Understanding Pragmatic Markers: A Variational Pragmatic Approach - Softcover

Aijmer, Karin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0748635505 ISBN 13: 9780748635504

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press, 2013

Synopsis

The multifunctionality of pragmatic markers makes it difficult to describe their meaning and functional potential. For example we know very little about pragmatic markers and prosody, their sociolinguistic use (how they are related to the speaker's social class, age or gender) or their distribution across text types (informal conversation, discussion, broadcast programme).This book looks at pragmatic markers in a corpus of spoken English, with a focus on the functions performed by the markers in different types of text. The author explores the syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and discourse aspects of the markers. By taking a broader perspective on the markers, classifying them, describing their class-specific properties and analysing individual markers, Karen Aijmer assesses whether any generalisations can be made about the prosody of the markers.

About this title

About the Author

Karin Aijmer is Professor Emeritus at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden

From the Back Cover

Understanding Pragmatic Markers is inspired by recent ideas in pragmatics on variation in language use with regard to social, cultural and regional factors. Karin Aijmer argues that in addition to a general analysis of pragmatic markers we need to take into account their occurrence in different varieties of English, text types and activity types. Expanding the study of pragmatic markers in this way broadens the area of study and results in a better knowledge of pragmatic markers in general.By discussing the different theoretical frameworks, methodologies such as corpus linguistics and the debates around the categorisation of the functions of pragmatic markers, this accessible introduction brings students and scholars in linguistics up-to-date with this dynamic field of research.Karin Aijmer is Professor Emeritus at the University of Gothenburg.Cover image: @ CactuSoup/iStockphoto.Cover design:[EUP logo]www.euppublishing.com

Edition details

• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0748635505
• ISBN 13: 9780748635504
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192