1,720,971 research outputs found
Information Structure and the Utterance Right Periphery in Mandarin: A systematic overview with reference to English and Italian
No full textA significant body of literature has explored information structure, examining how speakers shape content to suit communicative needs, including participants’ mental states. The utterance right periphery is a critical point in this process, allowing speakers to (re)evaluate utterance appropriateness before reception. In Mandarin, a topic-prominent language, these elements are pivotal in organizing discourse and facilitating effective communication.
This volume extensively explores information structure, outlining the main categories, concepts and terminologies relevant to the expression of information structure, as well as the syntactic and prosodic strategies available for topic and focus encoding. Drawing chiefly upon functionalist models, an examination of Mandarin Chinese’s structures is provided with reference to Italian and English, highlighting their (a)symmetries. Furthermore, in addressing the multifunctionality and the faceted nature of the right periphery and right dislocations, the volume integrates syntactic, cognitive, and interpersonal perspectives to elucidate both language-specific and universal tendencies.
Overall, the study aims to disentangle and consolidate theories on information structure and the right periphery while offering valuable insights into Mandarin's linguistic nuances. Ultimately, it contributes to a deeper understanding of cross-linguistic variations and their implications for communication
Utterance-Final Pragmatic Markers in Spoken Mandarin: The Case of (Nĭ) Zhīdào Ma/Ba (你)知道吗/吧
Full text linkThe current study addresses the pragmatic marker (nĭ) zhīdào ma/ba (你) 知道吗/吧 (you
know), aiming to identify the (a)symmetries between (ni) zhidao ma and (ni) zhidao ba used
in utterance-final position in oral interactions. The research questions include aspects mostly
unaccounted for by previous studies, including the marker’s position in the turn, the S(peaker)’s
gender, the H(earer)’s response or reaction to the utterance, and the relationship between S and
H. Based on the results of the quantitative and qualitative analyses of 173 occurrences extracted
from 12 hours of spontaneous telephone conversations, significant differences set apart the two
variants, possibly due to the particles’ original pragmatic meanings and resulting in a tendential
division of labour. Most prominently, the ma-variant tends to occur in turn-final position and
to trigger more explicit responses, while the ba-variant mostly occurs in turn-medial position to
maintain S’s turn and H’s attention
(Inter)subjectivity and information structure: The pragmatics of left and right peripheries in spoken Mandarin
Full text linkThis study provides a novel data-driven analytic model for the study of the utterance peripheries. The model operationalises the relationship between information structure and (inter)subjectivity, uncovering how speakers simultaneously manage cognitive and social aspects of communication. Using a sample of 21 spontaneous telephone conversations between Mandarin native speakers (CallFriend Mandarin Corpus), all aboutness and framing topics (Lambrecht, 1994; Frascarelli, 2017) occurring at the utterance right periphery were identified and compared with an equivalent number of topics produced at the left periphery. The study provides a multifactorial analysis including referent activation (Chafe, 1987), subjectivity (Du Bois, 2007) and intersubjectivity (Tantucci and Wang, 2018), demonstrating that multiple dimensions must be taken into account to grasp the differences between the two peripheries of the utterance. In fact, rather than differing in activation profiles or presence of (inter)subjectivity, they are characterized by distinct combinations of these dimensions. Specifically, right-peripheral topics frequently display the simultaneous presence of active referents, a subjective stance conveyed by the speaker – most frequently negative – and a peripheral marker of intersubjectivity. The complex interaction between these dimensions suggests that right peripheries serve as a key site for negotiating social relationships, aligning perspectives, and managing politeness
Vittorio Tantucci: Language and Social Minds: The Semantics and Pragmatics of Intersubjectivity
No full textThis book represents a ground-breaking and commendable contribution, for it combines insights from different disciplinary fields and, most importantly, brings together research on Theory of Mind (ToM) and intersubjectivity, which have been the focus of two separate lines of research—cognitive psychology and usage-based linguistics, respectively. Through the analysis of naturally occurring linguistic expressions of intersubjectivity in spontaneous contexts (Tantucci 2021: 4–5), this volume provides a novel way to detect instances of ToM—i.e. the capacity to think about our own and others’ states of mind (Baron-Cohen 2001: 174). The topic of intersubjectivity is investigated through a large-scale corpus-based methodology and emphasis is given to its cross-cultural dimension, both from the diachronic and from the ontogenetic angles.
