abstract: Yaʕni ‘lit. he/it signifies/means/intends’ is an arising linguistic and discourse-pragmatic phenomenon in many varieties and speech situations of spoken Arabic. Yet, the few scholarly investigations yaʕni has received come from restricted and limited contexts of language use. The primary aims of this dissertation were to, first, expand and broaden research on Arabic yaʕni into novel contexts of language use and to, second, explore the linguistic and the discourse-pragmatic functions of yaʕni. Therefore, the data used for this dissertation were collected, selected, and analyzed from a sample of spoken data brought from two episodes of a Saudi sports TV show Alkurah Tatakallam ‘lit. the ball speaks.’ The analytical procedures and discussions showed that yaʕni had the following types of linguistic and discourse-pragmatic functions: as (a) a verb, (b) elaboration and turn expansion, (c) repair organization, (d) managing the turn-taking system, (e) alleviation and hedging, (f) marking concessive/contrastive relations, and (g) emphatic yaʕni. The discussions seemed to suggest the gradual solidification of three views: First, there is a suggestion that the categorical status ranging from verb yaʕni to the discourse marker yaʕni can be understood in terms of scalarity, gradience, and prototypicality. Second, there is another suggestion that gradations can also be located between the discourse-pragmatic functions of yaʕni. Third, there is a suggestion that, synchronically and diachronically, yaʕni as a form has been wildly drifting from its categorical verb status, lexical source, propositional meaning, and even its discourse-pragmatic markerhood. The analysis, discussions, and suggestions invoked the idea of bridging context(s) related to the categorical status and the discourse-pragmatic functions of yaʕni. This categorical status of yaʕni puts the binary distinction between conceptual meaning and procedural meaning of relevance theory, and the studies of yaʕni following such a binary distinction, into question since this distinction seemed blurry. The bridging context(s) seemed to support the gradualness and the directionality of the evolution of DMs. Therefore, the categorical and discourse-pragmatic behavior of yaʕni seems to have support from the hypothesis and theories such as grammaticalization and pragmaticalization. It seems also that the historical development of yaʕni can be discussed in terms of the hypothesis and theories of idiomaticization and phraseology. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Linguistics and Applied Linguistics 2018

This article provides a case study account of the language functions of tipo, which is a pragmatic feature of Argentine Spanish vernacular, as used by 10 young adult native speakers of the language (ages 18-25), in the context of oral face-to-face and synchronous technology-mediated written interactions with young adult Spanish L2 learners. An examination of naturally occurring and self-reported language awareness data suggests that tipo has acquired a wide array of pragmatic functions it is a marker of hesitation, exemplification, reformulation, vagueness, and quoted speech. In its non-pragmatic marking uses, it can refer to an unspecified man, preface a hyponym, and be used to make a comparison. Participants' usage patterns, in conjunction with their understanding of sociopragmatic variability in the use of tipo, are discussed as a direction for research in colloquial features of youth vernacular.

Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The goal of this study was to determine and compare the functions of the pragmatic markers (PMs) okay, anyway and shame as they occur in two spoken components of the International Corpus of English (ICE), namely ICE-SA (South African English) and ICE-EA (East African English). Using the commercially available Concordance program WordSmith Tools 4.0, all instances of okay, anyway and shame were identified in each corpus and all non-PM instances were then excluded. The remaining instances of okay, anyway and shame were subsequently hand coded to determine the primary functions that these elements exhibit. The classification of the various functions was done according to Fraser’s (1996, 1999, 2006) framework for identification of PMs. Despite the different size and state of completion of the two corpora, it was found that the functions of the two PMs okay and anyway were similar in South African English and East African English. The findings of the corpus investigation included identifying the functions of okay as both a conversational management marker and a basic marker, as well as its role in turn taking. Anyway was found to function as an interjection, a mitigation marker, a conversational management marker and a discourse marker. Shame was found to be a uniquely South African English PM, and to function both as an interjection and as a solidarity marker. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die doel van hierdie studie was om vas te stel watter funksies verrig word deur die pragmatiese merkers (PM's) okay, anyway en shame, soos wat hulle gebruik word in twee gesproke komponente van die Internasionale Korpus van Engels (IKE), naamlik IKE-SA (Suid-Afrikaanse Engels) en IKE-OA (Oos-Afrika Engels). Met behulp van die kommersieel-beskikbare Concordance-program Wordsmith Tools 4.0, is alle gevalle van okay, anyway en shame binne die onderskeie korpusse geïdentifiseer, waarna alle nie-PM gevalle uitgesluit is. Die oorblywende gevalle van okay, anyway en shame is daarna met die hand gekodeer ten einde die primêre funksies van hierdie elemente vas te stel. Die funksies is geklassifiseer volgens Fraser (1996, 1999, 2006) se raamwerk vir die identifikasie van PM's. Ten spyte van verskille in die grootte en vlak van voltooidheid van die twee korpora, is vasgestel dat die PM's okay en anyway soortgelyke funksies verrig in beide Suid-Afrikaanse Engels en Oos-Afrika Engels. Uit die korpus-analise het dit verder geblyk dat okay nie net 'n rol speel in beurtneming nie, maar ook funksioneer as 'n gespreksbestuur-merker en basiese merker. Anyway blyk op sy beurt te funksioneeer as 'n tussenwerpsel, versagting-merker, gespreksbestuurmerker en diskoersmerker. Laastens is gevind dat shame as PM uniek is aan Suid- Afrikaanse Engels en dat dit funksioneer as beide 'n tussenwerpsel en solidariteitsmerker.

This thesis presents a contrastive analysis of the English pragmatic markers now and well and their Czech translation equivalents. The overall material is based on 200+12 occurrences that were excerpted from the electronic parallel corpus InterCorp, with all the instances appearing in fictional dialogues. The contrastive study focuses on the role of translation as a means to understand better the nature of the two pragmatic markers. It analyzes specific marker-collocate sequences and the respective Czech translation equivalents. It demonstrates that certain marker-collocate sequences have a tendency to be translated by specific Czech translation equivalents and that the role of other factors, such as position in discourse structure, prosody, and broader context, play in this respect an important role as well. All this and the finding that both now and well share certain Czech translation equivalents add to the multifunctionality of both now and well and prove that a combination of other factors is needed to comprehend the use of the two pragmatic markers in English. The comparison of the Czech translation equivalents in this thesis to the Czech translation equivalents in the Czech-English dictionary Lingea attempted to provide an example of how a contrastive analysis can be useful in Lexicography.

The aim of the research is to analyse the expression and contents of non-morphological evidentiality in Lithuanian realized by neuter (non-agreeing) adjectives and adverbs. The thesis focuses on the non-agreeing adjectives and the adverbs that derive from the semantic domains of perception, comparison and knowledge and thus have the potential to acquire evidential meanings. The study explores the morphosyntactic properties (Complement-Taking-Predicates and adverbials) of the markers under consideration, their quantitative parameters and semantic functional distribution in fiction and academic discourse. The study is corpus-driven and the data have been obtained from the Corpus of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language, namely from the subcorpus of fiction, and from the Corpus of Academic Lithuanian. The analysis of the morphosyntactic properties of the markers and their semantic functional distribution suggests that in Lithuanian the non-agreeing adjectives convey evidential meanings more frequently than the adverbs because the adverbs mainly function as predicate modifiers. The main evidential value is inference based on perceptual or conceptual sources of evidence. The non-agreeing adjectives and the adverbs under consideration can also express the meanings of epistemic modality, expectation or function as pragmatic markers. / Pagrindinis darbo tikslas yra išanalizuoti nemorfologinio evidencialumo raišką ir turinį, realizuojamus bevardės giminės (nederinamaisiais) būdvardžiais ir prieveiksmiais grožinės literatūros tekstuose ir lietuvių mokslo kalboje. Tyrimo objektą sudaro nederinamieji būdvardžiai ir prieveiksmiai, kurių leksinės reikšmės atspindi semantinius laukus, turinčius potencialą žymėti žinių šaltinį. Darbe analizuojami šių vienetų morfosintaksiniai bruožai (komplementiniai predikatai ir adverbialai), tiriami jų kiekybiniai rodikliai ir atskleidžiama semantinė funkcinė distribucija. Šioje disertacijoje atliekamas tyrimas naudojant tekstynų metodologiją. Tyrimo medžiaga yra surinkta iš grožinės literatūros patekstynio, esančio Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos tekstyne ir Lietuvių mokslo kalbos tekstyno. Nederinamųjų būdvardžių ir prieveiksmių morfosintaksinių bruožų ir semantinių funkcinių ypatybių analizė suponuoja, kad lietuvių kalboje nederinamieji būdvardžiai dažniau perteikia žinių šaltinio reikšmes negu prieveiksmiai, nes šie vartojami kaip predikato modifikatoriai. Pagrindinė evidencinė reikšmė, būdinga nagrinėjamiems žymikliams, yra numanymas, pagrįstas percepciniu arba konceptualiuoju žinių šaltiniu. Nagrinėjami vienetai vartojami ir kaip episteminiai, vertinimo arba pragmatiniai žymikliai.

