{"id":614,"date":"2010-07-04T10:00:05","date_gmt":"2010-07-04T08:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=614"},"modified":"2010-05-06T15:23:39","modified_gmt":"2010-05-06T13:23:39","slug":"pragmatic-markers-in-contrast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=614","title":{"rendered":"Pragmatic markers in contrast"},"content":{"rendered":"
Pragmatic markers in contrast. <\/strong>Ed. <\/strong>by Karin Aijmer<\/strong> and Anne-Marie Simon-Vandenbergen<\/strong>. Oxford: Elsevier, 2006. Pp. 257. ISBN 9780080446769<\/a>. $90.95.<\/div>\n

Reviewed by Anastassia Zabrodskaja<\/strong><\/a>, Tallinn University<\/em><\/p>\n

This volume consists of twelve papers that are dedicated to a crosslinguistic study of pragmatic particles. Among the wide range of languages studied are English, Norwegian, Dutch, German, Swedish, Spanish, and French.<\/p>\n

Focusing on epistemic markers I think<\/em>, obviously<\/em>, and of course<\/em>, <\/em>Peter White <\/strong>and Motoki Sano<\/strong> (\u2018Dialogistic positions and anticipated audiences a framework for stylistic comparisons\u2019) investigate the variability in how speakers and writers position themselves intersubjectively with respect to both other speakers and potential respondents. Aspectual particles equivalent to English already<\/em>, not yet<\/em>, still<\/em>, <\/em>and not anymore <\/em>are analyzed by Willy Vandeweghe <\/strong>(\u2018Aspectual particles in some European languages\u2019). The question of whether other languages have primary contrastive discourse markers equivalent to English but<\/em> and, if so, whether these markers pattern similarly to but <\/em>is raised by Bruce Fraser<\/strong> in \u2018On the universality of discourse markers\u2019.<\/p>\n

The translation of the enigmatic well<\/em> is addressed by Stig Johansson<\/strong> in \u2018How well can well<\/em> be translated? On the English discourse particle well<\/em> and its correspondences in Norwegian and German\u2019. Johansson uses the English-Norwegian Parallel Corpus (ENPC) and the Oslo Multilingual Corpus to investigate how well<\/em> is rendered in Norwegian and German translations and which Norwegian forms give rise to well <\/em>in translations into English. Also using the ENPC, Hilde Hasselg\u00e5rd<\/strong> (\u2018\u201cNot now\u201d: On non-correspondence between the cognate adverbs now<\/em> and na<\/em>\u2019) notes that this time adverb has developed different discourse functions in the two languages: although now<\/em> functions primarily as a textual marker (i.e. continuative) in English, na<\/em> is an interpersonal, modal particle in Norwegian. Following a functional approach, Ad Foolen<\/strong>\u2019s case study on Dutch toch<\/em> and German doch<\/em> distinguishes different uses of these particles and contrasts their polysemy patterns (\u2018Polysemy patterns in contrast: The case of Dutch toch<\/em> and German doch<\/em>\u2019).<\/p>\n

Using a bidirectional English-Swedish translation corpus, Bengt Altenberg<\/strong> (\u2018The function of adverbial connectors in second initial position in English and Swedish\u2019) shows that in English and Swedish additive connectors have a strong tendency to be placed initially, whereas second position is most characteristic of contrastive and exemplifying connectors. The role of verbs as pragmatic particles in Solv, a dialect of Swedish, is explored by Jan-Ola \u00d6stman<\/strong> (\u2018Constructions in crosslanguage research: Verbs as pragmatic particles in Solv\u2019). Using the framework <\/strong>of construction grammar, \u00d6stman argues for a view of pragmatic particles as constructions and elucidates the functions of particles and, in particular, the function of question particles in Solv.<\/p>\n

Comparing English and French adversative relational pragmatic markers, Diana Lewis<\/strong> (\u2018Contrastive analysis of adversative relational markers, using comparable corpora\u2019) proposes four language-independent parameters for marker choice constraints: (i) the nature of the adversativity, (ii) the status, (iii) the organization of the flow information, and (iv) the relative salience of successive segments. Dominique Willems<\/strong> and Annemie Demol<\/strong> (\u2018Vraiment<\/em> and really<\/em> in contrast: When truth and reality meet\u2019) describe the multiple uses of the French particle vraiment <\/em>in monolingual spoken and written French and in contrast with English really<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Using data from the British National Corpus, Angela Downing<\/strong> (\u2018The English pragmatic marker surely<\/em> and its functional counterparts in Spanish\u2019) concludes that there is no single counterpart to surely <\/em>in all its nuances in Peninsular Spanish. Finally, Anna-Brita Stenstr\u00f6m<\/strong>\u2019s study is dedicated to \u2018The Spanish discourse markers: O sea<\/em> and pues<\/em> and their English correspondences\u2019<\/p>\n

This volume stands out as a valuable and insightful contribution to our understanding of the intricate nature of comparing pragmatic markers and how these markers are typologically and contrastively encoded in European languages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pragmatic markers in contrast. Ed. by Karin Aijmer and Anne-Marie Simon-Vandenbergen. Oxford: Elsevier, 2006. Pp. 257. ISBN 9780080446769. $90.95. Reviewed by Anastassia Zabrodskaja, Tallinn University This volume consists of twelve papers that are dedicated to a crosslinguistic study of pragmatic particles. Among the wide range of languages studied are English, Norwegian, Dutch, German, Swedish, Spanish, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=614"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":616,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614\/revisions\/616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}