Discourse Particles Research Articles

The role of biased polar question particles in discourse: the case of Macedonian zar and neli

Abstract This paper focuses on biased polar questions in Macedonian headed by the interrogative particles zar and neli. These particles function as veridicality markers: neli asserts the truth of p, while zar challenges it by emphasizing the conflict between the epistemic and the evidential bias. Consequently, these questions have different discourse functions. Our goal is to examine the discourse-pragmatic properties of these questions and determine the factors influencing their distribution. We argue that their felicity depends on the interplay of contextual factors: the degree of speaker’s certainty in the truth of the proposition, the existence of conflicting contextual evidence, and the assertiveness component of the biased question. A statistical analysis of 340 examples from literary and social media sources revealed that the most decisive factor for the occurrence of neli- and zar-questions is the degree of speaker certainty in prior belief, highlighting the assertive force of neli-questions compared to the more inquisitive nature of zar-questions.

How is L2 pair interaction related to fluency and language use? A quantitative approach

Previous research examined L2 interaction by describing salient features exhibited in different patterns of peer interaction. These studies mostly used qualitative methods and focused on the collaborative aspect of such construct (Galaczi, 2008). The present study adopts a quantitative approach to explore and describe L2 interaction, utilizing the data of the Corpus of Collaborative Oral Tasks (CCOT). Specifically, it measures pairs’ interaction by creating a composite score of interactivity to understand the relationship between the dyads' degree of interactivity and their use of lexico-grammatical features as well as their L2 fluency. Pearson's correlation tests showed weak to moderate positive relationships between interactivity and discourse particles, response forms, wh-questions, and second person pronouns. Additionally, the tests revealed weak negative relationships between interactivity and both nominal forms and hesitations. Furthermore, revealing moderate relationships, Pearson's correlation tests showed that interactivity was associated with more fluent L2 speech, where learners of higher interactivity levels tended to produce fewer silent pauses and faster speech rates. The study provides insights for scholars interested in L2 interaction. It suggests that some linguistic features were not only associated with collaborative behaviors (as reported in the literature) but also with interactivity as broad aspect. Furthermore, it provides a description of how the act of turn taking might potentially serve the fluency of higher interactivity students, warranting further investigation of turn frequency among L2 test takers as test raters might potentially be influenced by the test candidates’ fluency. Finally, it reports that L2 interactivity exhibited a relationship pattern with linguistic features that resembles patterns reported in the literature of studies on native speakers of English.

Social network effects on particle variation among Singapore students

AbstractWe situate our study of Singapore English particles in the context of social network theory and language variation in order to gain access to Singapore students’ most natural language use (that is, their vernacular, in the Labovian sense), and consider aspects of social as well as stylistic variation. We provide the results of a study on the ego‐centric social networks of Chinese and Malay students and consider the network effects of social network zones as important in the social and stylistic variability of discourse particle use in these social networks. We argue that variation in the use of discourse particles is multifaceted and cannot be simply explained in terms of so‐called social constraints such as ethnicity, or gender, but rather as a combination of social variables that are fluid, and which reveal insights into the changing language situation of Singapore society at large.

Request for confirmation sequences in Korean

Abstract As part of a cross-linguistic investigation of request for confirmation (RfC) sequences, this article provides an overview of distributional tendencies associated with Korean RfC sequences based on an examination of 200 tokens of RfC excerpted from audio- and video-recorded face-to-face ordinary conversations. Various grammatical and contextual features associated with RfCs are analyzed, e.g., as interactional resources for grounding RfCs in inferencing, rendering them modulated in action, or connecting them to prior talk/action. They include negative polarity markers, connective particles (e.g., -nuntey ‘circumstantial’), modal markers (e.g., -keyss ‘I suppose’), and sentence-ending suffixes (SESs) such as -na (‘dubitative), -ney (‘noticing’), and ‘pseudo-tags’ -ci/cianha, which are composed of -ci (‘committal’). Features of responses to RfCs are examined in terms of response type (e.g., confirmation, disconfirmation, or neither) with special reference to the form and distribution of response tokens, which include not only unmarked interjections such as ung/yey (‘yes’) and ani(-yo) (‘no’), but also kule-marked indexical forms (e.g., ku(leh)ci ‘certainly it is’). The findings shed light on the role of SESs, modal markers, and discourse particles as stance-marking resources that crucially shape the function of RfCs, and the compositional features of response turns that constitute or frame a responsive action to RfCs.

