Specific Discourse Functions Research Articles

Semi-embedded clauses in Aisi

Abstract This paper examines a construction in Aisi (Trans New Guinea) which consists of a formally subordinate clause that expresses asserted meaning. This construction is called ‘semi-embedding’. The construction is more restricted than subordinate clauses, and serves a specific discourse function: it presents the information in the matrix clause as a surprising climax. The paper argues that semi-embedding arose when the backgrounding function of subordinate clauses was extended to allow assertions to serve as backgrounds for certain highlighted events. As this happened, the relationship between the semi-embedded clause and its matrix became more coordinate, which allowed longer strings of semi-embedded clauses to occur in what is called disengagement (Cristofaro 2016). Fully insubordinate clauses can then occur when the main clause no longer has to be uttered. At this point, the foregrounded meaning that originally centered on the main clause attached, instead, to the newly insubordinate one.

Mais et associés

This paper focuses on the distribution of discourse marker sequences immediately on the left or right of mais (≈ but) in French, such as oui non mais (≈ yes no but), mais quand même (≈ but still) or mais bon (≈ but well). The goal is to determine what sequences are the most frequent and how they fit (or not) with the meaning of mais. Exploiting five spoken French corpora, we use two association measures to extract the most plausible candidate patterns. Following the literature on association measures, we explore the two complementary dimensions of frequency (MI3 measure) and predictability (DeltaP measure). This procedure reveals that i) there are indeed discourse marker patterns around bon, ii) most clusters or associates smoothly combine with the basic ‘argumentative’ value of mais and iii) within this semantically coherent set, comparing and crossing the results of the two measures on the left and the right of mais helps to identify subsets of discourse markers with specific discourse functions.

Phraseology in Two Omani Undergraduate Civil Engineering Genres: The N of (the) N Pattern

The study of phraseology with respect to continuous and discontinuous frames in academic writing has gathered increasing research attention over the past decade. Their prevalence in expert writing and the influence of discipline and genre on their frequency and type have led to studies that attempted to identify the most productive discontinuous frames in specific disciplines. The aim of this study is to investigate the pattern of the N of (the) N, a prolific pattern in expert academic writing, in two Omani corpora of undergraduate Civil Engineering genres, Case Studies (CS) and Methodology Recounts (MR). The two strands of inquiry involve 1) a comparison between the semantic noun categories of the first (N1) and second noun (N2) used in this pattern and; 2) the N1-N2 sequences in the pattern which realize specific discourse functions in these two genres. Strings belonging to this pattern were retrieved from the two corpora through the corpus interface, Sketch Engine. Findings indicate the prevalence of this frame in the two genres and genre influence on the choice of semantic noun categories. It was also found that the N1-N2 sequences in the pattern are used to realise distinct discourse functions in the two genres. This is one of the first corpus-based studies on university student writing in the Middle East and considering that English is the language of instruction and assessment in many of these countries, these findings have significant pedagogical implications. EFL students in such lingua franca contexts can be supported by a more discipline-specific approach.

Subjects, topics and the accusative case alternation in Finnish. A discourse-related “split” account of the Subject function

This article investigates the morpho-syntactic and discourse properties of preverbal constituents in Finnish, providing a new interpretation of the distinction between Subjects and Topics, as well as an explanation for the Case forms that characterize the Object realization in this language. Based on a cartographic approach to Finnish clause structure, evidence is provided for a functional ‘separation’ between the evaluation of the EPP feature and the domain of Nominative Case assignment. Specifically, a functional ‘split’ is proposed in the high IP-zone between the TP projection, where Nominative Case is checked by the sentential Subject triggering verb agreement, and the SubjP position, dedicated to the EPP requirement and hosting the Subject of predication. Based on this distinction, preverbal constituents only qualify as ‘full Subjects’ if they pass through both Spec positions. Specific consequences apply to Subject agreement and the realization of Accusative Case when these projections host different constituents (e.g., necessive, existential and passive clauses). This split account can also provide a distinction between the Subject of predication (in the IP-zone) and a Topic (in the C-domain), showing that not any preverbal constituent can be a Subject, while any constituent can be topicalized, with specific discourse functions and language-specific restrictions.

