Waterford Older Speakers and Extended Family Corpus (WOSEFC): A corpus-based intra-varietal pragmatic analysis of general extender usage of extended family members from Waterford City, Ireland

Abstract

This paper adopts a corpus-based intra-varietal pragmatic approach to analyse the language use of a group of six older speakers aged 65-75 from Waterford city, Ireland, drawing on a 48,228-word corpus entitled Waterford Older Speakers and Extended Family Corpus (WOSEFC). The data, gathered through sociolinguistic interviews is intimate in nature (interactions between a nephew with aunts and uncles) and the study argues for the inclusion of the extended family within the definition of intimate discourse, which heretofore has only included couples, immediate family and long-term friends. The study explores the use of adjunctive and disjunctive general extenders. Whereas social distance is perceived minimal among immediate family, extended family need to engage in further pragmatic work to re-consolidate shared knowledge, bring to the fore their shared experiences and demarcate solidarity. The high level of positive politeness strategies is argued to be emblematic of the extended family interactions in this study. This high involvement style, as noted in other intimate sites, is coupled with higher levels of hedging when faced with difficult conversation topics or as a means to temper the sustained appeal to shared knowledge (Clancy 2016). This allows the intimates to manoeuvre linguistically and interpersonally to consolidate their inherent closeness based on trust, emotional intimacy, open communication of feelings and reciprocity.