INDONESIAN DISCOURSE PARTICLES FOUND IN THE TRANSLATION OF ENGLISH YES/NO QUESTIONS IN THE RPG HONKAI: STAR RAIL

In typical Indonesian dialogues or casual speech (cakap), particles are commonly used. The dynamics of the Role-Playing Game (RPG) Honkai: Star Rail are closely tied to character interactions, particularly through dialogues that include yes-no questions. This study aims to identify Indonesian discourse particles in the translation of English yes/no questions in the RPG Honkai: Star Rail. The researcher finds that there are thirteen (13) units or 69% of Indonesian discourse particles found in the translation of English yes/no questions. The discourse particles ya are the most frequent. This particle is 9 units, meanwhile, kan and dong are 3 units or 23% and 1 unit or 8% respectively. Since RPGs are a medium for delivering a variety of languages, it would be beneficial for other researchers to explore language use in RPGs further.

A <i>wh</i> discourse particle: Dutch <i>hoezo</i>

This paper provides an analysis of a special kind of why-questions in Dutch, formed with the wh-word hoezo (lit. ‘how so’). We propose that hoezo signals the speaker’s resistance to updating the discourse model, by asking the interlocutor to provide a reason for their preceding discourse move. Hoezo shares properties with both discourse particles (its not-at-issue content expresses the speaker’s attitude towards the current state of the discourse), and question words (it asks the interlocutor to provide a reason). Unlike waarom (the regular word for ‘why’), hoezo is not subject to wh-movement and does not bind a variable.

Dude, obvio, ho!: A cross-linguistic pragmatic account of Asturian Spanish Ho and American English Dude

Ho in Asturian Spanish and dude in American English are both particles that originated as vocatives and have since developed grammaticalized forms that perform specific functions in discourse. A parallel analysis of these particles is possible on account of an overarching discourse function whereby the use of the particle constitutes an update by the speaker of the common ground. The purpose of the study is to test whether dude/ho implicate the sense of 'obviousness'. The authors designed a questionnaire in which 74 participants of American English and Asturian Spanish assessed the degree to which a recorded speaker was seeking to implicate that an utterance's propositional content should already be known to the listener. Results show that condition (presence vs. absence of ho/dude) and sentence type (declarative vs. imperative) are significant. Findings suggest that indeed ho/dude behave in a similar way in each language, serving a regulatory function within the mutual belief space. This study seeks to address a gap in the literature on the pragmatic functions of two discourse particles and helps to establish the validity of cross-linguistic analyses of this type.

Etymology of the Udmurt enimitive uk and grammaticalization of discourse particles

This paper deals with the etymology of the Udmurt enimitive marker uk. Contrary to the existing etymologies, which claim uk to be either a Chuvash or a Tatar borrowing, I claim that it was in fact grammaticalized from a tag question construction, which involves a negative verb and a question particle. This is supported by early written sources and dialectal data. Casting the net in a diachronically and geographically diverse variety of sources allows one to find traces of earlier grammaticalization stages that support my claim. Given that there are conceptually very similar enimitive constructions in the Samoyedic languages, negative interrogatives may prove to be an important grammaticalization source for the enimitive markers. Apart from uk, I examine several other cognate particles, which apparently were formed in a similar way.

MEANS OF PROSODIC DESIGN IN MODERN GERMAN INTERACTION

The article is devoted to means of prosodic design in modern German interaction. Prosodic devices can be defined from a phonological point of view as abstract quantities or described as articulatory, acoustic, and auditory parameters. Discourse particles are the optimal sound material for researching the general functions of prosody, also considering the ability of foreign language communication. In this work, based on perceptual and productive analysis, it is considered whether general prosodic parameters can be identified on the basis of discourse particles, and what functions and forms they have. An attempt was made to determine the inventory of the most common German discourse particles, to describe them phonetically, and finally to compare them. In addition, it is studied how and to what extent the arrangement of discourse particles is regulated by prosodic data. Participles with the appropriate linguistic means under existing conditions clarify the function of the speech act, express the speaker’s ideas, assessments or expectations regarding the reaction of the communication partner, given the interaction. When teaching German as a foreign language, it should be noted that such words as particles create the greatest difficulties for learners of this language. It should be emphasized that the main meaning of discourse particles always depends on the factors of the given speech situation. Discourse particles create a certain functional group because they express categories of interaction and co-textual information and attitudes, etc., in an undefined and especially economic way. Prosodic marking is typical of German discourse particles. Our study of the current state of prosodic design in modern German interaction using the example of discourse particles also showed that numerical issues have not yet been resolved or require further study.

