Use Of Evidential Markers Research Articles

Marking the sources of knowledge, asserting the epistemic stance

Abstract At the beginning of the 20th century, the Jesuit priest Joseph Deharveng (1867–1929) was one of the main representatives of a language correction movement based essentially on the standard Parisian model of French. Deharveng’s goal was to clear the practices of French-speaking Belgians of everything which seemed to deviate from this supposed ‘good usage’ of French. Under the evocative title Corrigeons-nous!, Deharveng published six anthologies from 1922 to 1928 reproducing the articles published in his language column “Récréation philologique et grammaticale” in the Brussels newspaper La Jeunesse. The present study addresses how Deharveng makes use of evidential markers, that is, linguistic features to express the sources of knowledge in his language column. The distribution of evidential markers in Deharveng’s column is compared to those in two other Franco-Belgian language columns published by Albert Doppagne (1912–2003) from 1960 to 1987 in the Brussels newspaper Le Soir and by Michel Francard (1952–) from 2018 to 2022, also in Le Soir. The aim of this comparison is to discern author-specific and language ideology-driven similarities and differences in the patterning of evidential strategies in language columns.

Revelative evidential markers in English-language dream reports: A corpus-based study

This corpus-based study investigates revelative evidential marking in English dream reports, specifically focusing on the word dream. Analyzing a corpus of 60,155 dream reports, the research identifies the expressions in * dream (in the dream, in my dream etc) and of the dream as most frequent revelative evidentials. The frequency of the central revelative marker in the dream reveals a conventional conceptualization of DREAM IS A CONTAINER, aligning with the broader linguistic metaphor of STATES ARE CONTAINERS. Concordance analysis of the second-frequent phrase of the dream illustrates that narrators tend to use the marker for navigation and coherent narrativization of the dream experiences, conceptualizing the experience as DREAM IS A STORY or DREAM IS A SPACE. Identified with the help of cluster analysis, the trends in dream experience narrativization also emphasize navigation and coherence. The study argues for pragmatic and cognitive implications of evidential marking, which is accounted for by juxtaposing dream content with real-world knowledge via the use of evidential markers in dream reports. It has been found that evidential marking serves to maintain a coherent construal and retain the epistemic control over the conceptualization of the narrated experience. The findings contribute to the expounding revelative evidential labelling, specifically, as well as of the broader semantic evidential system of the English language, advancing the scholarship on linguistic expressions of subjective states and narrativization of subjective experience.

Informational and relational functions of evidentiality in interaction

ABSTRACT Using conversation data from the British National Corpus, this paper investigates the role played by relational functions in the use of evidentiality in interaction, and how such functions interact with the ‘core’ function of evidentiality: to signal access to a source of evidence for or against a proposition. Further, this study looks into the themes authority, cooperation, and negotiation, which have been discussed in previous studies of evidentiality in interaction, and at how these themes manifest and, crucially, intersect with one another in the use of evidential markers. The qualitative analysis of the data finds relational functions to be a highly salient effect of evidential marking in conversation; while evidential markers appear to place focus on the informational content of a proposition, the effect achieved by their presence in the data of this study is found to be allowing the speaker to negotiate and manifest authority in a cooperative manner.

The Evolution of Parliamentary Debates in Light of the Evolution of Evidentials: Al Parecer and Por lo Visto in 40 Years of Parliamentary Proceedings from Spain

Previous works [like Cornillie (Epistemic modality and evidentiality in Spanish (semi)auxiliaries. A cognitive-functional approach, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, 2007)] suggest that Spanish political discourse could be studied on the basis of the description of the different evidential and modal types. The present study extends this synchronic hypothesis and addresses the evolution of the Spanish evidential discourse markers *al parecer* and *por lo visto* in a specific political genre, namely parliamentary debates, to shed some light on the evolution of parliamentary debate itself. To do so, a corpus analysis has been carried out of Spanish parliament debates from the last 39 years (1979–2018). The results show how the use of evidential markers has decreased and the pragmatic functions attached to these markers have progressively specialised in expressing negative/criticism pragmatic functions. The decrease in frequency and their specialisation in criticisms are presented, among other factors, as consequences of the evolution of parliamentary debates in Spain.

