Cross-Linguistic Patterns in Pragmatics

Deixis is the use of language to refer to things in the immediate context, such as "this" and "that". While deixis is a universal feature of language, it does not vary significantly across languages in the way that politeness strategies, speech acts, and conversational implicature do.

Conversational implicature is the use of language to convey a message that is not explicitly stated. For example, if someone says "It's cold in here," they may be indirectly asking you to close the window.

Politeness strategies are the social and cultural rules that govern how people communicate. These strategies vary across cultures, and they can be used to express respect, deference, or solidarity.

Speech acts are the basic unit of communication in pragmatics. A speech act is an utterance that is used to perform an action, such as making a request, giving a command, or making a promise.

Expressive speech acts are not a type of speech act. Expressive utterances are used to express the speaker's emotions or attitudes, but they do not perform any specific action.

Deixis is the use of language to refer to things in the immediate context, such as "this" and "that". Deictic expressions can be used to refer to people, places, things, or events.

Discourse deixis is not a type of deixis. Discourse deixis is the use of language to refer to things in the discourse, such as "the previous speaker" or "the topic of the conversation". Discourse deixis is not a universal feature of language, and it varies across languages.

Politeness strategies are the social and cultural rules that govern how people communicate. These strategies are used to create or maintain social relationships, and they can vary across cultures.

Deference is not a type of politeness strategy. Deference is a social and cultural concept that refers to the respect that is shown to someone who is of higher status. Deference is not a specific linguistic strategy, and it can be expressed in a variety of ways.

Conversational implicature is the use of language to convey a message that is not explicitly stated. For example, if someone says "It's cold in here," they may be indirectly asking you to close the window.

Generalized implicature is not a type of conversational implicature. Generalized implicatures are inferences that are based on general knowledge about the world, rather than on the specific context of the conversation. For example, if someone says "I'm going to the store," you might infer that they are going to buy something, even though this is not explicitly stated.

Deixis is the use of language to refer to things in the immediate context, such as "this" and "that". Deictic expressions can be used to refer to people, places, things, or events.

Discourse deixis is not a type of deixis. Discourse deixis is the use of language to refer to things in the discourse, such as "the previous speaker" or "the topic of the conversation". Discourse deixis is not a universal feature of language, and it varies across languages.

Politeness strategies are the social and cultural rules that govern how people communicate. These strategies are used to create or maintain social relationships, and they can vary across cultures.

Deference is not a type of politeness strategy. Deference is a social and cultural concept that refers to the respect that is shown to someone who is of higher status. Deference is not a specific linguistic strategy, and it can be expressed in a variety of ways.