This thesis is a comparative study that investigates English and Kurdish connectives which signal conjunctive relations in online newspaper opinion articles. This study utilises the Hallidayan framework of connectives in light of the principles of Relevance Theory established by Sperber and Wilson (1995). That is, connectives are considered in terms of their procedural meanings; i.e. the different interpretations they signal within different contexts, rather than their conceptual meanings. It finds that Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) classification of conjunctive relations and connectives needs to be modified, in order to lay out a clearer classification of English connectives that could account for their essential characteristics and properties. This modified classification would also help classify Kurdish connectives with greater accuracy. The comparison between connectives from both languages is examined through the use of translation techniques such as creating paradigms of correspondence between the equivalent connectives from both languages (Aijmer et al, 2006). Relevance Theoretic framework shows that any given text consists of two segments (S1 and S2), and these segments are constrained by different elements according to the four sub-categories of conjunctive relations. Different characteristics of connectives are considered in relation to the different subcategories of the Hallidayan framework of the conjunctive relations as follows: additive: the semantic content of the segments S1 and S2; adversative: the polysemy of the connectives; causal-conditional: iconicity in the order of the segments and temporal: the time scenes in the segments S1 and S2. The thesis comprises eight chapters. Chapter One introduces Kurds and Kurdish language, provides the rationale for conducting this project, and outlines the research aims and questions. Chapter Two reviews the existing research on connectives in particular and discourse markers in general. Chapter Three outlines the data and the combined methodology used in the following chapters. Chapters Four, Five, Six and Seven are dedicated to the four subcategories of conjunctive relations and connectives: additive, adversative, causal-conditional and temporal relations respectively. Finally, Chapter Eight reflects on the contribution of the research to the field in terms of findings and methodology and gives suggestions for future research.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:631508 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Salih, Rashwan Ramadan |
| Contributors | Page, Ruth; Coleman, Julie |
| Publisher | University of Leicester |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/2381/29255 |
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