Para el caso: análisis de una construcción versátil en sintaxis del discurso

En este trabajo analizamos el funcionamiento discursivo de la construcción española para el caso. Este elemento se muestra muy rentable en el desempeño de ciertas funciones en la macroestructura del discurso. Principalmente, es capaz de ofrecer un marco enunciativo de contenidos proposicionales. Pero también es capaz de expresar contenidos modales, como la actitud de indiferencia del hablante ante lo dicho, o de caracterizar algunas informaciones ofrecidas por el texto. Se tendrán en cuenta en el análisis las distintas variantes adoptadas por la construcción, ya que los varios usos de para el caso presentan diferentes grados de fijación. Los casos de mayor fijación muestran valores discursivos más específicos y, en algunos contextos, su comportamiento se acerca al de los operadores discursivos, categoría perteneciente a una gramática del texto.

The Characteristics and Types of Korean Minor Sentences

This study examined the definition, characteristics, and types of Korean minor sentences―often used in the spoken language–comparing them to full sentences of the written language. A minor sentence is one in which different forms of words or phrases are used to perform a specific discourse function. The discourse function of minor sentences can be clearly understood only when the context of the conversation is taken into account. The morphological characteristics of Korean minor sentences are that words or phrases of minor sentences are diverted from different words or phrases. In all sentences, including minor sentences, modality, where speakers restrict the target situation, is realized since even minor sentences are considered sentences. Based on their forms and structures, minor sentences can be classified into the following types: noun (phrase) minor sentences, verb (phrase) minor sentences, adverb (phrase) minor sentences, determiner (phrase) minor sentences, copula (phrase) minor sentences, and primitive form minor sentences.

Leksinių samplaikų sąrašo tikslinimas: bandymas taikyti Formulex metodą

A number of corpus studies focusing on the description of the use and functions of lexical bundles havebeen conducted recently in order to explore the phraseology of learner language. As with any studiesof lexical bundles, the problem of overlapping or structurally incomplete items poses a particularchallenge. In practice, it is often difficult to align such units with specific discourse functions. The factthat lexical bundles do not constitute neat form-and-meaning mappings results from, among otherreasons, their being grounded in language use rather than language system. In this pilot study weattempt to test a new method called Formulex (Forsyth, 2015a; 2015b) to verify whether an applicationof the criterion of coverage – in addition to the conventional criteria of orthographic length, minimumfrequency and distribution range (Biber et al., 1999) – may help obtain a more refined inventory of lexicalbundles and hence facilitate further qualitative analyses. To that end, we use Polish and Lithuaniancomponents of the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE, Granger et al., 2009), as well as theLOCNESS corpus (CECL), representing academic essays written by British and American students. Theresults revealed that many lexical bundles of fixed length identified in a conventional way are fragmentsof longer chunks of text and hence they should not be treated as complete or standalone 4-word lexicalitems. It was also revealed that the application of the Formulex method, where the word sequences aremutually exclusive, helps a researcher filter out overlapping or non-perceptually salient lexical bundlesand, ultimately, specify more precise boundaries of lexical bundles of fixed length. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sal.0.29.15327

Construction Grammar in the Service of Slavic Linguistics, and Vice Versa

This paper explores the connection between Slavic languages and the theoretical tenets of construction grammar, a cognitively and functionally oriented approach to linguistic analysis. The strengths of traditional Slavic linguistics consist particularly in its focus on diachronic concerns, lexical semantics, and on issues of morphology. Constructional analysis provides a firm theoretical grounding for these traditional areas and also draws attention to phenomena and issues that have been less prominently pursued by Slavic linguists. This concerns various kinds of syntactic patterning but also the domain of discourse organization and grammatical devices that serve specific discourse functions, be it the nature of pragmatic particles, specific clausal structures, expressions of subjective epistemic stance, etc. Of interest is also the origin and evolution of such devices. This area has been generally left just about untouched in Slavic linguistics, yet it represents an enormous pool of interesting data and relates directly to theoretical questions that are presently in the forefront of general linguistic research. With respect to the evolutionary perspective, the present paper also comments on the role of pragmaticization and constructionalization and their manifestations in particular instances, including suggestions for how they can be conceptualized with the contribution of construction grammar.

