Spyridoula Bella
Biographic Data
| ID | 987307 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Spyridoula Bella |
| GIVEN NAMES | Spyridoula |
| FAMILY NAME | Bella |
| SIGNATURE | BELLA S |
| AFFILIATIONS | National and Kapodistrian University of Athens |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3150-0940 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 90 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Navigating the continuum of harmful speech: Racist discourse and the escalation to violence on social media
This article examines escalation in racist discourse on Greek X by tracing two recurrent formulations: δεν ακούς ελληνικά (‘you don’t hear any Greek’) and καθαρίστε την Ελλάδα (‘clean Greece’). The dataset comprises 180 publicly accessible posts (May 2012–January 2024), sampled across migration-salient periods and analysed as posts-in-context. Reflexive thematic analysis maps patterns and guides exemplar selection. Combining Wodak’s Discourse-His…
Mitigation, Rapport, and Identity Construction in Workplace Requests
This study investigates how Greek professionals formulate upward requests and simultaneously manage rapport and workplace identity within hierarchical exchanges. The data comprise 400 written requests elicited through a discourse-completion task from 100 participants, supplemented by follow-up interviews. Integrating pragmatic perspectives on request mitigation with Spencer-Oatey's Rapport-Management model and a social constructionist perspective…
Pragmatics in the service of marketing: The case of Covid-19 semi-commercial public signs
Disseminating risk communication: Advice offered on non-official public signage during the Covid-19 pandemic
This paper investigates advice offered on closure signs displayed on businesses in Greece and the UK during the first lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic. By scrutinising signs photographed in London and in Athens, as well as speeches delivered by the British and Greek prime ministers at the time of the closures, our analysis shows how business owners pass on government instructions to their customers. The study thus makes an original contribution …
Gratitude for compliance: A developmental study on the speech act of thanking
Offers by Greek FL learners: A cross-sectional developmental study
This study investigates developmental patterns in the ability of Greek foreign language learners to make offers. Drawing data from role-plays and retrospective verbal reports it attempts to explore the initiative offer strategies, the syntactic modification and the degree of insistence that learners of three different proficiency levels (lower intermediate, intermediate and advanced) employ when performing offers in two symmetrical (-P, -D) and t…
A contrastive study of apologies performed by Greek native speakers and English learners of Greek as a foreign language
This paper investigates apologies produced by Greek native speakers and English learners of Greek as a foreign language in two informal (-P, -D) and two formal situations (+P, +D). Drawing on data elicited by means of an assessment questionnaire, a DCT and the participants’ verbal reports, the study attempts to explore the extent to which the two groups differ in their contextual assessments of the apology situations under examination and in stra…
Length of residence and intensity of interaction: Modification in Greek L2 requests
This paper investigates the external and internal modification devices used by native speakers and advanced learners of Greek, when making requests in formal and informal situations. The data are drawn from a discourse completion test completed by native speakers and learners of two different groups: one with extended length of residence in Greece but limited opportunities for interaction with native speakers and one with more frequent opportunit…
Accounts as acts of identity: Justifying business closures on Covid-19 public signs in Athens and London
This paper investigates accounts justifying the closures of businesses found on public signs in Athens and London during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data for the study was drawn from a corpus of COVID-19-related public signage collected in the two cities during the first lockdown. The accounts used on these signs are analysed as acts of identity and, specifically, as discursive means deployed by the authors of the signs to project themselves and t…
On the dual role of expressive speech acts: Relational work on signs announcing closures during the Covid-19 pandemic
An Interlanguage Study of Request Perspective: Evidence from German, Greek, Polish and Russian Learners of English
The present study examines request perspective, the least researched form of mitigation in requesting, while focusing on a type of request characterized by a strong preference for speaker perspective in English and for hearer perspective in most other languages researched to date. It examines requests produced by 900 speakers from nine different (inter)language groups: five groups of native speakers (English, German, Greek, Polish and Russian) an…
An Intergenerational Perspective on (Im)politeness
The present paper provides an intergenerational perspective on Greek conceptualizations of (im)politeness. Based on interviews eliciting narratives of impolite behaviour of our participants’ parents’ generation, the study illustrates the contested and changing nature of politeness in contemporary Greece. Through critically evaluating the older generation’s behaviour, the participants not only provided insights into their own politeness norms but …
What’s in a first? The link between impromptu invitations and their responses
Developing the ability to refuse: A cross-sectional study of Greek FL refusals
Pragmatic awareness in a second language setting: The case of L2 learners of Greek
This study explores the pragmatic awareness of instructed L2 learners of Greek (economic migrants) by examining the extent to which these learners display differences in their recognition and rating of pragmatic and grammatical violations. Methodologically, the study is largely based on the Bardovi-Harlig & Dörnyei (1998) study on pragmatic awareness. However, unlike the former, it does not compare SL and FL learners, but two groups of SL learner…
