Article published in:
English World-Wide
Vol. 39:3 (2018) ► pp. 338–363

Variational pragmatics, responses to thanks, and the specificity of English in Namibia

| Bielefeld University
| University of Bonn
In the framework of variational pragmatics, the focus so far has been on L1-varieties of English, and the present paper introduces this area of research into the wider field of World Englishes. It presents first results from a larger questionnaire study on a number of pragmatic variables in Namibian English (NamE), a variety of English that only recently has aroused the interest of a number of researchers because of its unique history and complex variety status. The study employs methods successfully applied in variational pragmatics and describes the realization of responses to thanks in NamE in comparison to three L1-varieties of English. As the paper shows, NamE differs from these varieties in various ways. It argues that these differences, although possibly being more in degree than in kind, nevertheless index local Namibian solutions in the complex linguistic ecology of the speech community. The results of the study furthermore show that some of the results reported for the L1-varieties need to be reconsidered in view of the Namibian data.
Keywords: variational pragmatics, World Englishes, Southern African Englishes, Namibian English, English in Namibia, contrastive linguistics, cross-cultural pragmatics, responses to thanks
Published online: 02 November 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.00017.sch
References

References

Aijmer, Karin
1996 Conversational Routines in English: Convention and Creativity. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Anchimbe, Eric A.
2006 Cameroon English: Authenticity, Ecology and Evolution. Frankfurt: Lang.Google Scholar
2011 “ ‘Take a beer’ – ‘Thanks. Sorry, I prefer another day’: A Postcolonial Pragmatic Perspective on Offers and Offer Refusals”. In Joachim Frenk, and Lena Steveker, eds. Anglistentag 2010 Saarbrücken. Proceedings. Trier: WVT, 421–431.Google Scholar
2012 “The Filtration Processes in Cameroon English”. In Eric A. Anchimbe, ed. Language Contact in a Postcolonial Setting: The Linguistic and Social Context of English and Pidgin in Cameroon. Berlin: de Gruyter, 117–139.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Barron, Anne
2008 “The Structure of Requests in Irish English and English English”. In Klaus P. Schneider, and Anne Barron, eds. Variational Pragmatics: A Focus on Regional Varieties in Pluricentric Languages. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 35–67.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Barron, Anne, and Klaus P. Schneider
eds. 2005 The Pragmatics of Irish English. Berlin: de Gruyter.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bieswanger, Markus
2015 “Variational Pragmatics and Responding to Thanks – Revisited”. Multilingua 34: 527–546.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Buschfeld, Sarah
2014 “English in Cyprus and Namibia: A Critical Approach to Taxonomies and Models of World English and Second Language Acquisition Research”. In Sarah Buschfeld, Thomas Hoffmann, Magnus Huber, and Alexander Kautzsch, eds. The Evolution of Englishes: The Dynamic Model and Beyond. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 181–202.Google Scholar
Buschfeld, Sarah, and Alexander Kautzsch
2014 “English in Namibia: A First Approach”. English World-Wide 35: 121–160.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2017 “Towards an Integrated Approach to Postcolonial and Non-Postcolonial Englishes”. World Englishes 36: 104–126.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan, and Michael Haugh
2014 Pragmatics and the English Language. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Dinkin, Aaron J.
2016 It’s No Problem to be Polite: Change in Apparent Time in Responses to Thanks. Paper presented at the Conference New Way of Analyzing Variation 45, Vancouver, Canada, 3–6 November 2016.
Edmondson, Willis J.
1981 Spoken Discourse: A Model for Analysis. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Edmondson, Willis J., and Juliane House
1981 Let’s Talk and Talk about it: A Pedagogic Interactional Grammar of English. München: Urban and Schwarzenberg.Google Scholar
Ethnologue. Languages of the World
www​.ethnologue​.com (accessed April 4, 2017).
Filppula, Markku, Juhani Klemola, and Devyani Sharma
eds. 2017 The Oxford Handbook of World Englishes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving
1971 Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Hilgendorf, Suzanne
ed. fc English in the Expanding Circle: The Shift from Foreign to Additional Language of Use Amsterdam Benjamins
Kachru, Braj B., Yamuna Kachru, and Cecil L. Nelson
eds. 2009 The Handbook of World Englishes. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Kachru, Yamuna
2017 “World Englishes, Pragmatics, and Discourse.” In Markku Filppula, Juhani Klemola, and Devyani Sharma, eds. The Oxford Handbook of World Englishes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 272–290.Google Scholar
Kautzsch, Alexander, and Anne Schröder
2016 “English in Multilingual and Multiethnic Namibia: Some Evidence on Language Attitudes and on the Pronunciation of Vowels”. In Christoph Ehland, Ilka Mindt, and Merle Tönnies, eds. Anglistentag 2015 Paderborn. Proceedings. Trier: WVT, 277–288.Google Scholar
Kautzsch, Alexander, Anne Schröder, and Frederic Zähres
2017 The Phonetics of Namibian English: Investigating Local Features in a Global Context. Paper presented at the IAWE Conference, June 30 – July 2, 2017, Syracuse University, NY.
Kirkpatrick, Andy
ed. 2010 The Routledge Handbook of World Englishes. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kortmann, Bernd, and Edgar W. Schneider
eds. 2004 A Handbook of Varieties of English. 2 Volumes. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Mesthrie, Rajend
ed. 2008 Varieties of English. Volume 4: Africa, South and Southeast Asia. Berlin: de Gruyter.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2017 “World Englishes, Second Language Acquisition, and Language Contact.” In Markku Filppula, Juhani Klemola, and Devyani Sharma, eds. The Oxford Handbook of World Englishes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 175–193.Google Scholar
Mufwene, Salikoko S.
2001 The Ecology of Language Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Mulo Farenkia, Bernard
2012 “Face-saving Strategies in Responding to Gratitude Expressions: Evidence from Canadian English”. International Journal of English Linguistics 2: 1–11.Google Scholar
Ogiermann, Eva
2018 “Discourse Completion Tasks”. In Andreas Jucker, Klaus P. Schneider, and Wolfram Bublitz, eds. Methods in Pragmatics. Berlin: de Gruyter, 229–256.Google Scholar
Rüegg, Larssyn
2014 “Thanks Responses in Three Socio-Economic Settings: A Variational Pragmatics Approach”. Journal of Pragmatics 71: 17–30.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, Edgar W.
2007 Postcolonial English: Varieties around the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2011 English around the World: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
2014 “New Reflections on the Evolutionary Dynamics of World Englishes”. World Englishes 33: 9–32.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, Klaus P.
2005 “ No Problem, You’re Welcome, Anytime: Responding to Thanks in Ireland, England, and the USA”. In Anne Barron, and Klaus P. Schneider, eds. The Pragmatics of Irish English. Berlin: de Gruyter, 101–139.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2007 “Genre Matters: Textual and Contextual Constraints on Contemporary English Speech Behaviour”. Anglia 125: 59–83.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2008 “Small Talk in England, Ireland, and the USA”. In Klaus P. Schneider, and Anne Barron, eds. Variational Pragmatics: A Focus on Regional Varieties in Pluricentric Languages. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 99–139.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2010 “Variational Pragmatics”. In Mirjam Fried, Jan-Ola Östman, and Jef Verschueren, eds. Variation and Change: Pragmatic Perspectives. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 239–267.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2012a “Appropriate Behaviour across Varieties of English”. Journal of Pragmatics 44: 1022–1037.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2012b “Pragmatics.” In Raymond Hickey, ed. Areal Features of the Anglophone World. Berlin: de Gruyter, 463–486.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2012c “Pragmatic Variation and Cultural Models”. Review of Cognitive Linguistics 10: 346–372.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2014 “Comparability and Sameness in Variational Pragmatics”. In Silvia Mergenthal, and Reingard Nischik, eds. Anglistentag 2013 Konstanz. Proceedings. Trier: WVT, 361–372.Google Scholar
Schneider, Klaus P., and Barron, Anne
2008 “Where Pragmatics and Dialectology Meet: Introducing Variational Pragmatics”. In Klaus P. Schneider, and Anne Barron, eds. Variational Pragmatics: A Focus on Regional Varieties in Pluricentric Languages. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1–32.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, Klaus P., and Maria Elena Placencia
2017 “(Im)politeness and Regional Variation”. In Jonathan Culpeper, Michael Haugh, and Daniel Kádár, eds. Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)Politeness. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 539–570.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Stell, Gerald
2014 “Use and Functions of English in Namibia’s Multiethnic Settings”. World Englishes 33: 223–241.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Talla Sando Ouafeu, Yves
2009 “Thanking Responders in Cameroon English”. World Englishes 28: 544–551.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Trudgill, Peter, and Jean Hannah
2017 International English. A Guide to the Varieties of English around the World. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Zähres, Frederic
2016a “A Case of Code-Switching in Namibian Keyboard-to-Screen Communication”. 10plus1: Living Linguistics 2: 31–46. <10plus1journal.com> (accessed April 7, 2017).Google Scholar
2016b “Vowels in Namibian English: Investigating the NURSE-WORK Vowel Split”. MA-Thesis, Bielefeld University.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 8 other publications

