Showing papers on "Discourse analysis published in 1998"

Ideology: A Multidisciplinary Approach

Abstract: Introduction PART ONE: COGNITION Ideas and Beliefs Social Beliefs Structures and Strategies Structures of Ideologies Values Mental Models Consistency Consciousness Common Sense Knowledge and Truth Identity Social Cognition PART TWO: SOCIETY Ideology and Society Groups Group Relations Elites Dominant Ideologies? Institutions PART THREE: DISCOURSE The Relevance of Discourse Discourse Structures Context Reproduction From Cognition to Discourse Persuasion Legitimation Ideological Discourse Structures The Ideology and Discourse of Modern Racism Conclusions

Writing and identity

Abstract: Writing is not just about conveying ‘content’ but also about the representation of self. (One of the reasons people find writing difficult is that they do not feel comfortable with the ‘me’ they are portraying in their writing. Academic writing in particular often poses a conflict of identity for students in higher education, because the ‘self’ which is inscribed in academic discourse feels alien to them.) The main claim of this book is that writing is an act of identity in which people align themselves with socio-culturally shaped subject positions, and thereby play their part in reproducing or challenging dominant practices and discourses, and the values, beliefs and interests which they embody. The first part of the book reviews recent understandings of social identity, of the discoursal construction of identity, of literacy and identity, and of issues of identity in research on academic writing. The main part of the book is based on a collaborative research project about writing and identity with mature-age students, providing: • a case study of one writer’s dilemmas over the presentation of self; • a discussion of the way in which writers’ life histories shape their presentation of self in writing; • an interview-based study of issues of ownership, and of accommodation and resistance to conventions for the presentation of self; • linguistic analysis of the ways in which multiple, often contradictory, interests, values, beliefs and practices are inscribed in discourse conventions, which set up a range of possibilities for self-hood for writers. The book ends with implications of the study for research on writing and identity, and for the learning and teaching of academic writing. The book will be of interest to students and researchers in the fields of social identity, literacy, discourse analysis, rhetoric and composition studies, and to all those concerned to understand what is involved in academic writing in order to provide wider access to higher education.

Approaching Dialogue: Talk, interaction and contexts in dialogical perspectives

Abstract: Approaching Dialogue has its primary focus on the theoretical understanding and empirical analysis of talk-in-interaction. It deals with conversation in general as well as talk within institutions against a backdrop of Conversation Analysis, context-based discourse analysis, social pragmatics, socio-cultural theory and interdisciplinary dialogue analysis. People’s communicative projects, and the structures and functions of talk-in-interaction, are analyzed from the most local sequences to the comprehensive communicative activity types and genres. A second aim of the book is to explore the possibilities and limitations of dialogism as a general epistemology for cognition and communication. On this point, it portrays the dialogical approach as a major alternative to the mainstream theories of cognition as individually-based information processing, communication as information transfer, and language as a code. Stressing aspects of interaction, joint construction and cultural embeddedness, and drawing upon extensive theoretical and empirical research carried out in different traditions, this book aims at an integrating synthesis. It is largely interdisciplinary in nature, and has been written in such a way that it can be used at advanced undergraduate courses in linguistics, sociopragmatics of language, communication studies, sociology, social psychology and cognitive science. About the author: Per Linell holds a Ph.D. in linguistics and has been professor within the interdisciplinary graduate program of Communication Studies at the University of Linkoping, Sweden, since 1981. He has published widely in the fields of discourse studies and social pragmatics of language.

What is political discourse analysis

Abstract: L'A. se propose de definir ce que l'on entend par discours politique et montre comment il peut etre etudie d'une maniere critique. Selon lui, une telle analyse ne doit pas simplement etre une contribution aux etudes discursives, mais aussi aux sciences politiques et aux sciences sociales en general. Ainsi, le discours politique est essentiellement defini contextuellement, c-a-d en termes de pratiques ou d'evenements particuliers dont le but et la fonction ne sont peut-etre pas exclusivement, mais au moins initialement, politiques. D'un point de vue analytique, cette definition contextuelle suggere que l'etude du discours politique ne doit pas se limiter aux proprietes structurales du texte ou du discours, mais doit aussi inclure une prise en consideration systematique du contexte politique, du processus politique et du systeme politique et de leurs relations aux structures discursives

