Article published In:
Pragmatics: Online-First Articles

Why not focus on combating the virus?

On the active and passive egocentrism in communications

| East China Normal University
“Egocentrism” in communication usually refers to the fact that interlocutors are subconsciously influenced by their cognitive environment. However, being egocentric may be the product of the interlocutors’ conscious choice rather than the unavoidable impact of cognitive experience. In order to explore some emotive conflicts during the fight against COVID-19 in China, this study distinguishes active egocentrism from passive egocentrism. We further contend that the interplay of the cognitive environment and the active assessment of social context differ in speaker processing and hearer processing, which may result in emotive miscommunications. The facets of the actual social context assessed by interlocutors are also investigated to explain the formation of active egocentrism.
Keywords: egocentrism, emotive miscommunication, assessment of actual situation, interpersonal pragmatics, relevance, cooperation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The conscious factors in emotive communication
  • 3.The procedural difference in expression and interpretation
    • 3.1The continuum of cooperation and egocentrism
    • 3.2From the hearer’s perspective
    • 3.3From the speaker’s perspective
  • 4.The individual assessment of the actual situation and the active egocentrism
    • 4.1Female nurses’ dedication
    • 4.2The medical expert’s advice
    • 4.3The praise from the fandom
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 30 April 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.22032.zuo
References (63)
References
Androutsopoulos, Jannis. 2014. “Languaging When Contexts Collapse: Audience Design in Social Networking.” Discourse, Context & Media 41: 62–73. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bednarek, Monika. 2017. “Fandom”. In Pragmatics of Social Media, ed. by Christian R. Hoffmann, and Wolfram Bublitz, 545–572. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bezuidenhout, Anne. 2013. “Perspective Taking in Conversation: A Defense of Speaker Non-Egocentricity.” Journal of Pragmatics 481: 4–16. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bou-Franch, Patricia, and Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich. 2018. “Relational Work in Multimodal Networked Interactions on Facebook.” Internet Pragmatics 1 (1): 134–160. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Caffi, Claudia, and Richard W. Janney. 1994. “Toward a Pragmatics of Emotive Communication.” Journal of Pragmatics 22 (3–4): 325–373. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chen, Xinren. 2019. Critical Pragmatic Studies on Chinese Public Discourse. New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan. 2011. Impoliteness: Using Language to Cause Offence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Decety, Jean, and Jessica A. Sommerville. 2003. “Shared Representations between Self and Other: A Social Cognitive Neuroscience View.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 7 (12): 527–533. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
de Saint Preux, Anna Doquin, and Ocarina Masid Blanco. 2021. “The Power of Conceptual Metaphors in the Age of Pandemic: The Influence of the WAR and SPORT Domains on Emotions and Thoughts.” Language & Communication 811: 37–47. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Freidson, Eliot. 1970. Professional Dominance. Chicago: Aldine.Google Scholar
Giora, Rachel. 1997. “Understanding Figurative and Literal Language: The Graded Salience Hypothesis.” Cognitive Linguistics 8 (3): 183–206. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1955. “On Face-Work: An Analysis of Ritual Elements in Social Interaction.” Psychiatry 18 (3): 213–231. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1967. Interaction Ritual. Essays on Face-to-Face Behaviour. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
. 1981. Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Gordon, David Paul. 1983. “Hospital Slang for Patients: Crocks, Gomers, Groks, and Others.” Language in Society 12 (2): 173–185. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Halász, Katinka. 2018. “Misunderstandings in Communicative Language Use.” Sparchtheorie and Germanistische Linguistik 121: 237–273.Google Scholar
Haugh, Michael. 2008. “The Place of Intention in the Interactional Achievement of Implicature.” In Intention, Common Ground and the Egocentric Speaker-Hearer, eds. by Istvan Kecskes, and Jacob May, 45–86. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2013. “Im/Politeness, Social Practice and the Participation Order.” Journal of Pragmatics 581: 52–72. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hofstede, Geert. 1980. “Culture and Organizations.” International Studies of Management & Organization 10 (4): 15–41. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ivaskó, Livia, and Enikő Németh T. 2002. “Types and Reasons of Communicative Failures.” Modern Filológiai Közlemények 41: 31–43.Google Scholar
Jaworska, Sylvia. 2021. “Investigating Media Representations of the Coronavirus in the UK, USA and Germany: What Can a Comparative Corpus-Based Discourse Analysis Contribute to Our Understanding of the Covid-19 Pandemic?” In Viral Discourse, ed. by Rodney H. Jones, 26–36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
. 2012. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jenkins, Henry, Mizuko Ito, and danah boyd. 2016. Participatory Culture in a Networked Era. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Kecskes, Istvan. 2008. “Dueling Context: A Dynamic Model of Meaning.” Journal of Pragmatics 40 (3): 385–406. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2012. “Is There Anyone Out There Who Really Is Interested in the Speaker?” Language and Dialogue 2 (2): 283–297. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2019. “The Interplay of Prior Experience and Actual Situational Context in Intercultural First Encounters.” Pragmatics and Cognition 26 (1): 112–134. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kecskes, Istvan, and Fenghui Zhang. 2009. “Activating, Seeking, and Creating Common Ground: A Socio-Cognitive Approach.” Pragmatics and Cognition 17 (2): 331–355. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Keysar, Boaz. 2007. “Communication and Miscommunication: The Role of Egocentric Processes.” Intercultural Pragmatics 4 (1): 71–84. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Langlotz, Andreas, and Miriam A. Locher. 