The search result changed since you submitted your search request. Documents might be displayed in a different sort order.
  • search hit 8 of 424
Back to Result List

Face Management and Negative Strengthening

  • Negated gradable adjectives often convey an interpretation that is stronger than their literal meaning, which is referred to as ‘negative strengthening.’ For example, a sentence like ‘John is not kind’ may give rise to the inference that John is rather mean. Crucially, negation is more likely to be pragmatically strengthened in the case of positive adjectives (‘not kind’ to mean rather mean) than negative adjectives (‘not mean’ to mean rather kind). A classical explanation of this polarity asymmetry is based on politeness, specifically on the potential face threat of bare negative adjectives (Horn, 1989; Brown and Levinson, 1987). This paper presents the results of two experiments investigating the role of face management in negative strengthening. We show that negative strengthening of positive and negative adjectives interacts differently with the social variables of power, social distance, and gender.

Export metadata

Additional Services

Search Google Scholar Statistics
Metadaten
Author details:Nicole GotznerORCiDGND, Diana MazzarellaORCiD
DOI:https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.602977
ISSN:1664-042X
Pubmed ID:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34646182
Title of parent work (English):Frontiers in psychology / Frontiers Research Foundation
Subtitle (English):The Role of Power Relations, Social Distance, and Gender
Publisher:Frontiers Research Foundation
Place of publishing:Lausanne, Schweiz
Further contributing person(s):Valentina Cuccio, Paolo Canal, Bob van Tiel
Publication type:Article
Language:English
Date of first publication:2021/09/27
Publication year:2020
Release date:2022/03/18
Tag:adjectives
antonymy; conversational implicature; negation; politeness; social meaning
Volume:12
Article number:602977
Number of pages:13
First page:1
Last Page:13
Funding institution:German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of the Xprag.de
Funding institution:InitiativeGerman Research Foundation (DFG)
Funding number:BE 4348/4-1
Funding number:GO 3378/1-1
Organizational units:Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Strukturbereich Kognitionswissenschaften / Department Linguistik
DDC classification:1 Philosophie und Psychologie / 15 Psychologie / 150 Psychologie
Peer review:Referiert
Grantor:Publikationsfonds der Universität Potsdam
Publishing method:Open Access / Gold Open-Access
License (German):License LogoCC-BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International
External remark:Zweitveröffentlichung in der Schriftenreihe Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe ; 750
Accept ✔
This website uses technically necessary session cookies. By continuing to use the website, you agree to this. You can find our privacy policy here.