From written to spoken – and in between

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Vladislav Smolka
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Spoken Discourse ◽  
Single Author ◽  
Different Types

The paper looks at the differences in syntactic and information structure in four types of discourse produced by a single author, the British cosmologist and astrophysicist Sir Martin Rees: a written academic text, a text from a book of popular science, unprepared spoken discourse, and an academic lecture, i.e. a text written to be presented orally. The analysis of the variation in one speaker/writer is expected to highlight systematic differences between the separate types of discourses and to eliminate possible variation across different authors. The paper aims to show how, perhaps even subconsciously, competent language users modify the structure of discourse to fulfi l their communicative goals in different types of communication.

scholarly journals Discourse Intonation and Information Structure: An Empirical Study of Existential There Constructions in Non-native Spontaneous Speech

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-153
Author(s):  
Judit Nagy
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Sentence Type ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
New Information ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Discourse Intonation ◽  
Problematic Area ◽  
Accented English ◽  
The Given

Abstract The management of given and new information is one of the key components of accomplishing coherence in oral discourse, which is claimed to be a problematic area for language learners (Celce-Murcia, Dörnyei, and Thurrell 1995: 14). Research on discourse intonation proposes that instead of the given/new dichotomy, givenness should be viewed as a continuum, with different types of accessibility (Baumann & Grice 2006). Moreover, Prince (1992) previously categorized information structure into Hearer-old/Hearer-new and Discourse-old/Discourse-new information. There is consensus on the fact that focus or prominence associated with new information is marked with nuclear pitch accent, and its main acoustic cue, fundamental frequency (f0) (Ward & Birner 2001: 120). Non-native intonation has been reported to display numerous differences in f0 range and patterns compared to native speech (Wennerstrom 1994; Baker 2010). This study is an attempt to address the issue of marking information structure in existential there sentences by means of f0 in non-native spontaneous speech. Data originates from task-based interactions in the Wildcat Corpus of Native- and Foreign-Accented English (Van Engen et al. 2010). This paper examines two issues: (1) information structure in relation to the notions of givenness and different types of accessibility (Baumann & Grice 2006) and to Prince’s (1992) multidimensional taxonomy and (2) the use of f0 peaks to mark the prominence of new information. Several differences were measured among native speakers regarding the use of f0, sentence type, and complexity.

scholarly journals Marked and Non-Marked Attribute Structures within a Secondary Predicate in the French Language

2020 ◽  
pp. 143-155
Author(s):  
Iuliia Zelena
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
French Language ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Status ◽  
Productive Potential ◽  
Semantic Transfer ◽  
Argumentative Structure ◽  
Transfer Mechanisms

The article is devoted to the study of marked and unmarked attributive constructions, considering the influence of semantic transfer mechanisms, taking into account their productive potential. Structuraland semantic characterization of types of attributive constructions is performed in light of two initial theories –in view ofreferentstatusand actual sentence fragmentation. An independent research of relationsbetween predication manifestations and the semanticand syntactic structure of a sentence has been performed by determining the valence properties of attributive verbs. The distinctionbetween different types of constructionswith the attribute complement isdescribed and it is specifiedthat there is a direct correlation between the type of attributive sentences and the emergence of predicative relation.The article is dedicated to the analysis of modification of the information structure and the status of the referent in sentences containing attributive object. Given the types of interpretation of attributive sentences and, based on the results of contextual analysis, it became possible to prove that change of argumentative structure in verbal group gives a reason to treat attributive verb with elements SN2 and X as a predicative focus of the sentence and permit to consider it as the complex secondary predicate.

Information Structure in Languages of the Caucasus

2021 ◽  
pp. 972-1002
Author(s):  
Diana Forker
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Indigenous Language ◽  
Focus Position ◽  
Major Focus ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
Clear Preference ◽  
Sharp Difference ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Constituent Order

This chapter discusses the expression of information structure in the three indigenous language families of the Caucasus with a focus on constituent order and particles. At the clause level, all three language families show a clear preference for SOV, are generally flexible, and also admit other orders. The major focus position is pre-verbal, but postverbal focus is also attested; adjacency to the verb is a violable constraint. At the phrasal level, there is a sharp difference between Northwest Caucasian, with its prenominal and postnominal modifiers alike, and Kartvelian and Nakh-Daghestanian languages, which employ postnominal modifiers only for emphasis, contrast, or focus. Languages from all three families make wide use of cleft and pseudo-cleft constructions that normally express constituent focus. Another commonality is the frequent use of enclitics and suffixes of different types for information-structuring purposes. Modal markers, interrogative markers, additive affixes, and markers with grammatical meaning are used as focus-sensitive particles and usually placed after the item they scope over or after the head of the phrase.

scholarly journals Between syntax and discourse

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 396-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oksana Laleko ◽  
Maria Polinsky
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Structural Complexity ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Structure Level ◽  
Different Types ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
The Status ◽  
Different Levels

Abstract This article examines the knowledge of topic and subject particles in heritage speakers and L2 learners of Japanese and Korean. We assume that topic marking is mediated at the syntax-information structure interface, while subject marking pertains to narrow syntax. In comparing phenomena mediated at different levels of linguistic organization, we provide evidence for the hypothesis that information structure-level phenomena present greater challenges for bilingual speakers than those mediated within syntax. While these results may be interpreted as evidence of generalized interface-related deficits, we show that such a global explanation is not supported. Instead, a more nuanced account is developed, based on the recognition of different types of topic (anaphoric, generic, and contrastive) and different types of subject (descriptive and exhaustive). Under the proposed account, non-native speakers’ deficits follow from three unrelated effects: the status of topic as an interface category, structural complexity, and the memory demands necessary for its interpretation in context.

