Italian reformulation markers. How modality affects meaning
(2011) Linguistic & Psycholinguistic Approaches to Text Structuring — Location: Louvain-la-Neuve (16.November.2011)
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- This paper will deal with the expression of discourse markers of reformulation (henceforth DMs of RF) in Italian and will consider how the medium of communication affects the frequency of use and the meaning of these markers. Broadly speaking, DMs of RF are a particular kind of discourse markers that allow the speaker to revisit a previous statement (Gulich and Kotschi, 1983, 1987; Charolles and Coltier 1986; Roulet, 1987; Rossari 1994; DelSaz Rubio, 2003; Del Satz Rubio and Fraser, 2003). DMs of RF create textual cohesion and are meant to avoid possible misunderstandings. A distinction is generally made between paraphrastic and non-paraphrastic reformulations based on the degree of semantic equivalence (Rossari, 1994). In a nutshell, paraphrastic reformulation (see Gülich and Kotschi 1983; Charolles and Coltier 1986; Gaulmyn 1987; Rossari 1994; Cuenca 2003, Cuenca and Bach 2007) is a recharacterization of the previous statement, which is considered semantically or pragmatically equivalent to the new formulation (see example 1). On the other hand, non-paraphrastic reformulations denote a change in the statement perspective from the first formulation. The latter formulation may deny the truth value of the former and retroactively subordinate it to the new formulation (see for instance example 2) (Roulet 1987; Rossari 1994). (1) [et ce soufre.] Qui s’est qui était il est sublimé c’est à dire qu’il est vraiment euh en poudre. En poudre très très très fine (Gülich and Kotschi, 1983:318) [and this sulphur.] That is, that was, it was sublimed c'est à dire that it's really mm in powder. In very very thin powder. (2) Pourquoi donnez vous à Lacan une place tellement centrale? Après tout, il y avait d’autres maîtres (Roulet, 1987:118) Why do you give Lancan such central places? Après tout, there were other masters. Nonetheless, the distinction between paraphrastic and non-paraphrastic reformulation is considered untenable by Del Satz and Fraser (2003), who propose a taxonomy of the most frequent types of English DMs of RF, namely explanation, rectification, conclusion and summary, which they hope to extend also to other languages. In this paper, we will show how the medium of communication affects the uses of DMs of RF. As Fraser and Del Satz point out, there are some DMs of RF which are predominantly found in the oral (e.g. to recap), whereas others are typical of written texts (e.g. to wit). In addition, we would like to test the hypothesis that the need for reformulation changes according to the medium of communication, describing how Italian is organised in this respect. We suppose that in speech reformulations are meant to overcome a speaker’s problem. The speaker reformulates because he needs to clarify, even to himself, a previous ill-formed statement. On the other hand, in written texts, reformulation is addressed to the reader. As Charolles and Coltier (1986) point out, DMs of RF are a sign of the author’s will of being well interpreted, in other words, the author assumes that what he wrote may present some conceptual difficulties and tries to render it plainer, reformulating. The present research is carried out on two corpora of Italian: the LIP corpus for spoken data and the CORIS/CODIS for written ones. The analysis is made following Cuenca and Bach's (2007) onomasiological methodology: a first manual analysis on some corpus excerpts, made in order to identify all Italian DMs of RF, is followed by the query of the results in the two corpora and by a systematic analysis. Preliminary results seem to confirm our hypothesis: we see that reformulations are much more frequent in speech than in written texts, and that the most frequent DM of RF, constant in the two modes, is cioè. Moreover, DMs of RF's relative frequencies change according to the mode, in particular, ecco, which is quite frequent in the oral as DM of RF; is only rarely employed as DM of RF in written texts, despite its high frequency of use. Conversely, anzi and ad esempio, which are little found in the oral, flourish in the written mode. References Brinton, Laurel J. (1996). Discourse Markers in English: Grammaticalization and Discourse Functions. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Charolles, Michel and Coltier, Danielle (1986). Le control de la compréhension dans une activité rédactionelle: elements pour l’analyse des reformulations paraphrastiques. Pratiques 49: 51-66. Cuenca, Maria Josep. 2003. Two ways to reformulate: a contrastive analysis of reformulation markers. Journal of Pragmatics 35: 1069-1093. Cuenca, Maria Joseph. and Bach, Carme (2007). Contrasting the form and use of reformulation markers. Discourse Studies 9 (2): 149–175. Del Satz Rubio, Milagros, (2003), An analysis of English discourse markers of reformulation, Ph.D. thesis, Univeristat de València. Del Satz Rubio, Milagros and Fraser, Bruce (2003). Reformulation in English. Unpublished, Available at: http://people.bu.edu/bfraser/Reformulation%20Marker %20Papers/deSaz%20&%20Fraser%20-%202003%20-%20RF%20in%20English.doc Gaulmyn, Marie-Madaleine (1987). Actes de reformulation et processus de reformulation. In L’analyse des interactions verbales. La dame de Caluire: une consultation, Berne: Peter Lange, 83–98. Gülich, Elisabeth and Kotschi, Thomas (1983). Les marqueurs de la reformulation paraphrastique. Cahiers de Linguistique Française 5: 305–351. Gülich, Elisabeth and Kotschi, Thomas (1987). Les actes de reformulation dans la consultation ”La dame de caluire”. In P. Bange (Ed.), L’analyse desinteractions verbales. La dame de Caluire: une consultation, Berne. Peter Lange, 15–81. Rossari, Corinne (1994). Les opérations de reformulation. Analyse du processus et des marques dans une perspective contrastive français-italien. Berne: Peter Lange Roulet, Eddy (1987). Completude interactive et connecteurs reformulatifs. Cahiers de Linguistique Française 8: 111–140. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs (1997). The role of the development of discourse markers in a theory of grammaticalization. Paper presented at ICEHL XII, Manchester, Available at: http://www.stanford.edu/ traugott/papers/discourse.pdf.
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Ciabarri, F. (2011). Italian reformulation markers. How modality affects meaning. Linguistic & Psycholinguistic Approaches to Text Structuring, Louvain-la-Neuve. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/162901