This chapter covers the notions of inference and implicature from a broad pragmatic and sociopragmatic perspective. Starting from the fact that inference has wide applicability also in psychology and logic, while implicature is limited only to pragmatics, it opens by drawing three distinctions: (1) between inference in a broad and in a narrow sense, (2) between inference and implicature and (3) between inference and implicature as both product and process. It then discusses processes of implicature generation within Gricean and post-Gricean accounts. While the general position taken is that 'speakers implicate, hearers infer', this position is also problematized by drawing on sociopragmatics research that challenges the notion of the speaker’s intention and explores how (else) meaning can be generated.

Starting from its early conception as a pragmalinguistic/sociopragmatic model of non-native users’ pragmatic development in L2, this chapter suggests a novel approach to second language pragmatics, and to sociopragmatics in particular. The proposed view encompasses inferential mechanisms and effects which are intrinsic in real-life verbal and non-verbal communication but have been left largely untouched. Following a historical review of sociopragmatic competence in terms of ‘interlanguage pragmatics’ and ‘intercultural communicative competence’, I focus on pragmatic inference within second language pragmatics as it becomes manifest in figurative speech. Emphasis lies on recent available evidence in support of the impact of metaphor comprehension on second language pragmatic development.

This chapter outlines pertinent work on stance and evaluation that has emerged over the past two decades or so, with a specific focus on studies that have both catalysed and contributed to the discursive turn in sociopragmatics. Such studies share an understanding of stance taking and evaluation as intersubjective, dialogic processes that are collaboratively constructed and negotiated in and through interaction in various contexts. The role of stance and stance taking has been examined as local sequentiallyorganized phenomena in everyday and institutional interactions and in a larger sociolinguistic framework. The study of evaluation has similarly branched out to a discursive direction, adopting various methods that facilitate the analysis of evaluative practices in various discursive contexts. The body of work pertaining to this turn has facilitated a pivotal shift in understanding stance and evaluation as intersubjective rather than subjective phenomena, at the same time putting forward the notion that stance taking and evaluative practices take much more complex and multidimensional forms in face-to-face and mediated interpersonal communication than previously thought. Furthermore, this work has demonstrated the involvement of such practices in a great number of local and global linguistic and social processes to do with issues ranging, for example, from epistemic authority to social distribution of power.

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.

Corpus pragmatics is an emerging area of research with a growing number of specialist publications. Research in corpus pragmatics draws on empirical language samples captured in language corpora to explore a wide variety of key topics in pragmatics, such as discourse markers, speech acts and (im)politeness. However, the majority of research to date in corpus pragmatics is based on textual (transcribed) renderings of spoken discourse, and there is a notable lack of corpus pragmatic studies that also adopt a multimodal approach, investigating the potential contribution of multiple modes (including speech, gestures and facial expressions) to utterance functions. The current chapter highlights the affordances of using a multimodal corpus pragmatic approach in exploring the role of speech and gesture in meaning making. We illustrate this approach with the example of speech-gesture functional profiles arising from a multimodal analysis of multiword expressions (e.g. ‘do you know/see what I mean’). The chapter provides an overview of key corpus methods that have been used in sociopragmatic research and pragmatic research more generally before presenting our multimodal corpus pragmatic research on ‘do you know/see what I mean’.

This article highlights translation as re-contextualization and emphasizes the role of context in translation. The importance of context for both translation and pragmatics is evidence of the close relation between translation and pragmatics. Initially, different classic views of context are briefly discussed. Secondly, linguistic approaches to translation are reviewed, and key concepts are defined. The author’s own theory of translation as re-contextualization is then discussed. Two fundamental, empirically derived translation types as qualitatively different ways of re-contextualization are proposed:overt and covert translation. The concept of a ‘cultural filter’ employed in covert translation is described, and examples are given. In conclusion, the current dominant role of English as a lingua franca and its influence on translation are discussed.

This chapter examines the contextual constraints and requirements of argumentative, political and legal discourse, focusing on their bridging points as well as on where they depart. While political discourse and legal discourse are representatives of public discourse and institutional discourse with political discourse also constituting media discourse, argumentative discourse can be found across various discourse domains ranging from political and legal discourse to mundane, everyday talk. The first part provides an analysis of the pragmatics of argumentative discourse, concentrating on the communicative function of argumentative strategies and their generalized and particularized realizations across different discourse domains. The second part examines political discourse as communicative action considering the multilayeredness of production and reception formats, and the third part gives an analysis of legal discourse. In the final part the strategic use of argumentative strategies is discussed in the context of political and legal discourse.

