The Functional Discourse Grammar model has a twofold objective: on the one hand, to provide a descriptively, psychologically and pragmatically adequate account of the forms made available by a typologically diverse range of languages; and on the other, to provide a model of language which is set up to reflect, at one remove, certain of the stages…

Examines the differences between English and Dutch demonstratives and concludes that English proximate demonstratives ("this") are used when the referent is identifiable by the addressee, whereas in Dutch they are used for low-accessibility referents, as opposed to distal demonstratives ("that") that are also used for readily…

Studies cognitive pragmatics in order to bridge the gap between the universality and culture-specificity of politeness by means of the idea of the "frame" or "specific knowledge" combined with the theory of relevance by Sperber and Wilson. The article concludes that a general theory of politeness as a particular subsystem in a…

Presents a study based on the analysis of contrastive Swedish-English data on modal particles. The article maintains that the meaning of modal particles requires an analysis of their pragmatic aspects such as the relation between the interlocutors. The analysis most accurately accounting for the multifunctionality of the particles is based on a…

Examines politeness strategies used in intellectual discourse, concentrating on reference forms in various languages and in particular on the phenomena of power and solidarity displayed through the use of pronouns. The article identifies the differences and potential source of interferences in the domain of reference forms. (27 references)…