Contrastive analysis of reformulation markers in English and Italian

Ciabarri, Federica
(2013) International Contrastive Linguistics Conference VII & Using Corpora in Contrastive and Translation Studies III — Location: Ghent (11.July.2013)

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  • Ciabarri, FedericaUCLouvain
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Abstract
The aim of this paper is a contrastive analysis of reformulation markers in spoken English and Italian. Broadly speaking, reformulation markers are a particular kind of discourse markers that allow the speaker to revisit a previous statement (Gülich & Kotschi 1983; 1987; Charolles & Coltier 1986; Roulet 1987; Rossari 1994; Del Saz Rubio & Fraser 2003). Reformulation markers create textual cohesion and are meant to avoid possible misunderstandings (see examples). 1. come avviene questo passaggio di informazione cioè come si trasforma un’informazione da una lingua a un’altra [The way in which this information transmission happens cioè how information is transformed from one language to another] [LIP NA12] 2. Do you think Shakespeare really saw all those things in / I think / I think people ever since tried to <,> read more into it / I mean I don’t know whether he really did [ICE-GB S1A22] The analysis will be carried out on two corpora comparable for the size and the type of data collected: the LIP corpus for Italian and the spoken section of ICE-GB for English. In the first part of this paper, we will perform an exploratory analysis on a sample of corpus excerpts, in order to map most of potential reformulation markers in the two languages. At this stage the comparison will be centred on the number and on the variety of expressions the two languages dispose of. Special attention will be paid to the formal characteristics of those markers (simple vs. complex forms, grammatical category, the semantic source of these expressions, etc.) In the second part of the analysis, the most frequent reformulation marker in the two languages will be analysed according to the guidelines of parametric analysis (cf. Degand & Bestgen 2004; Spooren & Degand 2010) in order to describe the kind of reformulation expressed with a particular attention to the context and co-text in which the markers occur. From the combination of the two analyses we aim to draw a clearer picture of the similarities and the differences in the use of reformulation markers in the two languages. In a preliminary pilot study, we observed that in spoken English the number of reformulation markers per million words is significantly higher than Italian (χ2=441, df=1, p=0.05). Also, in English the most common reformulation markers tend to be syntactically complex (e.g. I mean, you know, you see), whereas in Italian they are more likely to be single words (e.g. cioè (that is, I mean), ecco (here is), anzi (rather, indeed)). Among the 10 most frequent reformulation markers identified in the exploratory pilot study, we see that in Italian 9 of them are adverbs (ecco (here is), allora (then)) and conjunctions (insomma (after all), quindi (therefore)) and only one is a verb (diciamo (let’s say)); in contrast in English reformulation markers belong to a wider range of grammatical forms: verbs (I mean, you know), nouns (sort of, kind of) and adverbs (so, then). References: Charolles, Michel, and Danielle Coltier. 1986. “Le Control De La Compréhension Dans Une Activité Rédactionelle: Élements Pour L’analyse Des Reformulations Paraphrastiques.” Pratiques 49: 51–66. Degand, Liesbeth, and Yves Bestgen. 2004. “Connecteurs Et Analyses De Corpus : De L’analyse Manuelle à L’analyse Automatisée.” In L’Unité Texte, ed. Sylvie Porhiel and Dominique Klingler, 49–73. Pleyben: Perspectives. Gülich, Elisabeth, and Thomas Kotschi. 1983. “Les Marqueurs De La Reformulation Paraphrastique.” Cahiers De Linguistique Française 5: 305–351. Gülich, Elisabeth, and Thomas Kotschi.1987. “Les Actes De Reformulation Dans La Consultation ‘La Dame De Caluire’.” In L’analyse Desinteractions Verbales. La Dame De Caluire: Une Consultation, ed. Pierre Bange, 15–81. Berne: Peter Lange. Rossari, Corinne. 1994. Les Opérations De Reformulation. Analyse Du Processus Et Des Marques Dans Une Perspective Contrastive Français-italien. Berne: Peter Lang. Roulet, Eddy. 1987. “Completude Interactive Et Connecteurs Reformulatifs.” Cahiers De Linguistique Française 8: 111–140. Del Saz Rubio, Milagros, and Bruce Fraser. 2003. “Reformulation in English.” people.bu.edu/bfraser/Reformulation%20Marker%20Papers/deSaz%20&%20Fraser%20-%202003%20-%20RF%20in%20English.doc. Spooren, Wilbert, and Liesbeth Degand. 2010. “Coding Coherence Relations: Reliability and Validity.” Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 6 (2): 241–266. doi:10.1515/CLLT.2010.009.
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Ciabarri, F. (2013). Contrastive analysis of reformulation markers in English and Italian. International Contrastive Linguistics Conference VII & Using Corpora in Contrastive and Translation Studies III, Ghent.