Volume 44, Issue 1

This paper investigates the referential information structure (IS) of full and reduced specificational it -clefts, which interacts as a distinct layer with their relational IS. Drawing on spontaneous spoken data from the London-Lund Corpus, this study examines how discourse-new and discourse-given information, i.e., referential IS, is distributed over the clefted noun phrase (NP) and cleft-relative clause. To assess the discourse-familiarity of nominal referents and open propositions, I develop an analytical model hinging on the predictability of information in accordance with the prospective dynamic of spoken language. The findings show that the distribution of given and new information is more diverse than described in existing typologies. In particular, it is revealed that the hitherto overlooked pattern in which both value and variable are discourse-given and in which the specification relation may be new or given is in fact the most common one. The findings also show that the choice between full and reduced it -clefts as two basic options is only partly motivated by the discourse-familiarity of the variable. The analysis of the prosodically coded relational IS reveals that multiple prosodic patterns can be mapped onto each category of clefts, thus demonstrating that the conflation of the referential and relational IS of it -clefts is untenable.

This paper sets out to analyse why dispute mediators identify disputants’ euphoric and dysphoric emotions in the context of mediation discussions, turning them into “said” emotions. Our analysis is based on a corpus of seven role-played mediation sessions, which took place in French. Adopting the notion of strategic manoeuvring from argumentation studies, we consider recurring instances of the presentational device of naming emotions, as used by the mediators. Our findings show that the mediators name emotions in two ways. First, they identify dysphoric emotions that lie at the root of the parties’ conflict, making these explicit. Second, they present to the parties a trajectory of their emotions, which moves from dysphoric to euphoric through the discussion that takes place during mediation. These two presentational strategies correspond to three functions that relate to the mediator’s goal of helping the parties find a solution to their conflict: clarifying the core of the conflict, empowering the parties as co-arguers and making emotions part of an argumentative discussion.

This study examines the discourse functions of BE expected to and BE supposed to in the genre of judicial opinion, providing insights into discipline-specific practices of epistemological positioning. Drawing on the 130 million words Corpus of US Supreme Court Opinions, it looks at how the two mindsay constructions were deployed in judicial writing over a period of more than 200 years, and identifies divergent frequency patterns associated with their use. As the findings reveal, in the opinions, on the one hand, BE expected to tends to co-occur with reasonably ( can/could (not) reasonably be expected to ) and is used to create a semblance of objectivity. BE supposed to , on the other hand, favors the present tense and third-person reference ( which/it is supposed to ) and serves as a distancing device. The paper also compares the frequency patterns involving BE expected to and BE supposed to found in the opinions with those attested in the Corpus of Historical American English, and it demonstrates that judicial writing exhibits trends which clearly differ from trends noted in non-judicial registers.

This study examines how Swedish prospective adoptive parents display parental suitability in assessment interviews with social workers. In adoption assessment interviews, applicants are invited, through question-and-answer sequences, to present their knowledge about adoption-related issues and demonstrate their suitability as future adoptive parents. Adoption applicants are also faced with social workers’ attempts to prepare them for future parenthood with advice and guidance. In this high-stakes interaction, however, guidance might indicate the applicants’ lack of central knowledge or insights, which can have potential face-threatening consequences. The data consist of 36 hours of audio recorded assessment interviews. Using interaction analytical methods, the analysis shows how adoption applicants engage in the multi-layered task of managing social workers’ guidance while also demonstrating parental suitability. Adoption applicants are found to take on the perspectives presented by social workers, and simultaneously to maintain their own standpoint, using a two-step procedure: (i) they eagerly claim their knowledge and align with the social worker, and (ii) they demonstrate their adoption-specific knowledge or personal characteristics that support the presentation of their parental suitability. The findings provide insights into the practice of assessing prospective adoptive parents and contribute to the understanding of how applicants establish their self-presentations as suitable future parents while adjusting to institutional requirements in situ.

Previous studies have mostly revealed the negative media representations of foreign domestic helpers (FDHs), which are pervaded by racist content. Yet, no study has adopted a corpus-assisted discourse analytic approach to systematically investigate a large amount of language data about foreign domestic helpers collected from the news media. To fill this niche, this study employs the notion of discourse prosodies to examine the dominant discourses surrounding foreign domestic helpers in the context of Hong Kong as represented in the South China Morning Post . The findings reveal two dominant discourses underlying the media representations of FDHs: supportive and othering discourses, suggesting ideological implications for both anti-racism and racism, respectively. In conclusion, the usefulness of employing corpus-assisted discourse analysis to examine dominant discourses in media representations is highlighted.

This article traces the presence of the concept digital semiotics in scientific literature with the aim of constituting a corpus of study that would allow to identify its goals and fields of interest. We undertook a systematic review of the term in the most important academic databases. We obtained 389 records and analyzed each of them in terms of publication date, type, content, and synthesis of contributions that develop distinct lines of investigation in digital semiotics. The results show a reduced number of first level publications that approach in detail this object of inquiry while establishing multimodal semiotics and social semiotics as the most consolidated branches. However, we found an increasing amount of gray literature that paves the way towards a deeper semiotic research tradition in the 21st century. We conclude by calling for a revision of semiotics, understood as a field of study that brings together interdisciplinary relationships and methodological solutions that interrogate the digital culture.