Is “Back to my Point” a Pragmatic Marker? An Inquiry into the Historical Development of some Metatextual Discourse Management Markers in English
Discourse management markers (DMMs) that “signal a meta-comment on the structure of the discourse” (Fraser 2009) are widely attested in historical data. Most discourse management markers (e.g. and, anyway, by the way, but, now, then) meet well-known criteria for pragmatic markers such as multifuncti...
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| Formato: | article |
| Lenguaje: | CA EN |
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Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
2020
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| Acceso en línea: | https://doaj.org/article/411e36da37e94960bca321e625806c6b |
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| Sumario: | Discourse management markers (DMMs) that “signal a meta-comment on the structure of the discourse” (Fraser 2009) are widely attested in historical data. Most discourse management markers (e.g. and, anyway, by the way, but, now, then) meet well-known criteria for pragmatic markers such as multifunctionality, opacity, optionality, (inter)subjectivity, relatively high frequency, and shortness. However, several cited in Fraser (2009), many of them topic-orientation markers, do not (e.g. back to my original point, to return to my previous topic, if I might continue). I propose that an account of the development of DMMs make a distinction between adverbial adjuncts, conjunct adverbials, and pragmatic markers (e.g. Hasselgård 2010). By hypothesis, change may occur along the cline: adverbial adjuncts > conjunct adverbials (> DMMs). This approach accounts for gradual form-meaning shifts and is consistent with a usage perspective on language as a dynamic system grounded in usage events (Kemmer & Barlow 1999; Langacker 2008). |
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