Infinitival relative clauses in spoken discourse

1998 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christer Geisler
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Grammatical Function ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
British English ◽  
Spoken Discourse ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
The Matrix

ABSTRACTThis article concerns infinitival relative clauses, such as Mary is the person to ask, and their distribution in spoken English. It analyzes the correlation between the function of the antecedent in the relative clause and the function of the whole postmodified NP (the relative complex) in the matrix clause. On the basis of a quantitative analysis of a corpus of spoken British English, I show that the grammatical function of the antecedent in the infinitival relative clause depends on the function of the antecedent in the matrix clause. I argue that the distribution of antecedent functions in the matrix clause can be explained in terms of thematic properties and information structure of the clauses in which the infinitival relatives occur. A key notion is that speakers center their discourse around information that they assume to be important for the communicative event.

scholarly journals "A TOT PEROVSKOJ NE DAL VSLAST' POSPAT'": PROSODY AND GRAMMAR OF ANAPHORIC TOT THROUGH THE LENS OF CORPUS DATA

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. I. Podlesskaya ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Anaphora Resolution ◽  
Prosodic Features ◽  
Semantic Roles ◽  
Actual Distribution ◽  
Spoken Discourse ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Actual Use ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
National Corpus

Based on data from the Russian National Corpus and the General InternetCorpus of Russian, the paper addresses syntactic, sematic and prosodic features of constructions with the demonstrative TOT used as an anaphor. These constructions have gained some attention in earlier studies [Paducheva 2016], [Berger, Weiss 1987], [Kibrik 2011], [Podlesskaya 2001], but their analysis (a) covered primarily their prototypical uses; and (b) was based on written data. The data from informal, esp. from spoken discourse show however that the actual use of these constructions may deviate considerably from the known prototype. The paper aims at bridging this gap. I claim (i) that the function of TOT is to temporary promote a referent from a less privileged discourse status to a more privileged one; and (ii) that TOT can be analyzed on a par with switch reference devices in the languages where the latter are grammatically marked (e.g. on verb forms). The following parameters of TOT-constructions are discussed: syntactic and semantic roles of TOT and of its antecedent in their respective clauses, linear and structural distances between TOT and its antecedent, animacy of the maintained referent. Special attention is payed to the information structure of the TOT construction: I give structural and prosodic evidence that TOT never has a rhematic status. The revealed actual distribution of TOT (a) adds to our understanding of cross-linguistic variation of anaphoric functions of demonstratives; and, hopefully, (b) may contribute to further developing computational approaches to coreference and anaphora resolution for Russian, e.g. by improving datasets necessary for this task.

scholarly journals NEGATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS: TYPES, STYLISTIC AND PRAGMATIC FUNCTIONS (ON THE MATERIAL OF ‘WATCHING THE ENGLISH’ BY K. FOX)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna S. Kuchkina ◽  
◽  
Anna M. Ivanova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Different Types

The paper outlines some peculiarities of the English language concerning the use of explicit and implicit forms of negation that may prove to be translation difficulties as well as their stylistic and pragmatic functions. The author focuses on different types of negations frequently used in the Russian and English languages in order to offer workable approaches to rendering English negative constructions into Russian on the example of modern-day British popular science literature.

scholarly journals Fragments of the Slovenian linguistic picture of Serbia from the last decades of the XIXth century

2013 ◽  
pp. 223-244
Author(s):  
Najda Ivanova
Keyword(s):  
Recent Article ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
The Other ◽  
Xxth Century ◽  
Science Book ◽  
Xixth Century ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Linguistic Methods

In recent article the role of the popular science book Bolgarija in Srbija (1897), written by the Slovenian stenographer, journalist, translator, pedagogist and writer Anton Bezensek (1854-1915), for the formation of Slovenian stereotypical attitudes towards Serbia in the last decades of the XXth century is examined. We analyze the principles of selection as well as the mechanisms of using elements, belonging to both the language of obesrving culture and the language of the observed one, for verbalizing the image of the Other, which are related to the sociocultural discourse, the individual and ideological orientation of the author, and last but not least, to the tematic and genre-and-stylistic features of the text itself. In this context, the necessity of systematic introduction of linguistic methods for exploring the imagological categories and their implementation in different types of text is emphasized.

Popular Science Images: Reflections on Visual Practices in Science Communication

Design Issues ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 72-85
Author(s):  
Simone Heekeren
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Visual Design ◽  
Scientific Images ◽  
Different Types

Abstract Images play a considerable role in the communication of scientific knowledge. This article deals with the recontextualization of originally scientific images in multimodal popular science articles. The focus is on the visual editing of these images, and thus on an aspect of visual design in science communication. I present different types of multimodal transcriptive procedures that are related to the recontextualization and readdressing of images in popular science contexts. Since these procedures may be accompanied by a change in the legibility of visualizations, I will conclude by suggesting possible implications for the evidence potential of popular science images.

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