Topic-Shift Characteristics of Japanese Casual Conversations Between Elderlies and Between Youths

2021 ◽  
pp. 418-427
Author(s):  
Youtaro Iida ◽  
Yumi Wakita
Keyword(s):  
Topic Shift

Lebanese conversational style and cultural values

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 571-604
Author(s):  
Sasha G. Louis ◽  
Rana N. Khoudary
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Cultural Groups ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Audio Recordings ◽  
Conversational Style ◽  
Topic Shift ◽  
Fast Pace ◽  
Expressive Phonology

Abstract This paper investigates the Lebanese conversational style in relation to Lebanese cultural values. The study adopts a discourse analysis approach based on interactional sociolinguistic methodology for the analysis of audio-recordings and semi-structured interviews involving Lebanese nationals (multi-active culture) and members of linear-active cultures, in addition to participant observation. Four distinctive linguistic features characterizing the Lebanese conversational style are identified: topic (focus on personal topics and abrupt topic shift), pacing (overlap and fast pace), expressive phonology and intonation, and formulaic language. The findings of this study reveal that the Lebanese have a high-involvement conversational style as a result of their cultural values which reflect those of high-context, multi-active and collectivist cultures. Furthermore, a connection is made between cultural and communicative differences which can account for instances of stereotyping and misunderstandings between members of the two cultural groups.

Conceptualization of science using collaboration and competences

2016 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Karlovcec ◽  
Dunja Mladenic ◽  
Marko Grobelnik ◽  
Mitja Jermol
Keyword(s):  
Research Collaboration ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Bibliographic Data ◽  
Topic Shift ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research Project ◽  
General Topic ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose an approach for conceptualizing science based on collaboration and competences of researchers. Design/methodology/approach The research is conducted by exploratory analysis of collaboration and competences using case studies from humanistic, engineering, natural sciences and a general topic. Findings The findings show that by applying the proposed approach on bibliographic data that readily exist for many national sciences as well as for international scientific communities, one can obtain useful new insights into the research. The approach is demonstrated with the following exploratory findings: identification of important connections and individual researchers that connect the community of anthropologists; collaboration of technical scientists in the community of anthropologists caused by an interdisciplinary research project; connectivity, interdisciplinary and structure of artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and a community based on a general topic; and identifying research interest shift described with concretization and topic-shift. Practical implications As demonstrated with the practical implementation (http://scienceatlas.ijs.si/), users can obtain information of the most relevant competences of a researcher and his most important collaborators. It is possible to obtaining researchers, community structure and competences of an arbitrary research topic. Social implications The map for collaboration and competences of a complete science can be a crucial tool for policy-making. Social scientists can use the results of the proposed approach to better understand and direct the development of science. Originality/value Originality and value of the paper is in combining text (competences) and network (research collaboration and co-authoring) approaches for exploring science. Additional values give the results of analysis that demonstrate the approach.

Mandarin Chinese buguo (‘but’) as a metacoherence marker in TV/radio interview talks

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-144
Author(s):  
Yufang Wang ◽  
Shu-ing Shyu ◽  
Wayne Schams ◽  
Hsun-Chen Chen
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Discourse Marker ◽  
Spoken Discourse ◽  
Previous Proposition ◽  
Topic Shift ◽  
News Interviews

Abstract This study examines the uses of Mandarin Chinese buguo ‘but’ as a contrastive discourse marker (CM) in spoken discourse. The data were taken from casual conversations, TV/radio single-interviewee interviews and TV panel news interviews. We found that two main types of the CM buguo were used to mark contrast: restrictive buguo and cancellative buguo. Restrictive buguo is similar to the adv buguo in usage in that it modifies the validity of the preceding proposition to signal implicit contrast. Cancellative buguo is used to cancel the validity of a previous proposition to indicate explicit contrast. As such, restrictive buguo can serve as a topic-shift marker and to convey implicit disagreement; cancellative buguo often acts as a topic-change marker used to introduce explicit disagreement. In particular, both restrictive buguo and cancellative buguo can serve as metacoherence markers, which are often employed by interview hosts/hostesses to make the discourse optimally coherent.

scholarly journals THE ANALYSIS OF TOPICS AND TOPIC BOUNDARY MARKERS IN IONESCO’S ABSURD PLAY THE LESSON

HUMANIKA ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Henny Putri Saking Wijaya
Keyword(s):  
Topic Shift

People sometimes experience miscommunication when they have a conversation. It may happen because they fail to recognize the topic of discussion and the topic shift markers. A conversation has a clear structure that is not realized by the speakers. In this study, the writer chose The Lesson, one of the most famous absurd plays by Ionesco, as the data. In this play, the structure of conversation is difficult to understand, especially in the conversation between the Professor and the Young Pupil. Based on this condition, the writer investigates the structure of the conversation between the Professor and the Young Pupil in order to find the main topics and the topic boundary markers occurred in the topic shift in the conversation. The data were analyzed using the theories of topic shift by Coulthard (2014) and topic boundary markers by Stenstrom (2014). The findings show that there were four topics in the conversations between the Professor and the Young Pupil and ‘let’s’ is the topic boundary marker often used to open a new topic and to close a topic. In conclusion, even in an absurd play where the structure is difficult to understand, there is a clear structure of the conversation.

