scholarly journals Using discourse markers to negotiate epistemic stance: A view from situated language use

2021 ◽  
Vol 177 ◽  
pp. 208-223
Author(s):  
Karolina Grzech
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivia H. Marrese ◽  
Chase Wesley Raymond ◽  
Barbara A. Fox ◽  
Cecilia E. Ford ◽  
Megan Pielke

This paper investigates the body’s role in grammar in argument sequences. Drawing from a database of public disputes on language use, we document the work of the palm-up gesture in action formation. Using conversation analysis and interactional linguistics, we show how this gesture is an interactional resource that indexes a particular epistemic stance—namely to cast the proposition being advanced as obvious. In this report, we focus on instances in which participants reach what we refer to as an ‘impasse’, at which point the palm up gesture becomes a resource for reasserting and pursuing a prior position, now laminated with an embodied claim of ‘obviousness’ that is grounded in the sequentiality of the interaction. As we show, the palm up gesture appears with and in response to a variety of syntactic and grammatical structures, and moreover can also function with no accompanying verbal utterance at all. This empirical observation challenges the assumption that a focus on grammar-in-interaction should begin with, or otherwise be examined in relation to, ‘standard’ verbal-only grammatical categories (e.g., imperative, declarative). We conclude by considering the gestural practice we focus on alongside verbal grammatical resources (specifically, particles) from typologically distinct languages, which we offer as a contribution to ongoing discussions regarding an embodied conceptualization of grammar—in this case, epistemicity.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-274
Author(s):  
Shelley Staples ◽  
Maria K. Venetis ◽  
Jeffrey D. Robinson ◽  
Rachel Dultz

Abstract Much of the corpus-based research on medical discourse has focused on “involved” language (e.g., 1st person pronouns, discourse markers) and its importance in creating patient rapport (Adolphs, Brown, Carter, Crawford, & Sahota, 2004; Skelton & Hobbes, 1999; Staples, 2016). However, in the broader literature on health care interactions, providers’ information provision is equally important in patient-centered care (Ong, de Haes, Joos, & Lammes, 1995). This paper investigates the ways in which providers and patients use informational language in medical discourse using multidimensional analysis (MDA; Biber, 1988). We first examine three corpora of medical interactions and then focus a new MDA on one type of interaction that requires more informational language use: discussions of disease and treatment options. The analysis revealed multifaceted aspects of information provision that differ depending on the nature of the information, including providers’ procedural information for medical treatment and impersonal information provision for explaining the disease.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 22
Author(s):  
Hsueh Chu Chen

This study (a) conducted a feature analysis of the spoken data of Chinese university students in pronunciation, grammar, and discourse, (b) investigated the contributions of the discrete linguistic features to the perceptual ratings on foreign accent, comprehensibility, delivery, and general language use. Ten university learners were selected from the Spoken Corpus of the English of Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese learners (http://corpus.ied.edu.hk/phonetics/), in which two speakers were paired up to conduct a five minutes interview. Three-level analyses were done to investigate Chinese learners’ linguistic features. Forty listeners from four L1 language backgrounds were recruited to rate the speech samples. The results show that strongly negative correlations were found between the production and perceptual rating scores for “omission of consonant(s) in final position” “redundant article ‘the’”, “silent pauses” and “discourse markers,” suggesting that the four features can be perceived and exert strong negative influences on perceptual judgments. Pronunciation rating had the strongest positive correlations with “foreign accentedness”; grammar rating had the strongest positive correlations with “general language use”; discourse rating had the strongest positive correlations with “general delivery”, and “general language use.” Regarding the rating of comprehensibility, “misuse of conjunctions” “redundant article ‘the’”, “silent pauses”, “lengthening”, and “stressing” showed strong negative correlations whereas “filled pauses” had strong positive correlations with it. Regarding the rating of foreign accentedness, strong negative correlations were found between “omission of consonant(s) in final position”, “lengthening”, “discourse markers”, and “stressing” and the rating of “foreign accentedness”.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-51
Author(s):  
Haruna Alkasim Kiyawa

This paper aims to explore some intellectual wise saying from African wisdom and culture from one of the three major languages in the northern part of Nigeria. The use of discourse markers is one of the linguistics devices embedded in Hausa proverbs. However, Africa as the continent was occupied by different languages and dialectics. Proverbs is an expression of a saying which combines various wisdom and culture of every human beings living on the earth. This paper utilises written document as a method and selected (36) different proverbs and analyses the discourse markers. Moreover, the paper reviewed various studies that looked at proverbs' role as one of a figurative speech and the definitions of discourse markers defined by literary scholars and cultural critics who studied proverbs from different perspectives. The finding of this paper identified (19) out of (36) proverbs also indicated DMs served as interpersonal functions and the relationship between the speakers’ actions and thoughts, while the remaining (17) functions as textual features for making meaning. Finally, the study found that discourse markers enhance some lexical expressions under different levels, including sentence connectivity, language use, and the appearance of discourse markers in the proverbs. The study's significance shows that cultural scholars and English language educators can incorporate/integrate proverbs and highlighted the role of discourse markers to the student, enhancing their linguistics knowledge, communication skills and learning activities.


Pragmatics ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 697-719 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junko Saito

This study qualitatively examines how male individuals in subordinate positions in a Japanese workplace construct institutional identities in superior-subordinate interactions in the workplace. The analysis demonstrates that the male subordinates’ use of the masu form (the addressee honorific form) in conjunction with their epistemic stance contributes to the display of different facets of institutional identities. It also shows that individuals in subordinate positions draw on various discourse strategies, such as incomplete phrases and the plain form (the non-honorific form), so as to obscure the social relationships between superiors and themselves, as well as to avoid performing the role of buka ‘work subordinate’, who is obligated to obey superiors. Confirming the findings of previous research on identity construction, this study demonstrates that by strategically manipulating their linguistic resources, male subordinates can display different institutional identities on a moment-by-moment basis in a given context. Furthermore, the study contributes to the examination of power relations in workplace discourse, as well as touching upon a gender difference in language use.


2008 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 87-92
Author(s):  
Leonard L. LaPointe

Abstract Loss of implicit linguistic competence assumes a loss of linguistic rules, necessary linguistic computations, or representations. In aphasia, the inherent neurological damage is frequently assumed by some to be a loss of implicit linguistic competence that has damaged or wiped out neural centers or pathways that are necessary for maintenance of the language rules and representations needed to communicate. Not everyone agrees with this view of language use in aphasia. The measurement of implicit language competence, although apparently necessary and satisfying for theoretic linguistics, is complexly interwoven with performance factors. Transience, stimulability, and variability in aphasia language use provide evidence for an access deficit model that supports performance loss. Advances in understanding linguistic competence and performance may be informed by careful study of bilingual language acquisition and loss, the language of savants, the language of feral children, and advances in neuroimaging. Social models of aphasia treatment, coupled with an access deficit view of aphasia, can salve our restless minds and allow pursuit of maximum interactive communication goals even without a comfortable explanation of implicit linguistic competence in aphasia.


1991 ◽  
Vol 36 (7) ◽  
pp. 641-641
Author(s):  
No authorship indicated
Keyword(s):  

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