domain of Pragmatics. The present study focuses on politeness phenomena as a part of Pragmatic domain as it aims to see how language, especially Indonesian, is used to realize politeness in text messages between people who would like to request a favor, thing, or information. It is believed that speakers use different strategies to achieve their goals when talking to different people. The study utilizes Browns and Levinsons theory on politeness strategies to examine the strategies used by the speaker when communicating with hearer of different power and distance relations. Along with the theory, this study also employs request strategies that are derived from Searles speech act classifications. The result shows that in terms of strategies, people have the tendency to use negative politeness strategies in communicating with other people that have more power than them, while a mix between negative and positive strategies are used mostly to those they consider peer or lower in power.Keywords: politeness strategies, request strategies, speech acts, pragmatics

REQUEST STRATEGIES IN INDONESIAN: AN ANALYSIS OF POLITENESS PHENOMENA IN TEXT MESSAGES

A lot of linguists have paid a lot of attention to the phenomena of politenesssome said it should be in the area of Sociolinguistics, while others believe that it belongs to the domain of Pragmatics. The present study focuses on politeness phenomena as a part of Pragmatic domain as it aims to see how language, especially Indonesian, is used to realize politeness in text messages between people who would like to request a favor, thing, or information. It is believed that speakers use different strategies to achieve their goals when talking to different people. The study utilizes Browns and Levinsons theory on politeness strategies to examine the strategies used by the speaker when communicating with hearer of different power and distance relations. Along with the theory, this study also employs request strategies that are derived from Searles speech act classifications. The result shows that in terms of strategies, people have the tendency to use negative politeness strategies in communicating with other people that have more power than them, while a mix between negative and positive strategies are used mostly to those they consider peer or lower in power.Keywords: politeness strategies, request strategies, speech acts, pragmatics

The Understanding of Scalar Implicatures in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Dichotomized Responses to Violations of Informativeness.

This study investigated the understanding of underinformative sentences like “Some elephants have trunks” by children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The scalar term ‘some’ can be interpreted pragmatically, ‘Not all elephants have trunks,’ or logically, ‘Some and possibly all elephants have trunks.’ Literature indicates that adults with ASD show no real difficulty in interpreting scalar implicatures, i.e., they often interpret them pragmatically, as controls do. This contrasts with the traditional claim of difficulties of people with ASD in other pragmatic domains, and is more in line with the idea that pragmatic problems are not universal. The aim of this study was to: (a) gain insight in the ability of children with ASD to derive scalar implicatures, and (b) do this by assessing not only sensitivity to underinformativeness, but also different degrees of tolerance to violations of informativeness. We employed a classic statement-evaluation task, presenting optimal, logical false, and underinformative utterances. In Experiment 1, children had to express their judgment on a binary option ‘I agree’ vs. ‘I disagree.’ In Experiment 2, a ternary middle answer option ‘I agree a bit’ was also available. Sixty-six Flemish-speaking 10-year-old children were tested: 22 children with ASD, an IQ-matched group, and an age-matched group. In the binary judgment task, the ASD group gave more pragmatic answers than the other groups, which was significant in the mixed effects logistic regression analysis, although not in the non-parametric analysis. In the ternary judgment task, the children with ASD showed a dichotomized attitude toward the speaker’s meaning, by tending to either fully agree or fully disagree with underinformative statements, in contrast with TD children, who preferred the middle option. Remarkably, the IQ-matched group exhibited the same pattern of results as the ASD group. Thanks to a fine-grained measure such as the ternary judgment task, this study highlighted a neglected aspect of the pragmatic profile of ASD, whose struggle with social communication seems to affect also the domain of informativeness. We discuss the implications of the dichotomized reaction toward violations of informativeness in terms of the potential role of ASD and of cognitive and verbal abilities.

Comprehension of novel metaphor in young children with Developmental Language Disorder

Background and aims Difficulties with aspects of morphosyntax, phonology and/or vocabulary are the hallmark of Development Language Disorder (DLD). Yet, little is known about the linguistic-pragmatic abilities of young children with DLD. Previous studies suggest that children with DLD are experiencing difficulties with idioms, sayings and slang expressions, often interpreting them in a literal or unconventional fashion. However, it is unclear whether this is caused by difficulties to make pragmatic inferences in general or whether it stems from their semantic abilities. We therefore investigated novel metaphor understanding in young children with and without DLD. Methods We assessed novel metaphor comprehension using a reference assignment task with 15 children with DLD diagnoses (ages 42–49 months) as well as typically developing peers matched on chronological age (n = 15) and on language (n = 15). Results Children with DLD performed worse than their age-matched peers but in a comparable manner to the (younger) language-matched typically developing children. Performance was not related to non-verbal intelligence in the children with DLD. Conclusion The findings indicate that young children with DLD have difficulties with metaphor comprehension but also suggest that these difficulties are in line with their general language difficulties and linked to their overall linguistic competence rather than reflecting additional specific issues with deriving pragmatic inferences. Implications Our study adds to a growing body of literature showing that children with low language abilities are also likely to display more difficulties in understanding figurative language independently of any other symptomatology of their clinical diagnosis. It also supports the argument that deficits in the pragmatic domain are a secondary impairment rather than a core deficit in children with DLD. Nonetheless, children with DLD do show difficulties in understanding metaphors. Understanding figurative language is necessary for everyday communication and should therefore be targeted alongside traditional treatments by clinicians treating children with DLD.

