Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T22:57:19.858Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

33 - Emancipatory Pragmatics

from Part III - Approaches and Methods in Sociopragmatics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2021

By
Scott Saft ,
Sachiko Ide  and
Kishiko Ueno
Edited by
Michael Haugh ,
Dániel Z. Kádár  and
Marina Terkourafi
Michael Haugh
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
Dániel Z. Kádár
Affiliation:
Hungarian Research Institute for Linguistics, and Dalian University of Foreign Languages
Marina Terkourafi
Affiliation:
Leiden University
Get access

Summary

Emancipatory pragmatics (EP) is an emerging approach to sociopragmatics that aims to develop research frameworks based on languages that have rarely been considered within mainstream Western academia. After first describing some of the events that led to the advancement of the EP approach, we present findings from Thai and ǀGui, an African language, that challenge existing theories of language usage in two areas of pragmatics, politeness and turn-taking. Discussion then focuses on the proposal that the concepts of ba and basho can serve as the basis of a more inclusive framework for understanding social interaction. Following presentation of the foundational basis of ba-theory, we offer examples of language data to demonstrate its application to Japanese, to Hawaiian and also to English, thereby suggesting the potential of ba-theory to understand interaction across a diverse set of languages. Finally, we discuss the need for work that will not only investigate how ba-theory may apply to a wider range of languages but also explore other inclusive frameworks that will push the field of pragmatics to attain a richer understanding of the linguistic and interactional potential of people throughout the world.