Pragmatic development in a foreign language: A study of Greek FL requests
Mitigation and politeness in Greek invitation refusals: Effects of length of residence in the target community and intensity of interaction on non-native speakers' performance
Invitations and politeness in Greek: The age variable
This paper investigates invitations and invitation refusals in Greek and their relationship to politeness within Brown and Levinson's (Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage, Cambridge University Press, 1987) framework. On the basis of data drawn from role plays corroborated with informants' verbal reports, it is argued that age is a determining factor for both the format of the speech event of inviting/refusing and the politeness strategi…
Cognitive motivation and pragmatic functions of the Greek deictics
This paper is a study of the way in which native speakers of Modern Greek use deictic categories. Specifically, it provides a theoretical account of the cognitive procedures that motivate the choice of one deictic over its counter-part in a deictic contrast and the pragmatic effects that this particular choice seems to have in terms of the speech situation
Mitigation and politeness in Greek invitation refusals: Effects of length of residence in the target community and intensity of interaction on non-native speakers' performance
Developing the ability to refuse: A cross-sectional study of Greek FL refusals
Pragmatic development in a foreign language: A study of Greek FL requests
On the dual role of expressive speech acts: Relational work on signs announcing closures during the Covid-19 pandemic
Invitations and politeness in Greek: The age variable
This paper investigates invitations and invitation refusals in Greek and their relationship to politeness within Brown and Levinson's (Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage, Cambridge University Press, 1987) framework. On the basis of data drawn from role plays corroborated with informants' verbal reports, it is argued that age is a determining factor for both the format of the speech event of inviting/refusing and the politeness strategi…
What’s in a first? The link between impromptu invitations and their responses
An Interlanguage Study of Request Perspective: Evidence from German, Greek, Polish and Russian Learners of English
The present study examines request perspective, the least researched form of mitigation in requesting, while focusing on a type of request characterized by a strong preference for speaker perspective in English and for hearer perspective in most other languages researched to date. It examines requests produced by 900 speakers from nine different (inter)language groups: five groups of native speakers (English, German, Greek, Polish and Russian) an…
An Intergenerational Perspective on (Im)politeness
The present paper provides an intergenerational perspective on Greek conceptualizations of (im)politeness. Based on interviews eliciting narratives of impolite behaviour of our participants’ parents’ generation, the study illustrates the contested and changing nature of politeness in contemporary Greece. Through critically evaluating the older generation’s behaviour, the participants not only provided insights into their own politeness norms but …
Pragmatic awareness in a second language setting: The case of L2 learners of Greek
This study explores the pragmatic awareness of instructed L2 learners of Greek (economic migrants) by examining the extent to which these learners display differences in their recognition and rating of pragmatic and grammatical violations. Methodologically, the study is largely based on the Bardovi-Harlig & Dörnyei (1998) study on pragmatic awareness. However, unlike the former, it does not compare SL and FL learners, but two groups of SL learner…
Pragmatics in the service of marketing: The case of Covid-19 semi-commercial public signs
Cognitive motivation and pragmatic functions of the Greek deictics
This paper is a study of the way in which native speakers of Modern Greek use deictic categories. Specifically, it provides a theoretical account of the cognitive procedures that motivate the choice of one deictic over its counter-part in a deictic contrast and the pragmatic effects that this particular choice seems to have in terms of the speech situation
Mitigation, Rapport, and Identity Construction in Workplace Requests
This study investigates how Greek professionals formulate upward requests and simultaneously manage rapport and workplace identity within hierarchical exchanges. The data comprise 400 written requests elicited through a discourse-completion task from 100 participants, supplemented by follow-up interviews. Integrating pragmatic perspectives on request mitigation with Spencer-Oatey's Rapport-Management model and a social constructionist perspective…
Cognitive motivation and pragmatic functions of the Greek deictics
This paper is a study of the way in which native speakers of Modern Greek use deictic categories. Specifically, it provides a theoretical account of the cognitive procedures that motivate the choice of one deictic over its counter-part in a deictic contrast and the pragmatic effects that this particular choice seems to have in terms of the speech situation
Invitations and politeness in Greek: The age variable
This paper investigates invitations and invitation refusals in Greek and their relationship to politeness within Brown and Levinson's (Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage, Cambridge University Press, 1987) framework. On the basis of data drawn from role plays corroborated with informants' verbal reports, it is argued that age is a determining factor for both the format of the speech event of inviting/refusing and the politeness strategi…
Mitigation and politeness in Greek invitation refusals: Effects of length of residence in the target community and intensity of interaction on non-native speakers' performance
Pragmatic awareness in a second language setting: The case of L2 learners of Greek
