Discourse Functions at the Left and Right Periphery

Discourse Functions at the Left and Right Periphery PDF

Author: Kate Beeching

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2014-08-14

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 9004274820

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

A basic property of human language is that it unfolds in time; the left and right margin of discourse units do not behave in a symmetrical fashion. The working hypothesis of this volume is that discourse elements at the left periphery have mainly subjective and discourse-structuring functions, whereas at the right periphery, such elements play an intersubjective or modalising role. However, the picture that emerges from the different contributions to this volume is far more complex. While it seems clear that the working hypothesis cannot be upheld in a “strong” way, most of the chapters – especially those based on corpus data – show that an asymmetry between left and right periphery does exist and that it is a matter of frequency.

Pragmatic Markers and Peripheries

Pragmatic Markers and Peripheries PDF

Author: Daniël Van Olmen

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2021-10-15

Total Pages: 460

ISBN-13: 9027259089

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The relation between pragmatic markers and the peripheries of clauses, utterances and/or turns has been a topic of linguistic interest for the last few decades. Many issues continue to be debated, however, such as “how should the notion of periphery be defined?”, “to what extent do pragmatic markers in the left versus the right periphery fulfill different functions?” and “which factors determine the order of multiple pragmatic markers in a periphery?”. This volume brings together a number of studies addressing these and other questions. It presents new data from a diverse range of languages – including less researched ones in this context like Ainu, Latvian and Lithuanian – and on a variety of types of pragmatic marker – including emoji. The volume as a whole offers new insights into, among other things, the subjectivity intersubjectivity peripheries hypothesis, the idea of left-to-right movement and the matrix clauses hypothesis.

Corpora and Discourse Studies

Corpora and Discourse Studies PDF

Author: Anthony McEnery

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-07-21

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 1137431733

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This edited collection brings together contemporary research that uses corpus linguistics to carry out discourse analysis. The book takes an inclusive view of the meaning of discourse, covering different text-types or modes of language, including discourse as both social practice and as ideology or representation.

Forms and Functions of Meta-Discourse

Forms and Functions of Meta-Discourse PDF

Author: Maria Cristina Lo Baido

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2024-07-01

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 3110799855

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book constitutes the first systematic analysis of meta-discourse in the spoken domain, addressing the question of how, why, and when speakers switch from discourse to meta-discourse by means of comment clauses (e.g., ‘I think’). The case of Present-day Italian is considered, exploring the internal properties of comment clauses (e.g., morphosyntax and semantics of the verb), their relations with the surrounding discourse (e.g., position of comment clause), and their prosodic profiles. This study shows that speakers recur to meta-discourse to convey a non-random set of functions, having mainly to do with the online process of reference construction (e.g., approximation and reformulation) and with the degree of speaker’s commitment (e.g., epistemicity and emphasis). Comment clauses are also used as attention-getting or topic-resuming devices, though less frequently. One of the most interesting results of this study is the identification of a close relation between meta-discourse and stance-taking in spoken domain, with speakers recurring to comment clauses to convey their attitude. Finally, meta-discourse turns out to be highly influenced, if not constrained, by universal properties of the spoken domain (i.e., non-linearity).

Discourse-Pragmatic Variation and Change in English

Discourse-Pragmatic Variation and Change in English PDF

Author: Heike Pichler

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-06-02

Total Pages: 323

ISBN-13: 1107055768

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Introducing a range of new methods and insights for analysing discourse-pragmatic variation and change, this volume aims to inform future studies in the field.

East Asian Pragmatics

East Asian Pragmatics PDF

Author: Xinren Chen

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-08-26

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 1000631184

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Most of the innovative and exciting work done by East Asian pragmaticians on their languages, past and present alike, is written and published in local languages. As a result, research published in and about a particular East Asian language has been largely unavailable to those who do not speak the language. The contributors seek to present a comprehensive survey of existing outputs of pragmatics research on three major East Asian languages (Chinese, Japanese and Korean). The survey concentrates on a number of core pragmatic topics such as speech acts, deixis, discourse markers, conversation analysis, discourse analysis, and face/(im)politeness. To complement and compare with the picture of research work published in the local languages, the volume also includes a survey of internationally published, English-mediated articles and books studying the regional languages or contrasting them with other languages. A rivetting discourse on pragmatics research, it will be a valuable read for students and scholars alike.

Discourse and Pragmatic Markers from Latin to the Romance Languages

Discourse and Pragmatic Markers from Latin to the Romance Languages PDF

Author: Chiara Ghezzi

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2014-07-31

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 0191503819

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book examines the historical development of discourse and pragmatic markers across the Romance languages. These markers serve to indicate the organization of the discourse, the speaker's relationship with the interlocutor, and the speaker's stance with regard to the information expressed. Their relevance is in assisting interpretation, despite the fact that they have little or no propositional content. In this book, distinguished scholars from different theoretical backgrounds analyse the different classes of discourse and pragmatic markers found in Latin and the Romance languages and explore both their diachronic development and their synchronic properties. Following an introduction and overview of the development of these markers, the book is divided into two parts: the first part investigates pragmatic markers developed from verbs, such as Latin quaeso, Romanian ma rog, and Spanish o sea; the second looks at adverbs as discourse markers, such as French déjà and Italian già, Romanian atunci and Portuguese aliás. Chapters address a variety of theoretical issues such as the cyclic nature of functional developments, the nature of grammaticalization and pragmaticalization, semantic change, and the emergence of new pragmatic values. The arguments presented also have consequences for any analysis of the interfaces between grammar, discourse, and interaction.

Exoticism in English Tag Questions

Exoticism in English Tag Questions PDF

Author: Blasius Achiri-Taboh

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2020-10-15

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 1527560996

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

For the last 400 years, since the birth of the Stuart Dynasty in England with James VI in the early 17th century, when the contraction of negative forms of the English sentence began in earnest, (canonical) tag questions have been a great fascination to many users of English. Within the last sixty years, beginning with the birth of the generative paradigm, tag questions have equally been of particular interest to many scholars of linguistics from a variety of perspectives, especially those concerned with the syntax-semantics and socio-pragmatics of the English sentence. With the spread of English to other countries and the emergence of new Englishes in the post-colonial context of the non-native varieties spoken in former British colonies, it is particularly interesting to see how and why tag questions have evolved over time in daily usage in both form and function in different English speech communities around the world. The essays gathered here focus on this evolutionary trend of English tag questions, with special attention on the exoticisms that characterize current usage.

Lanterna Rally - Theme by Grace Themes