Pagrindinis darbo tikslas yra išanalizuoti nemorfologinio evidencialumo raišką ir turinį, realizuojamus bevardės giminės (nederinamaisiais) būdvardžiais ir prieveiksmiais grožinės literatūros tekstuose ir lietuvių mokslo kalboje. Tyrimo objektą sudaro nederinamieji būdvardžiai ir prieveiksmiai, kurių leksinės reikšmės atspindi semantinius laukus, turinčius potencialą žymėti žinių šaltinį. Darbe analizuojami šių vienetų morfosintaksiniai bruožai (komplementiniai predikatai ir adverbialai), tiriami jų kiekybiniai rodikliai ir atskleidžiama semantinė funkcinė distribucija. Šioje disertacijoje atliekamas tyrimas naudojant tekstynų metodologiją. Tyrimo medžiaga yra surinkta iš grožinės literatūros patekstynio, esančio Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos tekstyne ir Lietuvių mokslo kalbos tekstyno. Nederinamųjų būdvardžių ir prieveiksmių morfosintaksinių bruožų ir semantinių funkcinių ypatybių analizė suponuoja, kad lietuvių kalboje nederinamieji būdvardžiai dažniau perteikia žinių šaltinio reikšmes negu prieveiksmiai, nes šie vartojami kaip predikato modifikatoriai. Pagrindinė evidencinė reikšmė, būdinga nagrinėjamiems žymikliams, yra numanymas, pagrįstas percepciniu arba konceptualiuoju žinių šaltiniu. Nagrinėjami vienetai gali būti vartojami ir kaip episteminiai, vertinimo arba pragmatiniai žymikliai. / The aim of the research is to analyse the expression and contents of non-morphological evidentiality in Lithuanian realized by neuter (non-agreeing) adjectives and adverbs. The thesis focuses on the non-agreeing adjectives and the adverbs that derive from the semantic domains of perception, comparison and knowledge and thus have the potential to acquire evidential meanings. The study explores the morphosyntactic properties (Complement-Taking-Predicates and adverbials) of the markers under consideration, their quantitative parameters and semantic functional distribution in fiction and academic discourse. The study is corpus-driven and the data have been obtained from the Corpus of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language, namely from the subcorpus of fiction, and from the Corpus of Academic Lithuanian. The analysis of the morphosyntactic properties of the markers and their semantic functional distribution suggests that in Lithuanian the non-agreeing adjectives convey evidential meanings more frequently than the adverbs because the adverbs mainly function as predicate modifiers. The main evidential value is inference based on perceptual or conceptual sources of evidence. The non-agreeing adjectives and the adverbs under consideration can also express the meanings of epistemic modality, expectation or function as pragmatic markers.

This essay, entitled “Breaking the lawn chair, skinning the fish” - Categorization and Gender Differences in Slang Use in the TV Series Sex Education, claims that slang is part of our everyday language use and it can be found even on TV nowadays. In fact, contemporary TV series often portray a language use that includes informal language and slang expressions and words. This study aims to categorize slang expressions and words and identify gender differences in slang use in the British TV series Sex Education. By integrating quantitative and qualitative methods, the study contrasts Eble’s (1996) and Zotevska’s (2014) categorizations of slang and highlights gender perspectives on language use. First of all, the results show that Eble’s categorization proves to be incomplete to categorize the slang expressions in Sex Education. Furthermore, Zotevska’s categorization shows that a pervasive presence of taboo words and expressions is found in slang usage, whereas proper slang and pragmatic markers constitute a limited amount of the total. Secondly, the results highlight male characters as predominant slang-users. The collected data also indicate an increased presence of slang expressions and words in female speech, as a result of their emancipation and higher levels of participation in Western Societies.

