Search results for "Discourse marker"
showing 10 items of 39 documents
Using Corpus Linguistics as a research and training tool for Public Service Interpreting (PSI) in the legal sector
2017
Public Service Translation has for long been the ‘forgotten voice’ in PSI studies but it is arguably a valuable linguistic support for legal institutions and for training interpreters in the legal sector. Given that interpreters in the legal system in Italy often tend to ‘double-up’ as legal translators (to make a living) the line between the two is often hazy. Hybrid modalities like sight translation of legal and administrative documents is also a ‘borderline’ feature of these intertwined professions. The main aim of this paper is to describe how parallel and monolingual corpora can be used to train public service interpreters in double roles (translators, interpreters), namely by using co…
Conditional connection explored: the case of Sicilian cusà
2022
Abstract Stemming from a wh-question, the Sicilian marker cusà (cu sa ‘who knows’) expresses several epistemic meanings, which can also reach the realm of conditionality. The paper explores the discourse profile of cusà as it emerges from the analysis of diachronic data (from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) and present-day informal Sicilian, namely spoken Sicilian and present-day informal Sicilian as written by speakers on the web. These data suggest a possible path of development leading from the wh-question to new functions. We propose that the origin of this development can be explained in the light of the strategy of the “impossible question”, while the diverse functions of cus…
Traducir u omitir conectores y operadores. Simetrías/disimetrías, pérdida de la información
2018
This paper aims to contribute to the study of translation or omission of operadores and conectores in Italian and Spanish written discourse, through the analysis of a corpus extracted from the bilingual magazine Legioni e Falangi/Legiones y Falanges. (1940-43), a direct expression of an ideological and, therefore, pragmatic symmetry between two totalitarian regimes during the Second World War. Based on the case of comunque, I contrast the processes of transposition of this segnale discorsivo, revealing at the same time some syntactic and semantic (dis)symmetries between the original texts and their translation. Este trabajo pretende contribuir al estudio de la traducción u omisión de operad…
Discourse Markers in Speech: Distinctive Features and Corpus Annotation
2017
It is generally acknowledged that discourse markers are used differently in speech and writing, yet many general descriptions and most annotation frameworks are written-based, thus partially unfit to be applied in spoken corpora. This paper identifies the major distinctive features of discourse markers in spoken language, which can be associated with problems related to their scope and structure, their meaning and their tendency to co-occur. The description is based on authentic examples and is followed by methodological recommendations on how to deal with these phenomena in more exhaustive, speech-friendly annotation models.
Innovative pragmatic codes in Ugandan English : a relevance-theoretic account
2013
Published version of an article in the journal: Argumentum. Also available from the publisher at: http://argumentum.unideb.hu/2013-anyagok/bisingoma.pdf Open access The paper investigates innovative pragmatic codes in Ugandan English within the conceptual framework of Relevance Theory (cf. Sperber & Wilson 1986, Wilson & Sperber 2004). Wilson & Sperber (2004) state that an utterance is optimally relevant if it is worth the hearer’s processing effort, and if it is compatible with the speaker’s linguistic abilities and preferences. The reasoning behind these tenets of Relevance Theory can be used to account for the pervasive use of many expressions peculiar to Ugandan English. For example, in…
Dubbing dialogues… naturally: a pragmatic approach to the translation of transition markers in dubbing
2012
Although research in Audiovisual Translation is said to have come of age in the past decade, there are still several key issues that have not received the scholarly attention they deserve. In the case of dubbing, the study of the naturalness of dubbed dialogue is a case in point. The aim of the present article is to analyse the use of transition markers in dubbing in order to look precisely at the naturalness of dubbed dialogue while taking into account the dubbing constraints at play. This analysis is carried out by comparing the dubbed dialogue (English-Spanish) of a popular American sitcom to the non-translated but prefabricated dialogue of a Spanish sitcom and finally to spontaneous con…
What genres tell us about evidentials and vice versa
2018
Abstract The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it aims to delve into the influence of contextual discursive factors in determining the type of evidential chosen and the pragmatic functions developed by evidentials in Spanish parliamentary discourse; second, it shows how evidentials can also provide useful new insight on the genre. A corpus study has been carried out studying the Spanish evidential discourse marker al parecer in parliamentary debates. The analysis shows how real examples of al parecer hardly fit any category of evidentials posited previously; data also illustrates how factors such as the discursive role or the part of the parliamentary process do affect the meaning of al …
‘La verdad (es que)’: Significado nuclear y atenuante
2017
The aims of this research are to define the attenuating function in the uses of la verdad (es que) and to evaluate the counter expectation value in the awakening of this pragmatic function. La verdad (es que) has been generally defined as a reinforcement discourse marker (Portoles, 1998; Fuentes 2009, 2012), even if some recent studies have shown that it is mostly used as an attenuating device (Gonzalez & Maldonado, 2007; Soler, 2015a). Based on this assumption, the research analyses the attenuating uses of this construction in a corpus of synchronic oral and written texts in peninsular Spanish, which cover different genres and registers, in order to explain which discourse circumstances ca…
Explicit Oral Narrative Intervention for Students with Williams Syndrome
2018
Narrative skills play a crucial role in organizing experience, facilitating social interaction and building academic discourse and literacy. They are at the interface of cognitive, social, and linguistic abilities related to school engagement. Despite their relative strengths in social and grammatical skills, students with Williams syndrome (WS) do not show parallel cognitive and pragmatic performance in narrative generation tasks. The aim of the present study was to assess retelling of a TV cartoon tale and the effect of an individualized explicit instruction of the narrative structure. Participants included eight students with WS who attended different special education levels. Narratives…
Combinations of discourse markers with repairs and repetitions in English, French and Spanish
2020
Abstract Discourse markers have a central role in planning and repairing processes of speech production. They relate with fluency and disfluency phenomena such as pauses, repetitions and reformulations. Their polyfunctionality is challenging and few form-function mappings are stable cross-linguistically. This study combines a functional and a structural approach to discourse markers and their combination with and within repetitions and self-repairs in native English, French and Spanish, in order to establish the inter-relation between these three fluency-related devices and to find potentially universal patterns of use. Qualitative coding and quantitative analyses of categories of markers a…