Functional Significance of Contextual Distribution: Discourse Particle ar in Bangla

This paper deals with Bangla indeclinable ar to explore its role in conversational discourse. In doing so, the paper provides a detail study about ar in the Bangla language. This, in turn, helps to conceptualize how the occurrences of ar motivate a conversation in a pragmatic domain, in particular. More specifically, multiple interpretations of ar pose a particular challenge to semantics and pragmatics, which can be taken care of through the incorporation of phonological context. Phonological context contains information about speaker’s intention and speaker’s approach to their utterance. The paper discusses several criteria, namely the traditional and polysemous nature, intonational pattern, evidentiality etc., which are crucial in determining its role in structuring a conversation.

Children’s Oncology Group (COG) clinical trials as exemplars of pragmatism in clinical research.

e18188 Background: In 2016, President Obama announced the “Moonshot Cancer Initiative” to advance cancer research. One of the key components of this initiative is promoting enrollment in pragmatic clinical trials and data sharing. As described in 2009 by Thorpe et al, using the 9-domian PRECIS-2 tool, a ‘pragmatic’ trial, as opposed to an ‘explanatory’ trial used to confirm a physiologic hypothesis, is one in which the intervention can be immediately applied into real-world clinical practice (J of Clin Epi:2009). In the US, 60%-90% children are enrolled on COG research trials. State-of-the-art treatment for a child is derived from superior therapy identified in prior trials which then serves as the standard arm of subsequent phase-III trials and becomes the de facto practice guideline and ‘standard of care’ .To accomplish this goal, COG shares its data among the 242 member institutions.Our objective is to assess “pragmatism” in COG trials. Methods: We analyzed the 158 COG phase III clinical trials between 2006-2016 for all 9 domains of the PRECIS-2 (Table 1) and graded them from 1-5 (most explanatory to most pragmatic). Results: Out of 152 phase III clinical trials on the COG website, 138 (91%) scored 5/5 for all 9 PRECIS pragmatic domains and 148 (98%) scored >4. The scoring for all 9 domains is in table 1. Conclusions: COG provides nearly all children in the United States access to pragmatic phase III research as outlined in the Moonshot Goals. Goal of merging evidence-based standard care accessible to all and conducting well- designed clinical research to identify the best therapies has been accomplished by COG and should serve as an example to other cancer organizations. 9 domains of PRECIS-2 to assess pragmatism in clinical trials. [Table: see text]

Use of PRECIS ratings in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Health Care Systems Research Collaboratory.

BackgroundThe National Institutes of Health (NIH) Health Care Systems Research Collaboratory (NIH Collaboratory) seeks to produce generalizable knowledge about the conduct of pragmatic research in health systems. This analysis applied the PRECIS-2 pragmatic trial criteria to five NIH Collaboratory pragmatic trials to better understand 1) the pragmatic aspects of the design and implementation of treatments delivered in real world settings and 2) the usability of the PRECIS-2 criteria for assessing pragmatic features across studies and across time.Methods/DesignUsing the PRECIS-2 criteria, five pragmatic trials were each rated by eight raters. For each trial, we reviewed the original grant application and a required progress report written at the end of a 1-year planning period that included changes to the protocol or implementation approach. We calculated median scores and interrater reliability for each PRECIS domain and for the overall trial at both time points, as well as the differences in scores between the two time points. We also reviewed the rater comments associated with the scores.ResultsAll five trials were rated to be more pragmatic than explanatory, with comments indicating that raters generally perceived them to closely mirror routine clinical care across multiple domains. The PRECIS-2 domains for which the trials were, on average, rated as most pragmatic on the 1 to 5 scale at the conclusion of the planning period included primary analysis (mean = 4.7 (range = 4.5 to 4.9)), recruitment (4.3 (3.6 to 4.8)), eligibility (4.1 (3.4 to 4.8)), setting (4.1 (4.0 to 4.4)), follow-up (4.1 (3.4 to 4.9)), and primary outcome (4.1 (3.5 to 4.9)). On average, the less pragmatic domains were organization (3.3 (2.6 to 4.4)), flexibility of intervention delivery (3.5 (2.1-4.5)), and flexibility of intervention adherence (3.8 (2.8-4.5)). Interrater agreement was modest but statistically significant for four trials (Gwet’s AC1 statistic range 0.23 to 0.40) and the intraclass correlation coefficient ranged from 0.05 to 0.31. Rating challenges included assigning a single score for domains that may relate to both patients and care settings (that is, eligibility or recruitment) and determining to what extent aspects of complex research interventions differ from usual care.ConclusionsThese five trials in diverse healthcare settings were rated as highly pragmatic using the PRECIS-2 criteria. Applying the tool generated insightful discussion about real-world design decisions but also highlighted challenges using the tool. PRECIS-2 raters would benefit from additional guidance about how to rate the interwoven patient and practice-level considerations that arise in pragmatic trials.Trial registrationsClinicaltrials.gov trial registrations: NCT02019225, NCT01742065, NCT02015455, NCT02113592, NCT02063867.

