The pragmatic nativisation of pauses in Asian Englishes

Abstract

Studies within the world Englishes paradigm have furnished detailed descriptions of numerous lexical, morphological and syntactic features. Although laudable exceptions exist, pragmatics as well as the concept of pragmatic nativisation have so far been largely neglected in world Englishes – particularly from an empirical angle. The present paper investigates pauses – more specifically the choice between filled (for example, uh, uhm) and unfilled pauses (that is, silence) – in two South Asian Englishes, Indian and Sri Lankan English, in comparison to the culturally distinct British English. Central research questions include: (a) are there variety‐specific differences in the use of filled/unfilled pauses; (b) which additional factors determine the choice between filled and unfilled pauses; and (c) what implications do the results have for the notion of pragmatic nativisation?

Backchannels and the pragmatics of South Asian Englishes

“…Due to the relevance of syntactic changes in the evolution of postcolonial Englishes (Schneider, 2007), particularly recent research into South Asian Englishes – without ignoring the long research traditions into the phonology, lexis and discourse pragmatics of Indian English – has displayed a keen interest in lexicogrammatical phenomena. In contrast, the pragmatics of postcolonial Englishes – although they can be expected to be highly culture‐sensitive and thus promising areas of research given the differently structured societies around the globe in comparison to that of Great Britain – have so far not been in the limelight (with notable exceptions such as Kachru, 1981 and – more empirically oriented – Revis and Bernaisch (2020)). It is against this background that the current paper zooms in on a pragmatic feature of discourse organisation, namely backchannels.…”