The English discourse particle ‘oh’ in Spanish translations: evidence from a parallel corpus

p. 337-342This paper explores the translations of the English discourse particle oh into Spanish. Discourse particles are particularly problematic in translation because of their multi-functionality, their high degree of grammaticalization, and their strong culturebound character. The interjection oh is one frequent discourse marker in English spoken discourse, conveying text-organising and interpersonal functions. This study will focus on the translations of oh in the 2.5 million-word English-Spanish parallel corpus PACTRES. The aim is to provide an inventory of translation solutions in Spanish for the various functions of oh in English textsS

On the Functional Differences between the Discourse Particles Ne and Yone in Japanese

The Japanese discourse particles (sentence-final particles) ne and yone both have the functions that can be roughly characterized as the ⟨shared information ⟩ use and the ⟨call for confirmation ⟩ use. In the literature, an ad-equate descriptive analysis has not been ob-tained as to how the choice between the two particles is made. This paper aims to clarify discourse conditions under which ne and yone can be felicitously used.

A Unified Analysis of the Hindi & Bangla discourse particle -to

Discourse particles are commonly found in a variety of languages. These particles often mark topichood, focus, contrastivity and other discourse sensitive features. Indic languages have a discourse particle -to, which has been analyzed in the existing literature as a marker of topichood (Bayer et. al. 2014) or contrast (Montaut 2015). In this paper, we examine the properties of -to in Hindi and Bangla. Based on our observations about the necessary pragmatic conditions that license the use of -to we conclude that -to is neither a topic marker nor a contrast marker. It is rather a particle that plays a particular role in common ground management. By the use of -to in a sentence a speaker indicates that the sentence fails to resolve the Issue at hand, i.e., the Issue raised by its prejacent in the given discourse (following the Table Model of discourse structure, Farkas and Bruce 2010). This establishes -to as an independent discourse category, thereby also broadening the range of functions discourse particles are known to perform cross-linguistically

Discourse Markers in an Online Community of Buhînën People

One of the language communication challenges is how it works as speakers use it. Some words may not change their semantic meaning, but when it is meant to say on speaker’s intention, it impacts the context; these particles are discourse markers. It has been used in everyday interaction, face-to-face communication, writing, and an online environment. This compels the researcher to investigate further the occurrences of the discourse markers in Buhînën People in an online community. This study centralized how discourse markers maintain their status of cohesion and interpersonal in computer-mediated communication. This qualitative study was based on Gustilo and Palacio’s (2016) study on discourse particles. Discourse markers were categorized into two: textual and relational categories. The corpus of 2,000 Facebook posts, primarily texts, was the data collected from the most numbered population on the Facebook online group of Buhînëns. Then, the survey was conducted to gather data about the pragmatic relation of relational discourse markers. The data revealed that the most hits were the discourse marker ‘na’ for the textual category, whereas ‘po’ for the relational category. It also revealed that more textual discourse markers were found. The functions proved the idea of metalingual function (Maschler & Schiffrin, 2015), as it has many functions in both categories, including the micro-function of relational discourse markers. Furthermore, the study also answered the importance of the discourse markers in pragmatics and computer-mediated communication, through which they served both their primary roles as structural and interpersonal

Analysis and Automatic Classification of Some Discourse Particles on a Large Set of French Spoken Corpora

International audienceIn French, quite a number of words and expressions are frequently used as discourse particles in spoken language, especially in spontaneous speech. The semantic load of these words or expressions differ whether they are used as discourse particles or not. Therefore, the correct identification of their discourse function remains of great importance. In this paper the distribution of the discourse function (or not discourse function), and of the detailed discourse functions of some of these words, is studied on a large set of French corpora ranging from prepared speech (e.g. storytelling and broadcast news) to spontaneous speech (e.g. interviews and interactions between people). The paper is focused on a subset of discourse particles that are recurrent in the considered corpora. The discourse function of a few thousand occurrences of these words have been manually annotated. A statistical analysis of the functions of the words is presented and discussed with respect to the types of spoken corpora. Finally, some statistics with respect to a few prosodic correlates of the discourse particles are presented, as well as some results of automatic classification and detection of the word function (discourse particle or not) using prosodic features

ジョシ ノ タクリツ ノ ヒンド ト ブンポウテキ キノウ オヨビ オンキョウテキ トクチョウ ニツイテ

In natural discourse, it was found that some particles had prominence and were uttered with higher fundamental frequency (F0) in Japanese. This phenomenon played a very important part in naturalness and understandability of discourse. We investigated prominent particles with regard to frequency, functions and acoustic features. Discourse on six different subjects uttered by an announcer at five speech rates were investigated. The following features were observed; (a) In explanatory discourse, the frequency of occurrence of prominent particles is higher than in dramatic discourse. (b) Prominent particles appear more frequently as speech rate becomes slower. From the point of the grammatical function, the use of prominent particle is divided into two types: (c1) Particles followed by new and important information; (c2) Particles with emphasis on themselves followed by assistant negative phrase. These grammatical functions were reflected in F0 contours. F0 contour of the former (c1) was falling and then rising gradually. The latter F0 (c2) was falling down, then discontinuously rising and falling again

