Interactional strategies in a multilingual context: Illustrative examples from the discourse of bargaining E-Book
Samuel Moseti
15,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: GRIN Verlag
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Deutsch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009
Wissenschaftliche Studie aus dem Jahr 2006 im Fachbereich Sprachwissenschaft / Sprachforschung (fachübergreifend), , Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: ABSTRACT This paper discusses some of the transactional strategies that the interactants use in the market discourse. The paper discusses the role of Kiswahili in the discourse of bargaining in the market place. The authors draw the corpus data largely from open-air market negotiations in investigating certain strategies which are unique to Kiswahili. The paper explores the place of Kiswahili in the multilingual East Africa where it enjoys the status of a lingua franca and is largely used in transacting businesses and related activities. the paper unearths the underlying tact that the market interactants use to cooperate and collaborate vis-à-vis their mutually motivated goals. The interacting partners collaborate in accomplishing certain tasks consonant with the needs of the discourse situation. Code-mixing is one such strategy that is discussed in this paper and is thereby explicated as a sociolinguistic phenomenon which is occasioned by certain interactional needs. Code-mixing is explicated as a creative aspect of language through which the interlocutors blend linguistic units and structures from a variety of languages, including English, so as to code the message they want to convey in light of the dictates of the discourses in question. Other strategies that are discussed in this paper include honorifics, face and politeness strategies, collaboration and humour. In conclusion, the authors argue that the various languages are not in competition with each other. Rather, they complement each other in an atmosphere of co-existence. Their use is in part, motivated by the society’s linguistic needs.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Ähnliche
Page 1
Page 1
ABSTRACT
This paper discusses some of the transactional strategies that the interactants use in the market discourse. The paper discusses the role of Kiswahili in the discourse of bargaining in the market place. The authors draw the corpus data largely from open-air market negotiations in investigating certain strategies which are unique to Kiswahili. The paper explores the place of Kiswahili in the multilingual East Africa where it enjoys the status of a lingua franca and is largely used in transacting businesses and related activities. We will unearth the underlying tact that the market interactants use to cooperate and collaborate vis-àvis their mutually motivated goals. The interacting partners collaborate in accomplishing certain tasks consonant with the needs of the discourse situation. Code-mixing is one such strategy that is discussed in this paper and is thereby explicated as a sociolinguistic phenomenon which is occasioned by certain interactional needs. Code-mixing is explicated as a creative aspect of language through which the interlocutors blend linguistic units and structures from a variety of languages, including English, so as to code the message they want to convey in light of the dictates of the discourses in question. Other strategies that are discussed in this paper include honorifics, face and politeness strategies, collaboration and humour. In conclusion, the authors argue that the various languages are not in competition with each other. Rather, they complement each other in an atmosphere of co-existence. Their use and spread is in part, motivated by the society’s linguistic needs.
Page 2
1.0 INTRODUCTION
In this paper, we argue that the market interactants select lucid tactics and sequence their behaviour in organized and coherent ways. The tactics that they employ are largely collaborative and they ensure that the agreements are mutually accomplished. As such, we shall analyze such strategies as honorific terms of reference, face-saving and politeness phenomena as well as the repair scheme. Some of the strategies that the interlocutors employ in the bargain exercise include honorifics, face-saving and politeness phenomena, code-mixing as well as repair plan. We will begin with honorification as a bargain strategy. In all these instances, the interactants seem to prefer using Kiswahili but they occasionally use English in form of code-mixing.
1.1 HONORIFICATION
Honorification is a fundamental transactional strategy that the two parties use in this regard. We shall loosely define a strategy as a plan, an approach, a scheme or simply, the art of maneuvering an interactional encounter. Interactants use various strategies in order to achieve particular goals as per the dictates of the interactional encounter. They use various conversational procedures so as to achieve certain transactional goals that relate to buying and selling. An introspection of the market discourse sheds some light on the intentions of the interactants. By using specific language forms and structures, the market interactants act strategically in order to achieve the transactional goals. In this case, such strategies permeate every aspect of the market encounter. The data for this research confirm that the market interactants use a variety of strategies that are appropriate in promoting cooperation, collaboration and mutual understanding among the interactants in the course of their encounter. In order to achieve the mutual goal of the encounter, the market interactants choose strategies and tactics that sequence their behaviour in such a manner that enhances the realization of the goal of the interaction. In the market discourse, the various strategies that interactants adopt in their negotiation unify all that they do as they interact. Honorifics have been defined variously as language structures that signify the relationship between speakers in terms of respect. Such relationships are typically expressed in terms of deference, addressee, audience, and formality (Levinson 1983, Buyonge 1995). We realize that from the way honorifics as humble and respectful speech expressions are consistently used in the market context, we assume that the interlocutors are friendly, close and intimately engaged with each other. There are many other relationships that may be grammaticalized, for instance, kinship relations; totemic relations, and clan membership which may be made available by the relevant social system. Honorifics are accounted for by the maxim of relevance and the politeness principle, in the sense that one uses in a context the
