Contrasting the form and use of reformulation markers

Abstract

This article deals with the form and use of reformulation markers in research papers written in English, Spanish and Catalan. Considering the form and frequency of the markers, English papers tend to prefer simple fixed markers and include fewer reformulators than Spanish and Catalan. On the contrary, formal Catalan and Spanish papers include more markers, some of which are complex and allow for some structural variability. As for use, reformulation markers establish dynamic relationships between portions of discourse which can be identified in our corpus with expansion, reduction and permutation. The analysis of the corpus shows that English authors usually reformulate to add more information to the concept (expansion), whereas Catalan and Spanish authors reduce the contents or the implicatures of the previous formulation more frequently than English.