Discourse relations in English and German discourse: Local and not-so-local constraints

Abstract

This paper examines the overt and non-overt coding of discourse relations in the argumentative discourse genre of editorial based on a contrastive study of British English and German editorials. Particular attention is given to the linguistic coding of discourse relations positioned adjacently and non-adjacently, and to the question of granularity. The analysis of the German editorials is based on the syntactic unit of sentence, while their British counterpart is based on the syntactic unit of clause.

In the data at hand, the two languages code the discourse relation of Contrast overtly in adjacent and non-adjacent positioning but employ different strategies as regards the overt coding of the coordinating discourse relation of Continuation and the subordinating discourse relations of Elaboration, Explanation, and Comment. The rate of overt marking for adjacently positioned coordinating relations is higher in the German data. In the British data, there is hardly any difference between the overt marking of adjacently positioned discourse relations holding between clauses and sentences. The overt marking of subordinating discourse relations is lower in the German data, and in the British data, there is a clear preference for coding adjacently positioned subordinating discourse relations in an overt manner on the level of clause.