scholarly journals Discourse Functions of Kama in Arabic Journalistic Discourse from the Perspective of Rhetorical Structure Theory

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 206
Author(s):  
Asem Ayed Al-Khawaldeh
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Structure Theory ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Rhetorical Structure ◽  
Discourse Marker ◽  
News Reports ◽  
News Websites ◽  
Written Form ◽  
Wide Readership ◽  
Arabic Speaking

The study aims at examining the functions of the discourse marker Kama in the Arabic journalistic discourse in the light of Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) proposed by Mann and Thompson (1987). To this end, the study compiled a small-scale corpus of journalistic discourse taken from two prominent Arabic news websites:  Aljazeera.net and Alarabia.net. The corpus covers three distinct sub-genres of journalistic discourse: opinion articles, news reports, and sport reports. The journalistic discourse is chosen on the basis that it is considered as the best representative of the contemporary written Arabic and it receives a wide readership in the Arabic-speaking countries. The motivation for the study is that although it is frequently used in the written form of Arabic (particularly in the language of Arabic media), the discourse marker kama is largely neglected and very few has been said about it in the present literature on Arabic discourse markers. The current findings show that kama is found to achieve 290 occurrences in the corpus under investigation. This obviously indicates that kama is commonly used in the language of Arabic journalistic discourse, which calls for paying attention to its usage in such a type of discourse. In the light of Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) proposed by Mann and Thompson (1987), kama was found to serve four common functions: elaboration (around 50 %), similarity (around 19 %), evidence (16 %), and exemplification (13 %). Two functions of kama (similarity and   exemplification) are listed in RST while the other two are incorporated.

scholarly journals Constructing the Corpus of Chinese Textual ‘Run-on’ Sentences (CCTRS)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kun Sun
Keyword(s):  
Power Law ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Structure Theory ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Quantitative Investigation ◽  
Rhetorical Structure ◽  
Preliminary Results ◽  
Cognitive Studies ◽  
Discourse Relations ◽  
Prevalent Form

Chinese is a discourse-oriented language. “Run-on” sentences (liushui ju) are a typical and prevalent form of discourse in Chinese. These sentences show the capacity of the Chinese language for organizing loose structures into an effective and coherent discourse. Despite their widespread use in Chinese, previous studies have only explored “run-on” sentences by using small-scale examples. In order to carry out a quantitative investigation of “run-on” sentences, we need to establish a corpus. The present study selects 500 “run-on” sentences and annotates them on the levels of discourse, syntax and semantics. We mainly adopt PDTB (Penn Discourse Treebank) styles in the discourse annotations but we also borrow some features from RST (rhetorical structure theory). We find that the distribution of the frequency of discourse relations in the data extracted from this corpus follows the power law. The preliminary results reveal that semantic leaps in “run-on” sentences are closely related to the use of the topic chain and the animacy and the span of discourse relations. This corpus can thus aid in carrying out further computational and cognitive studies of Chinese discourse.

scholarly journals Coherence relations in academic spoken discourse

Linguistica ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 323-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliano Desiderato Antonio ◽  
Fernanda Trombini Rahmen Cassim
Keyword(s):  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Structure Theory ◽  
Rhetorical Structure ◽  
Discourse Marker ◽  
Spoken Discourse ◽  
Coherence Relations ◽  
Discourse Relations

According to Rhetorical Structure Theory, implicit propositions emerge from the combination of pieces of text which hang together. Implicit propositions have received various labels as coherence relations, discourse relations, rhetorical relations or relational propositions. When two portions of a text hold a relation, the addressee of the text may recognize the connection even without the presence of a formal sign as a conjunction or a discourse marker. In this paper we claim that some intrinsic spoken discourse phenomena like paraphrasing, repetition, correction and parenthetical insertion hold coherence relations with other portions of discourse and, thus, may be considered strategies for the construction of coherence. The analysis, based on academic spoken discourse (five university lectures in Brazilian Portuguese), shows that these phenomena are recurring and relevant for the study of spoken discourse.

Contrast and Concession in French and English

1999 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raphael Salkie ◽  
Sarah Louise Oates
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Structure Theory ◽  
Rhetorical Structure ◽  
French And English ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Systematic Explanation

The discourse markers but and although are similar but not identical in meaning. We investigate the relationship between them using data from the INTERSECT translation corpus. A collection of cases are examined where although corresponds to French mais. In order to explain the correspondences we draw on Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST). By organising RST relations in a hierarchy, and adding a new relation to the inventory of RST relations, we can give a systematic explanation of the relationship between contrast and concession.

