Yu-Fang Wang

The Information Structure of Adverbial Clauses in Chinese Discourse

This study investigated adverbial clauses in spoken as well as written Chinese discourse. The adverbial clauses in the spoken data were categorized into (ⅰ) initial clauses that occur in the initial position with respect to their linked material across continuing intonation, (ⅱ) final clauses that occur in the final position with respect to their linked material across continuing intonation, and (ⅲ) final clauses that occur in the final position with respect to their linked material across final intonation. Those in the written data were classified into (ⅰ) initial and (ⅱ) final clauses that occur in the initial or final position, respectively, with respect to their main clauses. An analysis of the spoken and written data shows that the temporal, conditional, and concessive clauses tend to occur before their linked material/main clause, but that the causal clauses are quite different from the other adverbial clauses. Specifically, the causal clauses commonly appear in the final position with respect to their associated material in the spoken data, while the initial and final causal clauses are nearly evenly distributed in the written data. The data suggest that temporal, conditional, and concessive clauses, like topics, are presupposed parts of their sentences; i.e., all of them may be thought of as establishing frameworks for the interpretation of propositions that follow, which seem to be prototypically textual in their functioning. By contrast, causal clauses in Chinese are noticeably distinct from other adverbial clauses not only in spoken data, but also in written data; they play interactional as well as textual roles in discourse linking.

From lexical to pragmatic meaning : Contrastive markers in spoken Chinese discourse

Abstract This paper explores the use of a set of apparently synonymous contrastive conjunctions in Mandarin spoken discourse: zhishi, buguo, keshi, and danshi. Using Halliday’s (1994) analytical model of discourse, I examine their discourse-pragmatic and socio-pragmatic functions. The corpus contains two sets of data: one from casual conversation and another from radio/TV talk. I show that these seemingly synonymous conjunctions differ in several ways. Firstly, among these contrastive markers, keshi is the marker that most frequently occurs in spoken discourse, particularly in casual conversation, whereas zhishi is the one that occurs the least frequently. Secondly, danshi tends to convey explicit contrast, while buguo and keshi express implicit contrast. Finally, buguo and keshi often appear in dispreferred responses expressing disagreement, while buguo seems to appear in formal speech situations, and keshi occurs in informal situations.

Agreement, acknowledgment, and alignment: The discourse-pragmatic functions of hao and dui in Taiwan Mandarin conversation

This study draws on Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson, 1986/1995), Conversation Analysis (Sacks et al., 1974), and Politeness Theory (Brown and Levinson, 1987) in investigating a full range of discourse functions for hao and dui with reference to recurrent patterns, distributions, and forms of organization in a large corpus of talk. Special emphasis is placed on a comparison of hao and dui in combination with a small subset of discourse particles: in particular hao/hao le/ hao la/hao a/hao ba and dui/dui a/dui le in spoken discourse. We find that both of the markers signal special sequential relatedness in talk and carry information which is relevant in determining the boundaries of conversational exchange. However, in interaction hao is used for expressing acceptance of the other speaker’s move or act, whereas dui conveys acknowledgment of the propositional content of the utterance produced by the other speaker.

Making claims and counterclaims through factuality: The uses of Mandarin Chinese qishi (‘actually’) and shishishang (‘in fact’) in institutional settings

The study reported here, building on the research methods of Conversation Analysis (Sacks et al., 1974), Politeness Theory (Brown and Levinson, 1987), and Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson, 1986/1995), attempts to examine the distribution of Mandarin qishi (‘actually’) and shishishang (‘in fact’) across two different discourse modes in formal speech settings: formal lectures and TV panel news discussions. The results indicate that qishi is prevalent in TV panel news discussion data, which fall into the interactional mode, whereas shishishang is more prevalent in formal speech data, which fall into the transactional mode. The study shows that in interaction, qishi is addressee-oriented and signals alignment (agreement) or divergence (disagreement), whereas shishishang is message-oriented and asserts a proposition with a tone of certainty. In addition, the study suggests that although the literal meanings of qishi (‘it’s fact’) and shishishang (‘in the aspect of fact’), which are concerned with factuality, are seemingly unrelated to emotive expressivity, they offer a rhetorical strategy for expressing the speaker’s attitudinal position, and can both serve to indicate the speaker’s epistemic inference.