Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

This dissertation investigates three interrogative sentence types that are each associated with a particular speaker bias. In asking one of these questions, the speaker invariably conveys a prior expectation, or belief, that a specific answer to the question is the true one. These sentence types include reversed-polarity tag questions, negative polar questions, and questions containing a strong negative polarity item or a constituent that is emphatically focused. For each of these three question types, I address the two questions: (1) What kind of meaning is bias; and (2) what grammatical feature, if any, is the bias linked to? In answer to the first question, I argue that bias is an assertion (rather than, for example, a conversational implicature). As a result, biased questions can be thought of as a type of indirect speech act (Searle 1975). Following Asher and Lascarides (2001), I model biased questions as instances of a complex speech act type Assertion · Question. On this analysis, biased questions are simultaneously assertions and questions. I provide evidence, for this claim, showing these question types share distributional properties of both assertions and questions. With regard to the second question, I argue that intonation, in addition to syntax and compositional and lexical semantics, plays a key role in linking the use of the kind of interrogative sentence described above to an assertion. Indeed, one of the benefits to studying biased questions is that they provide a case study of the interaction of intonation and discourse function. I begin to develop an analysis of intonation within the theory of discourse provided by Asher and Lascarides (2003) which builds on the work of Pierrehumbert and Hirschberg (1990) and Steedman (2000, 2003), amongst others. Specifically, I argue that intonation provides information about the speakers cognitive state, i.e. about his or her beliefs and intentions. Thus intonation contributes information that can be used to compute the rhetorical contribution of an utterance to a discourse or dialogue. On this model, intonation indirectly contributes to the determination of the discourse function of an utterance. / text

Thesis--Catholic University, 1971. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 225-232).

This study explores how native and nonnative English speakers understand and perceive directness types in written teacher feedback (WTF). Currently research suggests that indirect speech in WTF will encourage students to think and maintain politeness between teacher and student (Benkendorf, 2001; Riley, 2003; Thonus, 1999; Vassileva, 2000). However, research also indicates that indirect speech may be more difficult to interpret than direct speech (Champagne, 2001; Holtgraves, 1999), which suggests that indirect speech used in WTF may be difficult for students to interpret and use to improve their compositions (Ferris, 2007; Hyland & Hyland, 2001). This difficulty may be even more acute for second language (NNS) learners (Ferris, 2002; Mackiewicz & Riley, 2002, 2003). This thesis will test and propose refinements to this study. In this study, native (NS) and nonnative (NNS) English speaking university students, were given two essays directness of the WTF. These participants had three main tasks: 1. to identify whether or not WTF requests a correction, 2. to make the correction if requested, 3. to identify perceptions of the teacher and paper based on the WTF. For the first two tasks, accuracy and response times were calculated. Results showed that directness type affects the speed and accuracy of both NS and NNS learners. Direct speech in WTF was more quickly identified than indirect speech (indirect speech acts and hedging). Indirect speech was the slowest and least accurate for both NS and NNS learners in relation to positive WTF. Surprisingly, both NS and NNS were slowest for making corrections on direct WTF. In addition, directness type also affected the perception on the teacher and paper. For example, NS were likely to perceive indirect speech as being from a female teacher. NNS were more likely to give papers with hedged WTF an A and those with indirect WTF a C grade. This study suggests that the directness type of WTF affects how quickly and how well it is understood by both NS and NNS learners. It also suggests that the pragmatic theory may explain why direct speech is processed more quickly than indirect speech (indirect speech acts and hedging).

