Similar Journals
HOME > Journal Current TOC
|
Cadernos de Linguística
Number of Followers: 4  Open Access journalISSN (Online) 2675-4916 Published by Brazilian Linguistics Association  [1 journal]
|
- A Constructional Perspective on the Rise of Metatextual Discourse Markers
Authors: Elizabeth Closs Traugott
Pages: 01 - 25
Abstract: Cognitive linguistics seeks to account for “a speaker’s knowledge of the full range of linguistic conventions” (LANGACKER, 1987; also GOLDBERG, 2006). It is surprising therefore that little attention has been paid in cognitive linguistics to the linguistic conventions called “discourse markers” (SCHIFFRIN, 1987) or “pragmatic markers” (FRASER, 2009, et passim). Pragmatic markers include signals of attention to social relationships (well, please), beliefs (I think, in fact), and discourse management (after all, anyway). Members of the third subtype are metatextual connectors of discourse segments (“discourse markers” in Fraser’s taxonomy). I argue that because pragmatic markers in general play a major role in negotiating meaning, they are an important part of speakers’ knowledge of language. Pragmatic markers are well-known not to have truth-conditional meaning, and not to be syntactically integrated with the host clause. However, they have conventional pragmatic meanings (HANSEN, 2012; FINKBEINER, 2019). I exemplify my recent research on the historical development in English of metatextual discourse markers with a diachronic construction grammar perspective on by the way (TRAUGOTT, 2020). Focus will be on the importance of routinized, replicated contexts in change (CROFT, 2001; BYBEE, 2010).
PubDate: 2021-01-14
DOI: 10.25189/2675-4916.2021.v2.n1.id269
Issue No: Vol. 2, No. 1 (2021)
- Communicating Without Conventions
Authors: Michael Tomasello
Pages: 01 - 27
Abstract: For obvious and very good reasons the study of human communication is dominated by the study of language. But from a psychological point of view, the basic structure of human communication – how it works pragmatically in terms of the intentions and inferences involved - is totally independent of language. The most important data here are acts of human communication that do not employ conventions. In situations in which language is for some reason not an option, people often produce spontaneous, non-conventionalized gestures, including most prominently pointing (deictic gestures) and pantomiming (iconic gestures). These gestures are universal among humans and unique to the species, and in human evolution they almost certainly preceded conventional communication, either signed or vocal. For prelinguistic infants to communicate effectively via pointing and pantomiming, they must already possess species-unique and very powerful skills and motivations for shared intentionality as pragmatic infrastructure. Conventional communication is then built on top of this infrastructure - or so I will argue.
PubDate: 2021-01-13
DOI: 10.25189/2675-4916.2021.v2.n1.id286
Issue No: Vol. 2, No. 1 (2021)
- Culturalización en salud
Authors: Rosa Estopà
Pages: 01 - 22
Abstract: La culturalización en salud es de relevante importancia en la sociedad actual. Un paciente informado colabora con la gestión de su enfermedad, está más seguro y entiende el proceso por el que transcurre. Para que esto se produzca es necesario que la comunicación profesional de la salud-paciente sea óptima y que el paciente comprenda la información que le transmite el profesional, ya sea oral o escrita. Sin embargo, este objetivo a menudo no se cumple y el paciente se siente desamparado lo que repercute en su salud y en su relación con el sanitario. En este artículo presentamos los resultados del proyecto JUNTS tanto a nivel teórico como aplicado. Después de una introducción, se describe el estudio lingüístico de un corpus de informes médicos y en el siguiente apartado se utilizan los resultados de este estudio para elaborar una encuesta de comprensión. En la segunda parte del artículo, se presentan dos aplicaciones que tienen el objetivo de empoderar al paciente. En el primer caso, se trata de un diccionario de medicina para niños elaborado con una metodología innovadora y, en el segundo caso, se expone una app-web elaborada para guiar a las familias de los niños con una enfermedad rara en las principales situaciones comunicativas con los profesionales de la salud.
