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‘Can’ and ‘must’-type modal verbs in the direct sanctioning of misconduct across European languages
(2023)
Deontic meanings of obligation and permissibility have mostly been studied in relation to modal verbs, even though researchers are aware that such meanings can be conveyed in other ways (consider, for example, the contributions to Nuyts/van der Auwera (eds.) 2016). This presentation reports on an ongoing project that examines deontic meaning but takes as its starting point not a type of linguistic structure but a particular kind of social moment that presumably attracts deontic talk: The management of potentially ‚unacceptable‘ or untoward actions (taking the last bread roll at breakfast, making a disallowed move during a board game, etc.). Data come from a multi-language parallel video corpus of everyday social interaction in English, German, Italian, and Polish. Here, we focus on moments in which one person sanctions another’s behavior as unacceptable. Using interactional-linguistic methods (Couper-Kuhlen/Selting 2018), we examine similarities and differences across these four languages in the use of modal verbs as part of such sanctioning attempts. First results suggest that modal verbs are not as common in the sanctioning of misconduct as one might expect. Across the four languages, only between 10%–20% of relevant sequences involve a modal verb. Most of the time, in this context, speakers achieve deontic meaning in other ways (e.g., infinitives such as German nicht so schmatzen, ‚no smacking‘). This raises the question what exactly modal verbs, on those relatively rare occasions when they are used, contribute to the accomplishment of deontic meaning. The reported study pursues this question in two ways: 1) By considering similarities across languages in the ways that modal verbs interact with other (verbal) means in the sanctioning of misconduct.; 2) By considering differences across languages in the use of modal verbs. Here, we find that the relevant modal verbs are used similarly in some activity contexts (enforcing rules during board games), but less so in other activity contexts (mundane situations with no codified rules). In sum, the presented study adds to cross-linguistically grounded knowledge about deontic meaning and its relationships to linguistics structures.
The article discusses the possibilities and challenges of combining conversation analysis and ethnography in the study of everyday family life. We argue that such a combination requires the decision whether to prioritise interaction data or ethno-graphic (in particular, interview) data in the analysis. We present a conversation analytic case study of how household work is commonly brought up in the interactions of one couple and bring this to bear on a re-analysis of a possible conflict situation originally described in the ethnographic analysis by Klein, Izquierdo, and Bradbury (2007), published in this journal. While the findings of the two analyses converge, they inform us about different dimensions of couple interaction. The ethnographic analysis is focused on participants’ experiences, and the conversation analysis is focused on participants’ practices. We conclude that the methodological decision to prioritise interaction or interview data has consequences for the kind of questions we can ask.
It is widely assumed that there is a natural, prelinguistic conceptual domain of time whose linguistic organization is universally structured via metaphoric mapping from the lexicon and grammar of space and motion. We challenge this assumption on the basis of our research on the Amondawa (Tupi Kawahib) language and culture of Amazonia. Using both observational data and structured field linguistic tasks, we show that linguistic space-time mapping at the constructional level is not a feature of the Amondawa language, and is not employed by Amondawa speakers (when speaking Amondawa). Amondawa does not recruit its extensive inventory of terms and constructions for spatial motion and location to express temporal relations. Amondawa also lacks a numerically based calendric system. To account for these data, and in opposition to a Universal Space-Time Mapping Hypothesis, we propose a Mediated Mapping Hypothesis, which accords causal importance to the numerical and artefact-based construction of time-based (as opposed to event-based) time interval systems.
When time is not space
(2011)
It is widely assumed that there is a natural, prelinguistic conceptual domain of time whose linguistic organization is universally structured via metaphoric mapping from the lexicon and grammar of space and motion. We challenge this assumption on the basis of our research on the Amondawa (Tupi Kawahib)language and culture of Amazonia. Using both observational data and structured field linguistic tasks, we show that linguistic space-time mapping at theconstructional level is not a feature of the Amondawa language, and is not employed by Amondawa speakers (when speaking Amondawa). Amondawa does not recruit its extensive inventory of terms and constructions for spatial motion and location to express temporal relations. Amondawa also lacks a numerically based calendric system. To account for these data, and in opposition to a Universal Space-Time Mapping Hypothesis, we propose a Mediated Mapping Hypothesis, which accords causal importance to the numerical and artefact-based construction of time-based (as opposed to event-based) time interval systems.