This study explores the pragmatic awareness of instructed L2 learners of Greek (economic migrants) by examining the extent to which these learners display differences in their recognition and rating of pragmatic and grammatical violations. Methodologically, the study is largely based on the Bardovi-Harlig & Dörnyei (1998) study on pragmatic awareness. However, unlike the former, it does not compare SL and FL learners, but two groups of SL learner…
Pragmatic development in a foreign language: A study of Greek FL requests
Developing the ability to refuse: A cross-sectional study of Greek FL refusals
What’s in a first? The link between impromptu invitations and their responses
An Intergenerational Perspective on (Im)politeness
The present paper provides an intergenerational perspective on Greek conceptualizations of (im)politeness. Based on interviews eliciting narratives of impolite behaviour of our participants’ parents’ generation, the study illustrates the contested and changing nature of politeness in contemporary Greece. Through critically evaluating the older generation’s behaviour, the participants not only provided insights into their own politeness norms but …
An Interlanguage Study of Request Perspective: Evidence from German, Greek, Polish and Russian Learners of English
The present study examines request perspective, the least researched form of mitigation in requesting, while focusing on a type of request characterized by a strong preference for speaker perspective in English and for hearer perspective in most other languages researched to date. It examines requests produced by 900 speakers from nine different (inter)language groups: five groups of native speakers (English, German, Greek, Polish and Russian) an…
On the dual role of expressive speech acts: Relational work on signs announcing closures during the Covid-19 pandemic
Offers by Greek FL learners: A cross-sectional developmental study
This study investigates developmental patterns in the ability of Greek foreign language learners to make offers. Drawing data from role-plays and retrospective verbal reports it attempts to explore the initiative offer strategies, the syntactic modification and the degree of insistence that learners of three different proficiency levels (lower intermediate, intermediate and advanced) employ when performing offers in two symmetrical (-P, -D) and t…
A contrastive study of apologies performed by Greek native speakers and English learners of Greek as a foreign language
This paper investigates apologies produced by Greek native speakers and English learners of Greek as a foreign language in two informal (-P, -D) and two formal situations (+P, +D). Drawing on data elicited by means of an assessment questionnaire, a DCT and the participants’ verbal reports, the study attempts to explore the extent to which the two groups differ in their contextual assessments of the apology situations under examination and in stra…
Length of residence and intensity of interaction: Modification in Greek L2 requests
This paper investigates the external and internal modification devices used by native speakers and advanced learners of Greek, when making requests in formal and informal situations. The data are drawn from a discourse completion test completed by native speakers and learners of two different groups: one with extended length of residence in Greece but limited opportunities for interaction with native speakers and one with more frequent opportunit…
Accounts as acts of identity: Justifying business closures on Covid-19 public signs in Athens and London
This paper investigates accounts justifying the closures of businesses found on public signs in Athens and London during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data for the study was drawn from a corpus of COVID-19-related public signage collected in the two cities during the first lockdown. The accounts used on these signs are analysed as acts of identity and, specifically, as discursive means deployed by the authors of the signs to project themselves and t…
Disseminating risk communication: Advice offered on non-official public signage during the Covid-19 pandemic
This paper investigates advice offered on closure signs displayed on businesses in Greece and the UK during the first lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic. By scrutinising signs photographed in London and in Athens, as well as speeches delivered by the British and Greek prime ministers at the time of the closures, our analysis shows how business owners pass on government instructions to their customers. The study thus makes an original contribution …
Gratitude for compliance: A developmental study on the speech act of thanking
Pragmatics in the service of marketing: The case of Covid-19 semi-commercial public signs
Mitigation, Rapport, and Identity Construction in Workplace Requests
This study investigates how Greek professionals formulate upward requests and simultaneously manage rapport and workplace identity within hierarchical exchanges. The data comprise 400 written requests elicited through a discourse-completion task from 100 participants, supplemented by follow-up interviews. Integrating pragmatic perspectives on request mitigation with Spencer-Oatey's Rapport-Management model and a social constructionist perspective…
Navigating the continuum of harmful speech: Racist discourse and the escalation to violence on social media
This article examines escalation in racist discourse on Greek X by tracing two recurrent formulations: δεν ακούς ελληνικά (‘you don’t hear any Greek’) and καθαρίστε την Ελλάδα (‘clean Greece’). The dataset comprises 180 publicly accessible posts (May 2012–January 2024), sampled across migration-salient periods and analysed as posts-in-context. Reflexive thematic analysis maps patterns and guides exemplar selection. Combining Wodak’s Discourse-His…
Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies (16 works) · Linguistics (16 works) · Psychology (15 works) · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition (12 works) · Social Psychology (11 works) · Social Psychology (11 works) · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies (9 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Multilingual Education and Policy (6 works) · Political science (6 works)