Evidential meanings in native and learner Japanese and English: Implications for the assessment of speaker certainty

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Filipović, Luna, Brown, Mika and Engelhardt, Paul E. (2023) Evidential meanings in native and learner Japanese and English: Implications for the assessment of speaker certainty. Pragmatics and Society, 14 (3). 484–508. ISSN 1878-9714

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Abstract

Evidentiality is a linguistic category that comprises forms and meanings related to the source of information in utterances, the use of which may impact judgments about the degree of certainty expressed by a speaker. The main dichotomy is first-hand (direct) vs. second-hand (indirect) evidence. This distinction is grammaticalised in Japanese only, though certain related meanings can be expressed in English lexically or constructionally. The relevant forms in both languages also function as indirectness-for-politeness markers. We used a judgments elicitation task and found that statements with Japanese evidentials (both first- and second-hand) and with English markers of uncertainty lead to judgments of lower certainty than the statements without the evidential forms and meanings for the majority, but not for all speakers. In addition, monolingual and bilingual usage in both languages has parallels such that these two typologically distinct languages appear closer and certainty judgments by their speakers similar.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Funding Information: This study was supported financially by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation as part of the larger project MOTIV: Motivación, Iconicidad y Arbitrariedad en el Procesamiento del Lenguaje Multimodal , grant number: PID2021-123302NB-I00.
Uncontrolled Keywords: english,japanese,l2,certainty,evidentiality,indirectness,judgments; l1,translation,language and linguistics,linguistics and language ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1200/1203
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies
Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Psychology
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Area Studies
Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Language and Communication Studies
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Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 09 Mar 2022 09:30
Last Modified: 25 Sep 2023 08:30
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/83944
DOI: 10.1075/ps.20089.fil

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