Stance-taking in Spanish-speaking Preschoolers’ Argumentative Interaction

Abstract The aim of this study is to determine what linguistic resources are used for stance-taking in confrontational interactions. For this purpose, we analyze 70 argumentative sequences in spontaneous peer conversations during play situations of 4 dyads (2 mid and 2 low socio-economic status backgrounds) of 4 to 7-year-old Argentinian children. Stance-taking relies on the use of evaluative language, understood as the markers of speaker’s attitude (reference to internal states such as attribute, cognition, emotion, intention, and reported speech, [Shiro, 2003]); and the use of evidential markers, understood as speaker’s reference to the status of the information in the utterance (causality, concession, capacity, deontic and epistemic modality, and inference, [Shiro, 2007]), including markers of politeness which serve to mitigate (or intensify) the confrontation (Watts, 2003). Our findings describe the evaluative resources used for stance-taking strategies produced by children at this early age in confrontational interactions with their peers.

Evidentiality in Early Modern English Medical Treatises (1500–1700)

AbstractThis study investigates diachronic trends in the use of evidential markers in Early Modern English medical treatises (1500–1700), with data drawn from theCorpus of Early Modern English Medical Texts. The state of medical thought and practice in Early Modern England is discussed, with particular focus on the changing role that Scholasticism played during this period. The nature of evidentiality and types of scholastic vs. non-scholastic evidence are given attention, and quantitative results are outlined. It is shown that as scholastic models of medicine gave way to more empirically-driven approaches, the use of evidential markers indicating direct perceptual and inferential evidence increased drastically, while the use of markers signaling reported information – particularly information mediated by classical authorities – decreased significantly. The results are finally discussed in light of discursive and typological considerations relating to contextual changes accompanying the reference to classical authors as sources of evidence, as well as the notion of “marked” and “unmarked” evidence types.

Evidentiality and interrogativity

Understanding of evidentials is incomplete without consideration of their behaviour in interrogative contexts. We discuss key formal, semantic, and pragmatic features of cross-linguistic variation concerning the use of evidential markers in interrogative clauses. Cross-linguistic data suggest that an exclusively speaker-centric view of evidentiality is not sufficient to explain the semantics of information source marking, as in many languages it is typical for evidentials in questions to represent addressee perspective. Comparison of evidentiality and the related phenomenon of egophoricity emphasises how knowledge-based linguistic systems reflect attention to the way knowledge is distributed among participants in the speech situation.

Modalidade epistémica e evidencialidade nos sermões católicos na língua portuguesa

EVIDENTIALITY AND EPISTEMIC MODALITY IN CATHOLIC SERMONS IN PORTUGUESE
 Epistemic modality indicates the degree of certainty or doubt speakers have for the proposition expressed by their utterance. Evidentiality, on the other hand, is the indication of evidence for a statement in question. Given the eminently persuasive character of homiletic discourse, it features a high degree of epistemicity and frequently makes use of evidential markers. The preacher emphasizes his high degree of certainty about the content of what he says and, in order to gain credibility, he supports his reasons citing the Bible or other sources deemed reliable. This paper aims to analyze the markers of epistemic modality and evidentiality in Catholic sermons in Portuguese. Moreover, it intends to define the limit between different kinds of evidence. In order to carry out this analysis, fifteen homilies pronounced in the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima have been examined.

Arousing and Mastering Feelings of Alien Inspiration in One's Own Speech: Pragmatics of the Shamanic Songs of the Suruí of Rondônia (Southern Amazonia)

This article argues that the spiritual inspiration required, according to the Suruí shamans, to utter their supposedly immutable songs, may be traced back to specific linguistic features of these songs: prominent prosodic structure, syntagmatic structure that follows complex principles, indeterminacy of the reference of some deictic pronouns, and paradoxical use of evidential markers.

