Idiomatics--the scientific study of idiomatic language and figurative language--is a pervasive theme in global literature, yet its precise terminology often lacks clear definition. This article addresses this challenge directly by delving into the etymology, significance, and universality of idiomatics. It emphasizes the pivotal role of idiomatics…

In this paper we analyze the semantic and pragmatic properties of a colloquial interrogative construction attested in European Spanish, which we label invariable "qué" questions (IQQs). In doing so, we contribute to the better understanding of a relatively understudied phenomenon in Spanish, given that IQQs have been mainly approached…

Taking a psycholinguistic perspective, this book investigates how second language (L2) learners' pragmatic abilities in English can be measured. It complements and extends earlier work on the testing of implicit and explicit grammar. The authors present a set of tests they developed using both well-established methods of measuring pragmatic…

This commentary critiques Ambridge's radical exemplar model of language acquisition using research from the Longitudinal Study of Early Language, which has tracked the language development of 30+ children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) since 2002. This research has demonstrated that the children's capacity for abstraction at the grammatical…

The article deals with the analysis of the addressee's factor foregrounding in the limerick discourse. The study demonstrates that the limerick discourse is characterised by an addresser-writer's and an addressee-reader/listener's reciprocality via idiosyncratic protagonists portrayed by an addresser-writer. A limerick presents a laconic…

The authors explore how the use of sarcasm in an urban high school English classroom fostered critical language awareness and positive relationships among diverse classroom participants. The guiding research question was, What were the social-pedagogical functions of sarcasm in this classroom? Drawing on interactional sociolinguistics and…

This paper is devoted to the study of correlation between semantic and pragmatic potential of a compound word, which functions in informal speech, and the mechanisms of secondary nomination, which realizes the potential of semantic-pragmatic features of colloquial compounds. The relevance and the choice of the research question is based on the…

This study investigates, pragmatically, the language of five electoral political propaganda texts delivered by Barak Obama. It attempts to achieve the following aims: (1) identifying the speech acts used in political propaganda, (2) showing how politicians utilize Grice's maxims and the politeness principle in issuing their propaganda, (3)…

Perhaps rarely is there any piece of Pre-Islamic Arabic literature where color features more strongly and less naturally than in Antara's poetry. Therefore, the intended message of color in Antara's poetry is adequately understood inasmuch as the pragmatic implicatures of color are worked out. Evidence in literature explicitly attributes Antara's…

We argue for a course in which students analyze writing about a common topic--in this case World War I--from multiple genres (e.g., poetry and technical manuals). We address the divide between instruction in pragmatic and literary writing and calls to bridge that gap. Students working in disparate areas of English learn the strengths and the…

Research on reported speech is old, but scholars working in this field are inclined to see its roots in Davidson's (1968) paratactic account of indirect reports. Although Davidson aimed at a "truth-conditional" theory of indirect reports which could challenge ideational, use, and psychological theories, his paratactic view--of which the…

In current literature, metaphor is treated as either an instance of implicit comparison or as a nonliteral class-inclusion statement. I will argue that, contrary to these positions, the notions of comparison and class-inclusion are not mutually exclusive in character but rather complementary cognitive concepts which entail one another. While…

This paper takes issue with Derek Sankey's: "Minds, Brains, and Differences in Personal Understanding", "Educational Philosophy and Theory", 39 (2007), pp. 543-558 on the questions of the post-pedagogical classroom and the forms of knowledge. I then try to show that a theory of meaning framed in terms of normative pragmatics is better able than…

Recent investigations of the acquisition of scalar implicature report that young children do not reliably reject a sentence with a weak scalar term, e.g. "some of the books are red", when it is used as a description of a situation where a stronger statement is true, e.g. where all the books are red. This is taken as evidence that children do not…

Critical analysis of the literacy narrative assignment within the context of the other genres in a basic writing course complicates understandings of the political import of the assignment. While several advocates of the literacy narrative have argued that it has the power of what Jean-François Lyotard has called petits récits, the authors argue…