21.2897, Support: French & Discourse Analysis: PhD Student, U of Louvain, Belgium

Tue Jul 13 17:48:23 UTC 2010

LINGUIST List: Vol-21-2897. Tue Jul 13 2010. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 21.2897, Support: French & Discourse Analysis: PhD Student, U of Louvain, Belgium

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1)
Date: 12-Jul-2010
From: Liesbeth Degand < liesbeth.degand at uclouvain.be >
Subject: French & Grammaticalization of Discourse Markers: PhD Student, University of Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve), Belgium

-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 13:47:11
From: Liesbeth Degand [liesbeth.degand at uclouvain.be]
Subject: French & Grammaticalization of Discourse Markers: PhD Student, University of Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve), Belgium

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Institution/Organization: University of Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve) 
Department: Institute for Language and Communication 
Web Address: http://www.uclouvain.be/ilc 

Level: PhD 

Duties: Research

Specialty Areas: Discourse Analysis 
Grammaticalization of Discourse Markers 
Required Language(s): French (fra)

Description:

The Institute for Language & Communication of the University of Louvain (Louvain-
la-Neuve, Belgium) offers a PhD position on the topic: Emerging discourse 
markers in the right periphery. The successful candidate will be hosted by the 
Research Center Valibel- Discours & Variation (www.uclouvain.be/valibel) and work 
in close collaboration with researchers involved in projects on the 
grammaticalization of discourse markers.

The aim of the PhD-project is to investigate to what extent the right periphery of 
the utterance favours the emergence of new discourse meanings, especially in the 
area of discourse markers. The right periphery represents the end of a message at 
a moment in time where the message itself exists and is manifest to both speaker 
and hearer. Therefore the right periphery is the natural place to comment on a 
message or to express expectations pertaining to it towards the hearer.
Recent work (e.g. Degand & Fagard in press) has shown that the occurrence of 
discourse markers in the right periphery is a fairly recent phenomenon and that the 
migration of discourse markers from initial and medial position goes hand in hand 
with semantic change. From a synchronic point of view, markers appearing at the 
right of their host unit of discourse are exceptional (cf. Fraser 1999); however if 
they do appear in this position, they tend to have an interpersonal function (cf. 
Brinton 1996), rather than an information-structuring one. They serve to confirm 
shared assumptions, check or express understanding, request confirmation, 
express deference or are used for face-saving (cf. Brinton 1996: 37). Right-
peripheral constructions reflect or invite attitudes towards the message or the 
situation rather than contributing to the message itself. This hypothesis seems to 
be confirmed by certain patterns of language change, since the right periphery 
seems to be involved in the rise of modal constructions such as modal particles.
The first aim of the PhD-project is thus to discover whether one can establish a 
"discourse marker paradigm" on the right periphery in speech and/or writing in 
synchrony.

The second aim of the project is to discover whether such a potential discourse 
marker paradigm can be explained in diachronic terms. Following Traugott (1982: 
256) we will assume that "[i]f there occurs a meaning-shift which, in the process of 
grammaticalization, entails shifts from one functional-semantic component to 
another, then such a shift is more likely to be from propositional through textual to 
expressive than in reverse direction.".
Language of investigation will be French, preferably in contrast to one or more 
other languages.

Profile: MA in Linguistics, (near) native command of French, very good knowledge 
of English, acquaintance with grammaticalization theory, acquaintance with corpus 
analyses, knowledge of French in diachrony 

Application Deadline: 07-Sep-2010 

Mailing Address for Applications:
	Attn: Prof. Liesbeth Degand 
	Institute for Language and Communication 
	Place B. Pascal 1 
	Louvain-la-Neuve 1348 
	Belgium 	

Contact Information: 
	Prof Liesbeth Degand 
	liesbeth.degand at uclouvain.be  

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