Le but de cette thèse est de mettre en évidence, au-delà des spécificités propres à chaque poème, les caractéristiques communes aux emplois du discours direct dans la poésie narrative vieil-anglaise. À cet effet, un groupe de huit textes a été choisi, représentant au mieux la variété du corpus poétique subsistant, tant par leur sujet que par leur style ou leur rapport éventuel à une source connue : Beowulf, la Genèse A et B, Christ et Satan, Andreas, Elene, Juliana et Guthlac A. Il ne s'agit pas ici simplement d'étudier la forme prise par le discours direct, mais aussi ce que cette forme révèle sur la conception que les poètes se faisaient de la parole et de la place de sa représentation dans le récit.La première partie de la thèse cherche à déterminer si les caractéristiques traditionnellement reconnues au discours direct en poésie vieil-anglaise - un goût pour la solennité au détriment de la caractérisation des personnages et du progrès de l'action - sont fondées et si elles concernent également tous les poèmes du corpus.La seconde partie s'intéresse à la nature des voix représentées au discours direct : dans quelle mesure elles permettent d'exprimer une subjectivité (et quel type de subjectivité) et quel est leur statut par rapport à la voix du narrateur.Les résultats indiquent que dans la poésie narrative vieil-anglaise, le discours direct n'est pas conçu comme un objet fondamentalement distinct du récit, ou comme l'expression d'une voix et d'un point de vue autre au sein de la voix du narrateur. Le discours direct apparaît comme une modalité actualisée du récit, un procédé dramatique et didactique qui adopte le même vocabulaire et le même point de vue que le récit. / The aim of this work is to identify the shared characteristics of direct speech in Old English narrative poetry, beyond the specificities of each text. So as to best reflect the diversity of the extant poetic corpus (in terms of topic, style or source), eight texts were selected for this study: Beowulf, Genesis A and B, Christ and Satan, Andreas, Elene, Juliana and Guthlac A. The aim of this thesis is not only to examine the form of direct speech, but also what it reveals concerning how poets viewed speech and the place of its representation in narrative.The first section of the thesis tries to determine whether the characteristics traditionally attributed to direct speech in Old English poetry - a taste for formality to the detriment of characterization and the progress of action - are valid and whether they are equally represented in all poems.The second section is concerned with the nature of the voices represented through direct speech: to what extent they express a form of subjectivity (and what type of subjectivity) and what their status is, compared with the narrator's voice.Results show that, in Old English narrative poetry, direct speech is not conceived of as an object radically distinct from narrative, or as the expression of another voice and point of view within the narrative voice. Direct speech appears as an actualized form of narrative, a dramatic and didactic device, using the same vocabulary and the same point of view as the narrative.

This study analyses the translation of pragmatic markers from English into Swedish. The source text that was translated and used as a basis for the study is an article called “Black Books”, which was published in the British music magazine Prog in January 2013. The study is limited to question tags, general extenders and single-word pragmatic markers. It aims to investigate how these types of pragmatic markers can be translated in a dynamic and natural way, as well as how a careful analysis can facilitate the search for appropriate translation equivalents. Previous research and theories were used to determine the functions of the pragmatic markers in the source text, and the translation choices made on the basis of these findings were supported by corpus searches in the English-Swedish Parallel Corpus and Korp. The study revealed that because of the different ways in which pragmatic functions are expressed in English and Swedish, almost none of the pragmatic markers in the source text could be translated directly into Swedish. Formally equivalent solutions such as tja as a translation of well were generally considered too unnatural. While the study is too small to provide any general guidelines, it shows how a careful analysis may help the translator find more dynamically equivalent and natural solutions in the form of, for instance, other Swedish pragmatic markers, modal particles, adverbs and conjunctions.

