Volume 24, Issue 4

This study compares the semantic relations represented by the wh -clauses of basic and reversed wh -clefts in the Freiburg corpus of written British English (FLOB). In both types of wh -clefts, there is a skewing of certain types of processes (mental, verbal, and relational) and circumstances (location, matter, and extent circumstances). This is related to the fact that the semantic function of the wh -clauses of wh -clefts is to represent a variable in a value–variable relation. There are also some differences in the distribution of these relations in basic and reversed wh -clefts. These differences can be explained by the different communicative functions of basic and reversed wh -clefts. Basic wh -clefts, where the wh -clauses are thematic, are often used to present newsworthy information from, for example, an evaluative perspective. Reversed wh -clefts, on the other hand, where the wh -clauses are rhematic, are often used to negotiate the validity of information already conveyed in the text or to highlight, for example, modal meanings.

This article explores the cross-linguistic expression of affect by comparing how the same bilingual speaker displays affect in her two languages. I demonstrate how Linda, a French-Portuguese bilingual daughter of Portuguese migrants in France, performs affect differently in narratives of personal experience told in her two languages. I use three approaches to compare and analyze Linda's verbal expression of affect in French and Portuguese. (1) I look at Linda's own comments about how she performs affect differently in French and Portuguese. (2) I then relate her reported intuitions about her affect to her actual display of affect in each language. I do this by comparing the formally locatable speaker role perspectives (interlocutor, narrator, character) from which Linda recounts the same experience in French and Portuguese. She speaks more often as an interlocutor in French, and more as a narrator in Portuguese. She performs the voices of quoted characters in more extreme styles in French than in Portuguese. (3) Finally I present other bilingual listeners' perceptions from audio recordings of Linda's affective displays. Listeners reported that Linda's French performance was more forceful/intense than her Portuguese, and that she came across as a different kind of person. From these three approaches, I argue that it is not the structural differences of the two languages that account for these findings, but rather, the repertoire of personas to which this speaker has access in each language.

This study examines the interactional upshots of laughter in multiparty network conferences. It focuses on the tightly coordinated interactive work preceding, overlapping with, and following upon laughter in exchanges characterized by participants' displays of disagreement. The data are part of a larger corpus from a project focusing upon discursive practices in youth detention homes in Sweden. In sequences of disagreement, parties would often laugh, make use of others' laughter, or noticeably not laugh. Laughter was found to establish participants' orientation toward a situation as sensitive or tense. Typically, the participants seemed to laugh at an awkward situation rather than at a particular person. Laughter occurred at specific locations in the flow of talk, often when it seemed difficult to continue the interaction along the lines of current disagreement. Moreover, in relation to laughter, the analysis accentuates other salient features of interaction. For instance, laughter is shown to be an efficient tool for structuring interaction, as it provided both lay and professional participants opportunities to participate meaningfully in the flow of talk without actually expressing much through words. The findings are discussed in terms of locally situated means of participating in multiparty adversative exchanges in formal network meetings.

‘Distancing indirect speech or thought’ (DIST) is defined as a noncanonical form of speech or thought representation which is characterized by the singleness of deictic center across both component clauses: Contrary to direct, indirect, or free indirect speech/thought, no truly separate consciousness (‘sayer/cognizant’) is represented by the current speaker (‘speaker’), even though the grammar of speech or thought representation is used. In this way, a ‘corrective’, distancing effect vis-à-vis the main proposition is obtained. Examples include He mailed you earlier today, he said and Did I want that? (she asked) . In this article, I will argue that two structurally distinct subtypes of DIST have to be recognized, viz. ‘representational’ and ‘scopal’ DIST. I will discuss these as they manifest themselves in different registers (academic discourse, news reports, literary texts), and will associate them on the basis of this text analysis with distinct contextual usage types. Finally, I will relate representational and scopal DIST in terms of a cline of increasing subjectification.