Reporting discourse, tense, and cognition

Author(s)

    • 﨑田, 智子 サキタ, トモコ

Bibliographic Information

Reporting discourse, tense, and cognition

by Tomoko I. Sakita

Elsevier, 2002

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. [259]-282) and indexes

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Reporting discourse has attracted rigorous analyses in linguistics, literary theory, cognitive psychology, sociology and ethnomethodology. This book provides analyses of controversial topics in reporting discourse like tense alternation, reporting styles, patterns and functions. After critically examining existing theories, Tomoko I. Sakita offers new theoretical perspectives and empirical analyses within the scope of actual language performance. Her analysis covers tenses that previous studies have neglected or have considered "ungrammatical" or "mistaken". Based on models of cognitive recollection and stream of consciousness, tense reveals cognitive, attitudinal and consciousness state markers in complex reporting processes, as well as identity, speaker psychology, and deictic relations, embedded in discourse and narrative contexts. A synthesis of discourse analysis and experiments on reporting style, structure and functions leads to formulating a new reporting discourse continuum. Reporting discourses emerge as rule-governed, goal-directed, purposeful strategic devices in communication. Sakita shows reporting discourse to be an integral whole formed by speakers' constant interpretations and choices at different stages of information processing, with close interactions among cognitive constraints, discourse organization, contextual information, and communicative purposes. She deepens our insights into the operation of language and cognition, as well as into communication systems and social dynamics, ultimately leading to a better understanding of human behaviour. This should be a useful work not only for linguists and literary specialists but also for readers with serious interest in human reporting behaviour and narrative, or in the dynamic aspects of cognitive operation.

Table of Contents

Summary of contrasts Weak vs. strong attitude Degrees of assuredness in I don't know Degrees of firmness in negation and affirmation Degrees of upset in exclamation Summary of contrasts Conclusion Consciousness Flow, Discourse Acts, and Tense Overview Discourse organization units Consciousness flow in discourse Consciousness flow in narrative dialogues Consciousness flow in exchanges Adjacency pair Three-part exchange Consciousness flow over a series of remarks In a single speaker's speech Over a series of remarks Consciousness flow in repetition of dialogue-introducers Pre-posing double dialogue-introducers Post-posing dialogue-introducers At restatements Conclusion Tense in Indirect Reporting Discourse Overview Treatments of tense in grammar Pragmatic view Declerck's hypothesis Tense in discourse Prevalence of speaker's viewpoint Avoidance of the past perfect tense Discourse functional use of the past perfect tense Reporting clause as dialogue marker Conclusion Reporting Discourse Style and Function Overview General characterizations of reporting discourse style and function Theoretical backgrounds Pragmatic studies Reporting style and structure Overview Preliminary study Experimental study Method Data analysis procedures Results Backgrounds of structural influence on style choice Summary Reporting function and pattern Overview Method Reporting discourse functions Evidentiality Disagreement and persuasion Response Foreground and background information Showing climaxes or punch-lines Exemplification and demonstration of emotion Dramatization Dramatizing imaginary and future events Dramatizing archetypical events Summary Correlations between style and function Reporting discourse on continuum Style and function along a continuum. Conclusion Conclusion Summary of chapters Theoretical implications Future perspectives Notes Transcription Conventions References Author Index Subject Index.

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