In Sundanese, a western Austronesian language, speech levels allow the speaker to establish social identity through talk alone, using multiple linguistic forms with very different pragmatic meanings. These words are deference and demeanor indexicals, as in the French formal versus informal second person. It is argued that although they do exist,…

This analysis of repeated utterances in Japanese conversational discourse focuses on repetition as an expression of iconicity. In the analysis of a 30-minute conversation among 4 Japanese speakers, the iconic meanings expressed by both reduplication and conversational repetition are highlighted. The iconicity characteristic of conversational data…

Examines the organization and function of information-withholding sequences, a conversational strategy used by participants in gossip interaction on Nukulaelae, a Polynesian Central Pacific atoll. Withholding sequences illustrate how ambiguity and repairs can be exploited to meet the communicative demands of particular interactional contexts. (62…

This study analyzes the discourse structures of one text type in Central Bontoc, one of eight minority Philippine languages. The text explains the Innana rituals, a complex of six rituals held annually in Bontoc villages shortly after the planting of the rice crop. The rituals are considered extremely important because they are believed to help…

An analysis of Hebrew topicalization looks at the normal or unmarked function of topicalization in narrative discourse and considers the additional contextual effects that marked or apparently redundant instances of topicalization are intended to achieve. Focus is on the fronting of elements in sentences with topic-comment articulation. It is…

There are certain pre-coded (formulaic) utterances conventionally triggered by certain communication situations, and their use is expected and deemed appropriate because they are seen as part of everyday politeness formulas. Lack of an English equivalent indicates cultural differences governing their use. Some routines are taught explicitly and…

This study presents evidence collected from basilectal texts that the natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) mental predicates "think, know, want, feel, say, see, hear" have clear lexical equivalents in Hawaii Creole English (HCE), and that these HCE predicates occur, with minor qualification, in the syntactic configurations predicted by…

Evaluates the contribution of visuo-gestural modality versus linguistic factors in determining the order of elements in sign language. The results of a study show that Italian Sign Language differs along significant lines from both spoken Italian and pantomime. (22 references) (GLR)

A discussion of Hungarian spoken discourse focuses on the role of two pragmatic connectives, "hat" ("well, so (after all)") and "mert" ("because"). Introductory sections discuss the classification of utterance-types as a prerequisite to analyzing discourse and the utterance-type as defined by pragmatic…

A study investigated the way given and new information is conveyed in Korean discourse by applying a taxonomy of given-new information, based on English discourse, to Korean. The taxonomy presumes that information packaging in natural language reflects sender's hypotheses about receiver's assumptions, beliefs, and strategies. Two types of Korean…

Describes the grammaticalization of the Swedish word "bara" (English "just") in present-day adolescent speech. "Bara" has in the last 15 years been used with 2 new functions in spoken, narrative discourse: to foreground central events and to introduce quotations. (40 references) (Author/CK)

A study investigated the use of tag questions in the private conversations of Swedish men and women. Conversations took place in single-gender dyads (six with two men and six with two women) and six mixed-gender dyads. Informants were aged approximately 25 or approximately 50, of different social classes, chosen by random selection, and asked to…

Examines the Brazilian Portuguese use of verb tenses in oral narrative episodes as a device to mark certain utterances that have a cohesive function in relating the episode to the overall purpose of the narrative, facilitating the listener's interpretation of the discourse in a global fashion. (CB)

Differing approaches toward discourse result in difficulty and confusion when Asians and Westerners communicate in English. In Chinese, Korean, or Japanese discourse, topics are usually introduced inductively; topic introduction is delayed and indirect. Conversely, English-speaking Westerners introduce topics early in a conversation. This…

The study examines one component of the system of complementation in Palestinian Arabic. It is argued that the complementizer in question has an inherent semantics capable of influencing the meaning of sentences in which it is embedded. Specifically, its presence in a complex sentence communicates modal meanings distinct from those communicated by…