Pragmatics and Conversation

A mitigating or veiling expression for something whose direct name is felt to be harsh, embarrassing or undesirable.

Presupposition accommodation provisionally incorporates a previously unshared presupposition into the interpretive background. Sociolinguistic adjustment of speech style or variety is a different use of the same name.

Group- or milieu-specific vocabulary that marks social belonging and may exclude outsiders.

A subtle change in stance, expectation or relationship without replacing the proposition itself.

Information, assumptions, and commitments treated as mutually available within an interaction.

A guiding principle from which conversation participants derive expectations regarding informative, truthful, relevant, and clear contributions.

An interactive process for addressing problems with speaking, listening, or comprehension.

A shift of the deictic centre into another place, time or person.

Reference whose interpretation depends on speaker, place, time, or discourse position.

Deictic reference to parts, transitions or locations within the unfolding discourse.

A deliberately disparaging, harsh or offensive designation of a subject or person.

The momentary orientation and role position from which a speaker produces or frames an utterance.

Meaning conveyed by an utterance without being explicitly stated.

The system of mostly implicit rules, roles, and expectations that organises encounters among co-present participants.

The property of communicative acts whereby their performance cannot be made completely undone.

The opportune moment and fitting measure of an utterance, discerned from situation, audience, place, and possibility for action.

A Japanese expression denoting the desire to have something in one’s mouth or to eat, where physical hunger is not the primary motivator.

A social process in which persons or actions are assigned to a category through repeated attribution.

The cognitive or computational processing of linguistic signals in recognising, analysing, understanding, or producing language.

A divergence between the meaning intended or suggested by an utterance and the interpretation actually reached.

The use and organisation of language in vocal, time-bound, and often interactive performance.

Frank truth-telling undertaken at personal risk in addressing a more powerful counterpart.

The actual effect a statement has on the feelings, thoughts, or actions of others.

Communication whose primary function is to establish or maintain social contact.

Audience-oriented, comprehensible standard language with reduced complexity, without the fixed rule system of Easy Language.

Background information treated as already given by an utterance.

An immediate, often pointed response to a preceding utterance or challenge.

An interrogative form that does not seek an ordinary informational answer but instead performs an assertion, expresses a stance or makes an appeal.

A sharp, often ironic utterance that mocks or wounds its target.

A meaningful absence of speech whose force emerges from timing, expectation, and relation.

An action performed in speaking, such as promising, requesting, naming, warning, or declaring.

Coordination of speaker changes in interaction.

A deliberately restrained formulation that presents a larger reality as smaller.

The susceptibility of persons or groups to harm through linguistic exposure, devaluation, dependence, or unequal agency.

The design of language and media so that as many people as possible can perceive and use them.

Two conversational contributions that are functionally related to one another, the first of which makes a suitable second contribution expected.

Institutionally shaped language used to regulate, document, and conduct administrative procedures.

A bodily and socially effective movement of feeling that colours perception and expression.

The narrow focus selected from German Sprachregelung concerns agreed or required labels and formulations for recurring communication within a group or institution. Analysis asks who sets them, how binding they are and which distinctions they preserve or suppress. The historical source uses the term more broadly as well.

A group-specific language formed against a dominant linguistic order, protecting belonging and renaming reality.

An utterance intended to move addressees towards an attitude or action.

A strategy of not directly using a form, topic, conflict, or designation.

In the narrower German category used here, Ammensprache refers to adult speech to children employing imitated childlike forms or forms regarded as child-appropriate.

An institutionally condensed style using standardised, nominal, and procedure-oriented forms.

Use of elements from more than one language within an utterance or closely connected stretch of talk.

Everyday informal language forms between the standard language, dialect, and group-specific usage.

Tightly regulated language used to coordinate action immediately in hierarchical or time-critical situations.

The degree to which an utterance is accessible and intelligible to its addressees.