Chapter 4: Discourse Analysis, Learning, and Social Practice: A Methodological Study:

Abstract: In the past two decades, the study of discourse has become an important theoretical perspective for those concerned with the study of learning in social settings. Discourse analysis approaches have been developed to examine ways in which knowledge is socially constructed in classrooms and other educational settings. By studying discursive activity within classrooms and other social settings, researchers have provided new insights into the complex and dynamic relationships among discourse, social practices, and learning. Specifically, this body of work has provided understandings of the ways in which opportunities for learning are constructed across time, groups, and events; how knowledge constructed in classrooms (and other educational settings) shapes, and is shaped by, the discursive activity and social practices of members; patterns of practice simultaneosuly support and constrain access to the academic content of the \"official\" curriculum; and how opportunities for learning are influenced by the actions of actors beyond classroom settings (e.g., school districts, book publishers, curriculum developers, legislators, and community members) (for recent syntheses and conceptual analyses, see Hicks, 1995; Luke, 1995). Discourse analysis approaches used to examine such educational issues draw on discourse theories and methods developed in other disciplines (e.g., applied linguistics, law, literary studies, psychology, sociolinguistics, and sociology, among others) (see van Dijk, 1985, for a comprehensive look at the issue of discourse theory and method across disciplines, including education). However, educational researchers have not merely taken up and applied existing approaches. They have also contributed to the development of discourse theories and methods as they have adopted and adapted existing approaches and constructed new approaches to address questions of importance to education as a discipline. Given the complex and continuing nature of life in classrooms and other educational settings, educational researchers often combine discourse analysis with ethnographic approaches to examine questions of what counts as learning in a local setting, how and when learning occurs, and how what is learned at one point in time becomes a sociocultural resource for future learning for both the group and the individual. Through this combined approach, educational researchers are able to examine how educational processes and practices are constructed across time by

