8 Discourse markers in a contrastive perspective
Abstract
Discourse markers indicating a coherence relation between discourse segments such as because and but in English, often called discourse connectives, have been the topic of numerous contrastive studies. In this chapter, we first discuss the importance of these studies for many fields of linguistics such as semantics and pragmatics, the study of language processing, first and second language acquisition, and translation studies. We then introduce some key methodological aspects of corpus-based contrastive studies, especially the distinction between comparable and parallel corpora, and present a selection of previous research based on these methods. We argue that studies should ideally make use of both comparable and parallel corpora in order to avoid the limitations inherent to both techniques. Finally, we report an original corpus-based contrastive study of French and Spanish backward causal connectives conducted on a bidirectional parallel corpus.
Abstract
Discourse markers indicating a coherence relation between discourse segments such as because and but in English, often called discourse connectives, have been the topic of numerous contrastive studies. In this chapter, we first discuss the importance of these studies for many fields of linguistics such as semantics and pragmatics, the study of language processing, first and second language acquisition, and translation studies. We then introduce some key methodological aspects of corpus-based contrastive studies, especially the distinction between comparable and parallel corpora, and present a selection of previous research based on these methods. We argue that studies should ideally make use of both comparable and parallel corpora in order to avoid the limitations inherent to both techniques. Finally, we report an original corpus-based contrastive study of French and Spanish backward causal connectives conducted on a bidirectional parallel corpus.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Manuals of Romance Linguistics V
- Contents VII
-
Part I: What are Discourse Markers?
- 1 Discourse markers: What are they and where do they come from? 1
- 2 Discourse markers vs other types of pragmatic markers 29
-
Part II: Discourse Markers at Different Levels of Linguistic Description
- 3 The semantics and pragmatics of discourse markers 65
- 4 The grammatical status of discourse markers 97
- 5 Discourse markers and prosody 129
- 6 Discourse markers and discourse/ conversational units 163
- 7 Clusters of discourse markers 193
-
Part III: Approaches to the Study of Discourse Markers
- 8 Discourse markers in a contrastive perspective 227
- 9 Discourse markers and quantitative corpus linguistics 257
- 10 Discourse markers and genre 281
-
Part IV: Discourse Markers and Interfaces
- 11 Discourse markers and politeness 319
- 12 Discourse markers and social variation 351
- 13 Discourse markers and second language acquisition 377
- 14 Discourse markers and psycholinguistic processing 413
-
Part V: Discourse Markers in the Major Romance Languages
- 15 Discourse markers in French 447
- 16 Discourse markers in Italian 479
- 17 Discourse markers in Spanish 509
- 18 Discourse markers in Catalan 539
- 19 Discourse markers in Portuguese 563
- 20 Discourse markers in Romanian 595
- Index 625
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Manuals of Romance Linguistics V
- Contents VII
-
Part I: What are Discourse Markers?
- 1 Discourse markers: What are they and where do they come from? 1
- 2 Discourse markers vs other types of pragmatic markers 29
-
Part II: Discourse Markers at Different Levels of Linguistic Description
- 3 The semantics and pragmatics of discourse markers 65
- 4 The grammatical status of discourse markers 97
- 5 Discourse markers and prosody 129
- 6 Discourse markers and discourse/ conversational units 163
- 7 Clusters of discourse markers 193
-
Part III: Approaches to the Study of Discourse Markers
- 8 Discourse markers in a contrastive perspective 227
- 9 Discourse markers and quantitative corpus linguistics 257
- 10 Discourse markers and genre 281
-
Part IV: Discourse Markers and Interfaces
- 11 Discourse markers and politeness 319
- 12 Discourse markers and social variation 351
- 13 Discourse markers and second language acquisition 377
- 14 Discourse markers and psycholinguistic processing 413
-
Part V: Discourse Markers in the Major Romance Languages
- 15 Discourse markers in French 447
- 16 Discourse markers in Italian 479
- 17 Discourse markers in Spanish 509
- 18 Discourse markers in Catalan 539
- 19 Discourse markers in Portuguese 563
- 20 Discourse markers in Romanian 595
- Index 625
