Purposes: Investigating the contribution of each component of the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) to the aphasia quotient (AQ) helps better understand the mechanisms of change in the AQ. Previous studies on patients with English-speaking aphasia have shown that spontaneous speech contributes the most to the AQ. However, the same conclusion may not…

This article offers a descriptive account of seven interjections, "eish", "yho", "tjo", "sho", "hayi", "hau", and "mxm", which are adopted from different local South African languages into South African English. It investigates the frequencies, orthography, syntactic position,…

Languages tend to have three major clause types (declaratives, interrogatives, imperatives), dedicated to three main speech acts (assertions, questions, commands). However, the particular forms that these clause types take differ from language to language, and have to be learned. Previous experimental results suggest that by 18 months old,…

Language learning through online platforms is becoming increasingly popular. The technological affordances of YouTube provide a translanguaging space for learners and teachers alike to bring their different identities, experiences and histories and create a coordinated performance (Li 2011, "Moment Analysis and Translanguaging Space:…

Language development can be framed as the process of learning how to mean (Halliday, 1975). From this perspective, the role of communicative function is central to the language-learning process with development being guided by interaction with experienced others. In the current study, we present a detailed analysis of the communicative functions…

English has become an international language (EIL) as speakers around the world use it as a universal means of communication. Accordingly, scholars have investigated different aspects of EIL affecting communicative success. Speech scholars have been interested in speech constructs like accentedness, comprehensibility, and acceptability (e.g., Kang…

We aimed to explore the most and least used strategies of apology responses, as well as the differences between native and non-native speakers of English in formulating such responses. Additionally, we investigated the role of gender in the formulation of apology responses. The participants were 100 native and non-native speakers of English at an…

Pragmatics is a major study of linguistics that defines the hidden meanings of a writer and speaker towards the conjoining effort of linguistic form. It is stated along with its user. Within pragmatics the importance is usually given to a contextual meaning, where every other meaning of given context is referred to speaker as well as writer that…

Based on a cross-cultural perspective, the current study aims to compare the realization of the speech act of compliments among Yemeni Arabic native speakers (YANSs) and American English native speakers (AENSs). Samples of 30 participants of Americans and 30 other participants of Yemenis were involved in the study. The data were collected through…

The majority of the extant literature claims that native Arabic speakers are typically more indirect in their refusal strategies, a specific speech act, than are native English speakers. The present study examined the level of directness in the refusal strategies of native Arabic speakers, living in the United States and the Middle East, compared…

This article uses a combination of speech act theory and research on microaggressions to analyze statements made by scholars in the fields of literature and creative writing towards their colleagues in composition. We argue that framing these interactions as "hierarchical microaggressions," a term coined by Kathryn Young et al., helps…

This corpus-based study explores the expression of gratitude in the acknowledgement section of doctoral dissertations in both English and Arabic. The objective is to analyse how gratitude in academic discourse is structured in these languages and to explore any differences related to gender. The study examines 80 dissertations (40 in English and…

This paper investigates performative manifestations of sincerity across Anglo-Norman and Middle English. In particular, it locates adverbial sincerity markers used to qualify performative speech act verbs in late medieval letters (fourteenth and fifteenth centuries), at a point when Middle English was rapidly replacing Anglo-Norman as the…

This dissertation concerns the formal pragmatics of constructions in English and Japanese that are perceptively intensificative in their discourse function in some way. In particular I examine polarity emphasis (verum focus), exclamatives, and acts of notification and surprise in language using a compositional version of Farkas and Bruce (2010)'s…

Cyberbullying has become a serious global issue. Previous studies focusing on the prevalence and the consequences of cyberbullying have paid little attention to its linguistic features, especially in celebrity cases. This current study fills this gap by investigating the language that constitutes cyberbully toward celebrities from different…