This chapter examines both the roots of sociopragmatics and current understandings of the field. It starts by positioning sociopragmaticswithin pragmatics, pointing out some particular difficulties with its conception. After consideration of whether J. L. Austin’s work could be said to be an early precursor, the foundations of sociopragmatics in the work of Geoffrey N. Leech and Jenny Thomas are reviewed, including the distinction they propose between pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics, a distinction, it is noted, that has gained traction in certain sub-fields of pragmatics (e.g. cross-cultural pragmatics). The penultimate section examines the role of context in definitions of sociopragmatics, arguing that meso-level contextual notions are key. Finally, a definition of sociopragmatics is proposed

In this chapter, we outline the pragmatic issues involved in the analysis of digitally mediated communication. We start with several discursive qualities and implications regarding the range of options for contextualization that the different interfaces exhibit and how users face and overcome digital cues--filtered channels. Then, we move on to more interactive features of digitally mediated communication. Finally, some social aspects of digitally mediated communication are addressed. In the three mentioned areas (discursive, interactive, social), we also seek to explain the role that non-propositional constraints and effects play in the eventual satisfaction with digitally mediated communication, compared to the one that can be found in situations of physical co-presence.

Language use in the workplace setting has become an increasingly popular area of research within sociolinguistics. The original focus of analysis was conversations between professionals and laypeople (institutional talk), quickly extending to interactions between colleagues in their everyday workplace talk (workplace discourse). The major interest throughout this expansion can be summed up as the intersection between power and politeness. In line with wider developments in pragmatics, analyses adopting a (revised) Brown and Levinsonian approach are now outnumbered by interactional and discursive approaches to politeness and, more recently, impoliteness. In parallel with theoretical advances, the research agenda has moved from the enactment of speech acts at the level of utterance (notably directives, disagreements and aspects of meeting management) to the impact of interactional context/s (especially the workplace Community of Practice) and the role of wider discourses in the negotiation of meaning making between interactants. A focus on metapragmatics and ideologies extends these concepts even further, offering the opportunity for more nuanced reflections on sociopragmatic issues. The discussion is illustrated by analyses from workplace discourse scholars, including examples from our own research carried out over the past twenty years.

Politeness and sociopragmatics have long been aligned since they were first proposed as areas for serious scholarly research but have since also grown into large, diffuse areas of research in their own right. The aim of this chapter is to consider synergies between these two areas of research. The chapter begins by reviewing the roots of connections between sociopragmatics and (im)politeness before briefly overviewing (im)politeness theories and the role that the first/second-order distinction can play in distinguishing between different approaches in the field. We then discuss some key sociopragmatic concepts that have come to play an important role in (im)politeness research, including context, strategies, indirectness and norms. This leads into a case study of offence-taking that illustrates how sociopragmatics and (im)politeness research now have a much broader scope, both methodological and theoretically, than earlier analyses that tended to focus on the politeness values of single utterances. We conclude by considering some of the key issues that will likely shape ongoing development of (im)politeness research, including the role of interdisciplinarity, the use of a greater range of data types and methods and the increasing need for systematic meta-theorization in the field.

The concept of ‘face’ has received considerable attention in im/politeness research given the powerful influence of Goffman and Brown and Levinson, in particular. In recent years, mostly due to the discursive turn, researchers have questioned the tight yoking between face and im/politeness and have sought different ways to better understand these concepts. This chapter offers a brief critical exploration of the concept of ‘face’ and its derivative concepts of ‘face-threatening acts’ and ‘facework’. Furthermore, it discusses some of the developments in the area such as the needs for finer distinctions and alternative ways of conceptualizing ‘face’, the appeal to return to the broader Goffmanian concept and the needs for distinguishing between lay and scientific constructs of face and disentangling face from im/politeness. ‘Face’ is a term which is located in sociology, as it relates to the person, to the self and to identity, whereas the derivative ‘face-threatening act’ draws heavily on pragmatics and, more specifically, on speech act theory. The related term ‘facework’ may provide a kind of link between the two. This chapter offers an overview of these interconnections and suggests possible directions in the study of ‘face’.

This chapter explores the interconnections between sociopragmatics and morality. Notions of morality and the moral order have been recently incorporated into research on im/politeness and could potentially be of interest to other sub-fields of sociopragmatics. We review extant conceptualizations of the moral order and insights from moral psychology and propose ways of bringing the two traditions together by seeing morality as instantiated in the moral order and the latter as part and parcel of situated practice. Furthermore, we examine and elaborate on what we believe to be the fundamental links between im/politeness and moral evaluations and discuss how insights gained from research on in/civility and morality can be useful to im/politeness scholarship. In our case study, we briefly illustrate the application of moral psychology models to the analysis of im/politeness by drawing from Rai and Fiske’s Relationship Regulation Theory and conclude the chapter offering suggestions for new avenues of research that could be explored not only by im/politeness scholars but also by researchers working in other sub-fields of sociopragmatics.