No author info given
2020. Soziolinguistische Bibliographie europäischer Länder für 2018Sociolinguistic Bibliography of European Countries for 2018Bibliographie sociolinguistique des pays européens pour 2018. Sociolinguistica 34:1 ► pp. 277 ff. Crossref logo
Buschfeld, Sarah
2021.  In The Dynamics of English in Namibia [Varieties of English Around the World, G65], ► pp. 169 ff. Crossref logo
Buschfeld, Sarah & Anne Schröder
2019.  In English in the German-Speaking World, ► pp. 334 ff. Crossref logo
Kranich, Svenja, Elisabeth Hampel & Hanna Bruns
2020. Changes in the modal domain in different varieties of English as potential effects of democratization. Language Sciences 79 ► pp. 101271 ff. Crossref logo
Schneider, Edgar W. & Anne Schröder
2021.  In The Dynamics of English in Namibia [Varieties of English Around the World, G65], ► pp. 275 ff. Crossref logo
Schröder, Anne
2021.  In The Dynamics of English in Namibia [Varieties of English Around the World, G65], ► pp. 1 ff. Crossref logo
Schröder, Anne & Klaus P. Schneider
2021.  In The Dynamics of English in Namibia [Varieties of English Around the World, G65], ► pp. 195 ff. Crossref logo
Schröder, Anne, Frederic Zähres & Alexander Kautzsch
2020. Ethnic variation in the phonology of Namibian English. English World-Wide. A Journal of Varieties of English 41:2 ► pp. 193 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 29 september 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.