Le rôle de certains facteurs (morpho-)syntaxiques et informationnels dans le choix de il ou de celui-ci

Revue Romane ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annemie Demol
Keyword(s):  
The Third ◽  
Demonstrative Pronoun ◽  
Topic Shift ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Syntactic Function ◽  
The Third Person

This contribution1 provides a corpus-based analysis of some (morpho-) syntactic factors that influence the choice between the third person clitic pronoun il and the demonstrative pronoun celui-ci : the syntactic function of the antecedent, as well as its form, and the syntactic function of the pronoun itself. Special attention is paid to a series of counterexamples to Zribi-Hertz’s (1992) constraint on discursive promotion. The different tendencies observed for il and celui-ci with respect to the syntactic criteria examined, provide evidence for the hypothesis that il marks topic continuity and celui-ci a topic shift and ultimately lead to a reformulation of the constraint on discursive promotion in terms of topic promotion.

Norwegian (non-V2) declaratives, resumptive elements, and the Wackernagel position

2011 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin Melum Eide
Keyword(s):  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Light Particle ◽  
Light Elements ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Left Dislocation ◽  
Topic Shift ◽  
Finite Verb

Most Norwegian declaratives are subject-initial verb second (V2) clauses. This paper discusses declaratives that can be construed as non-V2, two constructions that have traditionally been analyzed as left dislocation phenomena: the (adjunctive)så-construction and the Copy Left Dislocation (CLD) construction, where the ‘copy’ is a weak pronoun. Both constructions share an affinity to root clauses, have particular scope effects, and employ a prosodically light particle between the topicalized phrase and the finite verb in V2 (såand a weak pronoun, respectively). The paper attributes these properties to the fact that the relevant particles are topic markers of a particular kind; they mark A-topics. A-Topics signal a topic-shift in the conversation and are confined to clauses with illocutionary force (Bianchi & Frascarelli 2010). The aforementioned particles are much more frequent in spoken contexts than in written prose, and I propose that this is because they depend on prosody. They are obligatorily light, and they occur in the part of the clause that has traditionally been described as ‘the Wackernagel position’. Wackernagel (1892) proposed that certain prosodically light elements (clitics in particular) tend to occur in the second position in Indo-European languages. Although the resumptive elements of theså-construction and especially of CLDs may not be fully-fledged clitics, like clitics, they appear in the second position of declaratives.

scholarly journals Pronoun preferences of children in a language without typical third-person pronouns

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-185
Author(s):  
Maialen Iraola Azpiroz ◽  
Mikel Santesteban ◽  
Antonella Sorace ◽  
Maria-José Ezeizabarrena
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Change ◽  
Developmental Pattern ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Null Pronouns ◽  
Developmental Shift ◽  
Tolerance For Ambiguity ◽  
Topic Shift ◽  
Third Person ◽  
General Preference ◽  
Null Pronoun

This study presents comprehension data from 6–7-and 8–10-year-old children as well as adults on the acceptability of null vs overt anaphoric forms (the demonstrative hura ‘that’ and the quasipronoun bera ‘(s)he, him-/herself’) in Basque, a language without true third-person pronouns. In an acceptability judgement task, a developmental change occurred in the preference for hura (Experiment 1): 6–7-year-olds showed a preference for the null pronoun in both topic-shift and topic-continuity contexts, while 8–10-year-olds, like adults, preferred hura in topic-shift contexts and null pronouns in topic-continuity contexts. However, no developmental shift was observed in the preference for bera (Experiment 2): unlike adults, neither 6–7 nor 8–10-year-old children selected bera over null pronouns in topic-shift contexts. They instead showed a general preference for null pronouns, an indication of tolerance for ambiguity – a pattern which differs from prior studies in other null-subject languages, where ambiguous pronouns declined with age. The results reveal a different developmental pattern for hura and bera, which may be explained by the more rigid (syntactic) constraints operating on hura in comparison to bera in antecedent choice.

Orienting to the category “ordinary – but special” in an Australian-Italian courtship and marriage narrative

2004 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 191-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greer Cavallaro Johnson ◽  
Isabella Paoletti
Keyword(s):  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Narrative Research ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Analysis Methods ◽  
Topic Shift ◽  
Research Interview ◽  
Moral Stance ◽  
Choice Of Partner ◽  
Evaluation And Assessment

This article explores the possibilities of working ethnomethodological and conversation analysis methods into narrative analytic research, in relation to the understanding of narrative practices and identity work carried out in the course of the interview interaction. More specifically, we discuss how a storyteller (Olivia) in a research interview inserts a complaint story about her mother's intense objection to her choice of partner, into a relatively ordinary romance tale, and subsequently subverts it. Various conversational strategies, such as recipient design, topic shift and evaluation and assessment, are worked alongside the narrative dimensions of tellibility, tellership and moral stance (Ochs & Capps, 2001) to demonstrate the narrative achievement of an ordinary – but special – identity, in the retelling of events related to Olivia's courtship and the first few weeks of her marriage. (Australian-Italian Narrative Research, Ethnomethodology, Conversation Analysis)

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