Discourse Markers<i>Language, Meaning, and Context</i>

Maschler, Yael; Schiffrin, Deborah

doi:10.1002/9781118584194.ch9

Cited by 87 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 162 publications

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“…In interpreting the lack of predictability effects of discourse markers in the present study, we should consider that discourse markers are notoriously polyfunctional: their interpretation depends on the specific characteristics of the discourse (see e.g. Brinton, 1996;Fischer, 2006;Jucker & Ziv, 1998;Maschler & Schiffrin, 2015). Eigenlijk and inderdaad may for instance mark the assumed (un)expectedness of a name (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Anticipating predictability: an ERP investigation of expectation-managing discourse markers in dialogue comprehension

Rasenberg

Rommers

Bergen

2019

Language, Cognition and Neuroscience

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In two ERP experiments, we investigated how the Dutch discourse markers eigenlijk "actually", signalling expectation disconfirmation, and inderdaad "indeed", signalling expectation confirmation, affect incremental dialogue comprehension. We investigated their effects on the processing of subsequent (un)predictable words, and on the quality of word representations in memory. Participants read dialogues with (un)predictable endings that followed a discourse marker (eigenlijk in Experiment 1, inderdaad in Experiment 2) or a control adverb. We found no strong evidence that discourse markers modulated online predictability effects elicited by subsequently read words. However, words following eigenlijk elicited an enhanced posterior post-N400 positivity compared with words following an adverb regardless of their predictability, potentially reflecting increased processing costs associated with pragmatically driven discourse updating. No effects of inderdaad were found on online processing, but inderdaad seemed to influence memory for (un)predictable dialogue endings. These findings nuance our understanding of how pragmatic markers affect incremental language comprehension. ARTICLE HISTORY

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Anticipating predictability: an ERP investigation of expectation-managing discourse markers in dialogue comprehension

Rasenberg

Rommers

Bergen

2019

Language, Cognition and Neuroscience

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“…Because of their extra-or a-grammatical status, discourse markers have long been regarded as meaningless verbal fillers not warranting linguistic investigation. However, a large body of research over the last three decades has revealed that they are "communicatively obligatory" (Diewald, 2010), and that their use requires sophisticated communicative knowledge (for reviews, see e.g., Degand, Cornillie, & Pietrandrea, 2013;Fischer, 2014;Fraser, 1999;Maschler & Schiffrin, 2015;Schiffrin, 1987).…”

Section: Expectation-managing Discourse Particlesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Conventional implicatures are highly context-dependent: the particular meaning they express is highly variable, and strongly influenced by the speaker's communicative goal as well as the nature of the surrounding discourse content (Potts, 2015, p. 30). Given this context-dependent nature of conventional implicatures, inderdaad and eigenlijk are notoriously polyfunctional: they can express multiple relations with linguistic, structural, cognitive and/ or social characteristics of the discourse (e.g., Fischer, 2014;Maschler & Schiffrin, 2015). For instance, in example (1) above, inderdaad and eigenlijk mark a relation between the utterance in which they occur and some expectation that can be inferred from the question.…”

Section: Expectation-managing Discourse Particlesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linguistic expectation management in online discourse processing: An investigation of Dutch inderdaad 'indeed' and eigenlijk 'actually'

Bergen

Bosker

2018

Journal of Memory and Language

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Interpersonal discourse particles (DPs), such as Dutch inderdaad (≈'indeed') and eigenlijk (≈'actually') are highly frequent in everyday conversational interaction. Despite extensive theoretical descriptions of their polyfunctionality, little is known about how they are used by language comprehenders. In two visual world eyetracking experiments involving an online dialogue completion task, we asked to what extent inderdaad, confirming an inferred expectation, and eigenlijk, contrasting with an inferred expectation, influence real-time understanding of dialogues. Answers in the dialogues contained a DP or a control adverb, and a critical discourse referent was replaced by a beep; participants chose the most likely dialogue completion by clicking on one of four referents in a display. Results show that listeners make rapid and fine-grained situation-specific inferences about the use of DPs, modulating their expectations about how the dialogue will unfold. Findings further specify and constrain theories about the conversation-managing function and polyfunctionality of DPs.

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“…Looking at two languages will allow us to begin to see what general principles there may be in the processes and patterns of variation and change. Some studies also suggest that discourse functions can be partitioned very differently across languages (Maschler and Schiffrin 2013). Examining GEs in two distinct languages is thus a step towards understanding the underlying crosslinguistic differences.…”

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confidence: 99%

Discourse-pragmatic variation in Paris French and London English: Insights from general extenders

Secova

2017

Journal of Pragmatics

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This paper examines the use of general extenders (GEs), such as and stuff in English and et tout in French, in Paris French and London English. We aim to compare the social and the linguistic conditioning of extender use in the two languages, discuss the different kinds of spread in the two cities and reflect on the specificity of discourse-pragmatic variation.The study shows that GE forms as well as frequencies vary across factors such as gender, age and ethnicity, while some variants also appear to be grammaticalising and acquiring new pragmatic functions. The analysis includes a comparison of different age groups, and finds that different types of generational change may be occurring in both languages.In London, forms such as and stuff and and that diverge along ethnic lines, whereas in Paris et tout is becoming the dominant variant across the board. While different variants in both languages are indirectly associated with different social categories, they perform similar pragmatic functions such as hedging, marking solidarity and appealing to common knowledge between the speaker and the interlocutor(s).

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Discourse MarkersLanguage, Meaning, and Context

Cited by 87 publications

References 162 publications

Anticipating predictability: an ERP investigation of expectation-managing discourse markers in dialogue comprehension

Anticipating predictability: an ERP investigation of expectation-managing discourse markers in dialogue comprehension

Linguistic expectation management in online discourse processing: An investigation of Dutch inderdaad 'indeed' and eigenlijk 'actually'

Discourse-pragmatic variation in Paris French and London English: Insights from general extenders

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