Pragmatic triangulation and misunderstanding

A prosodic perspective

Authors

  • Jesús Romero-Trillo Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.v6i1-3.43

Keywords:

corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, discourse markers, pragmatic triangulation, pragmatic markers, prosody

Abstract

This paper presents ‘pragmatic triangulation’ as the main tool used by speakers to avoid misunderstanding and reformulate ideas in speech, through Pragmatic Markers (PM’s), in the Spanish section of the Lindsei Corpus. The study will delve into the prosodic features used by native and non-native speakers of English in the prevention of misunderstanding to determine their functional differences in both groups of speakers. The paper will first make a theoretical account of the notion of understanding and misunderstanding and will discuss the characterization of Pragmatic Markers in the communication process. Secondly, the study will select the most frequent PM’s used by speakers for this purpose, and will describe its frequency and relevance in the corpus. And thirdly, the paper will look into the intonation and pragmatic asymmetry of the use of these elements by native and non-native speakers on the basis of statistical data. The final section will discuss the results of the analysis and will highlight the importance of invigorating this type of research for the benefit of contrastive and pedagogic studies.

Author Biography

  • Jesús Romero-Trillo, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

    Jesús Romero-Trillo is an Associate Professor at the English Philology Department (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid). He obtained an MSc in Applied Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh (1990) and a PhD at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (1994). He specializes in the pragmatics-intonation interface in English and Spanish. In 2008 he edited Pragmatics and Corpus Linguistics (Mouton de Gruyter) and has also edited the volume Pragmatics and Prosody in English Language Teaching (Springer, 2012). At present he leads the interdisciplinary CLAN Project (Corpus of Language & Nature) and is the Editor-in-Chief of the Yearbook of Corpus Linguistics and Pragmatics (Springer)

References

Boersma, P. and Weenink, D. (2010) Praat: Doing phonetics by computer [Computer program]. Version 5.1.07, from http://www.praat.org/

Cruttenden, A. (1997) Intonation (2nd edn). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Fele, G. (1992) La comprensione nell’interazione. Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia 33 (3): 425–438.

Guilquin G. (ed.) LINDSEI Corpus. Louvain: Louvain la Neuve Press.

Gussenhoven, C. (1984) On the Grammar and Semantics of Sentence Accents. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1967) Intonation and Grammar in British English. The Hague: Mouton.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1970) A Course in Spoken English. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Heritage, J. (2007) Intersubjectivity and progressivity in person (and place) reference. In N. J. Enfield and S. Levinson (eds) Person Reference in Interaction: Linguistic, Cultural, and Social Perspectives, 255–280. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Hindmarsh, J., Reynolds, P., Dunne, S. (2011) Exhibiting understanding: The body in apprentices. Pragmatics 43 (2): 489–503. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2009.09.008

Hutchby, I. and Wooffitt, R. (2008) Conversation Analysis. Polity Press, Cambridge.

Kecskes, I. (2008) Dueling contexts: A dynamic model of meaning. Journal of Pragmatics 40 (3): 385–406. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2007.12.004

Ladd, D. R. (1996) Intonational Phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lindwall, O. and Lymer, G. (2011) Uses of ‘understand’ in science education. Pragmatics 43: 452–474. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.08.021

Macbeth, D. (2011) Understanding understanding as an instructional matter. Journal of Pragmatics 43: 438–451. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2008.12.006

Moeschler, J. (2004) Intercultural pragmatics: A cognitive approach. Intercultural Pragmatics 1 (1): 49–70.

Mondada, L. (2011) Understanding as an embodied, situated and sequential achievement in interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2): 542–552. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.08.019

Panther, K. U. and Thornburg, L. (1998) A cognitive approach to inferencing in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 30 (6): 755–769. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(98)00028-9

Ponterotto, D. (2000) The cohesive role of cognitive metaphor in discourse and conversation. In A. Barcelona (ed.) Metaphor and Metonymy at the Crossroads, a Cognitive Approach. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Romero-Trillo, J. (2001) A mathematical model for the analysis of variation in discourse. Journal of Linguistics 37 (3): 527–550. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0022226701001050

Romero-Trillo, J. (2007) Adaptive Management in discourse: The case of involvement discourse markers in English and Spanish conversations. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 6: 81–94.

Romero-Trillo, J. (in press) Pragmatic markers. Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell.

Romero-Trillo, J. and Agüero, M. F. (2010) Spanish subcorpus. In Gäetanelle Guilquin (ed.) LINDSEI Corpus. Louvain: Louvain la Neuve Press.

Romero-Trillo, J. and Maguire, L. (2011) Adaptive context, the fourth element of meaning. International Review of Pragmatics 3 (2): 228–241. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/187731011X597523

Sacks, H. (1992) Lectures on Conversation [1964–72], 2 Vols. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. A. and Jefferson, G. (1974) A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking in conversation. Language 50 (4): 696–735. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/412243

Schegloff, E. A., Jefferson, G. and Sacks, H. (1977) The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language 53 (2): 361–382. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/413107

Sperber, D, Clément, F., Heintz, C., Mascaro, O., Mercier, H., Origgi, G. and Wilson, D. (2010) Epistemic vigilance. Mind and Language 25 (4): 359–393. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0017.2010.01394.x

Published

2012-12-13

Issue

Section

Discourse Markers

How to Cite

Romero-Trillo, J. (2012). Pragmatic triangulation and misunderstanding: A prosodic perspective. Linguistics and the Human Sciences, 6(1-3), 43-55. https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.v6i1-3.43

Most read articles by the same author(s)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 > >>