Rock Engravings as Text: Territorial Assertions on the Walls of the En Nusra Cave in Avdat, Israel

This paper examines a collection of markings that were created over the past few centuries in the Negev Highlands in southern Israel. The markings were etched onto the walls of a vestibule of a 3rd century CE Late Roman burial cave in the site of Avdat (ancient Oboda). The cave was known in Bedouin Arabic as En Nusra. The data may be divided into three main language groups – Hebrew, English, and Bedouin Wusum (tribal symbols) – each with its own graffiti etiquette, graphic style, technical attributes, and specific discourse function. In an attempt to identify the separate and/or combined meaning(s) for these markings, archaeological evidence from En Nusra was correlated with historical references and then cross-referenced via ethnographic interviews with local Bedouin. Subsequently, Columbia School (CS) sign-oriented linguistics theories, which view language as an instance of human behavior whose structure is shaped by the communicative and cultural factors of its users, were applied to further confirm our interpretations of the En Nusra graffiti. The anthro-linguistic examination of the markings reaffirmed our archaeo-historical based comprehension of why this sidelined and otherwise unassuming structure accommodated such a prolific epigraphic exchange.

English ‘on top’: discourse functions of English resources in the German mediascape

This paper responds to what I perceive as a lack of a meso level framework in the study of English in the mediascapes of the ‘expanding circle’. I shall make my case on the example of German. Traditionally, most research on German/English language contact is on Anglicisms, that is, lexical borrowings from English. Other approaches do exist, but Anglicisms research, which originated in the 1960s, still seems the dominant framework and, as most of this work is carried out on mass (mostly printed) media data, it has also become the dominant way of looking at English in the media. I argue in this paper that the Anglicisms paradigm does not account for a range of patterns of national language/English contact. As an alternative, I propose an approach labeled ‘English on top’, which focuses on the textual positions and discourse functions of English rather than its lexical structure. In a preliminary working definition, ‘English on top’ is a pattern of bilingual discourse in which English is a complementary code used in addition to (‘on top’ of) the predominant national language for specific discourse functions. As the discussion shall make clear, it is not the case that the usage patterns this metaphor aims at capturing have never been noticed before, but it does seem they haven’t been systematically considered so far.

Code-switching and pausing: an interdisciplinary study

This study considers code-switching (CS) and pausing in two sociolinguistically distinct groups in London and Cyprus, bilingual in Greek-Cypriot Dialect (GCD) and English. The characteristics of their speech are examined both in monolingual and bilingual modes (Grosjean, 2001). It was hypothesised that in London Greek-Cypriots, where CS is a ‘default mode’, pausing behaviour would be affected by the same factors as in monolinguals, but not by CS. In Cyprus, on the other hand, where CS serves specific discourse functions, overall fluency was expected to be negatively affected by the more marked character of the alternation. Results revealed that CS has no significant effect on pausing in either context. Conversational motives, along with lexical, grammatical and processing issues, are the determining factors in bilingual, as well as monolingual, pausing. Despite the lack of difference found here between the two groups, we conclude that sociolinguistic and discourse variables should form an essential element in attempts to model bilingual speech production.

Naja, normal und normal. Zur Syntax, Semantik und Pragmatik der x-und-x-Konstruktion im Deutschen

This article deals with the syntax, semantics and pragmatics of the x und x (‘x and x’) construction in German, cf. A: Schade, dass die [Schabracken] so teuer sind! B: Naja, teuer und teuer, wenn die Qualitat stimmt, dann finde ich den Preis okay. (A: ‘What a pity that the horsetrappers are so expensive!’ B: ‘Well, expensive and expensive, if the quality is good, the price is fine with me.’). The specific discourse function of this construction is to negotiate the situational meaning of a previously used lexical item. Typologically, it has been claimed that the pattern is language-specific for Scandinavian. The paper challenges this assumption, providing empirical evidence from a questionnaire study with German students and a corpus of German examples from internet forum and newsgroup dialogues. Theoretically, the aim of the paper is to show that the specific discourse function of the pattern can be accounted for by regular interactions between syntax, semantics and pragmatics. A central assumption is that the x-expressions are pure quotations. The quotation analysis can account for the fact that the construction licenses a range of different syntactic categories as x-expressions. It also accounts for the fact that it is the lexical meaning of the x-expressions which is focused by the construction. The illocutionary force of the construction is derived via an I-implicature.

Rapport building in student group work

How do students build rapport in online group work, especially if all they have to work with is asynchronous text? Taking this question as a point of departure, this paper presents research into the ‘interactional’ function in group work among university students, specifically investigating rapport-building language use, defined as communicative acts promoting social concord. Rapport building is examined in online student group work, using written material in the form of discussion board messages (from the Mid-Sweden Corpus of Computer-Assisted Language Learning). To help bring out what is characteristic of the online type of discourse, spoken face-to-face material also representing student–student interaction (from the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English) is included. Frequency word lists based on the two sets of material were used in combination with concordancing in order to find which of the most frequent expressions functioned as rapport building, thus combining corpus-based and discourse-analytical methods. A taxonomy of rapport-building discourse functions was developed, containing four major categories: discourse-structuring, intratextual, face-saving and bonding units. Each of these covers specific discourse functions; in the case of bonding units, these are Agreeing; Aligning with in-group; Commiserating; Complimenting; Seeking agreement; Offering encouragement; Thanking; Responding to thanks; and Chatting.