Mass Communication Research Methods

Abstract: PART ONE: ASKING ALL THE RIGHT QUESTIONS Theory in Media Research - O. Boyd-Barrett The Complementarity of Qualitative and Quantitative Methodologies in Media and Communication Research - K.B. Jensen Media, Culture and Modern Times - G. Murdock Remarks on Administrative and Critical Communications Research - P.F. Lazarsfeld Media Sociology: The dominant paradigm - T. Gitlin Communication-Research - One Paradigm, or 4 - K.E. Rosengren The Three Paradigms of Mass Media Research in Mainstream Comunication Journals - W.J. Potter, R. Cooper and M. Dupagne The New Revisionism in Mass Communication Research: A reappraisal - J. Curran Asking the Right Questions - J.D. Halloran Cultural Compliance and Critical Media Studies - G. Philo and D. Miller PART TWO: RESEARCHING MEDIA INSTITUTIONS, ORGANIZATIONS, PROFESSIONALS AND PRODUCTION The History of Media Institutions Finding Data, Reading Patterns, Telling Stories: Issues in the historiography of television - J. Corner Problems and Possibilities in the Writing of Broadcasting History - A. Briggs Media Professionals and Media Production Participant Observation: Researching news production - S. Cottle The Research Method - P. Elliott News as Purposive Behaviour - H. Molotch and M. Lester The Sociology of News Production - M. Schudson Media Gate-keeping - P.J. Shoemaker Research Approaches: Research questions and methodological requirements - R.V. Ericson, P.M. Baranek and J.B.L. Chan New(s) Times: Towards a 'second wave' of news ethnography - S. Cottle Holism, Communion and Conversion: Integrating media consumption and production research - D. Deacon Political economy The Political Economy of Communications - J. Wasko Communications policy research Facing In: Researchers and academia - S. Braman Media Policy Paradigm Shifts: Towards a new communications policy paradigm - J.van Cuilenburg and D. McQuail PART THREE: RESEARCHING MEDIA CONTENT AND REPRESENTATION Content Analysis Content Analysis - B. Gunter Ethnographic Content Analysis - D.L. Altheide Two Approaches to the Study of Advertisements - W. Leiss, S. Kline and S. Jhally Reading the News - R.V. Ericson, P.M. Baranek and J.B.L. Chan Semiotics and Discourse Analysis Semiotic Analysis - A.A. Berger 'Suit, tie and a touch of juju' - the Ideological Construction of Africa: A critical discourse analysis of news on Africa in the British press - H.J. Brookes How to View Commercials - P. Rutherford Discourse Analysis - R. Gill Structural and Narrative Analysis Narrative and Genre - H. Newcomb Structural Analysis and Mass communication - O. Burgelin Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives - R. Barthes Narrative Strategies in Television Science - R. Silverstone Re(de)fining Narrative Events: Examining television narrative structure - M.J. Porter, D.L. Larson, A. Harthcock and K.B. Nellis Framing analysis The Constructionist Approach to Framing: Bringing culture back in - B. Van Gorp The Framing Project: A bridging model for media research revisited - S.D. Reese Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm - R.M. Entman Cascading Activation: Contesting the White House's frame after 9/11 - R.M. Entman Getting Framed: The media shape Reality - C. Ryan The Power of a Frame: An analysis of newspaper coverage of tobacco issues - United States, 1985-1996 - C.L. Menashe and M. Siegel The Empirical Approach to the Study of Media Framing - J.W. Tankard Linguistic and rhetorical analysis An Integration of Corpus-based and genre-based Approaches to Text Analysis in EAP/ESP: Countering criticisms against corpus-based methodologies - L. Flowerdew Corpus Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis: Examining the ideology of sleaze - D. Orpin Figures of Rhetoric in Advertising Language - E.F. McQuarrie and D.G. Mick From 'Politically Correct Councillors' to 'Blairite Nonsense': Discourses of 'political correctness' in three British newspapers - S. Johnson, J. Culperer and S. Suhr Tampering with Nature: 'Nature' and the 'natural' in media coverage of genetics and biotechnology - A. Hansen The Meanings of 'Risk': A view from corpus linguistics - C. Hamilton, S. Adolphs and Nerlich Visual analysis Analysing Visuals: Still and moving images - S. Cottle Rhetoric of the Image - R. Barthes The Determinations of News Photographs - S. Hall Building the World's Visual Language: The increasing global importance of image banks in corporate media - D. Machin Taking television seriously: A sound and image bite analysis of presidential campaign coverage, 1992-2004 - E.P. Bucy and M.E. Grabe PART FOUR: RESEARCHING MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION IN SOCIETY, CONSUMPTION, AUDIENCES, POLITICS, PROBLEMS AND PLEASURES Five Traditions in Search of the Audience - K.B. Jensen and K.E. Rosengren The Challenge of Changing Audiences - Or, what is the Audience Researcher to do in the Age of the Internet? - S. Livingstone Audience and Readership Research - J. Kitzinger Survey Research Survey Research - P.J. Shoemaker and M.E. McCombs The BBC Internet study: General methodology - S. Reimers Focus Group Research The Focused Interview - R.K. Merton and P.L. Kendall The Methodology of Focus Groups: The importance of interaction between research participants - J. Kitzinger From Focus Groups to Editing Groups - a New Method of Reception Analysis - B. Macgregor and D.E. Morrison Rethinking the Focus Group in Media and Communications Research - P. Lunt and S. Livingstone Selected Key Models in Media Audience and Influence Research Cultivation Analysis Growing up with Television: The cultivation perspective - G. Gerbner, L. Gross, M. Morgan and N. Signorielli Agenda-setting The Agenda-setting Function of the Mass Media - M.E. McCombs and D.L. Shaw Reception Analysis Patterns of Involvement in Television Fiction: A comparative analysis - T. Liebes and E. Katz Uses & Gratifications Media Uses and Effects: A uses-and-gratifications perspective - A.M. Rubin Political and Public Opinion Influence The Media, Public Opinion and Political Action - H. Semetko Television, Public Opinion and the War in Iraq: The case of Britain - J. Lewis Effects of News Coverage on Policy Attention and Actions - A Closer Look into the Media-Policy Connection - I. Yanovitzky Constructionism The Rise and Fall of Social Problems: A public arenas model - S. Hilgartner and C.L. Bosk Media Discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear Power: A constructionist approach - W.A. Gamson and A. Modigliani PART FIVE: DOING COMMUNICATION RESEARCH: SOURCES AND RESOURCES, THE RESEARCH PROCESS Using Data Archives for Secondary Analysis - C. Seale Dealing with Documentation - D. Deacon, M. Pickering, P. Golding and G. Murdock Mass Media Research and the Internet - R.D. Wimmer and J.R. Dominick Reaching Conclusions, Evaluating the Research, Writing the Report - I. Bertrand and P. Hughes.