Gratitude is argued to have evolved to motivate and maintain social reciprocity among people, and to be linked to a wide range of positive effects—social, psychological and even physical. But is socially reciprocal behaviour dependent on the expression of gratitude, for example by saying ‘thank you’ as in English? Current research has not included cross-cultural elements, and has tended to conflate gratitude as an emotion with gratitude as a linguistic practice, as might appear to be the case in English. Here, we ask to what extent people express gratitude in different societies by focusing on episodes of everyday life where someone seeks and obtains a good, service or support from another, comparing these episodes across eight languages from five continents. We find that expressions of gratitude in these episodes are remarkably rare, suggesting that social reciprocity in everyday life relies on tacit understandings of rights and duties surrounding mutual assistance and collaboration. At the same time, we also find minor cross-cultural variation, with slightly higher rates in Western European languages English and Italian, showing that universal tendencies of social reciprocity should not be equated with more culturally variable practices of expressing gratitude. Our study complements previous experimental and culture-specific research on gratitude with a systematic comparison of audiovisual corpora of naturally occurring social interaction from different cultures from around the world.
Drawing on research from conversation analysis and developmental psychology, we point to the existence of “supporters” of morally responsible agency in everyday interaction: causes of our behavior that we are often unaware of, but that would make goodenough reasons for our actions, were we made aware of them.
‘Linguistic relativity’ has become a major keyword in debates on the psychological significance of language diversity. In this context, the term ‘relativity’ was originally taken on loan from Einstein’s then-recent theories by Edward Sapir (1924) and Benjamin L. Whorf (1940). The present paper assesses how far the idea of linguistic relativity does analogically build on relevant insights in modern physics, and fails to find any substantial analogies. The term was used rhetorically by Sapir and Whorf, and has since been incorporated into a cognitivist research programme that seeks to answer whether ‘language influences thought’. Contemporary research on ‘linguistic relativity’ has developed into a distinct way of studying language diversity, which shares a lot with the universalistic cognitivist framework it opposes, but little with relational approaches in science.
In diesem Artikel werden Ähnlichkeiten und Unterschiede in der anfänglichen Schematisierung der Stammzellenforschung im öffentlichen Diskurs Polens und Frankreichs untersucht. Zwei Zeitungskorpora (Le Monde und Gazeta Wyborcza) aus den Jahren 1998-2000 wurden im Hinblick auf die Frage analysiert, inwiefern beide Zeitungen ähnliche oder kulturspezifische Metaphernnetzwerke in der Bildung von ‚Stammzellrealitäten’ aufbauen. Der Artikel basiert auf der Annahme, dass Metaphern im Diskurs eine wichtige Funktion bei der Bildung interpretativer Bezugssysteme für die Diskussion sozialer und philosophischer Implikationen der Stammzelltechnologie zukommt. Der Ausgangspunkt bestand in der Überlegung, dass sich die beiden wichtigsten Zeitungen der beiden Länder in der anfänglichen Schematisierung der Stammzellenforschung unterscheiden würden (besonders bezüglich kultureller und religiöser Werte in den jeweiligen öffentlichen Debatten). Im Verlauf der Untersuchung stellte sich jedoch heraus, dass beide Zeitungen sehr ähnliche Metaphern in der Berichterstattung zur Stammzellenforschung gebrauchen. Kulturelle Unterschiede in der Interpretation von Stammzellenforschung existieren möglicherweise eher auf der Ebene ideologischer Gruppen als auf der nationaler Kulturen.
This article makes an empirical and a methodological contribution to the comparative study of action. The empirical contribution is a comparative study of three distinct types of action regularly accomplished with the turn format du meinst x (“you mean/think x”) in German: candidate understandings, formulations of the other’s mind, and requests for a judgment. These empirical materials are the basis for a methodological exploration of different levels of researcher abstraction in the comparative study of action. Two levels are examined: the (coarser) level of conditionally relevant responses (what a response speaker must do to align with the action of the prior turn) and the (finer) level of “full alignment” (what a response speaker can do to align with the action of a prior turn). Both levels of abstraction provide empirically viable and analytically interesting descriptive concepts for the comparative study of action. Data are in German.
This article makes an empirical and a methodological contribution to the comparative study of action. The empirical contribution is a comparative study of three distinct types of action regularly accomplished with the turn format du meinst x (“you mean/think x”) in German: candidate understandings, formulations of the other’s mind, and requests for a judgment. These empirical materials are the basis for a methodological exploration of different levels of researcher abstraction in the comparative study of action. Two levels are examined: the (coarser) level of conditionally relevant responses (what a response speaker must do to align with the action of the prior turn) and the (finer) level of “full alignment” (what a response speaker can do to align with the action of a prior turn). Both levels of abstraction provide empirically viable and analytically interesting descriptive concepts for the comparative study of action. Data are in German.
Temporal frames of reference
(2010)
Social agency and grammar
(2017)