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- Volume 21, Issue, 2014
Functions of Language - Volume 21, Issue 1, 2014
Volume 21, Issue 1, 2014
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On the use of uh and um in American English
Author(s): Gunnel Tottiepp.: 6–29 (24)More LessThis study examines the use of uh and um — referred to jointly as UHM — in 14 conversations totaling c. 62,350 words from the Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English. UHM was much less frequent than in British English with 7.5 vs. 14.5 instances per million words in the British National Corpus. However, as in British English the frequency of UHM was closely correlated to extra-linguistic context. Conversations in non-private environments (such as offices and classrooms) had higher frequencies than those taking place in private spaces, mostly homes. Time required for planning, especially when difficult subjects were discussed, appeared to be an important explanatory factor. It is clear that UHM cannot be dismissed as mere hesitation or disfluency; it functions as a pragmatic marker on a par with well, you know, and I mean, sharing some of the functions of these in discourse. Although the role of sociolinguistic factors was less clear, the tendencies for older speakers and educated speakers to use UHM more frequently than younger and less educated ones paralleled British usage, but contrary to British usage, there were no gender differences.
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Avoid silence! Keep talking!: Pragmatic markers as phatic devices in teenage conversation
Author(s): Anna-Brita Stenströmpp.: 30–49 (20)More LessThe primary aim of this study has been to find out whether the choice and frequency of pragmatic markers can be said to distinguish phatic talk (‘chats’) from informative talk. A secondary aim has been to consider the bonding effect of the pragmatic markers. Five conversational extracts from COLT (The Bergen Corpus London Teenage Language), four representing boys’ and girls’ phatic talk, and one representing informative teacher talk have been investigated. The study shows that the distinction between the two types of talk is not a matter of frequency but a matter of marker choice. The bonding effect of the markers dominates in the girls’ talk in the form of appeals for agreement and encouragement signals. In both types of talk, the pragmatic markers are successfully used to avoid conversational gaps.
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Managing academic institutional discourse in English as a lingua franca
Author(s): Juliane Housepp.: 50–66 (17)More LessThe study presented in this paper examines the discourse behaviour of participants in academic office hours conducted in English as a lingua franca. Participants in the study are professors, their assistants and international students at a German university. Findings of the analyses of a small corpus of such institutional interactions show that these users of English as a lingua franca manage the discourse surprisingly well by strategically employing code-switching, re-presenting (parts of) their interlocutors’ message and re-interpreting several high-frequency discourse markers. In this way they seem to better achieve their own and their interactants’ communicative purpose in discourse.
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I think, I mean and I believe in political discourse: Collocates, functions and distribution
Author(s): Anita Fetzerpp.: 67–94 (28)More LessThis article examines the distribution, collocates and function of the first-person-singular cognitive-verb-based syntagmatic configurations I think, I mean and I believe in argumentative political discourse, considering their status as parenthetical construction and pragmatic marker in two sets of spoken data: monologic speech and dialogic interview. Its goal is to identify discourse-domain-specific discourse patterns, which manifest themselves in patterned co-occurrences with other pragmatic markers, and with expressions of modality and evidentiality. The explicit accommodation of local context allows for a fine-grained analysis of the three constructions, filtering out those contextual configurations in which I think, I mean and I believe may count as a pragmatic marker.
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Discourse patterns in the development of discourse markers in English
Author(s): Diana M. Lewispp.: 95–118 (24)More LessThe role of discourse frequency in the development of two English connectives is explored, in the context of recent work emphasizing the role of syntagmatic relations in language change and suggesting that it is constructions, rather than lexical items, which grammaticalize. The development of sub-constructions with in fact and at least are traced in a quantitative study based on corpora of formal and informal historical English. Each case involves an adverbial undergoing functional split as the clausal structure in which it is used becomes aligned with different discourse (sub-)constructions. In fact becomes both contrastive and elaborative; at least becomes evaluative and reformulative. It is shown how the adverbial expression in each case becomes compressed and more abstract, so that its informational weight is reduced, and how the English principle of end focus pushes it increasingly towards clause-initial position, resulting in alignment with the connective construction.
Volumes & issues
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Volume 31 (2024)
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Volume 30 (2023)
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Volume 29 (2022)
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Volume 28 (2021)
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Volume 27 (2020)
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Volume 26 (2019)
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Volume 25 (2018)
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Volume 24 (2017)
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Volume 23 (2016)
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Volume 22 (2015)
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Volume 21 (2014)
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Volume 20 (2013)
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Volume 19 (2012)
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Volume 18 (2011)
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Volume 17 (2010)
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Volume 16 (2009)
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Volume 15 (2008)
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Volume 14 (2007)
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Volume 13 (2006)
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Volume 12 (2005)
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Volume 11 (2004)
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Volume 10 (2003)
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Volume 9 (2002)
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Volume 8 (2001)
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Volume 7 (2000)
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Volume 6 (1999)
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Volume 5 (1998)
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Volume 4 (1997)
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Volume 3 (1996)
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Volume 2 (1995)
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Volume 1 (1994)
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Language patterns and ATTITUDE
Author(s): Monika Bednarek
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