Accessing the discourse representation during reading

Abstract: The process of text comprehension requires the integration of the information in the sentence currently being read with information previously read. This, in turn, implies that information presented earlier in the text must be accessed. We present a view of that access process as one in which concepts and propositions in the discourse representation resonate in response to related elements in the current sentence, initiating a process that makes available a subset of the information in the representation. In support of our position, we summarize the effects of several variables that have been shown to affect the availability of information in the discourse representation, and we describe a simulation model of the hypothesized resonance process, together with the results of several applications of that model.

Approaches To Media Discourse

Abstract: This collection brings together in one volume current leading approaches to the study of media discourse.

Reading Science: Critical and Functional Perspectives on Discourses of Science

Abstract: Reading Science looks at the distinctive language of science and technology and the role it plays in building up scientific understandings of the world. It brings together discourse analysis and critical theory for the first time in a single volume. This edited collection examines science discourse from a number of perspectives, drawing on new rhetoric, functional linguistics and critical theory. It explores this language in research and industrial contexts as well as in educational settings and in popular science writing and science fiction. The papers also include consideration of the role of images (tables and figures) in science writing and the importance of reading science discourse as multi-modal text. The internationally renowned contributors include M. A. K. Halliday, Charles Bazerman and Jay Lemke.

Complaints About Transgressions and Misconduct

Abstract: (1998). Complaints About Transgressions and Misconduct. Research on Language and Social Interaction: Vol. 31, No. 3-4, pp. 295-325.

Exploring Corporate Rhetoric: Metadiscourse in the CEO's Letter

Abstract: This article explores how CEOs attempt to influence readers and project a positive personal and corporate image in company annual reports. It examines the role of metadiscourse, as a manifestation ...

Teacher Talk and Meaning Making in Science Classrooms: a Vygotskian Analysis and Review

Abstract: (1998). Teacher Talk and Meaning Making in Science Classrooms: a Vygotskian Analysis and Review. Studies in Science Education: Vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 45-80.

Explorations in context space: Words, sentences, discourse

Abstract: Deriving representations of meaning, whether at the word, the sentence, or the discourse level, is a problem with a long history in cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics. In this article, we describe a computational model of high‐dimensional context space, the Hyperspace Analog to Language (HAL), and present simulation evidence that HAL's vector representations can provide sufficient information to make semantic, grammatical, and abstract distinctions. Human participants were able to use the context neighborhoods that HAL generates to match words with similar items and to derive the word (or a similar word) from the neighborhood, thus demonstrating the cognitive compatibility of the representations with human processing. An experiment exploring the meaning of agent‐ and patient‐oriented verbs provided the context for discussing how the connotative aspects of word neighborhoods could provide cues in establishing a discourse model. Using the vector representations to build a sentence‐level representati...

Mediated Discourse as Social Interaction: A Study of News Discourse

Abstract: Mediated Discourse as Social Interaction makes an explicit link between media studies and social interactionalist discursive research where previously the two fields of study have been treated as separate disciplines. This text presents an integrated theory illustrated by ample concrete examples, bringing together the latest research in these two fields. It offers a critique to the sender-receiver model implicit in media studies, and argues for an analysis of media discourse as social interaction, on the one hand among journalists and newsmakers as a community of practice, and among readers and viewers as a spectating community of practice on the other. The book also argues for a coherent and interdiscursive methodology for the ethnographic study of the role of the news media in the social construction of identity and is based on a considerable body of ethnographic and textual analysis of both print and television news media.The theory of mediated discourse presented in this volume will be of great interest to advanced undergraduates and postgraduates studying media studies, sociology of language, discourse analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, ethnography of communication and applied linguistics. It will also be welcomed by scholars and professionals involved in research in these areas.

