Deconstructing variation in pragmatic function: A transdisciplinary case study

Abstract

Despite recent advances (e.g. Cheshire 2007; Pichler 2010; Denis 2015), discourse-pragmatic variables continue to challenge variationist theory and methods. An overarching dilemma concerns multifunctionality, raising difficulties for semantic equivalency and the circumscription of the variable context. In this article we present a case study to illustrate that deconstructing a discourse-pragmatic marker into its composite parts reveals clear criteria for disambiguating its principal function and its contextually derived functions. The discussion centres on the pragmatic marker eh in Canadian English. We illustrate that its multifunctionality is derivable from four parts: principal function, syntactic context, prosodic context, and discourse context. Our deconstruction uses a two-pronged methodology, drawing on storyboard elicitation and sociolinguistic interview data, which mutually reinforce our theoretical arguments. Under this transdisciplinary lens, the exponents of form and function become predictable, constrainable, and systematically derivable for probabilistic modelling within and across speech communities. (Confirmationals, multifunctionality, pragmatic markers, eh, speech acts)*

How Canadian was eh? A baseline investigation of usage and ideology

“…( -20051916-199243, 38 685 939 8 468 SCVE 2011-20121913-199612, 13 295 109 11 804 EOE 1975, 19841879-192018, 19 202 877 5 483 DCVE 1955-19801865-1936 467 421 14 164 Note that most of these tokens occur with declarative clauses. As Wiltschko et al (2018) observe, sociolinguistic interviews may not be the best data source for observing confirmationals with other kinds of clauses (e.g., exclamatives and imperatives).…”

“…Given recent deconstruction of the multifunctionality of confirmationals by Wiltschko et al (2018), I offer a slightly narrower definition of the variable context than Denis and Tagliamonte (2016: 90): any discourse-pragmatic feature that 1) occurs utterance-finally and 2) could be used to elicit confirmation that the addressee knows the truth of the preceding proposition. In CanE, this variable context thus includes utterance-final eh , right , you know , you see (among others) but does not include sentence tags such as isn't it and aren't you which do not target confirmation of the addressee's beliefs but rather targets confirmation of the truth of the preceding proposition itself (see Wiltschko et al 2018: 594–595). With this variable context in mind, each speaker's interview was systematically read and all tokens were extracted.…”

“…Eh is a confirmational – a multifunctional pragmatic marker that typically functions to seek addressee confirmation of the truth (or knowledge of the truth) of the proposition that has been put into the common-ground (Wiltschko and Heim 2016, Wiltschko et al 2018). Patterns of synchronic variation and change in a recent sociolinguistic corpus of Toronto English has shown that eh occurs infrequently relative to other confirmationals (e.g., Denis and Tagliamonte 2016), yet it persists as the “quintessential Canadian English stereotype” (Denis 2013: 1).…”

“…Indeed, even early popular metadiscourse discusses eh outside of the ‘pardon’ function, such as in Moore's (1967) review of the Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles : “both the English and the Americans can spot a Canadian from his ‘eh?’ at the end of a sentence: ‘It's hot, eh?”’ (cited in Avis 1972: 89). Indeed, Wiltschko et al (2018) argue that the different ‘discourse functions’ of eh that have been described in the literature are reducible to a core confirmational function of the lexeme.…”

Social meaning in semantics and pragmatics

“… 7 7 For discussion on how differences in pragmatic function between variants should be incorporated in defining the notion of pragmatic variable, see also Terkourafi (2011), Cameron and Schwenter (2013), Wagner, Hesson, Bybel, and Little (2015) and Wiltchsko et al (2018). …”