Travis, Discourse Markers in Columbian Spanish (2005)

[Julia Ulrich]

NEW FROM MOUTON DE GRUYTER

Catherine E. Travis

DISCOURSE MARKERS IN COLOMBIAN SPANISH

A Study in Polysemy

2005. xiv, 328 pages. Cloth. 
EUR 98.00 / sFr 157.00 / for USA, Canada, Mexico US$ 128.00
ISBN 3-11-018161-4
(Cognitive Linguistics Research 27)

Language of publication: English
Date of publication: 05/2005

http://www.degruyter.de/rs/bookSingle.cfm?isbn=3-11-018161-4&fg=SK&L=E


This book presents a semantic analysis of a set of four functionally
related discourse markers that are particularly frequent in
conversational Colombian Spanish. A corpus of four hours of spontaneous
conversation is used to study the markers bueno 'well, OK', pues 'well,
then', o sea 'I mean, that is to say' and entonces 'so, then'. 

Through a detailed analysis of numerous examples drawn from the corpus,
and employing both quantitative and qualitative techniques, it is
demonstrated that, contrary to popular belief, discourse markers are not
just functional particles with indeterminate or context-based semantics.
Rather, they have inherent meanings which can be identified and
exhaustively defined with an appropriate semantic methodology, such as
is provided by the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach. This study
illustrates that this approach, which has been widely applied to the
semantics of the lexicon and the grammar, can be extended to the
semantics of discourse-based features, supporting the notion that
meaning of all aspects of language forms one semantic system. 

This research also has implications for the study of polysemy, in that
it operationalizes the little understood, but classical definition of
polysemy of items with 'a shared element of meaning', and it
demonstrates that the polysemous relations of discourse markers are
centered around an invariant core that can be identified on the basis of
their use in discourse. As one of the first corpus-based studies to
present a semantic account of the multifunctional nature of discourse
markers this book makes an important contribution to research on the
relationship between semantics and discourse-pragmatics, and polysemy in
discourse. 

Of interest to: Students and Scholars of Romance Linguistics, Discourse
Studies and Cognitive Linguistics; Academic Libraries; Institutes 
  
Catherine E. Travis is Assistant Professor at the University of New
Mexico, Albuquerque. 
  
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