Extending the Domain of Interpersonal Rhetoric in Linguistic Pragmatics through Interactive Properties of Communication Participants

Dr. Elżbieta Magdalena Wąsik,

Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland

The paper will argue that the hitherto developed linguistic pragmatics can only observe cultural conditionings of communication acts and the empirically accessible interpersonal relationships between communication participants. But it cannot probe into the real nature of communicative intentions as well as mental endowments of human individuals. What constitutes the investigative objects in the domain of pragmatic studies are the principles, rules and maxims of interpersonal rhetoric which are predominantly used in dyadic and small-groups and to a lesser degree in public and mass communication. For that reason, the paper puts forward a postulate to elaborate a conceptual and methodological framework which might be applicable to the study the relational aspects and inherent constituents of intercultural communication in multinational societies, such as, for example, intimacy, partnership, cooperation, competition (emulation), combat, and the like. As an extended research tool, this framework might be helpful in checking how the general requirements of cross-cultural coexistence are observed by communicating agents adhering to different civilizational traditions, customs, philosophical and religious beliefs. Accordingly, the investigative domain of interpersonal rhetoric would comprise not only the norms of interaction operating in a given society in particular, but also the knowledge about universal qualities of human beings in general, such as basic needs, requirements, expectations, emotions, and cognitive addiction to the way of thinking resultant from native languages, habitual behavior, as well as the inseparability of reasoning and doing (which are conspicuous aspects of human life) and the capacity to assess one’s own actions from the perspective of others.

The above abstract is a part of the article which was accepted at The Fourth Annual International Conference on Languages, Linguistics, Translation and Literature (WWW.LLLD.IR), 1-2 February 2020, Iran-Ahwaz.

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