Laurel J. Brinton. Pragmatic Markers in English: Grammaticalization and Discourse Functions. Topics in English Linguistics 19. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1996. xvi + 412 pp. $124.45 cloth. Laurel Brinton's ground-breaking new book is a meticulously researched study of Old English and Middle English (OE, ME) "mystery features"-items that have hitherto resisted grammatical and semantic categorization. Brinton proposes to analyze these quite diverse particles and phrases as pragmatic markers, thereby linking them with accounts of similar items in purely oral discourse which, since Deborah Schiffrin's seminal study Discourse Markers (1987), have been at the center of recent research in discourse analysis. Brinton, as a historical linguist, is one of the few scholars currently applying discourse-analytical methodology to OE and ME texts. This area of research has now acquired the name "historical pragmatics" and is being practised most prominently in Finland by Nils Erik Enkvist and the Helsinki School (Matti Rissanen, Irma Taavitsainen, Anneli Meurman-Solin, Terttu Nevalainen-the producers of the invaluable Helsinki Corpus of English historical texts) and by Brita Warvik at Turku (Abo). What makes this highly specialized linguistic study a suitable object for a review in Style? Brinton's results, I argue, should be popularized among narratologists concerned with medieval texts since they repeatedly recur to narratological parameters. Many of Brinton's insights suggest that the pragmatic markers on which she concentrates relate to the discourse structure of episodic narrative (such as I myself have characterized it in Towards a 'Natural' Narratology). Brinton's results are therefore apt to feed back into narratological research, just as her own discourse model (based on the episode structure of oral discourse and on grounding features) can be usefully supplemented with more particularly narratological factors. After an extensive review of recent research on mystery features in chapter 1, Brinton's second chapter is concerned with establishing the concept of "pragmatic markers," and provides a great number of definitions of the term as well as describing a variety of functions for pragmatic markers such as they have been proposed in the linguistic literature. Pragmatic markers, for instance, relate an utterance to preceding context or introduce "level shifts" and new "moves" (structural functions), serve as response signals, facilitate speaker interaction, and help to process oral messages and to provide for conversational continuity (30-31). They are characterized by their preponderant use in oral discourse, their high frequency of occurrence, their predominantly (though not exclusively) initial clause position and their optional use. Pragmatic markers operate multifunctionally both on the local and the global levels of discourse (31-35). In chapters 3 to 8 Brinton analyzes seven selected pragmatic markers and follows their diachronic development (if applicable) from OE to ME to PresentDay English. These selected markers are (1) the intensive construction gan ("And ryght anon the wympel gan she fynde"-Chaucer, Legend of Good Women 819, qtd. 68); (2) the discourse particle anon; (3) the OE episode-boundary marker gelamp (Hit a gelamp [ ... aet[ ... 1), a construction that, in ME, is replaced with (4) it befel; (5) the syntactic preposing of whan-clauses; (6) the OE mystery particle hwaet (familiar from the first line of Beowulf); and (7) the ME first-person epistemic parenthetical I gesse, which, as a narratorial intervention, has particular narratological relevance. This narratological relevance is confirmed further by Brinton's summary of grounding as an important textual feature (44-50). The term "grounding" has been coined in discourse analysis to refer to the foregrounding and backgrounding functions of linguistic or textual elements. Linguistic research on grounding has brought to light the consistent foregrounding of plot-line clauses in narrative texts, and it has also pointed to a graded scale of foregrounding features (thus allowing for a maximal foregrounding of episode beginnings and less prominent foregrounding for ordinary action clauses). …

Pragmatic Markers in English: Grammaticalization and Discourse Functions

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Analyse de La linguistique textuelle Introduction à l’analyse textuelle des discours Lorenzo Devilla

La linguistique textuelle : introduction à l'analyse textuelle des discours

In this text, the author demonstrates how the study of language and consciousness together can provide an unexpectedly broad understanding of the way the mind works. Relying on close analyses of conversational speech, as well as written fiction and non-fiction, he investigates both the flow of ideas through consciousness and the displacement of consciousness by way of memory and imagination. Chafe draws on several decades of research to demonstrate that understanding the nature of consciousness is essential to understanding many linguistic phenomena, such as pronouns, tense, clause structure and intonation, as well as stylistic usages, such as the historical present and the free indirect style. While the book focuses on English, there are also discussions of the North American Indian language, Seneca, and the music of Mozart and of the Seneca people.

The Concept of Consciousness in the Theory of Language@@@Discourse, Consciousness and Time: The Flow and Displacement of Conscious Experience in Speaking and Writing

There are many simulators available for use in anaesthetic-related education and research. Those who wish to purchase a simulator or to establish a simulation facility face a daunting task in understanding the differences between simulators. Recent reviews have focused on narrower areas of simulation, such as airway management or basic life support, or on the application of simulators. It would be difficult to deal in detail with every simulator ever made for anaesthesia, but in the present review we cover the spectrum of currently available anaesthetic simulators, provide an overview of different types of simulator, and discuss a selection of simulators of particular interest, including some of historical significance and some examples of 'home made' simulators. We have found no common terminology amongst authors for describing or classifying simulators, and propose a framework for describing (or classifying) them that is simple, clear and applicable to any simulator.

https://associationofanaesthetists-publications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1365-2044.2006.04902.x

Simulators for use in anaesthesia

L'A. propose une revue de synthese des travaux existant actuellement sur le francais parle et sur ses caracteristiques grammaticales. Les recherches sur le francais parle ont permis de mettre a jour les phenomenes syntaxiques les plus importants, de mieux connaitre la nature des productions orales. L'A. examine egalement la question de savoir si la theorie grammaticale est modifiee par les decouvertes faites dans le domaine du francais parle. Puis, est abordee la question de la competence des locuteurs, dans son aspect syntaxique

Le Français parlé

Pour une grammaire textuelle : la progression thématique

Les constructions détachées en français

We first propose a classification of various detached constructions (appositions, gerunds, absolute constructions), then go on to examine how their syntactic, semantic and referential characteristics make it possible for these constituents to fulfil discourse functions and to extend their scope over text segments beyond the sentence. We attempt to establish a hierarchy of the different types of constructions, whereby some of them appear better able to act as discourse frames because of properties which make them similar to temporal or causal circumstantial subordinate clauses.

Les constructions détachées comme cadres de discours

Michel Charolles et Bernard Combettes : Contribution pour une histoire recente de l'analyse du discours ; The development of discourse analysis at the end of the sixties was made possible because the instigators of the major paradigms in the field (analysis of enunciation, analysis of cohesion, text-grammar) reserve to this analysis a specific field not encroaching on the sentence. More recently, the progression of pragmatics which integrates some aspects of discourse analysis deepened the gap between this analysis and sentence grammar. This problematic situation is changing with the diffusion of works presenting a less formal image of the grammatical relations. Between the cohesive relations expressed by the grammar and those specified by the cohesive markers intervaining beyond the sentence there is only a difference of degree of grammaticalization. These perspectives favorish new topics of investigation on discourse in connection with sentence grammar.

Contribution pour une histoire récente de l'analyse du discours

Concu comme une illustration precise des tendances actuelles de la linguistique du texte qui met l'accent sur la typologie des textes, cet ouvrage a voulu s'interesser au texte informatif, sujet sans cesse rencontre dans l'enseignement.

Bernard Combettes

Papers

Pour une grammaire textuelle : la progression thématique

Les constructions détachées en français

Les constructions détachées comme cadres de discours

Contribution pour une histoire récente de l'analyse du discours

Le texte informatif : aspects linguistiques