Outlining a grammaticalization path for the Spanish formula en plan (de): A contribution to crosslinguistic pragmatics

Linguistics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (6) ◽  
pp. 1543-1579
Author(s):  
Paula Rodríguez-Abruñeiras
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Contrastive Analysis ◽  
Discourse Marker ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Diachronic Study ◽  
Diachronic Development ◽  
The Early 21St Century

AbstractThis article discusses the diachronic development of the Spanish multifunctional formula en plan (with its variant en plan de, literally ‘in plan (of)’ but usually equivalent to English like). The article has two main aims: firstly, to describe the changes that the formula has undergone since its earliest occurrences as a marker in the nineteenth century up to the early 21st century. The diachronic study evinces a process of grammaticalization in three steps: from noun to clause adverbial and then to discourse marker. Secondly, to conduct a contrastive analysis between en plan (de) and the English markers like and kind of/kinda so as to shed new light on the potential existence of a universal pathway of grammaticalization in the emergence of discourse markers.

Text as tautology: an exploration in inference, transitivity, and logical compression

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Potter
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Representation ◽  
Propositional Logic ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Transitive Inference ◽  
Structure Theory ◽  
Rhetorical Structure ◽  
Logical Models ◽  
Logical Operations ◽  
Selection Of

Abstract Rhetorical structure theory (RST) and relational propositions have been shown useful in analyzing texts as expressions in propositional logic. Because these expressions are systematically derived, they may be expected to model discursive reasoning as articulated in the text. If this is the case, it would follow that logical operations performed on the expressions would be reflected in the texts. In this paper the logic of relational propositions is used to demonstrate the applicability of transitive inference to discourse. Starting with a selection of RST analyses from the research literature, analyses of the logic of relational propositions are performed to identify their corresponding logical expressions and within each expression to identify the inference path implicit within the text. By eliminating intermediary relational propositions, transitivity is then used to progressively compress the expression. The resulting compressions are applied to the corresponding texts and their compressed RST analyses. The application of transitive inference to logical expressions results in abridged texts that are intuitively coherent and logically compatible with their originals. This indicates an underlying isomorphism between the inferential structure of logical expressions and discursive coherence, and it confirms that these expressions function as logical models of the text. Potential areas for application include knowledge representation, logic and argumentation, and RST validation.

scholarly journals Grammatical Positions of Focuser Like Among Native English-Speaking Undergraduate Students

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 116
Author(s):  
Basim Alamri
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Exploratory Study ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Final Exam ◽  
Discourse Marker ◽  
Midwestern University ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Native English Speaking

Discourse markers (DMs) are used in everyday conversations to serve different meanings and functions. The present exploratory study investigated grammatical positions of focuser like among 60 undergraduate native-English-speaking students at a midwestern university in the United States. Students were asked to read and place focuser like in this sentence: “We have to read five chapters for the final exam”. Then students were required to indicate a degree of acceptability of the placement of like at every possible position in sentences that contained the discourse marker like in 10 different grammatical positions. The results showed that students preferred inserting the DM like before a noun phrase, at the beginning of a sentence, and before a verb phrase, respectively. In terms of gender, females frequently posited focuser like before a sentence, whereas males placed it before a noun phrase. Also, the discourse marker like does not occur within auxiliary. Finally, this study draws conclusions about different grammatical positions and broader usages of discourse marker focuser like among younger students. 

scholarly journals Le marche di lista in russo. Segnali riformulativi, estensivi, generalizzanti… i vse takoe

2016 ◽  
pp. 17-43
Author(s):  
Valentina Benigni
Keyword(s):  
Functional Properties ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Discourse Marker ◽  
Structural And Functional Properties

This paper offers a survey of list markers in contemporary Russian, i.e. discourse markers that signal the presence of a list and fulfil specific semantic and pragmatic functions, such as generalization (и все такое ‘and things like that’), exemplification (типа ‘such as/kind of’) or reformulation of the list content (так сказать ‘so to speak’). It also explores the structural and functional properties of general extenders within the framework of CxG, focusing particularly on the process of lexicalization and grammaticalization of the discourse marker и все такое ‘and things like that’.

scholarly journals Mehrsprachigkeit in transmodaler Kommunikation

2021 ◽  
Vol 112 (7) ◽  
pp. 39-64
Author(s):  
Katharina König
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Ethnographic Interviews ◽  
Discourse Relations ◽  
Arabic Speaking

The paper is concerned with codeswitching in transmodal WhatsApp messenger chats. Based on a corpus of text and audio postings from a group of German-Lebanese cousins that is complemented by ethnographic interviews, the study shows that language alternations can be associated with particular metapragmatic or indexical functions in the different modalities. In audio postings, switching between German and Arabic contextualises varying discourse relations. Also, the cousins use Arabic discourse markers (such as ya'ne, ‘it means’) frequently to structure their talk. In contrast, when they switch to Arabic in their text-postings – using Arabizi, a CMC-register in the Arabic-speaking world – this recurrently establishes a playful or ironic frame for ritual teasings. The final section discusses these transmodal and multilingual practices as multi-layered identity positionings vis-à-vis a monolingual society, their multilingual family and networked communities.

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