Text in Afrikaans with summaries in Afrikaans, English and Tshwana / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 183-193) / Pragmatiese merkers in Omgangsafrikaans dien as belangrike kontekstualiseringswenke. Dit rig gespreksgenote in terme van uitingrelevansie en stel die spreker in staat om, op bondige wyse, ’n houding teenoor die proposisie van die uiting te openbaar. Dit dra ook by tot die gesprekstruktuur. Die sistematiese ondersoek na pragmatiese merkers volg ’n eklektiese benadering: die relevansieteorie, grammatikalisasieteorie, diskoersanalise, sosiopragmatiek en korpuslinguistiek word ingespan om die verskynsel te bestudeer en te verklaar. Die pragmatiese merkers “rêrig/regtig”, “oukei”, “soos”, “hoor” en “weet” is bestudeer aan die hand van die Pretoriakorpus van Omgangsafrikaans (PO) vanweë hul hoë gebruiksfrekwensie in die korpus. ’n Vergelyking van die gebruiksfrekwensies van hierdie pragmatiese merkers onder verskillende groeperinge van sprekers toon aan dat jong, volwasse en bejaarde mans en vroue dit verskillend gebruik. Die onderskeie funksies bied voorts leidrade waardeur die grammatikalisasie van pragmatiese merkers nagespeur kan word. Dit wil voorkom asof jong vroulike sprekers die voortou neem in die gebruik en ontwikkeling van pragmatiese merkers teenoor jong manlike sprekers. Die studie het verder bevind dat veral volwasse vroulike sprekers aktief bydra tot die ontwikkeling van hierdie pragmatiese merkers. / Pragmatic markers in interactional Afrikaans serve as important contextualising cues. They guide interlocutors as to the relevance of utterances and equip the speaker to signal an attitude towards the proposition of the utterance in a succinct way. They also contribute to the conversation structure. The systematic investigation of pragmatic markers follows an eclectic approach: relevance theory, grammaticalisation theory, discourse analysis, sociopragmatics and corpus linguistics are engaged in order to study and explain the phenomenon. The pragmatic markers “rêrig/regtig”, “oukei”, “soos”, “hoor” en “weet” are studied on the basis of the Pretoriakorpus van Omgangsafrikaans (PO) owing to their high frequency in the corpus. A comparison of the usage frequencies of these pragmatic markers among various groups of speakers indicates that young, adult and elderly men and women use them differently. The respective functions offer clues by which the grammaticalisation of pragmatic markers may be traced. It appears that young female speakers take the lead in the use and development of pragmatic markers compared to young male speakers. The study further found that especially adult female speakers contribute actively to the development of these pragmatic markers. / Matshwao a puo mo puong ya kgolagano ya Afrikaans a dira jaaka matshwao a botlhokwa a bokao. A kaela babui ka bomaleba jwa dipuo le go thusa sebui go bontsha maikutlo malebana le polelo e e tshitshinngwang ka boripana. Gape a tshwaela mo sebopegong sa puisano. Tshekatsheko e e rulaganeng ya matshwao a puo e ne e dirisa mekgwa e e farologaneng: tiori ya bomaleba, tiori ya tiriso ya thutapuo, tshekatsheko ya puisano, matshwao a puoloago le thuto ya dipuo e e lebelelang dikwalo tse di gona (corpus linguistics) di dirisitswe go batlisisa le go tlhalosa dikgakgamatso tseo. Matshwao a puo a “rêrig/regtig”, “oukei”, “soos”, “hoor” le “weet” a batlisisitswe go lebeletswe Pretoriakorpus van Omgangsafrikaans (PO) ka ntlha ya go nna teng ga ona thata mo dikwalong. Tshwantshanyo ya seelo sa tiriso ya matshwao ano a puo magareng ga ditlhopha tsa dibui e supa gore bašwa, bagolo le bagodi ba banna le basadi ba a dirisa ka ditsela tse di farologaneng. Ditiro tse di rileng di bontsha disupi tse ka tsona go ka latedisiwang tiriso ya thutapuo ya matshwao a puo. Go bonala fa dibui tsa bašwa ba basadi di eteletse pele mo tirisong le kgodisong ya matshwao a puo fa di ntshwantshanngwa le dibui tsa banna. Thutopatlisiso e fitlheletse gape gore dibui tsa bagolo ba basadi bogolosegolo di tshwaela ka botlhaga mo kgodisong ya matshwao ano a puo. / Afrikaans and Theory of Literature / M.A. (Afrikaans)