27.2613, Review: Cog Sci; Discourse; Historical Ling; Pragmatics; Socioling: Arendholz, Kirner-Ludwig, Bublitz (2015)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-27-2613. Wed Jun 15 2016. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 27.2613, Review: Cog Sci; Discourse; Historical Ling; Pragmatics; Socioling: Arendholz, Kirner-Ludwig, Bublitz (2015)

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Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2016 12:59:52
From: Nahed Mourad [nmourad at uottawa.ca]
Subject: The Pragmatics of Quoting Now and Then

 
Discuss this message:
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/26/26-3449.html

EDITOR: Jenny  Arendholz
EDITOR: Wolfram  Bublitz
EDITOR: Monika  Kirner-Ludwig
TITLE: The Pragmatics of Quoting Now and Then
SERIES TITLE: Topics in English Linguistics [TiEL] 89
PUBLISHER: De Gruyter Mouton
YEAR: 2015

REVIEWER: Nahed Mourad, University of Ottawa

Reviews Editor: Robert A. Cote

INTRODUCTION

Based on papers presented for the most part at two international conferences,
this book entitled “The Pragmatics of Quoting: Then and Now” by Jenny
Arendholz, Wolfram Bublitz, and Monika Kirner-Ludwig, provides an innovative
look at the pragmatics of quoting and does so in both a diachronic and a
synchronic view, hence “Now and Then” in the title. The book is divided into
two parts corresponding to synchrony “Now” and diachrony “Then”. 

An industry of publications on quotatives exists within the field of
sociolinguistics; however, they are limited to not only a sociolinguistic
perspective but concentrate on the quotative marker in spoken colloquial
speech, specifically the explosion of ‘be like’ in that environment. This
book, however, cleverly abstracts away from this now arguably ubiquitous
element of study to provide the reader with a more comprehensive look at the
forms and the functions of quoting. The papers included in this book take into
consideration a vast array of data ranging from informal online communication
through blogs to newspapers and even a paper on the academic investment
involved in quoting, known as credibility. Furthermore, shaped as an
interdisciplinary work, the editors chose papers that reflected most fields of
linguistics that would be relevant: sociolinguistics, semantics, pragmatics,
etc.

SUMMARY

The book is prefaced by an introduction written by Dr. Wolfram Bublitz that
lays the groundwork for the papers to follow. In this introduction, he defines
‘quoting’ as it should be understood for the purpose of this work. He also
outlines its forms and functions and contextualizes the subject matter to
come.   

Part 1 “Now”

This part consists of a series of eight papers whose main link is the
synchronic element. Consequently, here we find that four of the papers are
dedicated to the understanding of the use (form and function) of quoting
drawing from online sources. Innovative and well-written, these papers provide
in-depth analyses of topics ranging from “the factuality” or evidentiality of
quoting to the “creation of stronger interpersonal relations between
interlocutors in an online forum”. These papers, which are well-written and
edited, provide a substantial overview of the contemporary work on this topic.
The following are a few examples of papers included in this section.

In the first paper “Reportable Facts and a Personal Touch: The Functions of
Direct Quotes in Online News”, Daniela Landert discusses the shifts in the
functions of quoting in online reports. In data extracted from the Times
Online 2010, she argues that quoting serves two main functions: the obvious
first being that of reporting facts, and the other being one of “expressing
personal experience and emotion” (page 29). By comparing this data from 2010
to data from the printed Times 1985, she argues a shift from the former
function to the latter, where emotional expression is the more prominent
function of quoting in online new today.

Next, Jenny Arendholz in “Quoting in Online Message Boards: An Interpersonal
Perspective”, discusses the pragmatic function of quoting on online message
boards, where the participants seem to use quotes to strengthen or weaken the
interpersonal between the contributors (on any particular message board). 

In “The Complexities of Thread-internal Quoting in English and German Online
Discussion Fora”, Birte Bös and Sonja Kleinke, in the third paper in this
collection, remark the same interpersonal as Arendholz by comparing two fora.
They note distinct qualitative and quantitative contrasts between the two in
the macro- and micro-level uses of quoting.

Anita Fetzer and Elisabeth Reber, in “Quoting in Political Discourse:
Professional Talk Meets Ordinary Postings” argue that in political discourse,
quoting is context-dependent and can be used as an instantiation of
stance-taking, alignment or disalignment with a particular political party or
figure.

