Historicity in metapragmatics – a study on ‘discernment’ in Italian metadiscourse

Abstract

The present paper contributes to meta pragmatics, by examining the question of how historicity influences the validity of certain modern meta terms that are accepted as ‘neutral’ and ‘scientific’ in pragmatics. We argue that it is fundamental to explore the history and development of such meta terms, and also to study their historically situated meanings, in order to increase the self-reflexivity and rigour of analyses. We analyse the notion of ‘discernment’ as a case study, and we will show that the way in which the Italian equivalent of this term (discernere) – which supposedly influenced historical English understandings of ‘discernment’ as well – is used in historical Italian meta discourses contradicts the modern application of this meta term.

Intercultural (Im)politeness

“…This also implies that in academic and popular discourse we are potentially talking about different phenomena when we discuss 'heckling' in English and Chinese. This challenges the common assumption that academic studies of (im)politeness phenomena use technical terms that capture the same phenomena across different language and cultures (Haugh, 2016a;Kádár and Paternoster 2015). This does not mean that we cannot or should not use technical terms in the field, but that we should be aware of the fact that these technical terms may have very different implications across languages and cultures.…”

Perceptions of Forms of Address in European Portuguese in Online Metadiscourse or What Happens When You Use você in Court

“…The concept of discernment applied to EP forms needs to be carefully pondered, mainly because it is historically situated, and its metapragmatic meaning differs from its second-order or technical meaning (Kádár and Paternoster 2015;Paternoster 2024). The primordial meaning of wakimae applies to the Japanese automatic selection of honorifics conveying individual rank and consists of obligatory choices that speakers cannot escape.…”

Potestas and the language of power: Conceptualising an approach to Power and Discernment politeness in ancient languages

“…Matsumoto 1988Matsumoto , 1989Matsumoto , 1993, it is now considered that wakimae is the Japanese localization of Discernment. Thus, Discernment itself refers to an established theoretical, second-order politeness concept, which needs to be evaluated and considered on an individual cultural level (Pizziconi 2003;Kádár and Mills 2013;Kádár and Paternoster 2015;Ridealgh and Jucker 2019).…”

“…Since the earliest work on the phenomenon by Hill et al (1986) and Ide (1989Ide ( , 1992, many scholars have looked to further explore Discernment across cultures (i.e. Kádár and Mills 2013;Kádár and Paternoster 2015;Ridealgh and Jucker 2019). Fundamentally, Discernment has been approached as expected (and quasi-mandatory) behavioural norms used by subordinates towards their superiors within a communicative act, dictated by the socio-cultural context of the interaction (Ridealgh and Jucker 2019).…”