A curvilinear association between therapists' use of discourse particles and therapist empathy in psychotherapy.

This study investigates the relationships between therapists' use of discourse particles and therapist empathy. Discourse particles, commonly found in non-English languages, are verbal elements that constitute metacommunication by encoding speakers' emotions and attitudes, which are typically expressed by nonverbal behaviors (e.g., intonation, tone, facial expression, nodding). We hypothesize an inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship between therapists' use of discourse particles and therapist empathy, given the notion that an optimal level of therapists' emotion in psychotherapy can facilitate clients' inner experiencing and self-expression. Four psychotherapy sessions each from 39 therapist-client dyads were analyzed. After each session, therapist empathy was rated by trained observers using the Therapist Empathy Scale (TES) and by clients using the Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory (BLRI). Multilevel modeling shows that both the person-level negative quadratic term and positive linear term for therapists' usage of discourse particles are significant in predicting mean TES with large effect sizes. The same predictors do not yield significant results in predicting mean BLRI but they trend in similar directions of associations with medium effect sizes. Our results suggest the optimal usage of discourse particles by therapists is around 20.3% (out of all utterances). The nonsignificant results in BLRI may be attributed to the relatively small sample size of our data and the noncommunication orientation of the client-rated measure. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

A CASE FOR EMPHATIC PARTICLES IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

The article investigates the issue of whether emphatic particles exist in the English language as well as looks into the ways of distinguishing these particles from similar phenomena including discourse markers and function words. Though particles cannot always be easily identified among other parts of speech, emphatic particles are quite distinct from other types of particles presented in grammar studies - structural, negative or adverbial ones - as well as discourse markers. To clarify the point, the authors dwell on the emphatic particles of the Russian language in order to highlight their main purpose - they help the speaker convey the full message to the addressee without adding any semantic connotations to an utterance. Thus, emphatic particles, along with other discursive elements, are used by the speaker to carry out a complex and multidimensional operation of controlling the understanding of the text on the part of the addressee. As emphatic particles fall into three functional classes - attention markers, background information markers, topic and focus markers - the paper provides a frame for presenting their semantic composition in lexicographic sources. Another objective is to distinguish between discourse markers, discourse particles and emphatic particles in the English language. As various languages prefer different parts of speech as the source of producing particles (prepositions, adverbs, interjections, etc.), there is great terminological variability in the number and purpose of particles used in communication. The findings reveal that in the English language words that are not essentially emphatic particles, such as adverbials or compound discourse particles derived from idiomatic word combinations, often perform the emphatic function. The outcome of the research proves the hypothesis that the English words ‘just’, ‘simply’ and some others are equal to Russian emphatic particles.

Analyzing the Story of a Filipino COVID-19 Survivor through Positioning Analysis

COVID-19 has brought so many changes in the world. It is a test of faith and hope to everyone. Many scholars have used different lenses in fields of research in this topic. In language studies, many have zoomed in on this topic in corpus-based linguistics. In discourse analysis, few studies have dealt with this, especially narrative analysis. Using the frameworks of Bamberg (1997) and Barkhuizen (2009), three levels of positioning analysis were unpacked by a COVID-19 survivor’s life story. The first level of positioning answers how the characters positioned themselves concerning the events that happened. On the other hand, the second level of positioning seeks to answer how the characters positioned themselves to the audience. Lastly, the third level of positioning aims to position narrators to themselves. The participant was a student of the researcher who agreed to share his story in this paper. The main character almost lost his life due to COVID-19 and was hospitalized for nearly two weeks. The researcher discovered linguistic elements present during the interview, such as linguistic politeness, transitional devices, metaphors, and discourse particles, that helped the researcher analyze and unpack the three levels of positioning analysis. The actual occurrences that happened to the participant served as a turning point in his experience–from non-believer to believer of COVID-19. The paper further explored how COVID-19 became a test of faith, love, and hope to the participant.

