Questions and epistemic stance: Some examples from Italian conversations

Bongelli, Ramona; Riccioni, Ilaria; Vincze, Laura; Zuczkowski, Andrzej

doi:10.1016/j.amper.2018.11.001

Cited by 14 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…As for the uncertain questions category, as described in details in [62], all yes/no questions (polar interrogatives, alternative, tag and declarative questions) are considered uncertain in that they convey a not-knowing-whether epistemic stance of the questioner. They present, explicitly or implicitly, two (or more) possible alternatives that the questioner is uncertain about [56; 62–63]. For instance, if the direct question in Table 1 “Is there a relationship between smoking and any other cause of death ?…”

Section: Uncertainty Markersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Writers’ uncertainty in scientific and popular biomedical articles. A comparative analysis of the British Medical Journal and Discover Magazine

et al. 2019

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Distinguishing certain and uncertain information is of crucial importance both in the scientific field in the strict sense and in the popular scientific domain. In this paper, by adopting an epistemic stance perspective on certainty and uncertainty, and a mixed procedure of analysis, which combines a bottom-up and a top-down approach, we perform a comparative study (both qualitative and quantitative) of the uncertainty linguistic markers (verbs, non-verbs, modal verbs, conditional clauses, uncertain questions, epistemic future) and their scope in three different corpora: a historical corpus of 80 biomedical articles from the British Medical Journal (BMJ) 1840–2007; a corpus of 12 biomedical articles from BMJ 2013, and a contemporary corpus of 12 scientific popular articles from Discover 2013. The variables under observation are time, structure (IMRaD vs no-IMRaD) and genre (scientific vs popular articles). We apply the Generalized Linear Models analysis in order to test whether there are statistically significant differences (1) in the amount of uncertainty among the different corpora, and (2) in the categories of uncertainty markers used by writers. The results of our analysis reveal that (1) in all corpora, the percentages of uncertainty are always much lower than that of certainty; (2) uncertainty progressively diminishes over time in biomedical articles (in conjunction with their structural changes–IMRaD–and to the increase of the BMJ Impact Factor); and (3) uncertainty is slightly higher in scientific popular articles (Discover 2013) as compared to the contemporary corpus of scientific articles (BMJ 2013). Nevertheless, in all corpora, modal verbs are the most used uncertainty markers. These results suggest that not only do scientific writers prefer to communicate their uncertainty with markers of possibility rather than those of subjectivity but also that science journalists prefer using a third-person subject followed by modal verbs rather than a first-person subject followed by mental verbs such as think or believe .

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Section: Uncertainty Markersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Writers’ uncertainty in scientific and popular biomedical articles. A comparative analysis of the British Medical Journal and Discover Magazine

et al. 2019

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“…It was done in the level of Turn Constructional Unit (TCU). Consideration to the presupposition of the questions, question design, social action and preference organization w as conducted (Bongelli et al, 2018). Then, in each extract, the patterns of occurrences of marked and unmarked questions were identified.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other questions function to assess, suggest, reques t, and offer. Bongelli et al (2018) explored the question and epistemic position of questions in Italian. They found that WH questions indicate speakers' position of not knowing something; while polar, tag, and declarative questions show speakers' position of uncertainty.…”

Section: Mana Sih Kosnya?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Contrasting Marked and Unmarked Questions: A Case of Sihs in Indonesian

Mutiara

2021

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Discourse marker sih is a common feature of questions in colloquial Indonesian. The results of previous research show a contrast function of sihs in questions. The questions in which sihs occur are called marked questions. The present study explored the functions of sihs by contrasting marked and unmarked questions produced by the same speakers. The marked questions can occur before the unmarked questions or in reverse order. In both patterns, the marked questions indicate speakers’ great willingness to know. They also show speakers’ way to attract hearers’ attention. The unmarked questions were used when the speakers elicit more accurate and precious answers. Moreover, they were uttered when the hearers do not catch the idea mentioned in the first question. They were uttered because the hearers’ ask for repetition.

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“…As reported byBongelli, et al (2018, p. 37), two different positions can be found in the literature, according to which polar interrogatives are open to two different readings. InBolinger's view (1978in Bongelli, et al, 2018, polar interrogatives (e.g. Is it still snowing outside?)…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Is it still snowing outside?) are not neutral questions awaiting a yes or no response, but rather confirmation-seeking questions since the preferred reading (here: it is still snowing) "being lexicalized, is assigned more probability to be true than the negative"(Bongelli, et al, 2018, p. 37) Coleman (1974in Bongelli, et al, 2018,. on the other hand, argues that polar interrogatives are neutral in their design and that they perform the social action of information seeking, which means that both yes and no are equally expected (e.g.…”

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confidence: 99%

But, you see, the problem is …Perception verbs in courtroom talk: Focus onyou see

Szczyrbak

2019

Topics in Linguistics

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This article seeks to contribute to the body of research on the use of perception verbs in interaction and, more specifically, to enhance the understanding of how participants in courtroom proceedings exploit you see to manage the discourse as it unfolds and to negotiate stance. Against the background of earlier work on vision words in interaction, the study looks at parenthetical and non-parenthetical you see to reveal both perceptual and cognitive uses, and to identify their local pragmatic effect. As the analysis indicates, in the data at hand, lexical you see is more readily recruited than non-lexical you see, and it is found chiefly in grammatical and declarative questions. At the same time, it is the clause-initial you see that visibly brings out the epistemic tensions between the speakers and serves to contest the addressee’s position. The study corroborates the claim that you see is an argumentative marker, whose meaning (and force) depends on its formal properties (position, complementation) and the relationship between the speakers.

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Questions and epistemic stance: Some examples from Italian conversations

Cited by 14 publications

References 41 publications

Writers’ uncertainty in scientific and popular biomedical articles. A comparative analysis of the British Medical Journal and Discover Magazine

Writers’ uncertainty in scientific and popular biomedical articles. A comparative analysis of the British Medical Journal and Discover Magazine

Contrasting Marked and Unmarked Questions: A Case of Sihs in Indonesian

But, you see, the problem is …Perception verbs in courtroom talk: Focus onyou see

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