Metaphors and Translation Prisms

Metaphors, along with similes, are often viewed as translation problems. Many prescriptive guidelines for how to treat them have been proposed, but there is a paucity of descriptive analysis on the nature of the transformation of metaphors, especially between languages that are linguistically and culturally distinct, for example, between English and Asian languages. Furthermore, the study of multiple translations within one language is even more limited. The present paper descriptively analyzes multiple English translations of the same Japanese literary text published in the past century. It shows that: i) a metaphor's life can be ceased or revived; ii) a metaphor's strength, markedness, linguistic state, pragmatic domain, and sociocultural base may change; iii) explicit metaphors and implicit metaphors interact; iv) a metaphor may be deleted or newly created, through translation. These findings empirically show that metaphors are open expressions with some room to be filled, left open, eliminated, or altered through translation, and thus they can serve as venues for varied translation approaches.

Evidentiality in interaction

This paper examines how hearsay evidential markers in Korean are used within the pragmatic domain to serve a wide range of epistemic and politeness functions. In particular, we focus on a new paradigm of hearsay evidential markers — more specifically, the V-ta ha-X > V-ta-X type, among them-tako,-tamye,-tamyense,-tanun, and-tanta(see Ahn & Yap 2014) — and using data from theSejongContemporary Spoken Corpus, we examine the extended uses of these hearsay evidential markers in natural conversations, and show how these ‘say’-derived evidential markers contribute to the expression of different shades of speaker stance. Special attention is also given to their distinctive roles in modulating the strength — as well as pragmatic nuance — of an epistemic claim. This study also examines the role of main-clause ellipsis, in particular its contribution to the reanalysis of the (quoted) complement clause as a stand-alone ‘new main clause’, and the concomitant reinterpretation of the erstwhileha‘say’ complement-taking matrix clause as a sentence final particle that often retains an evidential reading but also captures the pragmatic nuance of its discourse context. The findings of this study contribute to a fuller understanding of how ‘say’-derived evidential constructions in Korean (and potentially also in other languages) extend their semantic scope to develop into markers of speakers’ subjective and intersubjective/interpersonal stance.

Assessing pragmatic language in autism spectrum disorder: the Yale in vivo Pragmatic Protocol.

This study compared pragmatic language in youths (9-17 years) with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and those with typical development (TD) on the Yale in vivo Pragmatic Protocol (YiPP), a semistructured, dynamic conversational assessment. Participants (n = 118) were divided into groups based on age and diagnosis. Each completed the YiPP, which included 4 pragmatic domains (discourse management, communicative functions, conversational repair, presupposition). The participant's response to each probe was scored correct or incorrect; incorrect scores elicited cues from the examiner, and level of cue required for a correction was also scored. The YiPP showed high reliability and internal consistency, with moderate concurrent validity, sensitivity, and specificity. The group with ASD performed worse overall on YiPP probes compared to their TD counterparts on both error (d = 0.96) and cue (d = 0.91) scores. Item analyses revealed greater gaps between older students with ASD and their TD peers than between the 2 younger groups. These data suggest that a probe measure designed to assess pragmatic abilities in children with ASD within a conversational context has some validity for contributing to diagnostic classification and can identify specific areas of pragmatic vulnerabilities as part of a clinical assessment.

Translation and validation of the Children's Communication Checklist to evaluate pragmatic language impairment in Thai children

The Children's Communication Checklist (CCC) was developed to provide an assessment of domains of language impairment in children, particularly the pragmatic domain. This study examined the effectiveness of the CCC-Thai version in discriminating children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) from typically developing children. The parents of two groups of 50 children aged 4-6 years, one with clinically ascertained ASD, and one with typical development, completed the CCC-Thai version. The mean pragmatic composite score was significantly lower in the ASD group (124.6) than in the typical development group (142). The optimal receiver operating characteristic curve cut-off score was found to be identical to the original English version (132). Corresponding sensitivity and specificity were 94% and 86%, respectively. The positive predictive value and the negative predictive value were 87% and 93%, respectively. The corresponding area under the curve was 0.95 (95% confidence interval: 0.91-0.99). The CCC-Thai version is a promising instrument to assess pragmatic language impairment in Thai children.

