Variation in the expression of stance across varieties of English

Abstract

Variational pragmatics, one of the youngest branches of pragmatics, studies the different pragmatic values of items across varieties, and the different realisations of the same pragmatic function across varieties through different forms. Studies on (inter)subjectivity, and on pragmatically sensitive items in general, have started to include Inner Circle, Outer Circle and learners’ varieties of English, also thanks to the increased availability of computerised material. In particular, the expression of stance, one of the crucial functions of several language forms that undergo pragmaticisation, is increasingly the focus of variation studies. The paper aims at contributing to such studies, focusing on the parenthetical construction I'm afraid across texts included in the GloWbE corpus in different varieties of English. This discourse marker shows a range of stance‐expressing functions and a complex pragmaticisation path, as demonstrated by previous studies. The marker appears with widely diverging frequencies across the corpus – the study attempts to map this diversified scenario, which could point to a predominance, in different varieties of English, of different pragmatic strategies for the expression of stance.

You know and I think in English(es) in Zanzibar

“…In their function of expressing epistemic or interpersonal stance (Tan, 2010; Mazzon, 2019), ‘[discourse markers] are geared to serve relational and face‐work needs and the implementation of politeness‐impoliteness strategies’ (Mazzon, 2019, p. 594). Mazzon (2019) mentions the example of like , either signaling a) hesitation, b) uncertainty thus fulfilling a subjective, speaker‐related function, or c) softening a potentially face‐threatening turn hence fulfilling an intersubjective, relational function by taking into account the hearer's face needs.…”

“…There is a sizeable amount of literature on discourse markers in different varieties of English. Some of these studies are cross‐varietal, like Aijmer's (2013) analysis of a number of discourse markers in a variational pragmatics framework, or Mazzon's (2019) corpus investigation of I'm afraid across 20 varieties of English. Many studies are concerned with L1 varieties, like Aijmer (2013) focusing on British English, and considering American, Australian, New Zealand, and Singapore English, or a study by Amador‐Moreno et al.…”

“…Regarding the functional level, discourse markers have also been shown to be versatile, indicating discourse relations and regulating interpersonal relationships or politeness, for instance.In light of this growing body of research, investigating discourse markers from a variety-oriented perspective is called for (Aijmer, 2013). Importantly, this investigation should take sociolinguistic factors, such as types of speakers and text types, into consideration (Aijmer, 2002(Aijmer, , 2013 Wilson et al, 2017;Mazzon, 2019). The present paper aims at contributing to this description by providing an analysis of discourse markers in the as yet little-described English(es) 1 spoken by Zanzibaris, critically considering the situational context of data collection.…”

Subjectivació i intersubjectivació en l’evolució del verb «témer» en català (segles XIII-XIX)

“…The intersubjective usages of the verbs of fear have already been identified in other languages, and in particular there are several studies on the English construction I'm afraid. Some attention has been paid to its synchronic usages (Mazzon 2019), but studies have mostly focused on the diachronic process that has resulted in these values (Akimoto 2002;Jing-Schmidt & Kapatsinski 2012;Kitis 2009;Mazzon 2012;Tissari 2007), utilizing in general Traugott's concept of (inter)subjectification (Traugott & Dasher 2001;Traugott 2010). The best analyzed usages have been the apologetic (described in a classic study by Aijmer 1996, and synchronically by Jacobsson 2004or Jucker 2018 and the softening (for instance Mazzon 2012Mazzon o 2019).…”

Cultural keywords in World Englishes: A GloWbE-based study

“…Accordingly, in GloWbE, about 60 percent of the words for each country come from informal blogs and the other 40 percent from a wide variety of (often) more formal genres and text types such as newspapers, magazines, company websites, and so on (Davies and Fuchs 2015: 3-4; see also https:// 21centurytext.wordpress.com/introducing-the-1-9-billion-word-global-webbased-english-corpus-glowbe/). Opinions differ on the extent to which the informality of blogs resembles that of the spoken word, with most prepared to accept that, while blogs may not be equivalent to speech, they are 'speech-like' in certain respects (see, e.g., Grieve et al 2010;Nelson 2015;Loureiro-Porto 2017;Mazzon 2019). Despite the fact that the general representation of English varieties offered by GloWbE is limited to their use on the Net, and that the orality of its blogs is questionable, it is nevertheless currently the only corpus that is (readily) available to scholars needing copious amounts of data for comparative research on relatively low-frequency linguistic items in World Englishes.…”