Plesionymy: A case of synonymy or contrast?

This paper shows that the phenomenon of plesionymy deserves greater attention and needs to be approached outside its traditional framework, which considered it to be a subtype of synonymy ( Cruse, 1986, 2002; Croft and Cruse, 2004). This view suggested that pairs of terms such as foggy–misty, fearless–brave exhibit significant shared semantic traits that are more salient than their differences. Differing properties were considered to be subordinate. These are sometimes contextually foregrounded resulting in occasional oppositeness. Corpus studies show that this view is a broad generalization. This study sheds new light on German plesionyms by employing a corpus-linguistic approach. In particular, terms designating gradable properties (e.g. kritisch–ernst ‘critical–serious’, sauber–rein ‘clean–unsoiled/immaculate’) at neighboring positions of gradable scales show variable behavior and do not show a stronger affinity for synonymy. The position taken is that a relation of synonymy and contrast are equally a matter of construal. Both types of semantic relations are part of the conceptual and lexical knowledge and subject to a cognitive principle. This work also examines how plesionym relations are realized in discourse. This article demonstrates that plesionyms are co-occurrences within typical lexico-syntactic sequences. Following Jones’ (2002) and Murphy's (2006) observations, these patterns (e.g. nicht X, eher Y; mehr X als Y; etc.) have specific discourse functions and are evidence to account for a construction-based view.

Particles in questions

SummaryThis paper deals with the use of Latin particles in a specific environment, viz. interrogatives (or questions in a Wide sense). For that purpose, I first explore the various functions which questions can have, both as individual speech acts and within larger discourse structures, on the basis of modern insights gained within conversation analysis and discourse analysis. It tums out that in interrogative utterances, particles are more often connected with specific discourse functions than with illocutionary functions, and they seem to be used more in particular to mark the various types of reactive questions that are found in the comedies of Plautus.

Text openings and closings in writing and speech

The differentiation of text segments to fulfil specific discourse functions (e.g. to introduce a topic, or to state the time and place of a story), along with the definition of clear textual boundaries that set the text apart from the situational context, are two aspects of the configuration of a text as an autonomous semantic unit. This paper analyzes the opening and closing elements of narrative and expository texts to determine whether they function as well defined boundaries, and fulfil a specific discourse function with respect to the text as a whole. The population for this study consisted of 120 participants, 10 at each of the Age levels of grade school, junior high, high school, and university, yielding 40 participants in each of three target Languages: English, Spanish, and Swedish. The database included 480 texts divided by Modality (written vs. spoken) and Genre (narrative vs. expository). All text openings and closing were coded for positioning, i.e. the framework used by speaker/writers to introduce or conclude the topic developed in their texts, and for functioning, i.e. the role these elements play in the text. Results showed that, as texts become more “detached” from the situation in which they are produced, their component parts become more functionally differentiated. This process is described first in the openings of narrative and expository texts, and later in the closings of expository texts; narrative closings remain a problematic area of text construction for most speaker/writers in this study, in every Age group. These processes of detachment and internal functional specification of text components occurred earlier in writing than in speech. The cross-linguistic differences found in the study are related to different teaching practices, rather than to language specific features.

An alternative approach to theme: A systemic-functional perspective

AbstractHalliday's conception of Theme as “the starting-point of the message;…l what the clause is going to be about” is examined in application to natural texts, together with the related notion of topic as a narrative category. It is suggested that, while all ideational, interpersonal and textual elements comprising ‘multiple Themes’ may be regarded as points of departure of the message, only certain types of ideational Theme will tell us what the clause is about. Evidence for this view is sought by reference to participant roles. Theme and topic are seen to be distinct categories which may coincide in one realization, but only when this is a participant. As a consequence, it is proposed that ‘topical Theme’, if retained at all, be dissociated from identification with the first ideational element of the clause, since this is frequently not a participant. Other ideational Themes, such as circumstantials and attributes, are seen to fulfil specific discourse functions, independently of their syntactic real...