Article published In: (Inter)Cultural Dialogues
Edited by Răzvan Săftoiu
[Language and Dialogue 13:3] 2023
► pp. 427–452
Yes (Rom. Da). Usages and functions in L2 proficiency examinations
A view from Romanian
Andra Vasilescu | University of Bucharest, Romania | Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti Institute of Linguistics, Romania
Published online: 18 September 2023
https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.00160.vas
https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.00160.vas
Abstract
The article analyses a Romanian corpus of intercultural dialogues recorded in natural settings during language proficiency examinations and discusses the usages of the frequently occurring word yes (Rom. da). The framework is provided by the Mixed Game Model (Weigand, Edda. 2009. Language as Dialogue. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. , . 2010. Dialogue: The Mixed Game. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. , . 2017. “The Mixed Game Model. A Holistic Theory.” In The Routledge Handbook of Language and Dialogue, ed. by Edda Weigand, 174–194. New York/London: Routledge., . 2018. “Dialogue: The Key to Pragmatics.” In From Pragmatics to Dialogue, ed. by Edda Weigand and Istvan Kecskes, 5–27. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. , among others) intersected with the socio-cognitive approach to intercultural communication (Kecskes, Istvan. 2007. “Formulaic Language in English Lingua Franca.” Explorations in Pragmatics: Linguistic, Cognitive and Intercultural Aspects, ed. by Istvan Kecskes and Larry Horn, 191–219. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. , . 2008. “Dueling Contexts: A Dynamic Model of Meaning.” Journal of Pragmatics 40(3): 385–406. , . 2010. “The Paradox of Communication: A Socio-Cognitive Approach.” Pragmatics and Society 1(1): 50–73. , . 2013. Intercultural Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. , among others). Beyond the analysis of a single lexical unit in a limited collection of texts, the author aims to demonstrate how a particular word of the lexicon becomes a culturally-socially-cognitively-discursively-rhetorically situated utterance that acquires specific functions when it is used by interlocutors who negotiate their communicative agendas to come not only to mutual understanding but also to achieve their convergent-divergent institutional purposes.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.The framework: The intercultural dialogic action game
- 3.The features and functions of da (Eng. yes) as part of dialogic action games
- 3.1The propositional level
- 3.2The discourse level
- 3.3The interactional level
- 3.4The pragmatic level
- 3.4.1
- 4.Da/Yes as part of the intercultural mixed game
- 4.1Characteristics of non-natives’ competence-in-performance examination interactions
- 4.1.1Hybrid structures
- 4.1.2Metacommunicative nature
- 4.1.3Reconfiguration of the maxims of the cooperative principle
- 4.1.4Face work and power work
- 4.1.5Form-meaning pairs/matches negotiations
- 4.2Corpus analysis and data interpretation
- 4.2.1Da/Yes as a synchronizer
- 4.2.2Cumulative functions
- 4.2.3Asymmetric usages: Rapport vs cognitive stance to knowledge
- 4.2.4Metalinguistic function
- 4.2.5High frequency
- 4.1Characteristics of non-natives’ competence-in-performance examination interactions
- 5.Conclusions
- Notes
References
References (38)
Agar, Michael. 1994. Language Shock: Understanding the Culture of Conversation. New York: William Morrow.
Aijmer, Karin. 2002. “Interjections in a Contrastive Perspective”. In Emotion in Dialogic Interaction, ed. by Edda Weigand, 99–120. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Airenti, Gabriella, Bruno G. Bara, and Marco Colombetti. 1993. “Conversation and Behavior Games in the Pragmatics of Dialogue.” Cognitive Science 17(2): 197–256.
Bara, Bruno. 2011. “Cognitive Pragmatics: The Mental Processes of Communication.” Intercultural Pragmatics 8(3): 443–485.
Brown, Penelope, Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness. Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fonagy, Ivan. 2001. Languages Within Language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Foss, Sonja. 2008. Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration and Practice, 2nd edition. Long Grove, IL: Waveland.
GLR – Guţu-Romalo, Valeria (ed.). 2005/2008. Gramatica limbii române/ Grammar of Romanian. I – II. București: Editura Academiei Române.
Grice, H. Paul. 1975. “Logic and Conversation.” In Syntax and Semantics, vol. 31: Speech Acts, ed. by Peter Cole and Jerry L. Morgan, 41–58. New York: Academic Press.
Haegeman, Liliane and Weir, Andrew. 2015. “The cartography of yes and no in West Flemish.” Discourse-oriented Syntax 2261: 175.
Kecskes, Istvan. 2007. “Formulaic Language in English Lingua Franca.” Explorations in Pragmatics: Linguistic, Cognitive and Intercultural Aspects, ed. by Istvan Kecskes and Larry Horn, 191–219. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
. 2010. “The Paradox of Communication: A Socio-Cognitive Approach.” Pragmatics and Society 1(1): 50–73.
. 2015. “Intracultural communication and intercultural communication: Are they different?” International Review of Pragmatics 7(2): 171–194.
. 2017. “From Pragmatics to Dialogue.” In The Routledge Handbook of Language and Dialogue, ed. by Edda Weigand, 78–92. New York: Routledge.
(ed.). 2022. The Cambridge Handbook of Intercultural Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mazziotta, Nicolas and Sylvain Kahane. 2016. “Le «mot-phrase» dans les conceptions syntaxiques de Lucien Tesnière.” Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 111(1): 71–107.
Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson. 1978. “A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn Taking for Conversation.” In Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction, ed. by Jim Schenkein, 7–55. New York: Academic Press.
Sæbø, Kjell Johan. 1988. “A cooperative yes-no query system featuring discourse particles.” Coling Budapest 1988 Volume 2: International Conference on Computational Linguistics. 1988. Available at [URL].
Scollon, Ron, Suzane Wong Scollon. 2001. “Discourse and Intercultural Communication.” In The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, ed. by Deborah Shiffrin, Deborah Tannen and Heidi E. Hamilton, 537–547. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Searle, John R. 1969. Speech Acts. An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Simon, Herbert A. 1962. “The Architecture of Complexity: Hierarchic Systems.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 1061: 467–482.
Squartini, Mario. 2013. “From TAM to Discourse. The Role of Information Status in North-Western Italian già ‘already’”. In Discourse Markers and Modal Particles. Categorization and Description, ed. by Liesbeth Degand, Bert Cornilie, and Paola Pietrandrea, 163–190. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Vasilescu, Andra. 2016. “Towards a “Theory of Everything”.” In Pragmemes and Theories of Language Use in Human Communication, ed. by Keith Allan, Alessandro Capone, and Istvan Kecskes, 305–334. Cham: Springer.
. 2022. “Subspecificare și polifuncționalitate. Studiu de caz: frumos.” In Actele celei de a 21-a Conferințe a Departamentului de Lingvistică, ed. by Isabela Nedelcu, Irina Paraschiv, and Andra Vasilescu, 553–563. București: Editura Universității din București.
Watts, Richard J. 1986. “Generated or Degenerate?” In Linguistics Across Historical and Geographical Boundaries, ed. by Dieter Kastovsky, A. J. Szwedek, Barbara Płoczińska, and Jacek Fisiak. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Weigand, Edda. 2009. Language as Dialogue. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
. 2010. Dialogue: The Mixed Game. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
. 2017. “The Mixed Game Model. A Holistic Theory.” In The Routledge Handbook of Language and Dialogue, ed. by Edda Weigand, 174–194. New York/London: Routledge.
. 2018. “Dialogue: The Key to Pragmatics.” In From Pragmatics to Dialogue, ed. by Edda Weigand and Istvan Kecskes, 5–27. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
