Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 297-319).

Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1999. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 281-294). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1999. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 281-294). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 2001. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 73-77).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 178-187).

The present investigation is a mixed method study combining quantitative and qualitative analyses to explore the use of "como" as a discourse marker in the Spanish spoken in Southern Arizona, based on a corpus of twenty-four sociolinguistic interviews of young male and female Spanish-English bilinguals. In a data set of 1148 occurrences of "como," 21.3% fulfill a focus discourse function, 2.2% fulfill a quotative discourse function, and 76.5% fulfill a lexical function. The analysis of young Spanish-English bilinguals using "como" in Spanish to fulfill discourse functions of "like" in English sheds light on how bilinguals structure discourse by drawing from both languages. The results of this study on the diffusion of the focus and quotative "como" to another Spanish-English bilingual community add to our knowledge of how discourse markers can travel both within and between communities and across languages.

The aim of this Master's Thesis is the study of frequency of contraargumentative connectors in Spanish, based on the quantitative analysis of these cohesive devices in argumentative texts. The theoretical part follows and draws from the works of renowned Spanish linguists and introduces the reader to the issue of discourse markers. Thus, different proposals for its definition and classification are taken in consideration, then are described the fundamental characteristics of the contraargumentative connectors. These are examined later in the practical part. Divided into chapters it offers focus on the quantitative analysis of the connectors in three corpuses which are comprised of judgments, academic writings and editorials. For greater clarity, analyses are accompanied by graphs and frequency tables. A Czech summary is added at the end of this investigation.

The present study is concerned with the issue of discourse markers as text forming devices in the English discourse. We base our research on the following hypotheses: - discourse markers are indispensable in all registers - though some discourse markers can be met across several registers and their functions may overlap, the register itself determines the choice of discourse marker On the basis of the existing and available researches on discourse markers we aim to define the functions discourse markers play in a coherent text. On the basis of quantitative and qualitative approaches to the obtained data we aim to reveal distribution of discourse markers in certain registers. The research is based on the analysis of the texts of four different registers: drama, which is considered to be closest to spoken discourse, academic prose, legal documents and newspaper articles. The scope of the research material is fifty pages of each text. The paper is divided into three parts: •PART 1 examines some basic notions in text linguistics. It provides an overview of the concepts of discourse, cohesion, textuality, cohesive devices and the notion of register and its components. •PART 2 of the paper gives a closer outlook of discourse markers. It presents points of view of such linguists as Halliday and Hasan (1992), Schiffrin (1987), Blakemore (1987), Fraser (1996), Trujillo Saez (2003) on the definition and delimitation of these particles. Also, the discussion of the functions of these... [to full text]

Discourse connectives are metatextual comments that signal discourse coherence relations. They can be realized by sentence adverbials that have their roots in verb phrase adverbials and have followed a path of development that is well attested both for English and cross-linguistically. This study investigates how and why it occurs. It claims that the development belongs to a wider phenomenon of unidirectional internal semantic change, that this change involves context-induced reinterpretation, and that both the immediate discourse context and the wider rhetorical context can be instrumental in bringing it about. Using diachronic and synchronic data in a corpus-linguistic approach, the frequency and distribution of the adverbials after all, in fact, at least and of course are investigated. These are found to follow similar paths of development at different rates and to varying extents. Each undergoes some increase in frequency, subjectification and abstraction, shift of discourse plane and categorial reanalysis. Each acquires at least one connective function to express rhetorical relations such as concession, contrast, justification or elaboration. These relations are defined using the framework of Rhetorical Structure Theory. The analysis identifies, in the history of the expressions, contexts of co-occurrence with particular relations that are argued to generate connective implicatures which later crystallize. During long periods the expressions may have stable but defeasible implicatures in the relevant contexts. These contexts include rhetorical structures spanning two or more clause complexes and often consisting of quasi-conventional sequences of rhetorical relations typical of argumentation. They may be described as incipient discourse constructions or rhetorical idioms. The emergence of new discourse connectives is seen to share many of the features attested in the grammaticalization of lexical material. It is argued that these phenomena are best accounted for in a single, usage-based theory of internal semantic change.