Bias and anti-bias

Abstract This paper proposes an account of the interpretive effects of two discourse particles in Hungarian, talán and vajon, within the view of context and context change developed in Farkas & Roelofsen (2017), and shows that the restrictions on their distribution follow from their interpretive properties. Building on Gyuris (2022), talán will be treated as signaling epistemic bias in both declaratives and interrogatives. Following Farkas (2022), vajon will be treated as a non-intrusive question marker, which, in the account proposed, is incompatible with bias markers. The restrictions on the sentence types in which these particles occur, as well as the fact that there are restrictions on their co-occurence, will be derived from their interpretive contribution.

Compiling a corpus of South Asian online Englishes: A report, some reflections and a pilot study

Abstract In this research article we introduce the South Asian Online Englishes (SAOnE) corpus representing four South Asian countries, i.e. Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, and two native English-speaking countries, i.e. the UK and the USA. We have used semi-automatic and manual methods to collect data from three internet registers, i.e. newspaper comments, web forums and tweets, and a collection of internet sub-registers which we label as blogs and websites. Additionally, we have collected text messages using online freelance hiring platforms from each of the South Asian countries mentioned above. Each register category in the corpus consists of approximately 1 million words per register per country, except text messages, which contains around 500,000 words per country and only includes the four South Asian countries. We have verified the origin of website and blog links, authors of Twitter, and where possible of commenters and web forum users to make sure that only local content of each country is included. The corpus features some indigenous language content, which is tagged. In addition to the description of this dataset, we also present a pilot study analysing three discourse particles, namely na, neh, and yaar. The discourse particles na and yaar are native to Hindi/Urdu, while neh is based on a Sinhala negation marker. Our analysis indicates that na and neh have similarities in terms of their position in the clause/utterance. However, neh is confined to Sri Lanka while the Hindi/Urdu based discourse particles are also used in our Twitter data from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The use of these discourse particles in Bangladeshi tweets shows the influence of Indian culture through Bollywood celebrities. Of the Hindi/Urdu discourse particles yaar and na, yaar is preferred in Pakistan while na is preferred in India; additionally, yaar is used at the start of the clause more often in our Pakistani data. Lastly, we discuss the implications of the pilot study, the advantages of the type of data used for the pilot study, and future research directions.

The Use and Features of Malaysian English Lexemes as Social Media Hashtags

Social media has changed the way societies all over the world communicate in this modern age. Studies on this research area have shown that of the various forms available, hashtags (#) have a higher means of attraction, as they often produce social media trends and innovative linguistic items that are developed through several approaches, including the use of non-native English varieties. This interesting trend is the motivation for the current study, which explores how features of Malaysian English (ME) lexemes, are used as social media hashtags. To date, linguistic research on social media in the Malaysian context has focused on identifying the use of Malay and English slang words in general. There is relatively little research on the use of localised ME lexemes as hashtags in social media. The current study addresses this gap by employing a cross-sectional survey of the use and practice of a list of 30 ME lexemes by Malaysian speakers and a content analysis of the morpho-syntactic features of these lexemes as social media hashtags based on valid hashtag taxonomies from previous research. The study found that popular ME hashtags used in social media posts are mostly composed of short strings in the form of the # + two words and # + code-switching variation. Interestingly, the analysis of the morpho-syntactic features of one particular ME lexeme with distinct characteristics led to the development of a new category, namely “# + discourse particle”.

Конкретно: синтактика без семиотики?

I discuss the relation of linguistics and semiotics on the basis of the Old Russian discourse particle TI1 ‘indeed’, ‘verily’, ‘truly’ discovered by Andrej A. Zaliznjak in 1993. Linguistics and semiotics are different research programmes: the first one deals with specific features of language structures, while the second one discusses general characteristics of all sign systems, from a perspective of interpreting most or all of them as secondary respective to natural language. Formal models of language deal with classes of elements and predict their positions. Lexicographic descriptions provide instructions to the use of particular language items treated as signs with their concepts and syntactics. Functional words including discourse particles allow both approaches. The existence of Old Russian particle TI1 as has been proved by Zaliznjak on the basis of formal conditions, constraining the position of this particle in the clausal structure. Meanwhile, Zaliznjak failed to provide a lexicographical description of TI1 and reliable external parallels from other languages. I argue that TI1 is a marker of verification with the meaning ‘p really takes place’. The view that TI1 expressed enhanced indicativity is not tenable, since this particle was licensed in hypothetical contexts and combined with the optative marker. It is essential to identify the lexicographic type of a functional word in order to get its full syntactics.

