The discourse marker ale in Bislama oral narratives

This study takes us to the South Pacific and concentrates on Bislama, one of the dialects of Melanesian pidgin (Siegel 2008: 4) and one of the official languages of Vanuatu. We take a discourse analysis perspective to map out the functions of ale, a conspicuous discourse marker in conversations and narratives. Using Labov & Waletzky (1967) model, we analyze the use of ale in narratives from the book Big Wok: Storian blong Wol Wo Tu long Vanuatu (Lindstrom & Gwero 1998) and determine that ale is a discourse marker which indicates temporal sequence and consequence, frames speech reports and closes a digression. We conclude our study by considering a possible historical development of ale. We map out how French allez could have become Bislama ale using imposition and functional transfer (Siegel 2008; Winford 2013a) of vernacular discourse markers (such as go in Nguna).

Investigating the Interaction Between Prosody and Pragmatics Quantitatively: A Case Study of the Chinese Discourse Marker ni zhidao (“You Know”)

This study briefly describes the prosodic and pragmatic characteristics of the discourse marker ni zhidao (“you know”) in spoken Chinese. It mainly explores the interaction between its prosody and pragmatics using instrumental methods. It is the first attempt to use acoustic and statistical analysis to examine the prosodic parameters and prosody-pragmatics interaction of a Chinese discourse marker. The corpus includes 71 interview conversations totaling more than 30 h, in which 490 discourse marker tokens of ni zhidao were found. Ni zhidao mainly fulfilled four broad pragmatic functions of initiating a topic when occurring sentence-initially, of holding the floor when appearing within clauses, of marking coherence when making its presence between clauses, and of projecting attitudes and feelings when showing up sentence-finally. Drawing on the algorithm of random forest in R, the acoustic and statistical analysis of the performance of ni zhidao in these four functions showed that its prosodic features, including duration, tempo, pre-pause, post-pause, F0, and intensity, significantly relate to and thus imply its pragmatic functions, that the interaction between its prosody and pragmatics can be modeled statistically, and that the established pragmatics classification model based on prosody can be utilized to predict the pragmatics of ni zhidao. These findings seem to strengthen the hypothesis that prosodic variables play a role in deciphering the different pragmatic functions of ni zhidao. This study uses prosodic evidence to more objectively reveal not only the part of ni zhidao in dynamically constructing and embodying specific contexts but also its communicative functions and the underlying meta-pragmatic awareness behind it. This study breaks through the limitations of traditional discourse marker research, which mainly relies on context and discourse characteristics for subjective reasoning.

Ei saa me läbi “Pragmaatika” korpuseta. Korpuspragmaatika ja pragmaatikakorpus

Within the project “Pragmatics above grammar: Subjectivity and intersubjectivity in Estonian registers and text types” (PRG341) we are studying the expression of subjectivity and intersubjectivity in different written and spoken registers of modern Estonian. We focus on adverbs that function as discourse markers (e.g. vist ‘maybe, probably’, ilmselt ‘apparently, obviously’, tegelikult ‘actually’), markers that develop from main clauses containing cognition verbs that take sentence complements (e.g. (ma) arvan ‘I think’, usun ‘I believe’, (mulle) tundub ‘it seems (to me), it appears (that)’) as well as modal and performative verbs (e.g. võib (juhtuda) ‘can (happen’, peaks (tulema) ‘should (come)’; kinnitan/väidan (olevat) ‘I affirm/claim’). The analysis combines quantitative corpus-linguistic and qualitative pragmatic approaches, thus belonging to the field of corpus pragmatics. Unlike previous studies of related topics, the project systematically compares the usage of markers in different registers (spoken, online communication, print texts) and text types. The pilot studies performed thus far have revealed several problems with the existing Estonian corpora, important in the study of pragmatics. Firstly, some text types are underrepresented or not represented at all, the text types cannot always be distinguished, and the particular text may not always correspond to the nominal text type (e.g. an academic text may contain quotes from texts of other types). All of this makes it difficult to do comparative statistical analysis of different text types. Secondly, the markers under examination are multifunctional and identifying their (inter)subjective function requires consideration of context broader than a single sentence. However, the public search systems for the existing corpora do not provide this context. For instance, the discourse marker function of cognition verbs is indicated primarily by the fact that the topic of the conversation or text follows through the subordinate clause, not the main clause. Since the available search systems do not provide context larger than a single sentence, the identification of the topic of the discourse, and therefore of the potential discourse-marker function of the verb, is made more difficult. To avoid these problems, the project working group is developing a new “Pragmatics” corpus, being created in the SketchEngine environment. The corpus is made up of 10 subcorpora representing different text types and registers. Each subcorpus contains roughly 500,000 words.

