Discourse Markers Research Articles

Unveiling Subjectivity in Press Discourse: A Statistical and Qualitative Study of Manually Annotated Articles

This article presents the results of an annotation experiment involving 36 participants tasked with rating the subjectivity of 150 excerpts from Belgian French press articles and with identifying linguistic indicators of subjectivity in the excerpts. We first explore inter-annotator agreement and correlations between the annotation results and the variables associated with the articles, then perform qualitative analysis of a sample of annotated texts. We introduce “textual heat maps”, a convenient method to visualize the results of the token-level annotations. The study reveals that the perception of subjectivity in text varies among readers, but that some tokens are widely considered as indicators of subjectivity. While expected indicators such as sentiment words and expressive punctuation were found to influence interpretations, less established markers such as discourse markers and modal verbs also played a role. The use of the pronoun on was identified as a significant subjectivity indicator, despite its common use to conceal the author’s presence in journalistic writing. These findings offer insights into subjectivity in journalistic discourse and have significant implications for the field of journalism and for the improvement of automated models for subjectivity detection.

“WE’RE FAR FROM YOUR ONLY FRIEND”: STANCE TAKING IN POLITICAL SPEECH

Background. The research presents the analysis of Antony John Blinken's, the United States secretary of state, historic and significant public report on May, 16, 2024 during his visit to Ukraine. Politicians perform speeches mainly to outline the perspective for the nations, influencing the others and positioning themselves and the others through the discourse. The stance is defined as a social action which is realized through communicative strategies, and is equated to positioning. Methods. The aim of the article is to study the communicative strategies of stance-taking and positioning and methods of their realization in the mechanism constructing of a political speech. The research applied Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as the research method relating structures of the discourse to social practices based on 'ideological square' (Van Dijk, 1998) of positive-self and negative other presenting. Results. The stance-taking and positioning can explain the use of lexical patterns, constructions and discourse markers in the political discourse. This study argues the implementing of the stance-taking and positioning by the discursive strategies of polarization (positive in-group and negative out-group representation). Conclusions. The stance-taking and positioning in the political speech are presented on three levels (self- (the first order), the other (the targeted audience) positioning (the second order) and the third order positioning, when the speaker demonstrates his attitude to the people (state) not involved in the present interaction). They are implemented by the discursive strategies of polarization that embody the social ideologies (positive in-group and negative out-group representation) including the strategies of group inclusion, self-glorification, positive and negative evaluation and contrasting strategies. The linguistic means of verbalising the strategies of stance taking and positioning include the lexical content of the utterance, grammar tenses and stylistic figures of hyperbole, litotes, metaphor, personification, etc. Metaphors as conceptual and framing device help to present the main political actors, make it possible for political actors to show their stances, achieve goals and have the impact on the value judgements that they make. They express the author's attitude to the message, his points of view, positions, value orientations in relation to the subject of discussion.

Autour des locutions ma foi et ma parole : nuances dans l’engagement du locuteur ?

"This study focuses on two locutions, ma foi and ma parole, which are often presented as supporting an assertion and conveying the speaker’s commitment. However, they are very rarely commutable. In this work, we attempt to identify the criteria that guide and limit their role in discourse, firstly through a distributional analysis of the possibilities of the two locutions in autonomous use, and then through a semantic-pragmatic approach to the constraints gov- erning their appearance. Finally, we ask whether it is possible to classify them as interjections or as discourse markers."

Analysis on the Pragmatic Functions of Chinese Discourse Marker “haojiahuo”

“好家伙” (haojiahuo) as the network buzzword in 2020 has been widely used both online and offline. The study attempts to make an analysis of how and why people use the discourse marker “好家伙” from the adaptation-pragmatic perspective. Through analyzing the blogs collected from Weibo, it is found that people use “好家伙” on Weibo as a means of adaptation to contexts consisting of communicative and linguistic contexts. To be more specific, language user employs “好家伙” as a dynamic process to adapt to the mental, social and physical world as well as specific linguistic contexts. As a result, the functions of “好家伙” in the adaptation process can be summarized as follows: managing topics, constructing discourse, expressing emotions, filing speech blanks and mitigating face threats. The first two are discourse functions, and the last three belong to interpersonal functions.

