From mediatized political discourse to The Hobbit: The role of pragmatic markers in the construction of dialogues, stereotypes and literary style

The present paper argues that the analysis of the functional spectrum of pragmatic markers (PMs) serves as a heuristic tool for studying the interactional dynamics of dialogues in a variety of genres and discourse types, whether naturally-occurring, scripted or literary. By way of arguing my point I will discuss the results of three of my previous case studies aimed at exploring the role of PMs. The case studies, by virtue of the types of discourse they are based on (mediatised political interviews, dramatised/televised conversations and literary texts) reveal different patterns of dialogicity, and complement the analyses of spontaneous everyday conversations, the type of data most of the current PM research draws on. In the course of my analyses I also hope to illustrate that the cross-fertilization between dialogue analysis, PM research and literary pragmatics has a lot to offer to all three disciplines.