On the Relationship between Attenuation, Discourse Particles and Position

Abstract

This chapter aims to provide evidence for the direct interaction between the meaning of discourse particles and their situation with respect to discourse units. Changes in position bring corresponding changes in meaning and, more importantly for our purpose, they may trigger or inhibit attenuation. Examples taken from the Diccionario de partículas discursivas del español (DPDE, www.dpde.es) provide evidence for the existence of some discourse particles whose core meaning is mitigating, and some others where an attenuating meaning arises in particular contexts. The former particles are prototypically attenuating, but their position with respect to discourse is determinant for them to finally work as such; the latter, by contrast, may develop a contextual, peripheral attenuating meaning if their position in discourse is changed.

Aproximación al estudio de las funciones pragmáticas y a la atenuación en la partícula ‘onda’ en el español de Chile

“…Siempre empezar algo nuevo da como una sensación rara, pero me gusta Asimismo, además de considerar el contexto interaccional concreto y sus componentes, para determinar si en los contextos extraídos de nuestros corpus la partícula 'onda' se comporta como un elemento atenuante, buscamos identificar la función atenuadora. Estudios anteriores han determinado que la atenuación tiene tres funciones: autoproteger, prevenir y reparar (Briz & Estellés, 2010;Briz, 2011;Briz & Albelda, 2013;Albelda, Briz, Cestero, Kotwica & Villalba, 2014;Villalba, 2015) 8 . La autoprotección se vincula con el interés del hablante por proteger su propia imagen ante una posible amenaza.…”

Evidentials, politeness and prosody in Spanish: A corpus analysis

“…Attenuation 10 is one of the most common linguistic strategies used to be communicatively polite (Briz 2007;Albelda 2010;Briz and Estellés 2010). It is a discourse strategy to minimize the risk a speaker runs when uttering an assertion that could not only threaten the hearer's face or rights, but also his/her own face.…”

“…Among these, politeness-related effects are a major group, but not the only one. Three general functions have been established for attenuation: (a) self-protecting (b) protecting the hearer by preventing him/her from receiving any facethreat, or (c) repairing any face-threat that the hearer has received (Briz and Estellés 2010). Brown and Levinson (1987) establish the main task attenuation performs for politeness: it mitigates potential damage towards the addressee's face.…”

A atenuação e os atenuadores: estratégias e táticas

“…E, para a análise contrastiva, as diferentes sociedades e culturas são, igualmente, determinantes. Existem culturas que tendem à aproximação em maior ou menor grau, como a espanhola peninsular; e outras que tendem ao distanciamento, em maior ou menor grau, como a inglesa, o que explicaria o maior uso de atenuação nestas do que naquelas, e o que nos permitiria entender as notáveis diferenças no emprego e frequência desta estratégia na Espanha, escassa, e na América Hispânica, abundante (BRIZ, 2007(BRIZ, , 2010FERRER;LANZA, 1998;PUGA, 1997). Efetivamente, a Espanha apresenta a cultura de máxima aproximação e solidariedade, de máxima imediatez (coloquialidade) social e discursiva e, assim, de menos atenuação (HAVERKATE, 2004;BRIZ, , 2005BRIZ, , 2007ALBELDA, 2004, BERNAL, 2005.…”