In linguistics and related fields, pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the interpreted. Linguists who specialize in pragmatics are called pragmaticians. The field has been represented since 1986 by the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA).
Politeness is the practical application of good manners or etiquette so as not to offend others and to put them at ease. It is a culturally defined phenomenon, and therefore what is considered polite in one culture can sometimes be quite rude or simply eccentric in another cultural context.
Rapport is a close and harmonious relationship in which the people or groups concerned are "in sync" with each other, understand each other's feelings or ideas, and communicate smoothly.
Conversation analysis (CA) is an approach to the study of social interaction that investigates the methods members use to achieve mutual understanding through the transcription of naturally occurring conversations from audio or video. It focuses on both verbal and non-verbal conduct, especially in situations of everyday life. CA originated as a sociological method, but has since spread to other fields. CA began with a focus on casual conversation, but its methods were subsequently adapted to embrace more task- and institution-centered interactions, such as those occurring in doctors' offices, courts, law enforcement, helplines, educational settings, and the mass media, and focus on multimodal and nonverbal activity in interaction, including gaze, body movement and gesture. As a consequence, the term conversation analysis has become something of a misnomer, but it has continued as a term for a distinctive and successful approach to the analysis of interactions. CA and ethnomethodology are sometimes considered one field and referred to as EMCA.
Intercultural communication is a discipline that studies communication across different cultures and social groups, or how culture affects communication. It describes the wide range of communication processes and problems that naturally appear within an organization or social context made up of individuals from different religious, social, ethnic, and educational backgrounds. In this sense, it seeks to understand how people from different countries and cultures act, communicate, and perceive the world around them. Intercultural communication focuses on the recognition and respect of those with cultural differences. The goal is mutual adaptation between two or more distinct cultures which leads to biculturalism/multiculturalism rather than complete assimilation. It promotes the development of cultural sensitivity and allows for empathic understanding across different cultures.
Discourse analysis (DA), or discourse studies, is an approach to the analysis of written, spoken, or sign language, including any significant semiotic event.
Politeness theory, proposed by Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson, centers on the notion of politeness, construed as efforts to redress the affronts to a person's self-esteems or face in social interactions. Notable concepts include positive and negative face, the face threatening act (FTA), strategies surrounding FTAs and factors influencing the choices of strategies.
The interpersonal circle or interpersonal circumplex is a model for conceptualizing, organizing, and assessing interpersonal behavior, traits, and motives. The interpersonal circumplex is defined by two orthogonal axes: a vertical axis and a horizontal axis. In recent years, it has become conventional to identify the vertical and horizontal axes with the broad constructs of agency and communion. Thus, each point in the interpersonal circumplex space can be specified as a weighted combination of agency and communion.
István Kecskés is a Distinguished Professor of the State University of New York, USA. He teaches graduate courses in pragmatics, second language acquisition and bilingualism at SUNY, Albany. He is the President of the American Pragmatics Association (AMPRA) and the CASLAR Association. He is the founder and co-director of the Barcelona Summer School on Bi- and Multilingualism, and the founder and co-director of Sorbonne, Paris – SUNY, Albany Graduate Student Symposium (present).
The British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL) is a learned society, based in the UK, which provides a forum for people interested in language and applied linguistics.
English as a lingua franca (ELF) is the use of the English language "as a global means of inter-community communication" and can be understood as "any use of English among speakers of different first languages for whom English is the communicative medium of choice and often the only option". ELF is "defined functionally by its use in intercultural communication rather than formally by its reference to native-speaker norms" whereas English as a second or foreign language aims at meeting native speaker norms and gives prominence to native-speaker cultural aspects. While lingua francas have been used for centuries, what makes ELF a novel phenomenon is the extent to which it is used in spoken, written and computer-mediated communication. ELF research focuses on the pragmatics of variation which is manifest in the variable use of the resources of English for a wide range of globalized purposes, in important formal encounters such as business transactions, international diplomacy and conflict resolution, as well as in informal exchanges between international friends.
Farzad Sharifian was a pioneer of cultural linguistics and held the Chair in Cultural Linguistics at Monash University. He developed a theoretical and an analytical framework of cultural cognition, cultural conceptualisations, and language, which draw on and expands the analytical tools and theoretical advancements in several disciplines and sub-disciplines, including cognitive psychology, anthropology, distributed cognition, and complexity science. The theoretical/analytical frameworks and their applications in several areas of applied linguistics including intercultural communication, cross-cultural/intercultural pragmatics, World Englishes, Teaching English as an International Language (TEIL), and political discourse analysis are the subject of Sharifian’s monographs entitled Cultural Conceptualisations and Language and Cultural Linguistics. These books have widely been recognised as laying "solid theoretical and analytical grounds for what can be recognised as Cultural Linguistics"..
Juliane House is a German linguist and translation studies scholar.
Asiacentrism is a political ideology, an economic perspective, or an academic orientation with "a focus on Asia or on cultures of Asian origin." In some cases, this stance regards Asia to be either unique or superior to other regions and takes the form of ascribing to Asia ethnocentric significance or supremacy at the cost of the rest of the world. The concept is often associated with a projected Asian Century, the expected economic dominance of Asia in the 21st century.
Janet Holmes is a New Zealand sociolinguist. Her research interests include language and gender, language in the workplace, and New Zealand English.
Judith Baxter was a British sociolinguist and Professor of Applied linguistics at Aston University where she specialised in Gender and Language, and Leadership Language. She served in editorial positions with several academic journals.
Ken Hyland is a British linguist. He is currently a professor of applied linguistics in education at the University of East Anglia.
Gayane Hovhannisyan is an Armenian linguist, Doctor of Sciences in Philology/Linguistics (2000), Professor (2005). Hovhannisyan was the first Chair of English Teaching Methodology at Armenian State Pedagogical University after Khachatur Abovyan, Yerevan. Currently she is the (acting) head of English Communication and Translation Chair at Brusov State University.
Sara Mills is Emeritus Professor in Linguistics at Sheffield Hallam University, England. Her linguistic interests are the comparison of linguistic forms of expression in different languages, particularly in reference to politeness. Her other major work area is feminism.
Jef Verschueren is a Belgian linguist, academic, and author. He is an emeritus professor of Linguistics at the University of Antwerp.
