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Chapter 8. Intensifiers between grammar and pragmatics

A lesson from a language contact situation
  • Ilaria Fiorentini and Andrea Sansó
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Exploring Intensification
This chapter is in the book Exploring Intensification

Abstract

Intensification is a more pervasive phenomenon than usually thought, involving modification and scaling at different levels. Besides adjectives and adverbs, also the epistemic stance and the illocutionary force of speech acts can be modulated (Bazzanella et al. 1991; Ghezzi 2013). The strategies speakers use to weaken or intensify the speaker’s epistemic stance and the illocutionary force of the utterance include the class of so-called discourse markers (Bazzanella 1995, 2006), such as, for instance, hedges and boosters, which are hearer-oriented and “work as social and politeness markers” (Bazzanella 2006: 463), and modalizers, which modify the speaker’s commitment towards the propositional content. This article aims to investigate these strategies in a specific language contact situation, which turns out to be a privileged vantage point to tease out the manifestations of intensification in everyday language use. We will focus on the Ladin-Italian (and German) contact area in Trentino-South Tyrol (Northern Italy), with a view to identifying the strategies that bilingual speakers adopt to express intensification in their speech. The results of the investigation show that there are different borrowability rates in the adoption of intensifiers from the pragmatically dominant languages (Italian and German), whereby intensifiers with a strong intersubjective function such as those modifying the illocutionary force of the utterance are borrowed more easily than intensifiers operating at lower (i.e. propositional or subjective) levels.

Abstract

Intensification is a more pervasive phenomenon than usually thought, involving modification and scaling at different levels. Besides adjectives and adverbs, also the epistemic stance and the illocutionary force of speech acts can be modulated (Bazzanella et al. 1991; Ghezzi 2013). The strategies speakers use to weaken or intensify the speaker’s epistemic stance and the illocutionary force of the utterance include the class of so-called discourse markers (Bazzanella 1995, 2006), such as, for instance, hedges and boosters, which are hearer-oriented and “work as social and politeness markers” (Bazzanella 2006: 463), and modalizers, which modify the speaker’s commitment towards the propositional content. This article aims to investigate these strategies in a specific language contact situation, which turns out to be a privileged vantage point to tease out the manifestations of intensification in everyday language use. We will focus on the Ladin-Italian (and German) contact area in Trentino-South Tyrol (Northern Italy), with a view to identifying the strategies that bilingual speakers adopt to express intensification in their speech. The results of the investigation show that there are different borrowability rates in the adoption of intensifiers from the pragmatically dominant languages (Italian and German), whereby intensifiers with a strong intersubjective function such as those modifying the illocutionary force of the utterance are borrowed more easily than intensifiers operating at lower (i.e. propositional or subjective) levels.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. New insights on intensification and intensifiers 1
  4. Part I. The category of intensification
  5. Chapter 1. The comparative basis of intensification 15
  6. Chapter 2. Intensification and focusing 33
  7. Chapter 3. Intensification processes in Italian 55
  8. Chapter 4. Noun classification in Kiswahili 79
  9. Part II. Strategies of intensification in ancient languages: Hittite, Greek and Latin
  10. Chapter 5. Intensification and intensifying modification in Hittite 101
  11. Chapter 6. Diminutives in Ancient Greek 127
  12. Chapter 7. Nulla sum, nulla sum: Tota, tota occidi 147
  13. Part III. Strategies of intensification in modern languages: Italian, German, English
  14. Chapter 8. Intensifiers between grammar and pragmatics 173
  15. Chapter 9. Stress and tones as intensifying operators in German 193
  16. Chapter 10. English exclamative clauses and interrogative degree modification 207
  17. Part IV. Contrastive analysis of intensification in Italian and German
  18. Chapter 11. A pragmatic view on intensification 231
  19. Chapter 12. Intensifying structures of adjectives across German and Italian 251
  20. Chapter 13. The coordination of identical conjuncts as a means of strengthening expressions in German and Italian 265
  21. Chapter 14. What does reduplication intensify? 289
  22. Chapter 15. Intensification strategies in German and Italian written language 305
  23. Chapter 16. Ways to intensify 327
  24. Chapter 17. Augmentatives in Italian and German 353
  25. Chapter 18. Intentional vagueness 371
  26. Index 391
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.189.09fio

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. New insights on intensification and intensifiers 1
  4. Part I. The category of intensification
  5. Chapter 1. The comparative basis of intensification 15
  6. Chapter 2. Intensification and focusing 33
  7. Chapter 3. Intensification processes in Italian 55
  8. Chapter 4. Noun classification in Kiswahili 79
  9. Part II. Strategies of intensification in ancient languages: Hittite, Greek and Latin
  10. Chapter 5. Intensification and intensifying modification in Hittite 101
  11. Chapter 6. Diminutives in Ancient Greek 127
  12. Chapter 7. Nulla sum, nulla sum: Tota, tota occidi 147
  13. Part III. Strategies of intensification in modern languages: Italian, German, English
  14. Chapter 8. Intensifiers between grammar and pragmatics 173
  15. Chapter 9. Stress and tones as intensifying operators in German 193
  16. Chapter 10. English exclamative clauses and interrogative degree modification 207
  17. Part IV. Contrastive analysis of intensification in Italian and German
  18. Chapter 11. A pragmatic view on intensification 231
  19. Chapter 12. Intensifying structures of adjectives across German and Italian 251
  20. Chapter 13. The coordination of identical conjuncts as a means of strengthening expressions in German and Italian 265
  21. Chapter 14. What does reduplication intensify? 289
  22. Chapter 15. Intensification strategies in German and Italian written language 305
  23. Chapter 16. Ways to intensify 327
  24. Chapter 17. Augmentatives in Italian and German 353
  25. Chapter 18. Intentional vagueness 371
  26. Index 391
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