Discourse and Organization

Abstract: Introduction - David Grant, Tom Keenoy and Cliff Oswick Organizational Discourse: Of Diversity, Dichotomy and Multi-Disciplinarity PART ONE: TALK AND ACTION A Discourse on Discourse - Robert J Marshak Redeeming the Meaning of Talk Workplace Conversations - Jill Woodilla The Text of Organizing Emotional Discourse in Organizations - Iain L Mangham Talk and Action - Cynthia Hardy, Thomas B Lawrence and Nelson Phillips Conversations and Narrative in Interorganizational Collaboration PART TWO: STORIES AND SENSE-MAKING Same Old Story or Changing Stories? Folkloric, Modern and Postmodern Mutations - Yiannis Gabriel As God Created the Earth... A Saga That Makes Sense? - Miriam Salzer-M[um]orling The Struggle with Sense - Anne Wallemacq and David Sims PART THREE: DISCOURSE AND SOCIAL THEORY Linearity, Control and Death - Gibson Burrell An Organization Is a Conversation - Gerrit Broekstra Metaphor, Language and Meaning - Didier Cazal and Dawn Inns Organizational Analysis as Discourse Analysis - Mike Reed A Critique PART FOUR: A CONCLUDING DISCOURSE Discourse, Organizations and Paradox - Richard Dunford and Ian Palmer

Discourse markers : descriptions and theory

Abstract: 1. Acknowledgments 2. List of Contributors 3. Discourse Markers: Introduction (by Jucker, Andreas H.) 4. Rotse lishmoa keta? 'Wanna hear something weird/funny?' [lit. 'a segment']: Segmenting Israeli Hebrew Talk-in-interaction (by Maschler, Yael) 5. A Unified Account of Hebrew bekicur 'in short': Relevance Theory and Discourse Structure Considerations (by Shloush, Shelley) 6. The Use of Finnish nyt as a Discourse Particle (by Hakulinen, Auli) 7. Procedural Meaning and Parenthetical Discourse Markers (by Rouchota, Villy) 8. From Sentence to Discourse: Cos (because) in Teenage Talk (by Stenstrom, Anna-Brita) 9. The Pragmatic Marker like from a Relevance-theoretic Perspective (by Andersen, Gisle) 10. And people just you know like 'wow': Discourse Markers as Negotiating Strategies (by Jucker, Andreas H.) 11. Hebrew kaze as Discourse Marker and Lexical Hedge: Conceptual and Procedural Properties (by Ziv, Yael) 12. Discourse Markers and Form-function Correlations (by Ariel, Mira) 13. Pejorative Connotation: A Case of Japanese (by Suzuki, Satoko) 14. A Discourse Analysis of Contrastive Connectives in English, Korean, and Japanese Conversation: With Special Reference to the Context of Dispreferred Responses (by Park, Yong-Yae) 15. Contrastive Discourse Markers in English (by Fraser, Bruce) 16. Pragmatic Functions of the English Discourse Marker anyway and its Corresponding Contrastive Japanese Discourse Markers (by Takahara, Paul Osamu) 17. Index

Legitimacy, Authority, and Community in Electronic Support Groups:

Abstract: In electronic support groups, people use Internet-based electronic text communication to discuss personal problems or disorders with others who share common circumstances. Although their discussions exist only in the electronic medium, these groups can be viewed usefully as discourse communities. The authors draw on what is known about two other popular sources of help—face-to-face self-help groups and self-help books—to frame the rhetorical challenges faced by members of electronic support groups. The authors then compare the discourse of electronic support groups with that of electronic hobby groups to demonstrate that the two sets differ in terms of the rhetorical behavior of their participants. The authors analyze messages to determine how members establish legitimacy and authority in their texts and how message exchange gives rise to group identity and a sense of community. Our observations indicate that although some discourse characteristics and some rhetorical features are common to all the electr...

