Abstract
This article presents a contrastive analysis of non-initial positions (less common and, therefore, marked) of explanatory reformulation markers in written language in English and Spanish, in relation to their discursive uses. To carry out this analysis, the cases of these markers found in a comparable English-Spanish corpus (Cobuild and CREA) are analyzed. Four positions are established, initial, intermediate, final and independent (Pons 2014), and the results of the non-initial positions are related to the different discursive uses of these markers (Murillo 2012, 2016a, 2016b), taking into account their reformulative and modal uses. The results reveal that the markers in English —particularly that is, but also in other words— display more mobility than those in Spanish —the only one having some mobility is o sea. In addition, regarding their discursive uses, the analysis of the corpus reveals that the markers follow different trends in the two languages.
Highlights
This article presents a contrastive analysis of non-initial positions of explanatory reformulation markers in written language in English and Spanish, in relation to their discursive uses
In other words was found in the three positions, but its frequency in non-initial positions is much lower than that of that is
The rest of the markers were only found in initial positions in the subcorpus
Summary
Reformulation is frequent in discourse: speakers and writers often go back to what they have said or written previously in order to clarify it, and they often use reformulation discourse markers for that purpose (Gülich & Kotschi 1983; Charolles & Coltier 1986). Different studies have been carried out in several languages, such as those in French (Gülich & Kotschi 1983; Charolles & Coltier 1986; Murat & Cartier-Bresson 1987), Spanish (Casado 1991; Schwenter 1996; Briz 2001, 2002; Garcés Gómez 2008), Greek (Archakis 2001), Japanese (Matsui 2002), English (del Saz 2003), German (Robles 2012), and Catalan (Bach 2017), among others These studies have focused on single items or in groups/subgroups of markers, trying to establish their main uses.
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