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In:Handbook of Pragmatics: 27th Annual Installment
Edited by Mieke Vandenbroucke, Jana Declercq, Frank Brisard and Sigurd D’hondt
[Handbook of Pragmatics 27] 2024
► pp. 101–127

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Indirectness

 | KU Leuven
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this chapter was funded through a Transformative Agreement with KU Leuven.

Published online: 31 October 2024
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https://doi.org/10.1075/hop.27.ind3
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.What is indirectness?
    • 2.1Binary notions
      • 2.1.1Indirectness and non-literalness
      • 2.1.2Indirectness and the locutionary/illocutionary distinction
      • 2.1.3Indirectness and secondariness
      • 2.1.4Conventional indirectness: Binary or categorical?
    • 2.2Graded notions
      • 2.2.1Standardization
      • 2.2.2Degrees of indirectness
      • 2.2.3Cross-cultural research on indirectness
  • 3.The reasons for indirectness
  • 4.Experimental evidence on the processing of indirectness
    • 4.1Indirectness and secondariness
    • 4.2Direct and indirect interpretations of ISA constructions
    • 4.3Summary
  • 5.Conclusions and future directions
  • Notes
  • References
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Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Achimova, Asya, Michael Franke, Martin V. Butz & Gareth J. Baxter
2025. The alignment model of indirect communication. PLOS One 20:5 ► pp. e0323839 ff. DOI logo
Ruytenbeek, Nicolas & Thomas Holtgraves
2025. A study of linguistic mitigation, writer empathy and recipient personality in requesting and bringing bad news via email. Journal of Pragmatics 238 ► pp. 60 ff. DOI logo

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