Brief Report: Do the Nature of Communication Impairments in Autism Spectrum Disorders Relate to the Broader Autism Phenotype in Parents?

Extensive empirical evidence indicates that the lesser variant of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) involves a communication impairment that is similar to, but milder than, the deficit in clinical ASD. This research explored the relationship between the broader autism phenotype (BAP) among parents, an index of genetic liability for ASD, and proband communication difficulties. ASD probands with at least one BAP parent (identified using the Autism Spectrum Quotient) had greater structural and pragmatic language difficulties (assessed using the Children's Communication Checklist-2) than ASD probands with no BAP parent. This finding provides support for the position that genetic liability for ASD is associated with increased communication difficulties across structural and pragmatic domains.

Subject pronoun use by children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD)

In the current study, storytelling and story retelling by children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were analyzed to explore ambiguous third-person pronoun use in narratives. Twenty-three children diagnosed with ASD aged 6;1 to 14;3 and 17 typically-developing (TD) children aged 5;11 to 14;4 participated in the study. In the retelling task, no significant difference between the groups was found, suggesting that in less challenging tasks, children with ASD produce third-person subject pronouns appropriately. In the storytelling task, children with ASD produced more ambiguous third-person subject pronouns than did the TD children. The findings suggest a model in which children with ASD show deficits in the pragmatic domain of producing narratives.

Systems Engineering for Advanced Manufacturing: Unit Op Insights from Model‐Based Methods

AbstractInnovative manufacturers, pursuing competitive advantage, increasingly push the envelope of production system complexity. Advanced manufacturing applies materials science, chemistry, thermodynamics, biology, information technologies, and engineering disciplines. Historically a pragmatic domain respecting intuition, experience, and judgment, manufacturing increasingly demands scientifically‐based mastery of the systemic properties of interacting processes, materials, and products. Stable and predictable performance is expected across technology transfers and changes in recipes. Customers, owners, and regulators press traditional process engineering and specialized disciplines to integrate more deeply, producing “Quality by Design” outcomes, faster, at lower costs.This paper describes a novel model‐based method focused on unit manufacturing operations and their integration into production cells, lines, and facilities. Modeling what occurs during transformations, these science‐based descriptions move beyond Process Flow Diagram (PFDs) to represent, independent of equipment design, interdependencies of materials, processes, equipment, and control strategies—automated or human. This approach has improved integrating insight across diverse manufacturing processes.

Using English as a lingua franca for (mis-)managing conflict in an international university context: An example from a course in engineering

This paper focuses on problems of learning and teaching via English as a lingua franca at a German university. An analysis of audio data from a course in engineering will give evidence of how university courses may be severely affected by intercultural and linguistic problems. It will be argued that – although participants from a variety of cultural backgrounds may be reasonably effective in communicating about subject matter in English – problems will arise when a larger variety of communicative functions is involved in instructional discourse, for example negotiating forms of cooperation and resolving conflicts. It is hypothesized that this situation may be detrimental for the implementation of innovative and learner-centered types of teaching arrangements in the international university. Against this background, suggestions will be made for reducing such problems by utilizing adequate training materials for university teachers and students who need to operate in ELF settings. These materials include activities for raising awareness of culture-related differences in the perception of teachers’ and learners’ roles in a university context, as well as a dictionary of phrases, which is organized in pragmatic categories and offers support for realizing relevant communicative functions in university teaching contexts. The paper also addresses some methodological issues, such as the need for interrelated sets of empirical data and problems of identifying ELF characteristics and specifics of intercultural communication in the pragmatic domain.

The Extension of Dependency Beyond the Sentence

This article examines several grammatical developments that have received relatively little attention, but that may be more pervasive than previously recognized. They involve the functional extension of markers of grammatical dependency from sentence-level syntax into larger discourse and pragmatic domains. Such developments are first illustrated with material from Navajo and Central Alaskan Yup'ik, then surveyed more briefly in several other unrelated languages. In some cases, secondary effects of such changes can reshape basic clause structure. An awareness of these processes can accordingly aid in understandingcertain recurringbut hitherto unexplained arrays of basic morphological and syntactic patterns, exemplified here with cases of homophonous grammatical markers and of ergative/accusative splits. Like developments described by Gildea (1997, 1998) and Evans (2007), they involve the use of dependent clauses as independent sentences, but the processes described here differ from those in both the mechanisms at work and their results.