PubDate: 2021-01-13
DOI: 10.25189/2675-4916.2021.v2.n1.id244
Issue No: Vol. 2, No. 1 (2021)
- Contemporary semiotic paths
Authors: Denis Bertrand
Pages: 01 - 31
Abstract: After recalling the theoretical genealogy of semiotics, between linguistics, anthropology and phenomenology, we would like to highlight the properties of post-Greimassian semiotics by showing that "signification in act", its object, simultaneously involves the capture of formants, their structuring, their enunciation, their putting into perspective, their implications in the social field and their anthropological stakes. We rely on two examples, one textual, the other lexical. The first is a transversal semiotic reading of a text by Victor Hugo, "L'archipel de la Manche", the prologue to his novel Les Travailleurs de la mer (1866, ed. 1883): we show how the great multi-disciplinary fabric of the natural, human and social sciences takes shape in this text through a poetics and a politics of enunciation, the primary and ultimate discipline. The second example deals with the collective act through the use of the pronoun "we", between inclusion and exclusion. We then draw on Paolo Fabbri's (forthcoming) final text, "Collective identities", to question the many ways in which the language form passes between the language form and the politics of the otherness it induces. This lecture is given in homage to this great Italian semiotician, who passed away on June 2, 2020. After recalling the theoretical genealogy of semiotics, between linguistics, anthropology and phenomenology, we would like to highlight the properties of post-Greimassian semiotics by showing that "signification in act", its object, simultaneously involves the capture of formants, their structuring, their enunciation, their putting into perspective, their implications in the social field and their anthropological stakes. We rely on two examples, one textual, the other lexical. The first is a transversal semiotic reading of a text by Victor Hugo, "L'archipel de la Manche", the prologue to his novel Les Travailleurs de la mer (1866, ed. 1883): we show how the great multi-disciplinary fabric of the natural, human and social sciences takes shape in this text through a poetics and a politics of enunciation, the primary and ultimate discipline. The second example deals with the collective act through the use of the pronoun "we", between inclusion and exclusion. We then draw on Paolo Fabbri's (forthcoming) final text, "Collective identities", to question the many ways in which the language form passes between the language form and the politics of the otherness it induces. This lecture is given in homage to this great Italian semiotician, who passed away on June 2, 2020.
PubDate: 2021-01-13
DOI: 10.25189/2675-4916.2021.v2.n1.id289
Issue No: Vol. 2, No. 1 (2021)
- Discurso, estrutura e história
Authors: José Luiz Fiorin
Pages: 01 - 18
Abstract: Paul Ricoeur shows that the meaning of discourse is built both by internal coercions and by the relationship with other discourses. This means that discourse is, at the same time, entirely linguistic and historical. In other words, discourse is a structure of meaning, as well as an historic object. This article shows that, in discourse analysis, it is necessary to take into account both the linguistic mechanisms of discourse construction and its constitutive historicity. A text, as a manifestation of discourse, is not simply a large sentence or a bunch of sentences; rather, it has its own semantic organization. Discourse, on the other hand, is not a reflex of external events. For that reason, studying the historic character of discourse is not about telling anecdotes related to its conditions of production, nor is it about listing references to facts that occurred at the time of its production. Following the Bakhtinian concept of dialogism, it is necessary to consider that discourse is historic because of its relationship of conflict with other discourses. Perceiving such movement of contradictions is what permits to apprehend the historicity intrinsic to meaning, which is historically constituted. Also, historicity reaches structure too, since structure is a manner of organization which is particular to a certain discourse formation. Therefore, there is no dichotomy between structure and history, since structure is historic.
PubDate: 2021-01-13
DOI: 10.25189/2675-4916.2021.v2.n1.id291
Issue No: Vol. 2, No. 1 (2021)
- Problems with variable properties in syntax
Authors: David Lightfoot
Pages: 01 - 19
Abstract: Like those birds born to chirp, humans are born to parse; children are predisposed to assign linguistic structures to the amorphous externalization of the thoughts that we encounter. This yields a view of variable properties quite different from one based on parameters defined at Universal Grammar (UG). Our approach to language acquisition makes two contributions to Minimalist thinking. First, in accordance with general Minimalist goals, we minimize the pre-wired components of internal languages, dispensing with three separate, central entities: parameters, an evaluation metric for rating the generative capacity of grammars, and any independent parsing mechanism. Instead, children use their internal grammar to parse the ambient external language they experience. UG is “open,” consistent with what children learn through parsing. Second, our understanding of language acquisition yields a new view of variable properties, properties that occur only in certain languages. Under this open UG vision, specific elements of I-languages arise in response to new parses. Both external and internal languages play crucial, interacting roles: unstructured, amorphous external language is parsed and a structured internal language system results. My Born to parse (Lightfoot 2020) explores case studies that show innovative parses of external language shaping the history of languages. I discuss 1) how children learn through parsing, 2) the role of parsing at the two interfaces between syntactic structure and the externalization system (sound or sign) and logical form, 3) language change, and 4) variable linguistic properties seen through the lens of an open UG. This, in turn, yields a view of variable properties akin to that of evolutionary biologists working on Darwin’s finches; see section 7.
PubDate: 2021-01-13
DOI: 10.25189/2675-4916.2021.v2.n1.id306
Issue No: Vol. 2, No. 1 (2021)
- The Reception of Early Transformational Grammar in Europe
Authors: Frederick J. Newmeyer
Pages: 01 - 16
Abstract: The early success in the United States of Chomsky’s book Syntactic Structures and the theory of transformational-generative grammar that it introduced raises the question of the reception of the theory in other countries. Looking at Europe, there is no overarching generalisation. In some countries (the UK, the Netherlands) the theory enjoyed a great success, in others a moderate success, at least for a time (France, Germany), and in other countries very little success (Italy, Spain). Nevertheless, there is widespread agreement that European contributions to the theory have been among the most important.
PubDate: 2021-01-13
DOI: 10.25189/2675-4916.2021.v2.n1.id285
Issue No: Vol. 2, No. 1 (2021)