Introduction: Morality in Discourse.

Abstract: (1998). Introduction: Morality in Discourse. Research on Language and Social Interaction: Vol. 31, No. 3-4, pp. 279-294.

The structure of discussions that promote reasoning

Abstract: Discussions featuring reasoned argumentation among students have the potential to increase students’ motivation and to help students learn to reason well. This article analyzes the structure of the argumentative discourse produced when children discuss issues raised by stories they have read. Two complementary approaches are developed to represent the structure of the argumentation. The first approach, the argument network, represents argumentation within groups of students as an interlocking web of premises and conclusions. The second approach, the causal network, represents the argumentation primarily as events linked in a causally connected narrative sequence. We discuss implications of these two approaches for instruction and research. Argument networks and causal networks provide insights into how teachers and students can improve discussions, and they suggest instructional strategies that can promote the development of students’ reasoning.

Vernacular dialogue and the rhetoricality of public opinion

Abstract: Discussions of public opinion are dominated by visions that regard it as a rational ideal or as an objective datum. The evident differences between these interpretations reflect distinct ideologies and disparate scholarly and research interests. Without gainsaying their consequences, attention to these differences has muffled their shared illumination of public opinion as a product of discourse. Even when they give discourse thematic priority, rhetorical norms become buried amidst the rationalism of ideal communication or the instrumentalism of degenerate manipulation. Neither characterization shows satisfactory empirical fidelity to the complex process whereby public opinion is formed and communicated because neither accounts for the dialogical engagements by which an active populace participates in an issue's development; the contours of the public sphere that color their levels of awareness, perception, and participation; the influence on opinion formation of sharing views with one another; and the ter...

Connecting Linguistic Structures and Social Practices: a Discursive Approach to Social Policy Analysis

Abstract: There is an emerging interest within social and policy studies in the potential connections between linguistic practices and broader social processes. It is, however, difficult to find examples of research which take a fully discursive approach to policy analysis. Such a discursive approach might focus on how the use of language in the policy process is involved with social practices, such as the legitimisation of social relations or the construction of ‘knowledge’ of social reality. The article begins by exploring theoretical and methodological issues in relation to connecting micro aspects of language use, such as grammar and lexis, with the social construction of knowledge. It then uses discourse analysis to explore how the linguistic resources of a key British urban policy document, New Life for Urban Scotland, are involved with reproducing and sustaining a particular ‘knowledge’ or discourse about the causes of urban decline.

The function of discourse particles. : A study with special reference to spoken standard French

Abstract: This monograph aims to contribute to linguistic knowledge about the distribution and function of discourse particles, particularly with respect to a small group of particles which are highly frequent in contemporary spoken standard French. The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 (Theory) defines discourse particles as such, and gives a dynamic global approach to their description. Matters such as previous research on discourse particles, related categories of particles, instructional semantics, the difference between speech and writing, the delimitation of discourse units, competing approaches to discourse structure and to coherence, and methodology are discussed extensively. Part 2 (Description) offers in-depth corpus-based analyses of six French discourse particles, namely bon, ben, eh bien, puis, donc , and alors , as used in non-elicted native-speaker interaction. The book is of interest to linguists doing research in semantics, pragmatics and discourse studies.

Pragmatic Markers in English: Grammaticalization and Discourse Functions

Abstract: 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). …

The function of discourse particles : a study with special reference to spoken standard French

Abstract: This monograph aims to contribute to linguistic knowledge about the distribution and function of discourse particles, particularly with respect to a small group of particles which are highly frequent in contemporary spoken standard French. The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 (Theory) defines discourse particles as such, and gives a dynamic global approach to their description. Matters such as previous research on discourse particles, related categories of particles, instructional semantics, the difference between speech and writing, the delimitation of discourse units, competing approaches to discourse structure and to coherence, and methodology are discussed extensively. Part 2 (Description) offers in-depth corpus-based analyses of six French discourse particles, namely bon, ben, eh bien, puis, donc , and alors , as used in non-elicted native-speaker interaction. The book is of interest to linguists doing research in semantics, pragmatics and discourse studies.