8 ‘Oh wait and I tell you . . .’: Narratives, pragmatics, and style in ICE-Ireland
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Jeffrey L. Kallen
Abstract
The ICE corpus offers a rich source of comparative data on world Englishes, while the SPICE-Ireland corpus has demonstrated the viability of annotating ICE material to reflect aspects of discourse and prosody. The research reported here goes a step further, towards the analysis of narratives within ICE texts. Although the architecture of ICE makes no recognition of narratives, the corpus is rich in narrative material distributed across a range of text types. Focusing on the analysis of nine ICE-Ireland narratives that focus on questions of truth and experience, this paper demonstrates that ICE speakers create different types of narrative using variable syntax and lexicon as anticipated in ICE, and by additional discourse features such as hedges, discourse markers, and stylistic elements that are specific to narrative. Taking narrative as performance which brings together linguistic variation, pragmatic function, and human experience, this paper argues that narratives in ICE provide as-yet untapped resources for variationist pragmatics.
Abstract
The ICE corpus offers a rich source of comparative data on world Englishes, while the SPICE-Ireland corpus has demonstrated the viability of annotating ICE material to reflect aspects of discourse and prosody. The research reported here goes a step further, towards the analysis of narratives within ICE texts. Although the architecture of ICE makes no recognition of narratives, the corpus is rich in narrative material distributed across a range of text types. Focusing on the analysis of nine ICE-Ireland narratives that focus on questions of truth and experience, this paper demonstrates that ICE speakers create different types of narrative using variable syntax and lexicon as anticipated in ICE, and by additional discourse features such as hedges, discourse markers, and stylistic elements that are specific to narrative. Taking narrative as performance which brings together linguistic variation, pragmatic function, and human experience, this paper argues that narratives in ICE provide as-yet untapped resources for variationist pragmatics.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- 1 An introduction to sociopragmatic variation 1
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Part 1: Investigating sociolinguistic variables
- 2 The sociopragmatics of now in corpora of Irish English and Scottish English 11
- 3 Lookit – the story of a pragmatic marker in Irish English 31
- 4 ‘Er, yeah, no, bummer’: An exploration of the ‘new’ discourse pragmatic marker Yeah, No in contemporary Irish English fiction 45
- 5 New speakers of Irish English: Pragmatic and sociophonetic perspectives 69
- 6 Pragmatic markers in Ulster Irish and Irish English 87
- 7 Boring much? Semantic determinants of constructional attraction in Irish English 107
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Part 2: Metapragmatic structures: Identities, styles, and media
- 8 ‘Oh wait and I tell you . . .’: Narratives, pragmatics, and style in ICE-Ireland 133
- 9 Irish identities in a fictional TV series: Mediatised performance of Derry English in Derry Girls 155
- 10 Salutation and leavetaking formulae in 18th-century varieties of English 173
- 11 Automatically detecting directives with SPICE Ireland 205
- 12 Concluding remarks and future directions in studies on sociopragmatic variation 235
- Index 241
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- 1 An introduction to sociopragmatic variation 1
-
Part 1: Investigating sociolinguistic variables
- 2 The sociopragmatics of now in corpora of Irish English and Scottish English 11
- 3 Lookit – the story of a pragmatic marker in Irish English 31
- 4 ‘Er, yeah, no, bummer’: An exploration of the ‘new’ discourse pragmatic marker Yeah, No in contemporary Irish English fiction 45
- 5 New speakers of Irish English: Pragmatic and sociophonetic perspectives 69
- 6 Pragmatic markers in Ulster Irish and Irish English 87
- 7 Boring much? Semantic determinants of constructional attraction in Irish English 107
-
Part 2: Metapragmatic structures: Identities, styles, and media
- 8 ‘Oh wait and I tell you . . .’: Narratives, pragmatics, and style in ICE-Ireland 133
- 9 Irish identities in a fictional TV series: Mediatised performance of Derry English in Derry Girls 155
- 10 Salutation and leavetaking formulae in 18th-century varieties of English 173
- 11 Automatically detecting directives with SPICE Ireland 205
- 12 Concluding remarks and future directions in studies on sociopragmatic variation 235
- Index 241
