8 - Methodological Take-1A: The Relationship Between Expressions and Ritual

Summary

Chapter 8 considers the relationship between expressions, the smallest unit of pragmatic analysis, and ritual. The chapter will provide a bottom–up, corpus-based and replicable approach through which expressions associated with structurally or functionally ritual speech acts are used to indicate awareness of the different ritual frame. Structurally ritual speech acts include speech acts like Greet and Leave-Take which occur in ritual parts of an interaction, while functionally ritual speech acts encompass speech acts like Request and Apologise which tend to be realised in a ritual way in many contexts. The chapter points out that the relationship between expressions and interaction ritual can be best captured through a contrastive pragmatic lens because the contrastive view allows the researcher to consider how strongly a pragmatically important expression tends to indicate a functionally or structurally ritual speech act when pitted against a comparable expression in another – preferably typologically distant – linguaculture. The chapter provides a case study of Chinese and English expressions associated with the ritually performed speech act Apologise as a case study.