The communication of certainty/uncertainty within a Gospel passage (John 9:1-41)
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Lucia Salvato
Abstract
This paper explores an argumentative discourse taken from John’s Gospel. The intention is to investigate the way speakers express their individual degree of certainty/uncertainty towards the piece of information they are giving or receiving. The paper analyzes the speakers’ different attitudes regarding the reliability of the communicated information (Epistemicity), focusing on the major linguistic markers that are used to support or criticize it and that reveal its truthfulness (Evidentiality). According to a pragmatic oriented approach, the paper reconstructs the whole discourse on the basis of a detailed scheme. This permits to analyze each dialogue as a coherent whole of speech acts, seen as argumentative moves aimed at bringing about a possible resolution of the difference of opinion, thus reaching an analytic overview.
Abstract
This paper explores an argumentative discourse taken from John’s Gospel. The intention is to investigate the way speakers express their individual degree of certainty/uncertainty towards the piece of information they are giving or receiving. The paper analyzes the speakers’ different attitudes regarding the reliability of the communicated information (Epistemicity), focusing on the major linguistic markers that are used to support or criticize it and that reveal its truthfulness (Evidentiality). According to a pragmatic oriented approach, the paper reconstructs the whole discourse on the basis of a detailed scheme. This permits to analyze each dialogue as a coherent whole of speech acts, seen as argumentative moves aimed at bringing about a possible resolution of the difference of opinion, thus reaching an analytic overview.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Preface ix
- Introduction 1
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Certainty
- Certainty 29
- Modes of modality in an Un-Cartesian framework 47
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(Un)Certainty as attitudinality
- Counter-argumentation and modality 65
- Explanation as a certainty marker in persuasive dialogue 83
- How to deal with attitude strength in debating situations. A survey on forewarning, argument strength, repetition, and source credibility as mediators of uncertainty 97
- The role of subjective certainty in the epistemology of testimony 121
- Uncertainty in polar questions and certainty in answers? 135
- Lying as a scalar phenomenon 153
- Persuasion pragmatic strategies in L1/L2 Italian argument-ative speech 175
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Dialogical exchange and speech acts
- What do I know as yet? 185
- On polar questions, negation, and the syntactic encoding of epistemicity 199
- Epistemic uncertainty and the syntax of speech acts 217
- Discursive functions of evidentials and epistemic modals 239
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Onomasiology
- Vagueness, unspecificity, and approximation. Cognitive and lexical aspects in English, Swedish, and Italian 265
- Latin commitment-markers 285
- Italian come se “as if” 297
-
Applications in exegesis and religious discourse
- The communication of certainty/uncertainty within a Gospel passage (John 9:1-41) 327
- Rhetorics of (un)certainty in religious discourse 343
- Subject index 363
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Preface ix
- Introduction 1
-
Certainty
- Certainty 29
- Modes of modality in an Un-Cartesian framework 47
-
(Un)Certainty as attitudinality
- Counter-argumentation and modality 65
- Explanation as a certainty marker in persuasive dialogue 83
- How to deal with attitude strength in debating situations. A survey on forewarning, argument strength, repetition, and source credibility as mediators of uncertainty 97
- The role of subjective certainty in the epistemology of testimony 121
- Uncertainty in polar questions and certainty in answers? 135
- Lying as a scalar phenomenon 153
- Persuasion pragmatic strategies in L1/L2 Italian argument-ative speech 175
-
Dialogical exchange and speech acts
- What do I know as yet? 185
- On polar questions, negation, and the syntactic encoding of epistemicity 199
- Epistemic uncertainty and the syntax of speech acts 217
- Discursive functions of evidentials and epistemic modals 239
-
Onomasiology
- Vagueness, unspecificity, and approximation. Cognitive and lexical aspects in English, Swedish, and Italian 265
- Latin commitment-markers 285
- Italian come se “as if” 297
-
Applications in exegesis and religious discourse
- The communication of certainty/uncertainty within a Gospel passage (John 9:1-41) 327
- Rhetorics of (un)certainty in religious discourse 343
- Subject index 363
