From cognitive-functional linguistics to dialogic syntax (original) (raw)
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The possibility of dialogic semantics
This paper outlines and demonstrates the viability of a consistent dialogic approach to the semantics of utterances in natural language. Based on the philosophical picture of language as dialogue, adumbrated by Mikhail Bakhtin and incorporating work in conversation analysis and cognitive-functional linguistics, I develop a method for analyzing both the function and the content of human utterances within a unified philosophical framework. I demonstrate the viability of this method of analysis by applying it to a brief conversational exchange (in Hebrew), (...) which is analyzed here in full detail.
Cognitive Grammar and Dialogic Syntax: Exploring potential synergies
Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 2013
This paper relates the functional model of Dialogic Syntax and its key concept of resonance (Du Bois 2001 [2009]) to Cognitive Grammar (Langacker, 1987, 1991, 2001, 2008, 2009) with the aim of inquiring into the prospects, potential gains, and limitations of a Cognitive Grammar-inspired discourse analysis. First the two frameworks are compared from a theoretical point of view, focusing on how Du Bois’ account and Langacker’s Current Discourse Space Model (2001, 2008) deal with prior discourse as a resource for new usage events. In the subsequent case study, the theory is confronted with interactional data from Austrian parliamentary debates. Specific attention is paid to construal operations, more specifically viewpoint phenomena and subjectification, which are explored in relation to resonance activation. Drawing on detailed analyses that combine insights and concepts from Dialogic Syntax and Cognitive Grammar, strengths, shortcomings, and future challenges of Cognitive Grammar dis...
Media-Tryck, 2019
This thesis is concerned with spoken dialogue and the dynamic negotiation of meaning in English conversation. It serves two aims, one theoretical and the other practical. The theoretical aim is to further our understanding of the kinds of properties that influence the meaning of constructions in spoken dialogue and the role of underlying socio-cognitive processes. The practical aim is to compile a new corpus of spoken British English, the London–Lund Corpus 2, modelled on the same principles as the first London–Lund Corpus from 50 years prior. The aims are addressed in the four articles included in the thesis. The first article focuses on a very common construction in English, namely I think COMPLEMENT and the family of complement-taking predicate constructions. It questions the rigid treatment of the constructions in APPRAISAL theory as always having the same dialogic meaning. For example, I think is considered to always open up the space for dialogic alternatives. By combining data from the London–Lund Corpus 1 with a laboratory experiment, we show that I think COMPLEMENT serves not only to expand the dialogic space, but it may also close it down. The factors that influence the dialogic meaning of the construction are not only semantic but also prosodic, collocational and social. The second article draws on data from the London–Lund Corpus 2 to shed new light on the interaction of intersubjective processes and priming mechanisms in dialogic resonance, which emerges when speakers reproduce constructions from prior turns. It does so by investigating the intersubjective functions that resonance has in discourse and the time it takes for speakers to resonate with each other. The results show that resonance is often used to express divergent views, which are produced very quickly. We argue that, while priming reduces the gap between speaker turns, intersubjective processes give the speakers the motivation to respond early. This is due to the increased sense of interpersonal solidarity that resonance is assumed to evoke. The third and the fourth articles are both concerned with the reactive what-x construction, which has not received any attention in the literature so far. The aim of the third article is to define and describe the constructional properties of the construction based on data from the London–Lund Corpus 2. The constructional representation includes not only lexical–semantic information but also essential dialogic and prosodic information, which are mostly missing in Construction Grammar. The fourth article combines data from the London–Lund Corpora to demonstrate the complex interplay between social motivations and cognitive mechanisms in the diachronic development of constructions in spoken dialogue. It shows that the development of the reactive what-x construction is triggered by the pragmatic strengthening of discourse-structuring and turn-taking inferences, and proceeds through metonymic micro-adjustments of the conceptual structure of the construction itself. In sum, the thesis provides a systematic and empirically grounded account of the dynamic negotiation of meaning in spoken dialogue. It contributes new knowledge to our understanding of the broad and interactive nature of constructional meaning and the complex interaction of underlying socio-cognitive processes. The compilation of the London–Lund Corpus 2 will facilitate many more investigations of this kind.
Beyond the sentence: Constructions, frames and spoken interaction
Constructions and Frames, 2010
Construction grammarians are still quite reluctant to extend their descriptions to units beyond the sentence. However, the theoretical premises of construction grammar and frame semantics are particularly suited to cover spoken interaction from a cognitive perspective. Furthermore, as construction grammar is anchored in the cognitive linguistics paradigm and as such subscribes to meaning being grounded in experience, it needs to consider interaction since grammatical structures may be grounded not only in sensory-motor, but also in social-interactive experience. The example of grounded language learning experiments demonstrates the anchoring of grammatical mood in interaction. Finally, phenomena peculiar to spoken dialogue, such as pragmatic markers, may be best accounted for as constructions, drawing on frame semantics. The two cognitive linguistic notions, frames and constructions, are therefore particularly useful to account for generalisation in spoken interaction.
Intercultural Pragmatics, 2023
The present paper discusses the key role of creativity as a form of engagement and categorisation in interaction. One important way to display engagement 'at talk' is via resonance, that is when speakers re-use linguistic features that they heard from one another. Speakers constantly imitate and creatively recombine the utterances and the behaviors of their interlocutors. Recombinant creativity is a key cognitive mechanism subserving this, as it involves speakers' re-elaboration of utterances and illocutionary forces of others, but also, more generally, the creative intervention on observed patterns of behaviour in context. Recombinant creativity is crucial for primarily two pragmatic and conceptual mechanisms: relevance acknowledgement and schematic categorization. A persistent tendency towards the proactive reformulation of an interlocutor's speech is a textual indicator of relevance acknowledgement. This is because what is said by the other speaker is overtly treated as useful information for the continuation of the interaction. The opposite trendto be measured on a large scaleis an indicator of lack of engagement. Recombinant creativity varies intra-and inter-culturally and is decisive for speakers' enactment of socio-pragmatic schemas and the generalisation of form and meaning as a process of shared categorization.