discourse words

[John Dunn]

In the days when I drove a lift in a department store, I was continually amazed by the contradictory accounts of the weather that I received from customers.  Even in the West Riding of Yorkshire the weather doesn't change that fast, and a hedging phrase such as 'v principe' would have been a very useful adjunct to my necessarily obsequious replies. Perhaps because of that, whenever I speak a foreign language other than Russian, I find myself constantly trying to come up with literal translations of 'v principe'. 

But I am surprised to find 'allegedly' introduced into this company.  At least in British English this is more than a discourse word, since it is customarily added to any public accusation to ensure that you (and the medium conveying your words) are exempt from any subsequent libel action that may be brought.  I accept, though, that its use in technical language could be problematic, not least because it is in effect the expression of a personal opinion.

John Dunn.


-----Original Message-----
From: Alina Israeli <aisrael at AMERICAN.EDU>
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2007 22:09:51 -0500
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] discourse words

Many thanks to Olga Yokoyama for defending the discourse words that  
traditionally earned a bad reputation being called crutches, sornjaki  
and many other things. A quick Google search of the subject gives you  
a number of citations. But I would like to mention a book edited by  
Denis Paillard and K. Kiseleva "Diskursivnye slova". (Moscow 1998)

In my translation class I actually teach the meaning of some of those  
words, like v principe, for example, and how to translate them into  
English. Learning to use them in a foreign language is a lot harder.  
This is a true sign of mastery of the language.

AI

On Nov 28, 2007, at 7:41 PM, Yokoyama, Olga wrote:

> [quoting Renee Stillings: Oh, and drop all the crutch words. Russian,
> both written, and verbal, is often littered with ambiguous
> (non-committal ...) terms like "v principe," "vozmozhno," etc. In  
> nearly
> all cases these can just be dropped for the sake of good  
> writing ... or
> speaking. I can't tell you how many times a question along the  
> lines of
> "How's the weather today?" is answered by "V principe, kholodno."  
> Is it
> or isn't it???]
>


Alina Israeli
LFS, American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington DC. 20016
(202) 885-2387 	
fax (202) 885-1076
aisrael at american.edu




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John Dunn
Honorary Research Fellow, SMLC (Slavonic Studies)
University of Glasgow, Scotland

Address:
Via Carolina Coronedi Berti 6
40137 Bologna
Italy
Tel.: +39 051/1889 8661
e-mail: J.Dunn at slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk
johnanthony.dunn at fastwebnet.it

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