Formality in psychotherapy: How are therapists' and clients' use of discourse particles related to therapist empathy?

Previous studies explored the preferences for therapists' attire and office setting based on initial impressions as a reference for the formality in psychotherapy. This study examines the formality of psychotherapy by investigating therapists' and clients' use of discourse particles, the linguistic marker and quantifier of the formality in speech, in relation to therapist empathy in different stages of psychotherapy. Four psychotherapy sessions (representing early, mid, and late stages) each from 39 therapist-client dyads were analyzed. Trained observers rated therapist empathy in each session using the Therapist Empathy Scale. Results of multilevel modeling show that synchrony in particle usage, hence synchrony in formality, between clients and therapists is not associated with therapist empathy. Therapists' use of particles (i.e., absolute formality of therapists) was also not associated with therapist empathy. In contrast, the relative formality of therapists plays significant roles: therapist empathy is generally observed when therapists are relatively more formal than the clients (i.e., lower relative usage of particles by the therapists when compared to the clients). However, for clients who speak formally with few particles, therapist casualness (i.e., higher relative usage of particles than the clients) at the beginning of therapy may be interpreted as therapist empathy as therapists help these clients ease into the therapeutic relationships. Our results suggest that the examination of therapists' and clients' use of particles across different stages of treatment may illuminate dynamic interactional styles that facilitate or hinder the psychotherapy process.

Clause type vs. speech act: Knowledge confirmation questions in Basque

This article analyzes Knowledge Confirmation Questions (KCQ) in Basque, an instance of non-canonical questions that has not been analyzed yet. KCQs display three characteristic elements, namely, (i) a declarative-type syntax, (ii) an interrogative-like intonation, and (iii) the discourse particle ba; and are interpreted as follows: “Do you know that p?”. Here, I propose that the meaning contribution of KCQs derives from the interaction of these three elements. More precisely, I argue that their question-like intonation, which adds interrogative interpretation, takes scope over ba, which regulates the addressee’s Doxastic State and undergoes context shift. Basque KCQs constitute an interesting case study, because they raise some interesting questions on the syntactization of discourse and the properties of discourse particles, as they seem to contradict the assumption that discourse particles do not fall under the scope of sentential operators.

Cooperativity Markers in the Left Periphery. Evidence from Sicilian and from Lombard Italian

Abstract This paper investigates two Italo-Romance discourse particles, which we analyze as ‘cooperativity markers’, conveying the conventional implicature that a future action to be accomplished by the speaker fulfills a set of maximal preferences that they share with the addressee; by means of this implicature, the speaker conveys that they intend their action to be cooperative. We show that clauses introduced by these particles share core syntactic and semantic properties with jussive expressions such as imperatives, most notably future orientation and a constraint on the person specification of the null subject. We argue that these particles occupy a functional projection which encodes preferential meanings and takes scope above Tense.

Regional variation in the syntactic use of qad reflexes: Convergence or divergence in Saudi Arabic varieties?

In Classical Arabic (CA), qad, a discourse particle has been extensively studied. However, the linguistic behavior of the different reflexes of the particle qad in Saudi varieties (SVs), namely gid, gīd, jid, and dzid, has not been studied. Due to this lack, the current study, as primary exploratory, aimed to describe the syntactic uses of qad reflexes in SVs. In doing so, interviews were conducted in which a structured questionnaire was used with several CA scenarios describing different situations and asking participants to express them in their dialect varieties. For this study, 150 speakers from five SVs participated. The results revealed that qad reflexes are used in verbal sentences in SVs. However, unlike qad in CA, in SVs qad reflexes also occur in interrogative and negative sentences, and nominal phrases (i.e., immediately preceding the nouns). With reference to frequency, they are more often used in Southwestern and Hijazi and to a lesser extent in Najdi variety. However, they are less frequently in Eastern and Northern varieties. Although it is not possible to confirm with full reliability and certainty that this change is a divergence or convergence, yet it seems that qad, as many other Arabic linguistic features, is a case of divergence. Alternatively, the rich presence of qad reflexes in the Saudi Arabian spoken varieties suggests that the syntax of qad in CA might not have been documented completely. If this argument is to be understood better, further sociolinguistic studies are needed.