2012. “Ways of Communicating Emotional Stance in Online Disagreements.” Journal of Pragmatics 44 (12): 1591–1606. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2013. “The Role of Emotions in Relational Work.” Journal of Pragmatics 581: 87–107. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Locher, Miriam. A., and Richard J. Watts. 2005. “Politeness Theory and Relational Work.” Journal of Politeness Research 1 (1): 9–33. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2008. “Relational Work and Impoliteness: Negociating Norms of Linguistic Behavior.” In Impolinetess in Language. Studies on Its Interplay with Power in Theory and Practice, eds. by Derek Bousfield, and Miriam A. Locher, 77–99. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Lukes, Steven. 1978. “Power and Authority.” In A History of Sociological Analysis, ed. by Thomas B. Bottomore, and Robert A. Nisbet, 633–676. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Lupton, Deborah. 1997. “Doctors on the Medical Profession.” Sociology of Health & Illness 191: 480–497. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Martikainen, Jari, and Inari Sakki. 2021. “Boosting Nationalism through COVID-19 Images: Multimodal Construction of the Failure of the ‘Dear Enemy’ with COVID-19 in the National Press.” Discourse & Communication 15 (4): 388–414. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mercier, Hugo, and Dan Sperber. 2011. “Why Do Humans Reason? Arguments for an Argumentative Theory.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 34 (2): 57–74. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Miller, Vincent. 2008. “New Media, Networking and Phatic Culture.” Convergence 14 (4): 387–400. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moeschler, Jacques. 2004. “Intercultural [ragmatics: A Cognitive Approach.” Intercultural Pragmatics 1 (1): 49–70. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2009. “Pragmatics, Propositional and Non-Propositional Effects: Can a Theory of Utterance Interpretation Account for Emotions in Verbal Communication?” Social Science Information 48 (3): 447–464. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mustajoki, Arto. 2012. “A Speaker-Oriented Multidimensional Approach to Risks and Causes of Miscommunication.” Language and Dialogue 2 (2): 216–243. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Németh T., Enikő. 2015. “The Role of Perspectives in Various Forms of Language Use.” Semiotica 2031: 53–78. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Oyserman, Daphna, Heather M. Coon, and Markus Kemmelmeier. 2002. “Rethinking Individualism and Collectivism: Evaluation of Theoretical Assumptions and Meta-Analysis.” Psychological Bulletin 128 (1): 3–72. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Padilla Cruz, Manuel. 2017. “Interlocutors-Related and Hearer-Specific Causes of Misunderstanding: Processing Strategy, Confirmation Bias and Weak Vigilance.” Research in Language 15 (1): 11–36. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Piantadosi, Steven T., Harry Tily, and Edward Gibson. 2011. “Word Lengths Are Optimized for Efficient Communication.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108 (9): 3526–3529. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jones, Rodney H. 2021. “Order out of Chaos: Coronavirus Communication and the Construction of Competence.” In Viral Discourse, ed. by Rodney H. Jones, 69–78. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ruusuvuori, Johanna. 2000. Control in the Medical Consultation: Practices of Giving and Receiving the Reason for the Visit in Primary Health Care. Tampere: Tampere University Press.Google Scholar
Schröder, Ulrike. 2018. “Face as an Interactional Construct in the Context of Connectedness and Separateness: An Empirical Approach to Culture-Specific Interpretations of Face.” Pragmatics 28 (4): 547–572.Google Scholar
Shintel, Hadas, and Boaz Keysar. 2009. “Less is More: A Minimalist Account of Joint Action in Communication.” Topics in Cognitive Science 1 (2): 260–273. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shuvalov, Denis, and Enikő Németh T. 2023. “Perspective-Taking in Argumentative Discourse.” Kazan Linguistic Journal 6 (3): 431–441. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson. 1995. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Spencer-Oatey, Helen. 2005. “(Im)politeness, Face and Perceptions of Rapport: Unpackaging Their Bases and Interrelationships.” Journal of Politeness Research 1 (1): 95–119. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2008. “Face, (Im)politeness and Rapport.” In Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, ed. by Helen Spencer-Oatey, 11–47. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Spencer-Oatey, Helen, and Peter Franklin. 2009. Intercultural interaction: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Intercultural Communication. Berlin: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Spencer-Oatey, Helen. 2011. “Conceptualising ‘the Relational’ in Pragmatics: Insights from Metapragmatic Emotion And (Im)Politeness Comments.” Journal of Pragmatics 431: 3565–3578. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Starr, Rebecca Lurie, Christian Go, and Vincent Pak. 2022. “Keep Calm, Stay Safe, and Drink Bubble Tea: Commodifying the Crisis of COVID-19 in Singapore Advertising.” Language in Society: 1–27. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stevanovic, Melisa, and Anssi Peräkylä. 2014. “Three Orders in the Organization of Human Action: On the Interface between Knowledge, Power, and Emotion in Interaction and Social Relations.” Language in Society 43 (2): 185–207. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thomas, Jenny. A. 1995. Meaning in Interaction. An Introduction to Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Yu, Hangyan, Lu Huiling, and Jie Hu. 2021. “A Corpus-Based Critical Discourse Analysis of News Reports on the Covid-19 Pandemic in China and the UK.” International Journal of English Linguistics 11 (2): 36. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yus, Francisco. 2018. “The Interface between Pragmatics and Internet-Mediated Communication.” In Pragmatics and Its Interfaces, ed. by Cornelia Ilie, and Neal R. Norrick, 267–290. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Deirdre, and Dan Sperber. 2004. “Relevance Theory.” In Handbook of Pragmatics, ed. by Laurence R. Horn, and Gregory L. Ward, 607–632. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Zuo, Baiyao. 2018. “Emotive Misunderstanding within an Extended Relevance Theory.” Intercultural Pragmatics 15 (5): 627–650. DOI logoGoogle Scholar