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo descrever o uso dos modos Konjunktiv e Indicativo no discurso indireto no alemão atual. Esta descrição será feita a partir da análise de um corpus especialmente compilado para este trabalho, composto por 400 textos online do gênero notícia, dos periódicos alemães SPIEGEL ONLINE e FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). Para a realização deste estudo partiu-se de várias hipóteses, segundo as quais a escolha do modo do discurso indireto é influenciada por diversos fatores, tais como: a posição do discurso citante em relação ao discurso citado, o tempo verbal do discurso citante, a factividade do verbo do discurso citante, o tipo de verbo do discurso citado, a presença de um elemento introdutor na oração subordinada do discurso citado, o grau de inserção da oração subordinada no discurso citado e a distância entre os verbos do discurso citante e citado. Por se tratar de um estudo variacionista, os dados foram analisados estatisticamente. Os fatores que favorecem o uso do Indicativo no discurso indireto são: posição anteposta do discurso citante (tendência); os tempos Presente e Perfeito do verbo do discurso citante; oração subordinada introduzida pela conjunção dass; o verbo do discurso citado é sein ou werden como auxiliares da passiva, a oração subordinada tem o grau de inserção um, a distância entre ambos os verbos é grande. / This masters thesis examines the verbal moods used in indirect speech in modern German. For that purpose, a corpus was collected that will be analysed. This corpus contains 400 online journalistic articles from two news sources: SPIEGEL ONLINE and FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). In order to carry out this research, various hypotheses are assumed according to which the choice of the mood of indirect discourse is influenced by diverse factors such as: the place and tense of the reporting verb, factivity of the reporting verb, verb type of indirect speech, type of subordinate clause, degree of embedding and distance between the verbs of indirect speech and the reporting verb. The data was analised statistically since this is a variation study. The most important results are the factors that promote the use of indicative in indirect speech: pre-position of the reporting verb (tendency); the present or present perfect tenses of the reporting verb; subordinate clauses introduced by dass; sein or werden as the verb of indirect speech and as an auxiliary of a passive construction; the degree of embedding of a subordinate clause, and the degree of distance between the verbs.

The purpose of this work is to investigate how processes of inference are reflected in the grammar of the natural language. I consider a range of phenomena which call for a representational theory of mind and thought. These constructions display a certain regularity in their truth conditions, but the regularity does not extend to closure under arbitrary logical entailment. I develop a logic that allows me to speak formally about classes of inferences. This logic is then applied to analysis of indirect speech, belief reports, evidentials (with special attention to Bulgarian) and clarity assertions. / text

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo descrever o uso dos modos Konjunktiv e Indicativo no discurso indireto no alemão atual. Esta descrição será feita a partir da análise de um corpus especialmente compilado para este trabalho, composto por 400 textos online do gênero notícia, dos periódicos alemães SPIEGEL ONLINE e FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). Para a realização deste estudo partiu-se de várias hipóteses, segundo as quais a escolha do modo do discurso indireto é influenciada por diversos fatores, tais como: a posição do discurso citante em relação ao discurso citado, o tempo verbal do discurso citante, a factividade do verbo do discurso citante, o tipo de verbo do discurso citado, a presença de um elemento introdutor na oração subordinada do discurso citado, o grau de inserção da oração subordinada no discurso citado e a distância entre os verbos do discurso citante e citado. Por se tratar de um estudo variacionista, os dados foram analisados estatisticamente. Os fatores que favorecem o uso do Indicativo no discurso indireto são: posição anteposta do discurso citante (tendência); os tempos Presente e Perfeito do verbo do discurso citante; oração subordinada introduzida pela conjunção dass; o verbo do discurso citado é sein ou werden como auxiliares da passiva, a oração subordinada tem o grau de inserção um, a distância entre ambos os verbos é grande. / This masters thesis examines the verbal moods used in indirect speech in modern German. For that purpose, a corpus was collected that will be analysed. This corpus contains 400 online journalistic articles from two news sources: SPIEGEL ONLINE and FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). In order to carry out this research, various hypotheses are assumed according to which the choice of the mood of indirect discourse is influenced by diverse factors such as: the place and tense of the reporting verb, factivity of the reporting verb, verb type of indirect speech, type of subordinate clause, degree of embedding and distance between the verbs of indirect speech and the reporting verb. The data was analised statistically since this is a variation study. The most important results are the factors that promote the use of indicative in indirect speech: pre-position of the reporting verb (tendency); the present or present perfect tenses of the reporting verb; subordinate clauses introduced by dass; sein or werden as the verb of indirect speech and as an auxiliary of a passive construction; the degree of embedding of a subordinate clause, and the degree of distance between the verbs.

