Una caracterització cognitiva de les preguntes confirmatòries: (question tags)

This paper is an attempt to provide a cognitive approach to question tags, as grammatical constructions that show different syntactic forms. We propose an account based on the following points: (i) definition of question tags, (ii) contrastive analysis of the structures in several languages (Catalan, Spanish, French, Italian, English and German), (iii) pragmatic approach to question tags, (iv) syntactic approach, and (v) study of question tags as grammatical constructions. Our main claim is that the various forms that they show in the languages considered are closely related, and that they evidenciate some of the three definitory characteristics of the construction, namely, its mixed modali…

Anna Camps & Teresa Ribas (coords.), «El verbo y su enseñanza. Hacia un modelo de enseñanza de la gramática basada en la actividad reflexiva», Barcelona, Octaedro, 2017, 223 pp.

Ressenya sobre el llibre d'Anna Camps & Teresa Ribas (coords.), «El verbo y su enseñanza. Hacia un modelo de enseñanza de la gramática basada en la actividad reflexiva», Barcelona, Octaedro, 2017, 223 pp., ISBN 978-84-9921-895-3.

Review of Bazzanella (2014): Linguistica cognitiva: Un’introduzione

The conceptualisation of austerity in the Portuguese, Spanish and Irish press

The aim of this chapter is to analyse the conceptualisation of austerity in three different European cultures by identifying metaphorical expressions used in one representative newspaper of the Portuguese, the Spanish and the Irish press between 2011 and 2012. The metaphors were identified by searching for three keywords from the field of economy and politics (austeridade-austeridad-austerity, corte-recorte-cut and divida-deuda-debt) and were then classified according to the type of schema they instantiate, namely, propositional schema, image schema or event schema. Assuming the general framework of Cultural Linguistics and corpus-based and discourse-based approaches to conceptual metaphor,…

Discourse markers, structure, and emotionality in oral narratives

This paper presents a comparative analysis structure and frequency of discourse markers in two kinds of oral narratives: objective, emotionally neutral ones on the one side, and highly emotional, spontaneous ones on the other. The results prove that emotionality plays a crucial role in the structuring of oral narratives as well as in the type of discourse markers employed in them. Objective oral narratives show a higher number of discourse markers, whereas highly emotional ones present a higher variety of discourse markers, as well as a higher frequency of other pragmatic markers, in order to guide the listener through the multiplicity of side stories and the broken structure they show. In …

Connectors i processos de gramaticalització

In this article, we analyse the characteristics of the grammaticalization process that originates connectors, taking as analysis corpus the book «Costums de Tortosa». We have identified the temporal forms that became interordinate connectors (causal, consecutive, concessive, conditional and adversative), and have outlined the characteristics of the semantic change and of the sintactical reanalysis which can be observed in this process. As an example of this general process, we have analysed the semantic change in the case «encara» / «encara que» and the sintactical reanalysis in the semifixed structure «jasia ço que».

Usos y estrategias de traducción inglés-español de los demostrativos en narrativa de ficción**Esta investigación forma parte del proyecto Cohargument (FFI2011-25236), financiado por el Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, y del Grup d’Estudi de la Variació (2009-SGR 521), financiado por la Generalitat de Catalunya. Queremos agradecer los comentarios y sugerencias de dos evaluadores anónimos, cuya contribución ha mejorado notablemente este trabajo.

La caracterizacion tradicional de los demostrativos en terminos de proximidad o distanciasituacional es problematica cuando se aplica al analisis de textos reales, pues con frecuenciaremiten a otras unidades textuales o discursivas y son, por lo tanto, no situacionales. El analisiscontrastivo del uso de estos elementos deicticos pone de manifiesto este hecho y ayudaa caracterizarlos en las diferentes lenguas consideradas, en nuestro caso, el ingles y el espanol.La investigacion que presentamos aqui parte de un corpus de narraciones de ficcion en ingles(que muestra un sistema demostrativo binario) y sus traducciones al espanol (que exhibe unsistema ternario). Se han analizado los demostrativ…

Interjections and Pragmatic Errors in Dubbing

This paper consists of an analysis of the expressive secondary interjections found in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral and their equivalents in the Spanish and Catalan dubbed versions. The contrastive analysis of the interjections in the original English version compared with the Spanish and the Catalan dubbed versions shows that the strategies followed by the translators are different: literal translation is far more frequent in Spanish than in Catalan. Literal translation often implies an error that is pragmatic in nature since it derives from the misunderstanding of the pragmatic meaning that the interjection conveys.

Review of Evans (2007): A Glossary of Cognitive Linguistics

Mecanismos lingüísticos y discursivos de la argumentación

Una programacion de la ensenanza de la lengua que tome como punto de partida sus usos y funciones en la interaccion social tiene que sustentarse en el conocimiento de los mecanismos linguisticos y discursivos que pueden caracterizar los diferentes usos de la lengua, los distintos tipos de discurso. Este articulo presenta el conjunto de todos aquellos recursos linguistico-discursivos que caracterizan la argumentacion a partir de los planteamientos actuales sobre tipos de textos y de discursos y sobre las caracteristicas dialogicas del discurso argumentativo.

Contrasting the form and use of reformulation markers

This article deals with the form and use of reformulation markers in research papers written in English, Spanish and Catalan. Considering the form and frequency of the markers, English papers tend to prefer simple fixed markers and include fewer reformulators than Spanish and Catalan. On the contrary, formal Catalan and Spanish papers include more markers, some of which are complex and allow for some structural variability. As for use, reformulation markers establish dynamic relationships between portions of discourse which can be identified in our corpus with expansion, reduction and permutation. The analysis of the corpus shows that English authors usually reformulate to add more informa…

Co-occurrence of discourse markers in English : from juxtaposition to composition

Abstract In this paper, we report on a qualitative analysis of co-occurring discourse markers, that is, sequences of adjacent discourse markers that belong to the same unit but may express different functions. We examine several formal and functional features of these co-occurring strings on the basis of corpus examples extracted from conversational data in English. In particular, we focus on scope, meaning-in-context (or functions), syntactic category and position. Our analysis reveals several degrees of integration: differences in scope allow us to differentiate juxtaposition and combination of markers. In the case of combination, difference in meaning integration allows us to distinguish…

Use and Translation of Demonstratives in Fiction: A Contrastive Approach (English-Catalan)

Demonstratives are usually described as prototypical situational space deictics, but corpus analysis shows that situational deixis is not the most frequent function that they perform. This article shows the complexity of the use of demonstratives and the effects of such complexity on translation by analyzing some English examples and their translation into Catalan in two novels. Specifically, the English demonstratives this/these/that/those and their Catalan counterparts have been identified as a first step of the analysis. Secondly, their use has been analyzed taking into account the differences of the two deictic systems and other relevant variables. Finally, the general strategies activa…