Abstract

Due to their heterogeneous and multi-functional property, interjections investigated in this paper are narrowed down to emotive interjections only. A respective subdivision of primary and secondary interjections is made at the beginning for a better elaboration on the following topic concerning the subtle relation between conceptuality and context-sensitivity of interjections. Specific discussions unfold around three questions: 1) Does interjections encode any conceptual content? 2) To what degree do these concepts differ with regard to the five different subtypes of emotive interjections? 3) From the perspective of interjections’ conceptuality, what functions would context perform in encoding the hidden emotive messages? Furthermore, in view of the oral nature of interjections, paralinguistic and gestural factors also count very much in the interpretation of interjections. The conclusion is presented by reflecting on several improvable aspects in the paper which are worthy of further study.

Highlights

  • Interjections, or exclamations, are historically non-mainstream research topics despite their significance in people’s everyday communication

  • Specific discussions unfold around three questions: 1) Does interjections encode any conceptual content? 2) To what degree do these concepts differ with regard to the five different subtypes of emotive interjections? 3) From the perspective of interjections’ conceptuality, what functions would context perform in encoding the hidden emotive messages? in view of the oral nature of interjections, paralinguistic and gestural factors count very much in the interpretation of interjections

  • Speaking, “since they are originated in other lexical categories such as nouns and verbs as mentioned, which do have a semantic content, these interjections may preserve part of the initial conceptual content that the words that originated them had or, at least, some conceptual content related to it as a result of metaphorical or metonymic process” (Cruz, 2009: p. 245). This general statement on the concepts encoded in secondary interjections points out the existence of levels of conceptuality, that is to say, for secondary interjections, there always exists a problem of grammaticalization—to what extent do they grammaticalized? The more grammaticalized they are, the less conceptual connection they keep with the derived content form, the more dependence on the context for meaning specification

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Summary

Introduction

Interjections, or exclamations, are historically non-mainstream research topics despite their significance in people’s everyday communication. Emotive interjections (the second part) are classified first for a better presentation of the later discussion It comes to the arguments (the third part) with regard to the conceptual content of different types of emotive interjections as well as the contexts based on which more specific “emotions” beyond interjections’ conceptual content might be specified. Paralinguistic factors and other non-verbal gestures (the fourth part) are essential to interjections owing to their strong link to both medial and conceptual orality (i.e., interjections are especially intended for spoken language).

A Taxonomy of Emotive Interjections
Primary Interjections
Secondary Interjections
Conceptuality and Context-Sensitivity of Emotive Interjections
Paralinguistic Factors and Gestures
Conclusion
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