On the dialogic frames of mirative enunciations

In this paper we will describe the meanings of surprise associated to different uses of the discourse marker mirá in Argentinian Spanish. Our aim is to contrast the subjective stances of surprise emerging in response to the different dialogic frames prompting mirative enunciations with mirá. From the Dialogic Approach to Argumentation and Polyphony, we intend to show how these stances of surprise can be explained as dialogically “caused” by the argumentative representation of: (a) a sudden discovery that brings out something new, (b) a sudden discovery related to something that contradicts a previous belief or assumption and (c) a sudden discovery of something that exceeds its ordinary magnitude or degree.

Romanian de fapt - from an adjectival adjunct to an attention marker

This research traces back the development of the Romanian phrase de fapt (‘in fact, actually, indeed’), based on written and oral corpora. De fapt has been attested in Romanian since late 19th century; chronologically, it is the last of the three Romanian adverbial expressions (alongside în faptă and în fapt) that went through all the stages of the grammaticalization cline proposed by Elizabeth Traugott for this type of adverbs. However, we consider that this phrase actually goes even further by becoming, in press headlines, an attention marker (Fraser 2009: 297), thus joining the category of să vezi ce s-a întâmplat (‘you won’t believe what has happened’). Thus, in press titles such as Cu ce femeie a petrecut aseară Pepe, de fapt (‘Who is the woman Pepe actually spent the evening with’), de fapt loses its contrastive discourse marker rhetorical function of contrasting with a previous element and acquires a new function, i.e. of inviting the reader to read a story that (s)he would have otherwise overlooked. In this type of occurrences, de fapt acquires, for the first time, an intersubjective value.

Discourse marker well in natural and political discourses: ambivalence and bifunctionality

Устный модус дискурса невозможно представить без богатого репертуара дискурсивных маркеров, для которых характерна ослабленность денотата, с одной стороны, и наполненность прагматическими функциями — с другой. Для выявления особенностей функционирования прагматических маркеров в политическом дискурсе и моделирования макро- и микрофункций дискурсивных маркеров были проанализированы метатекстовые и межличностные функции маркеров, разработанные в трудах отечественных и зарубежных исследователей, и на их основе, а также с учетом лексикографических источников, представлены макро- и микрофункции дискурсивных маркеров в политическом дискурсе. Проведенный анализ позволил выявить новые функции, которые получают ряд дискурсивных маркеров (you know, I mean), в том числе рассматриваемый маркер well в связи с манипулятивной природой политической коммуникации. Данные функции играют важную роль в создании альтернативной действительности и неопределенности, свойственных политической коммуникации. В исследовании представлен подробный анализ функций маркера well с дискурсивно-прагматических позиций на материале телеинтервью Д. Трампа. It is impossible to imagine the existence of the oral mode of discourse which would not include a rich variety of discourse markers. The distinctive feature of discourse markers is weak denotation on the one hand, and explicit pragmatic functions on the other. To identify peculiarities of pragmatic markers functioning in a political discourse and for the purpose of designing their macro- and microfunctions, in the present paper metatext and interpersonal functions of markers developed in the works of Russian and international researchers were scrutinized. On the basis of the data obtained from the previous researches, as well as lexicographic sources, macro- and microfunctions of discourse markers in a political discourse were designed. The analysis allowed to identify new functions developed by a number of discourse markers (you know, I mean), including the marker well, announced in the title of the paper, due to the manipulative nature of political communication. These functions play an important role in creating alternative reality and uncertainty inherent in political communication. The research presents a detailed analysis of functions obtained by the discourse marker well through the lens of discursive pragmatics based on Donald Trump's TV interview.

A New Interpretation of the Opening Lines of the Assur Letters

In this paper a new interpretation of the hatura-clauses in the Hieroglyphic Luwian Assur letters will be presented. First of all, it will be argued that the Hieroglyphic Luwian lexeme hatura-, which is usually connected to the Hittite verb ḫatrae- ‘to send’, ‘to write’ and translated as ‘letter’, is in fact related to the Hittite word ḫattuli- and Cuneiform Luwian ḫattulaḫid-, meaning ‘health’,‘wellbeing’. Secondly, the article will suggest that the Hieroglyphic Luwian word api, which is usually translated as ‘back’, or ‘again’, primarily functions as a discourse marker. Lastly, it will be proposed that the Hieroglyphic Luwian word for ‘letter’ or ‘message’ is (*205)atun(i)-. These new interpretations yield a better understanding of the opening lines of the Assur-letters and elucidate some other opaque passages of this intriguing correspondence.1