Els marcadors del discurs: caracterització general

Discourse markers have not been a central issue in language studies until a very recent time; as a result, the first attempts to define and characterize this pragmatic category can only be found in the last two decades. The aim of this paper is to review and summarize the defining features of discourse markers in Catalan. To do so, we first propose a classification of these particles, based on Portolés (2007). Following Marín (2005) and Cuenca (2006, 2017), we then describe discourse markers on the grounds of cognitive grammar and its understanding of categories as open sets with fuzzy boundaries. In this way we intend to reach a prototypical representation of the class of discourse markers in Catalan which helps to better understand the ways in which they differ from other language categories and the functions they fulfill in discourse construction

Typ alltså/ett arbet om utfyllnadsord

Abstract Background We both posess a great deal of interest in the Swedish language, and especially in how it develops and changes by its users. As up and coming educationalists it is both intresting and important to examine how the youth of today uses their domestic language. This report will illustrate in which way discourse particles function in the exchange of words that occurs in the Swedish documenatary Klass 9A, which was aired on SVT. The purpose of the report The purpose of our report is to gain a greater understanding of how the youth of today expresses themselves, and to examine what the logic is in the way they use discourse particles. Method Since we have access to all of the episodes of Klass 9A we have been able to take advantage of this by thoroughly examine every episode. During the process of analysing we have been able to return to the episodes. That made it possible for us to make sure that our analysis was correctly done. That would not have been possible if we did not have the recordings of Klass 9A to our aid. Theories We have used respected language researchers and their theories as the foundation of our report. The language researchers have all done research in the field of how the youth speaks today. Result In results we show how the students and teachers in Klass 9A used discourse particles. We also show what function the discourse particles had in the sentences.The top five used functions were underlining-, turn taking-, focusing-, exemplifying- and delimiting markers. Discussion Our analysis showed that we could determine every discourse particle to a specific function. All discourse particles in the material from Klass 9A acted as a marker for a function. We have also seen in the material from Klass 9A that a student easily changed the use of a discourse particle to a word that was more suiting to the teachers taste. Furthermore we discuss how a teacher should teach under the guidance of the manual in form of Läroplanen för det obligatoriska skolväsendet (Lpo94). We also give examples of a lesson that contains of guidelines for when it is either suiting or not to use discourse particle and in what contexts

A relevance-based analysis of two multifunctional discourse particles: Indus Kohistani hum and –ãĩ

Relevance theory claims that words encode different types of meaning: concepts or procedures. Within this framework, discourse connectors are understood as encoding procedural instructions for the inferential part of utterance comprehension. This analysis allows for a unitary account of particles with seemingly diverse functions. Following Blass (1990) in her study of Sissala ma, English also and German auch, I examine the two discourse particles hum and –ãĩ of Indus Kohistani, a language spoken in Northern Pakistan. Both of them encode procedural meaning in that they exclude backwards contradiction as a possible way of utterance interpretation, but allow backwards confirmation and additive processing. This analysis applies to the full range of data and thus supports the interpretation of such particles as procedural devices indicating in which way to achieve relevance

Discourse marking in Burmese and English: a corpus-based approach

This study is a comparative analysis of discourse marking systems in Burmese and in English, using a corpus-based approach within the framework of discourse analysis. The focus of this study is a set of lexical items in a particular word class called 'particles' in Burmese, which lack one-to-one equivalents in English and are characterized by highly context-dependent semantic values. Unlike traditional comparative studies involving less commonly studied languages that tend to base their analyses on the model of well-established linguistic systems such as English, this study is Burmese-originated. It starts out with an identification of discourse functions typically associated with high frequency Burmese particles, and their equivalent realisations in English are subsequently identified. Findings indicate that Burmese particles share common cross-linguistic characteristics of discourse markers as described in the current literature. The data offers clear evidence that discourse functions of Burmese particles investigated are commonly found in spoken English, but they are not realised through the same discourse marking system. This study therefore calls for a more effective comparative methodology that can compare syntactically-oriented discourse marking systems more effectively with lexically-oriented ones, such as in the case of Burmese and English respectively. Last but not least, this study also challenges the notion of 'word' as a unit of analysis for a corpus-based approach, as the notion of word cannot be easily defined in a syllabic language such as Burmese