Actualization of linguistic markers in political Internet discourse, and its peculiarities in the context of artificial neural network operation, and hate speech detection

The article argues that the actualization of linguistic markers (lexical, grammatical, pragmatic, semantic) in the texts of political Internet discourse is crucial for understanding the context (social, emotional, modal, etc.) in them. It is emphasized that the use of innovative tools (in particular, artificial neural networks) is in line with the trends towards the integration of the mathematical paradigm into the humanities, which is manifested in the latter’s tendency to the humanities digital sciences, affective computing, etc. It is noted that the use of the outlined innovative tools creates the need to take into account an integrated approach to such research, which is manifested in the integration of the methodology of other (primarily related) sciences, which, in turn, will allow to take into account contextual determination, cultural features (gaps, realities, etc.), as well as to use the full potential of artificial neural networks in modern linguistic research. The author emphasizes the need to further develop the originality of the use of the latter in such studies: developing datasets, building a training algorithm, testing and retraining (if necessary), as well as integrating different layers into their structures and optimizing such a structure specifically for linguistic research (which combinations are productive and why, for what purpose, etc.) The author emphasizes the originality of the use of innovative tools (deep learning, machine learning, artificial neural networks) to deal with hate speech, misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda, which can take the form of sarcasm, irony, and absurdity in political Internet discourse, which requires further research and development of a new methodology to accurately identify such data and produce an inclusive and safe Internet environment.

Marqueurs de discours et rasoir d’Ockham

Most studies of discourse markers aim to establish a typology of uses for the unit under consideration. Authors seek to identify distinctive properties that characterize each use, and propose a more or less detailed semantic description for each one. In this article, we propose a critical analysis of the assumptions underlying this “taxonomic” approach to semantic description, and propose instead an “explanatory” approach based on the notion of “gloss”.

The Pragmatic Function of the Discourse Marker “Bu shi wo shuo”

The Pragmatic Function of the Discourse Marker “Bu shi wo shuo”

De ce qui est juste à ce qui est juste de dire dans comme de raison

The article proposes an approach to the types of functioning and mechanisms of change intervening in the rise of the discourse marker comme de raison in French, associated with evidentiality. The diachronic analysis provides the opportunity to study the relationship between comme de raison and the meanings of raison, but also the type of structure at the origin of the discourse marker. The status of the construction will be questioned, which is intertwined with the discussion about the mechanism of change (lexicalization, grammaticalization / pragmaticalization, cooptation). The semantic evolution could be described as follows: from « what is normal, right to do, what should be done » to « what is normal, right to say, what should be said », since this could be inferred from a previous sentence or a more general context.

A Comparative Study of Discourse Markers “Sheizhidaone” and “Who Knows” in Chinese and English

A Comparative Study of Discourse Markers “Sheizhidaone” and “Who Knows” in Chinese and English

The Confirmative Stance and Communicative Value of a Chinese Discourse Marker

The Confirmative Stance and Communicative Value of a Chinese Discourse Marker

Rôle de l’ethos et de ses marqueurs dans l’organisation discursive

This work aims at studying the notion of ethos using a semantic-pragmatic approach that allows us to reflect on how and why such a notion came into being. The aim is to identify the reasons why any individual, in interaction with his fellow human beings, may be led to elaborate and project a certain image of himself. At the root of these reasons lies a basic notion: the linguistic community, which in our view represents the hinge linking the why and the how and enables us to understand the general mechanism at work in the construction of ethos. We also propose the analysis of discourse markers by considering their importance in the projection of an ethos.

Awareness of Discourse Features in Teaching Writing Skills

Cohesion is deemed an indispensable component of writing, contributing to both the organisation of texts as well as the reader’s comprehension of the content. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the utilisation of discourse features in the academic writing of students. It specifically focuses on the cohesive devices employed by students and their level of awareness regarding cohesion and coherence. The research was conducted in the Dhanbad district, with a particular emphasis on technical students studying English for specific purposes. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the topic, this study also reviewed and analysed previous research that explored the usage of cohesive devices and the relationship between cohesion frequency and high-quality writing. This background research provided valuable insights into the existing body of knowledge and helped establish a foundation for the present study. The data analysis demonstrates that students possess the ability to incorporate various cohesive devices into their writing, indicating their awareness of discourse features. However, their usage is somewhat limited due to a restricted repertoire of discourse markers, which affected the range and diversity of cohesive devices employed in their writing. Overall, the paper sheds light on the significance of cohesion in academic writing, emphasising its role in organising texts and facilitating reader comprehension. It highlights the current state of students’ awareness and usage of cohesive devices in their writing, providing valuable insights for educators and curriculum developers to enhance students’ proficiency in this area.

