2016 Volume 18 Issue 2 Pages 3-18
This paper introduces the pragmatics of ba, an innovative approach to pragmatics. Questioning fundamental assumptions of modern scientific approaches, the ba based approach to pragmatics first takes an inside perspective instead of an objective perspective. Second, it incorporates the assumption of dual mode thinking, an idea derived from a reexamination of the notion of the domain of self as consisting of two layers: the egocentric domain and the basho domain. This dual mode thinking simultaneously represents our practice of recognition and perception. By employing the ba based approach to pragmatics, the mechanisms behind conversational phenomena such as the automaticity of conversational code switching and simultaneous utterances by conversationalists observed in natural conversations, have been explained. This study is an attempt to explore emancipatory pragmatics.