Keywords

emancipatory pragmatics(im)politenessturn-takingba theorycross-cultural
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics , pp. 710 - 732
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allan, K. (1998). Speech acts and grammar. In Mey, J., ed., Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics. Oxford: Elsevier, pp. 942–44.Google Scholar
Ameka, F. and Terkourafi, M. (2019). What if…? Imagining non-Western perspectives on pragmatic theory and practice. Journal of Pragmatics, 145, 72–82.Google Scholar
Beeman, W. (2001). Emotion and sincerity in Persian discourse: Accomplishing the representation of inner states. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 148, 31–57.Google Scholar
Brown, M. A. (2016). Facing the Spears of Change: The Life and Legacy of John Apa ʻĪʻī. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press.Google Scholar
Brown, P. and Levinson, S. (1978). Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena. In Goody, E., ed., Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 56–310.Google Scholar
Brown, P. and Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chang, W-L. M. and Haugh, M. (2013). Face in Taiwanese business interactions: From emic concepts to etic practices. In Pan, Y. and Kadar, D., eds., Chinese Discourse and Interaction: Theory and Practice. London: Equinox, pp. 127–51.Google Scholar
Crawshaw, R. (2017). Determinacy, distance and intensity in intercultural communication: An emancipatory approach. In Kecskes, I. and Assimakopoulos, S., eds., Current Issues in Intercultural Pragmatics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 9–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Kadt, E. (1994). Towards a model for the study of politeness in Zulu. South African Journal of African Languages, 14(3), 103–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Kadt, E. (1998). The concept of face and its applicability to the Zulu language. Journal of Pragmatics, 29, 173–91.Google Scholar
Duranti, A. (1997). Linguistic Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fraser, B. (1990). Perspectives on politeness. Journal of Pragmatics, 14, 219–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fujii, Y. (2012). Differences of situation self in the place/ba of interaction between the Japanese and American English speakers. Journal of Prgmatics, 44, 636–62.Google Scholar
Fujii, Y. (2019). Japanese as a ba-oriented language: Non-Western perspectives for representation of the world. Presentation at the 16th IPrA conference, Hong Kong.Google Scholar
Gao, G. (1998). ‘Don’t take my word for it’: Understanding Chinese speaking practices. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 22, 163–86.Google Scholar
Geertz, C. (1984). From the natives’ point of view: On the nature of anthropological understanding. In R. Shweder, and R. Levine, , eds., Culture Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 123–36.Google Scholar
Goodwin, C. (2004). A competent speaker who can’t speak: The social life of aphasia. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 14(2), 151–70.Google Scholar
Hallowell, A. I. (1955). Culture and Experience. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanks, W. (1996). Language and Communicative Practices. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Hanks, W. (2005). Explorations in the deictic field. Current Anthropology, 46(2), 191–220.Google Scholar
Hanks, W. (2014). Introduction to emancipatory pragmatics. Journal of Pragmatics, 69, 1–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanks, W., Ide, S. and Katagiri, Y. (2009). Introduction: Toward an emancipatory pragmatics. Journal of Pragmatics, 41, 1–9.Google Scholar
Hanks, W., Ide, S., Katagiri, Y., Saft, S., Fujii, Y. and Kishiko, U. (2019). Communicative interaction in terms of ba theory: Towards an innovative approach to language practice. Journal of Pragmatics, 145, 63–71.Google Scholar
Haugh, M. (2004). Revisiting the conceptualisation of politeness in English and Japanese. Multilingua, 23, 85–109.Google Scholar
Haugh, M. (2005). The importance of ‘place’ in Japanese politeness: Implications for cross-cultural and intercultural analyses. Intercultural Pragmatics, 2(1), 41–68.Google Scholar
Haugh, M. (2013). Disentangling face, facework, and impoliteness. Sociocultural Pragmatics, 1(1), 46–73.Google Scholar
Haugh, M. (2016). The role of English as a scientific metalanguage for research in pragmatics: Reflections on the metapragmatics of ‘politeness’ in Japanese. East Asian Pragmatics, 1(1), 39–71.Google Scholar
Havertake, H. (1988). Toward a typology of politeness strategies in communicative interaction. Multilingua, 7, 385–409.Google Scholar
Hill, B., Ide, S., Ikuta, S., Kawasaki, A. and Ogino, T. (1986). Universals of linguistic politeness: quantitative evidence from Japanese and American English. Journal of Pragmatics, 10, 347–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hongladarom, K. (2009). Indexicality in Thai and Tibetan: Implications for a Buddhist grounded approach. Journal of Pragmatics, 41, 47–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horie, K. (2012). The interactional origin of nominal predicate structure in Japanese: A comparative and historical pragmatic perspective. Journal of Pragmatics, 44 , 663–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huang, Y. (2017). Introduction: What is pragmatics? In Huang, Y, ed., Oxford Handbook of Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 1–12.Google Scholar
Ide, S. (1989). Formal forms and discernment: Two neglected aspects of universals of linguistics politeness. Multilingua, 8, 223–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ide, S. (2011). Let the wind blow from the east: Using the ba-theory to explain how two strangers co-create a story. Presidential lecture at the Twelfth IPrA Conference, Manchester.Google Scholar
Ide, S. (2019). Toward a theory of linguistics of ba. Presentation at the 16th IPrA conference, Hong Kong.Google Scholar
Intachakra, S. (2012). Politeness motivated by the ‘heart’ and ‘binary rationality’ in Thai culture. Journal of Pragmatics, 44, 619–35.Google Scholar
Kasher, A. (1982). Gricean inference revisited. Philosophica, 29, 25–44.Google Scholar
Kashima, Y. (2000). Conceptions of culture and person for psychology. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 31, 14–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kashima, E. and Kashima, Y. (1998). Culture and language: The case of the cultural dimensions and personal pronoun use. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 29, 461–86.Google Scholar