The thesis compares forms of speech presentation (and marginally writing presentation) in British newspapers through a theory of Speech, Writing and Thought presentation as introduced by E. Semino and M. Short (2004). On a specialised corpus of 6 newspaper articles, the work compares qualitive and quantitative tendencies of individual speech presentation categories, focusing on the diagnosis of differences and common points in two journalistic sub-genres, the tabloid and the broadsheet. The speech presentation categorization is applied as a clinal model with permeable borders between individual categories. The focus is on detecting and analysing the fucntions of individual categories of speech presentation in terms of information, style, pragmatics and form. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

The novel Leonora by Elena Poniatowska is about Leonora Carrington who was born into a wealthy family and challenged family traditions, and those expectations imposed by her social background and her gender. It will be shown that the main character acts according to a self-construction process free of social impositions. Simone de Beauvoir’s well-known phrase “one is not born a woman, one becomes one”, is one of the feminist positions that contributes to this analysis, as well as the literary techniques explained by Gérard Genette, Oscar Tacca, Mieke Bal and the narratology theories of focalization, direct speech, indirect speech and free indirect speech. The aim of this essay is to analyze the literary techniques that present the self-construction of the main character, and their effects on the reader. The hypotheses of this essay are that in order to present the self-construction of the character, the literary techniques create an effect of alternately zooming the reader in to the main character’s experience, and zooming out to a more objective view. In addition, the literary techniques used to present Carrington’s self-construction seek to show her feminist stance and her transgressions in both private and public spheres. Poniatowska’s literary techniques deliver the message that when a woman is released from social and cultural constraints she has the power to modify spheres.

Esta dissertação consiste num estudo crítico sobre Quincas Borba, de Machado de Assis, que tem como hipótese principal a de que a crise psíquica do personagem tem correspondente com o processo de problematização da forma do romance. Na obra encontramos, por meio de uma voz narrativa versátil, um personagem cindido, cuja trajetória culmina em loucura e morte. O escritor produziu uma obra inquieta diante de esquematismos propostos pelo Romantismo e Naturalismo, em uma possível busca de modalidades de ficção que estivessem mais de acordo com o seu perfil artístico (PASSOS, 2007). Além disso, ligar-se-ia à crise do personagem e aos questionamentos envolvendo a forma do romance a crise de composição que Machado de Assis enfrentou durante a escrita de Quincas Borba. O romance foi reescrito, produzindo diferenças entre a versão em folhetim, publicada em A Estação (1886-1891), e a publicada em livro (1891). Procuramos analisar tais variantes nas duas versões, considerando o uso que o escritor fez do discurso indireto livre na representação da interioridade dos personagens, incluindo o protagonista. Assim, ao considerar como a fragmentação da consciência de Rubião é operada pelo narrador de Quincas Borba e qual o seu sentido na relação estabelecida com os outros elementos da obra, a pesquisa pretende analisar o modo como Machado de Assis lidou com a forma do romance para compor um personagem em processo de desintegração psíquica, justamente em uma obra problemática do ponto de vista de seu próprio processo de escrita. / This thesis consists of a critical study about Machado de Assis\'s Quincas Borba, supporting the main hypothesis that the protagonist\'s psychic crisis corresponds to the complexity of the novel\'s form. In this novel, a versatile narrative voice portrays a \"split\" character whose trajectory culminates in madness, and death. In Brazil\'s literary scene, Machado de Assis was in search of fictional modalities to suit his artistic profile, having produced a disquieting work that defied the schemes set out by Romanticism and Naturalism (PASSOS, 2007). Furthermore, the crisis of the character and the questioning of the novel\'s form can be associated with the compositional crisis faced by the author during the writing process of Quincas Borba. The novel has been rewritten, resulting in differences between the serial version, published in A Estação (1886-1891), and the book version (1891). We analyse these variants focusing on the use that the author makes of free indirect speech in the representation of characters\'s inner self, including the protagonist. We aim to consider how Rubião\'s consciousness fragmentation is carried out by the narrator, and to understand the meaning of the rapport established among this form of fragmentation and other elements in the novel. This research will, therefore, analyse the means of portraying a character in the midst of psychic disintegration in a work whose very writing process was especially problematic.