The book is organized in three parts: in the first part, Chapter 1 introduces the intersubjective gradience model proposed and describes how it links to existing theories in cognitive psychology and linguistics, as well as the gaps it is meant to fill; Chapter 2 describes the two major types of intersubjectivity that are at stake in the gradience model and which inform all of the following discussion throughout the volume: immediate and extended intersubjectivity. The second part of the book is devoted to a number of case studies to illustrate how the model can be applied both to the study of diachronic semasiological reanalysis (Chapter 3) and to the ontogenesis of first language acquisition (Chapter 4). In the last part, Chapter 5 discusses intersubjectivity as a schematic representation of a social persona, and finally sketches the possible applications of the model in different fields, including research on the autism spectrum disorder
The modal particle ma 嘛: theoretical frames, analysis and interpretive perspectives
Full text linkThis article sets out to provide a semantic and pragmatic account of the modal particle ma 嘛, endeavouring to put into light new aspects in its function which, at present, remain widely unexplored in the literature. It presents an analysis of the particle ma by interrogating a written and a spoken corpus, showing how the semantic and the pragmatic levels are tightly interweaved in the functioning of ma: the results supported my hypothesis that the particle is plausibly a marker of interpersonal evidentiality (IE), a category set up by Tantucci (2013), used to signal a socially acknowledged piece of information, playing a fundamental role in the expression of politeness by safeguarding the interlocutors’ face; consequently, ma is always used with information that has an active or accessible status in the interlocutors’ mind and that is always pragmatically salient, independently of its position (at the end or inside the sentence), marking a Topic or a Focus. The particle performs pragmatic functions close to the ones of discourse markers since it increases the relevance of the marked information to the context, therefore also playing a contributing role in the coherence of discourse
Standard and variation in the use of sentence-final particles: A case study based on speakers of Mandarin and Min varieties
No full textSentence-final particles are widely used in spoken Chinese and have been analyzed from different theoretical perspectives. This study aims at investigating the influence of a speaker's dialectal background on their selection of SFPs in Mandarin Chinese. Two types of sentence completion questionnaires were submitted to 86 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled at Fuzhou University, roughly half of whom use - to varying degrees - one of the Chinese varieties spoken in Fujian Province. Data collected from the 72 valid questionnaires were analyzed with results showing that dialectal background is a significant factor in the close-ended item type questionnaire
Encoding Motion Events in Mandarin and Italian: Theoretical Issues, Teaching Materials, and Implications for CFL/CSL Teaching
Full text linkThe encoding of motion events shows significant cross-linguistic variation: Mandarin, a satellite-framed language, encodes path information in secondary elements, whereas Italian, a verb-framed language, lexicalizes path directly within verbal roots. This typological difference, rooted in Talmy (2000)’s framework, poses challenges for Italian-speaking learners in acquiring Mandarin's primary device for motion encoding, directional verbal complexes (DVCs). These constructions are sequences of verbal morphemes that encode multiple motion components simultaneously, including manner of motion, path, and perspective. In contrast, Italian strategies for motion encoding tend to emphasize trajectory or path over the manner of motion. Through an analysis of CFL (Chinese as a Foreign Language) textbooks and grammars used in three main Italian universities, this study identifies critical gaps, including insufficient explanations of the syntactic and–more notably–semantic constraints impacting DVC word order, object positioning, and aspectual marking. Findings indicate that a comparative, typologically aware approach – leveraging Italian constructions with similar functions such as syntagmatic verbs – could bridge these gaps, fostering a more accurate understanding of DVCs. The study recommends enhancing teaching materials to better represent the full syntactic and semantic range of DVCs, aiding learners in mastering the complexities of Chinese motion event encoding
Pragmatic markers and the right periphery in Mandarin Chinese: A systematic review of types, functions and co-occurrence
Full text linkLe Olimpiadi invernali di Pechino 2022: parole chiave nella stampa di Cina continentale, Hong Kong e Singapore
No full textQuesto articolo prende in esame la rappresentazione delle Olimpiadi invernali di Pechino 2022 nella stampa in lingua cinese della Cina continentale, di Hong Kong e di Singapore. Strumenti della linguistica dei corpora quali keyword e collocazioni hanno reso possibile l’identificazione di tematiche diverse a seconda del luogo di pubblicazione: se le notizie della Cina continentale e di Hong Kong appaiono vicine e affrontano tematiche in linea con l’agenda (inter) nazionale del governo cinese quali la lotta al Covid e la promozione di valori sociali positivi, la stampa di Singapore include tematiche più variegate che prendono in considerazione le agende di attori internazionali diversificati.This article tackles the representation of the Beijng 2022 Winter Olympics in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Singapore Mandarin news reports. Corpus linguistic tools such as keywords and collocation analyses have been employed to identify the different topics being addressed according to the place of publication: results show that while Mainland China and Hong Kong news appear rather aligned in dealing with topics close to the Chinese government’s (inter)national agenda such as the Covid response and the promotion of positive social values, Singapore news include more varied topics accounting for the agendas of more diversified international agents
Verbal engagement in doctor–patient interaction: Resonance in Western and Traditional Chinese Medicine
Full text linkThis study provides a framework for assessing doctors' verbal engagement during medical consultations. It quantifies doctors' degrees of resonance (Du Bois, 2014), a form of interactional alignment (Pickering and Garrod, 2021) that occurs when speakers imitate and re-use words and constructions uttered by their interlocutors. Resonance often involves creativity and active participation in others’ speech, overtly signalling that what they said is relevant for continuing the interaction (Tantucci and Wang, 2021). We looked at Chinese naturalistic consultations and explored whether resonance produced by Chinese doctors with a background in Western medicine (WM) differs from Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) doctors. Our data includes 60 online medical consultations and shows that TCM doctors’ resonance is remarkably higher. This reflected stronger involvement in patients’ speech in combination with other interactional indicators of engagement such as sentence peripheral markers of intersubjectivity (Tantucci, 2021) and strategies of relevance acknowledgement (Tantucci, 2023). The pragmatics of TCM doctors is also characterised by a more directive language geared towards a healthy lifestyle, whereas WM doctors favour etiological assessment, with a predominant use of assertive speech acts
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