Kasper, G. (2009). Politeness. In D’hondt, S., J.-O. Ostman, and Verschueren, J., eds., The Pragmatics of Interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 157–73.Google Scholar
Katagiri, Y. (2009). Finding parameters in interaction: A method in emancipatory pragmatics. Plenary presentation at the Eleventh IPrA Conference, Melbourne.Google Scholar
Kecskes, I. and Assimakopoulos, S. (eds.). (2017). Current Issues in Intercultural Pragmatics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Kim, H. (2008). The semantic and pragmatic analysis of South Korean and Australian English apologetic speech acts. Journal of Pragmatics, 40, 257–78.Google Scholar
Kondo, D. (1990). Crafting Selves: Power, Gender, and Discourses of Identity in a Japanese Workplace. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lebra, T. (2004). The Japanese Self in Cultural Logic. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press.Google Scholar
Leech, G. (1983). Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Mao, L. M. (1994). Beyond politeness theory: ‘Face’ revisited and renewed. Journal of Pragmatics, 21, 451–86.Google Scholar
Matsumoto, Y. (1988). Reexamination of the universality of face: Politeness phenomena in Japanese. Journal of Pragmatics, 12, 403–26.Google Scholar
Matsumoto, Y. (1989). Politeness and conversational universals – observations from Japanese. Multilingua, 8, 207–21.Google Scholar
Meyer, M. A. (2001). Our own liberation: Reflections on Hawaiian epistemology. The Contemporary Pacific, 13(1), 124–48.Google Scholar
Miike, Y. (2003). Japanese enryo-sasshi communication and the psychology of amae: reconsideration and reconceptualization. Keio Communication Review, 25, 93–115.Google Scholar
Nāone, C. (2008) ‘O ka ‘Āina, ka ‘Ōlelo, a me ke Kaiāulu. Hūlili: Multidisciplinary Research on Hawaiian Well-Being, 5, 315–39.Google Scholar
Naruoka, K. (2014). Toward meanings of expressive indexicals: The case of Japanese demonstrative konna/sonna/anna. Journal of Pragmatics, 69, 4–21.Google Scholar
Nishida, K. (2012). Place and Dialectic: Two Essays by Nishida Kitaro. Translated by Krummel, J. and Nagatomo, S.. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nwoye, O. (1992). Linguistic politeness and socio-cultural variations of the notion of face. Journal Pragmatics, 18(4), 309–28.Google Scholar
Panpothong, N. and Phakdeephasoon, S. (2014). The wide use of mai-pen-rai ‘It’s not substantial’ in Thai interactions and its relationship to the Buddhist concept of Tri Laksana. Journal of Pragmatics, 69, 99–107.Google Scholar
Pike, K. (1966). Etic and emic standpoints for the description of behavior. In Smith, A. G., ed., Communication and Culture: Readings in the Codes of Human Interaction. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, pp. 152–63.Google Scholar
Pike, K. (1971). Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structures of Human Behaviour. 2nd ed. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Rosenberger, N. (ed.). (1994). Japanese Sense of Self. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. and Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking system for communication. Language, 50, 696–735.Google Scholar
Saft, S. (2011). Pronouns, wakimae, ba, and the “native philosophy” of Hawaiian interaction. Paper presented at the Workshop on Emancipatory Pragmatics, Kyoritsu Womenʻs University, Tokyo.Google Scholar
Saft, S. (2014). Rethinking Western individualism from the perspective of social interaction and from the concept of ba. Journal of Pragmatics, 69, 108–20.Google Scholar
Saft, S. (2017). Documenting an endangered language: The inclusive first-person plural pronoun kākou as a resource for claiming ownership in Hawaiian. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 27(1), 92–113.Google Scholar
Saft, S. (2019). Exploring the expression of agency in the speech of “new” speakers of the Hawaiian language. Presentation at the Sixteenth IPrA conference, Hong Kong.Google Scholar
Senft, G. (2014). Understanding Pragmatics. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Shimizu, H. (1995). ‘Ba-principle’: new logic for the real-time emergence of information. Holonics, 5(1), 67–79.Google Scholar
Shimizu, H. (2000). Kyooso to basho [Co-creation and place]. In Shimizu, H., Kume, T., Miwa, Y. and Miyake, Y., eds., Ba to Kyooso [Ba and co-creation]. Tokyo: NTT Shuppan, pp. 23–177.Google Scholar
Sidnell, J. (2001). Conversational turn-taking in a Caribbean English Creole. Journal of Pragmatics, 33, 1263–90.Google Scholar
Silva, N. (2004). Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Silva, N. (2017). The Power of the Steel-Tipped Pen: Reconstructing Native Hawaiian Intellectual History. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Stawarska, B. (2009). Between You and I: Dialogical Phenomenology. Athens: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Sugawara, K. (2009). Speech acts, moves, and meta-communication in negotiation: Three cases of everyday conversation observed among ǀGui former foragers. Journal of Pragmatics, 41, 93–135.Google Scholar
Sugawara, K. (2012). Interactive significance of simultaneous discourse or overlap in everyday conversations among ǀGui former foragers. Journal of Pragmatics, 44, 577–618.Google Scholar
Ueno, K. (2017). Speaking as parts of a whole: Discourse interpretation from ba-base thinking. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Japan Women’s University.Google Scholar
Ueno, K. (2019). Why teachers ask more questions than students in dyadic conversations: An interpretation of wakimae utterances using ba-based thinking. Presentation at the Sixteenth IPrA conference, Hong Kong.Google Scholar
Wilson, W. and Kamanā, K. (2001). Mai loko mai o ka ʻiʻini: Proceeding from a dream: The ʻAha Pūnana Leo Connection in Hawaiian language revitalization. In Hinton, L. and Hale, K., eds., The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice. New York: Academic Press, pp. 147–76.Google Scholar
Wilson-Hokowhitu, N. (ed.). (2019). The Past before Us: Moʻokūʻauhau as Methodology. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press.Google Scholar
Wilson-Hokowhitu, N. and Meyer, M. A. (2019). Introduction. In Wilson-Hokowhitu, N., ed., The Past before Us: Moʻokūʻauhau as Methodology. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, pp. 1–8.Google Scholar
Yamada, H. (1997). Different Games/Different Rules: Why Americans and Japanese Misunderstand Each Other. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×