Les marqueurs de discours

Although a common topic for some time, the idea of discourse markers has been hampered by the difficulty of providing an operative definition to the corresponding notion, in view of the very heterogeneous nature of the linguistic entities at stake. Starting from the different parameters regularly evoked in the study of such markers, this work aims at characterizing them as a class of operators likely to assume various functions according to their syntactic and/or semantic links within the discourse.

Семантический и коммуникативно-прагматический диапазон дискурсивного маркера sabes в испаноязычном художественном дискурсе

The article concentrates on the analysis of the semantic and communicative and pragmatic range of the discourse marker sabes in Spanish-language fictional discourse. The goal of the paper is to study the communicative and pragmatic functions of the discourse marker sabes in fictional discourse. The objective of the paper is to identify the functional range of the discourse marker sabes and to study the nature of the influence of the discourse marker under study as a linguistic means of information representation on the communicative purpose of the utterance in fictional discourse.

Le rôle de la prise en charge dans la configuration sémantique des marqueurs discursifs

Two notions are considered in this study, that of discourse marker and that of commitment. The aim is to examine the possibility of a theoretical link between both notions. Both linguistic markers and commitment operations play an essential role in the construction of the meaning of an utterance, through the representation of the speaker’s relationship with the point of view (pdv) invoked. In this analysis, polyphony appears as a phenomenon that connects the two notions as defined in this study. According to the suggested approach, all utterances are seen as invoking a pdv which determines the intended meaning; if the pdv is explicitly marked, this will bring the commitment into play, as the basis of a more or less complex semantic-pragmatic strategy.

A Comparative Study of Meta Discourse Markers (Interactive and Interactional) in English Short Stories of American Authors

A Comparative Study of Meta Discourse Markers (Interactive and Interactional) in English Short Stories of American Authors

성별, 연령 및 담화 상황에 따른 시간 벌기 담화표지 ‘어’와 ‘음’의 사용 차이

성별, 연령 및 담화 상황에 따른 시간 벌기 담화표지 ‘어’와 ‘음’의 사용 차이

"A Cross-linguistic Analysis of Discourse Marker Use in Different Speech Tasks"

"A Cross-linguistic Analysis of Discourse Marker Use in Different Speech Tasks"

Significance of Discourse Markers in Sport Translation

This study addresses the topic of discourse markers (hence after DMs), which serve various functions in connecting different parts of discourse. These markers play a role in indicating shifts, linking ideas, expressing attitudes, changing topics, initiating and concluding conversations.
 The significance of DMs arises from their pragmatic functions, which go beyond literal meanings. The objective of this study is to shed light on the functions of these markers in both English and Arabic, and elucidating how English DMs are translated into Arabic.
 To verify these objectives, the study proposes several hypotheses: First, there are no significant differences in the use of DMs for pragmatic purposes between English and Arabic. Second, these functions can be translated into Arabic. Third, DMs are oriented towards communication, relying more on their functions than their literal meanings, thus favoring a communicative-based translation approach.
 To achieve the aforementioned aims and test the hypotheses, the study selects three texts from English sports written discourse, sourced from the CNN website. These texts are then translated by ten M.A. students. The translations are analyzed to examine how the students render the DMs into Arabic.

O princípio da marcação nos marcadores discursivos de base verbal viu? e entendeu? do português brasileiro

"The markedness principle in Brazilian Portuguese verb-based discourse markers viu? and entendeu?. A productive, vigorous debate on grammar issues took place as the new millennium approached. A significant amount of work was published in that field as we witnessed a grammatical boom between 1991 and 2014 in Brazil (Faraco and Vieira 2016). Along with a resulting new range of descriptive perspectives and propositions, the debate over discourse markers (DMs) relevance has increased sharply among language curriculum professionals. Although they have played an important role in functionalist grammars where interaction is a key component, DMs are still regarded as a peripheral category in natural language normative grammars. Also, DMs are typically associated with language users’ social status. Based on cognitive-functionalist grammar studies, my research has placed DMs on the common ground between a functionalist framework (by investigating the relationship between form and content) and cognitive linguistics theory (categorization, prototypicality, conceptual metaphors). This paper explores some of my research findings on the markedness principle as applied to Brazilian Portuguese DMs viu? and entendeu? in the light of cognitive-functionalist theories. Some contrast between these DMs and their English equivalent is also explored. In doing so, I hope to bring forward new resources to explore verb-based DMs in teaching Portuguese to speakers of other languages. Keywords: discourse markers, functionalism, cognitive linguistics, markedness, teaching Portuguese to speakers of other languages."