
The Structure of Discourse-Pragmatic Variation
Heike Pichler(Author)
John Benjamins Publishing Co
Published on 8. April 2013
Book
Hardback
276 pages
978-90-272-3493-3 (ISBN)
Description
Everyday language use overflows with discourse-pragmatic features. Their frequency, form and function can vary greatly across social groups and change dramatically over time. And yet these features have not figured prominently in studies of language variation and change. The Structure of Discourse-Pragmatic Variation demonstrates the theoretical insights that can be gained into both the structure of synchronic language variation and the interactional mechanisms creating it by subjecting discourse-pragmatic features to systematic variationist analysis. Introducing an innovative methodology that combines principles of variationist linguistics, grammaticalisation studies and conversation analysis, it explores patterns of variation in the formal encoding of I DON'T KNOW, I DON'T THINK and negative polarity tags in a north-east England interview corpus. Speakers strategically exploit the formal variability of these constructions to signal subtle meaning differences and to index social identities closely linked to the variables' and their variants' functional compartmentalisation in the variety. The methodology, results and implications of this study will be of great interest to scholars working throughout variationist sociolinguistics, grammaticalisation and discourse analysis.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Amsterdam
Netherlands
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
+ index
Weight
675 gr
ISBN-13
978-90-272-3493-3 (9789027234933)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Heike Pichler
The Structure of Discourse-Pragmatic Variation
E-Book
04/2013
1st Edition
John Benjamins Publishing Company
€130.99
Available for download
Person
Content
1. List of figures; 2. List of tables; 3. List of abbreviations and typographical conventions; 4. Key to transcription conventions; 5. Glossary of dialect words; 6. Acknowledgements; 7. Part I; 8. 1. Introduction; 9. 2. Data, methodology and theoretical framework; 10. 3. The BwE verb negation system; 11. Part II; 12. 4. The construction i don't know; 13. 5. The construction i don't think; 14. 6. Negative polarity question tags (neg-tags); 15. Part III; 16. 7. Discussion & conclusion; 17. 8. Challenges for the future; 18. References; 19. Appendices; 20. Index