In “Quotation and Online Identity: The Voice of Tacitus in German Newspapers
and Internet Discussions”, Andreas Musolff presents an account of the use of
quoting Tacitus’s work when discussing or evaluating historical figures,
especially those pertaining to the Germanic Revolt under Arminius. 

Rita Finkbeiner presents her paper “Ich kenne da so einen Jungen...kennen ist
gut, wir waren halt mal zusammen weg” On the Pragmatics and Metapragmatics of
X ist gut in German”. She analyzes the use of quotations in the formulaic
expression X ist gut (X is good), i.e. either the quotation is around the X (
and the predication ist gut optionally) or not and how they serve no pragmatic
function for distinction and should be disregarded.

In “Only “nur”. Scare Quoted (Exclusive) Focus Particles at the
Semantics/Pragmatics Interface”, Jorg Meibauer discusses how scare quotes are
used to trigger ironic meaning when used with ‘only’ or ‘nur’ in German. 

In the last paper in this section on quoting now, “Manufacturing Credibility:
Academic Quoting Across Cultures”, Klaus P. Schneider discusses the academic
use of quoting in order to support argumentation and provide credibility to
the idea presented. Although differences in usage exist across disciplines and
cultures, the main use remains for support of argumentation.

Part 2 “Then”

Composed of eight papers based in diachronic literature, these papers use
non-contemporary written texts dating as far back as the 17th century. A main
thread links the papers in this part - the linguistic art of quoting.  These
papers range in topics from the evolution of the quotative verb and the
variation in its usage to the evolution of the concept of plagiarism and to
what extent there was a medieval consciousness of originality and plagiarism.
The following is a brief summary of the papers included in this section.

In her paper “Quotative Markers in a Corpus of English Dialogues”, Karin
Aijmer addresses the quotative marker system (which includes be like in
contemporary speech) at an older stage of English, Early Modern English to be
specific and traces the weakening of the verb ‘say’ and its grammaticalization
into the quotative system.

Colette Moore presents a paper entitled “Histories of Talking about Talk:
Quethen, Quoth, Quote” tracing the history of the verbs used to introduce
quote and the pragmatic differences between them.

Winfried Rudolf in “Quoting and Translating Latin in the Old English Homilies
of the Vercelli book” examines the remaining vernacular Latin citations in the
Vercelli Homilies (p. 271). This paper provides preliminary evidence that
these citations derive from various ages and texts and are not representative
of a homogeneous vernacular norm.

In “Quoting and Plagiarizing - Concepts of both Now and Then?”, Monika
Kirner-Ludwig and Iris Zimmerman provide a diachronic and cross-linguistic
(Medieval English and Middle High German) study comparing the use of citations
and conclude that the concept of plagiarism is not modern by any sense. 

Jenny Arendhloz and Monika Kirner-Ludwig examine the hearer’s ability retrieve
the proper quote by looking at online messages and medieval texts in their
paper “In-between Cognitively Isolated Quotes and References: Looking for
Answers Lurking in Textual Margins”.

Ursula Lutzky looks at witness depositions in Early Modern English to
determine the lexical items used in speech reporting as well as the pragmatic
functions associated with the different strategies.

In “Haunting Evidence: Quoting the Prisoner in 19th Century Old Bailey Trial
Discourse. The Defences of Cooper (1842) and McNaughten (1843)”, Alison
Johnson examines the choice of direct versus indirect quotes made by the
scribe in both of these trials. She also examines a new category of quoting
specific to these trials: metatalk for suppressing quotation (p.369).

Bettina Lindner, in “Quotations from 17th and 18th Century  Medical Case
Reports” evaluates the use of various quotation devices in medical literature.
This is a diachronic assessment using a corpus of German medical reports
dating from the 1600 to 1800.

EVALUATION

As a whole, this book is an excellent compilation of innovative work in the
field of socio-pragmatics, interactional linguistics, and corpus analysis. The
papers are of excellent quality and provide the reader with a detailed account
of the diachrony and synchrony of the forms and functions of quoting in
different linguistic contexts. Separated into two main parts, based on ‘now’
and ‘then’, the papers in this book are cohesive. Aimed at an audience
interested in the intersections between pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and
historical linguistics, this book provides them with a robust list of
introductory papers to meet their needs.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Nahed Mourad
PhD Candidate in Linguistics
University of Ottawa
Ottawa, Canada

Reserach interests: Language contact, language variation, pragmatics,
socio-pragmatics, syntax





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