The realization of contrastive focus in Peruvian Spanish intonation

In this paper, declarative intonation contours from Peruvian Spanish speakers are compared between pragmatic conditions in order to observe potential differences in the prosodic realization of contrastive focus. To do so, an acoustic feature of intonation, the fundamental frequency (F0), is examined. Since focus in Quechua is realized through the use of evidential markers, it is hypothesized that Cuzco Spanish speakers may behave differently than Lima speakers in relatively less contact with Quechua. Two intonation features have been examined with relation to contrastive focus on the subject: peak alignment and peak height. While Lima speakers demonstrate earlier and higher peaks on the subject, similar to previous reports for Madrid and Peninsular Spanish, some Cuzco speakers use fewer prosodic cues, while others rely on post-focal deaccenting alone. Also, Cuzco speakers appear to behave similarly according to whether or not they are bilingual in Spanish and Quechua. This research demonstrates how focus in realized differently in two regional varieties of Peruvian Spanish and adds to our knowledge of how language contact may contribute to the development of alternate intonation patterns in Spanish.

Evidence ofevidentialityin the quality press 1993 and 2005

In this paper, I adopt a diachronic approach to the analysis of the two large SiBol newspaper corpora, in order to examine and compare the expression of evidentiality ( Bednarek, 2006 ; Dendale and Tasmowski, 2001 ; and Chafe, 1986 ) – that is, how the writer's knowledge is marked as having been ‘seen’ or ‘heard’, etc., how the knowledge is attributed, and how it is passed on to the reader. Findings show an increased use of evidential markers over the thirteen-year period studied, and, at the same time, a shift in reporter usage of evidentiality towards hearsay evidence and the reporting of knowledge acquired by speculation. This is in keeping with other observations regarding an increased ‘vagueness’ in contemporary journalism (see Duguid, 2010 ), which is counterbalanced at times with an elevation of the newsworker's presence.

Evidence of evidentiality in the quality press 1993 and 2005

In this paper, I adopt a diachronic approach to the analysis of the two large SiBol newspaper corpora, in order to examine and compare the expression of evidentiality (Bednarek, 2006; Dendale and Tasmowski, 2001; and Chafe, 1986) – that is, how the writer's knowledge is marked as having been ‘seen’ or ‘heard’, etc., how the knowledge is attributed, and how it is passed on to the reader. Findings show an increased use of evidential markers over the thirteen-year period studied, and, at the same time, a shift in reporter usage of evidentiality towards hearsay evidence and the reporting of knowledge acquired by speculation. This is in keeping with other observations regarding an increased ‘vagueness’ in contemporary journalism (see Duguid, 2010), which is counterbalanced at times with an elevation of the newsworker's presence.

Evidentiality and morality in a Korean heritage language school

Previous work on Korean grammar has claimed that one person can not have access to another person’s thoughts, feelings or sensations, as indicated by the use of evidential markers. By looking at cases in which a teacher at a Korean heritage language school claims to read her students’ minds with a high degree of certainty, I demonstrate how expressions of epistemic stance relate to moral evaluation. Speakers portray their access to the thoughts and sensations of individuals who they deem morally worthy as more distant and uncertain. When individuals are evaluated as morally suspect, however, speakers represent these persons’ emotions, thoughts and sensations as self-evident displays of affect. This paper thus argues that evidential marking in Korean interaction is a social act through which interlocutors morally evaluate others.

Evidentiality: Authority, Responsibility, and Entitlement in English Conversation

The present study explores the use of evidential markers in English conversation. It seeks to provide evidence that evidential marking in English conversation indexes social meanings and, hence, is sensitive to the relationship between speaker and recipients) and/in a particular context of utterance; and it seeks to demonstrate that it is the social meanings of authority, responsibility, and entitlement that are indexed by evidential marking in English conversation.