Vagueness Markers in Italian : : Age variation and pragmatic change / / Chiara Ghezzi.

• Superior document: Metodi e prospettive
• VerfasserIn: Ghezzi, Chiara,
• Place / Publishing House: [Place of publication not identified] : : FrancoAngeli,, 2022.; ©2022
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: Metodi e prospettive.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (24 pages).

Moving from a broad socio-pragmatic perspective, this study analyses how speakers of different ages use a class of items and constructions that codify intentional vagueness in Italian. Items as un po' 'a bit', tipo 'kind', diciamo 'let us say', così 'so'...

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgements
• List of figures and tables
• Transcription conventions
• Introduction
• 1. Intentional vagueness and vagueness markers as strategic use of language
• 1.1. Vagueness, intentional vagueness, and vagueness markers
• 1.2. Vagueness markers between semantic approximation
• and pragmatic hedging
• 1.3. Vagueness markers and functional heterogeneity
• 1.4. Vagueness markers and formal heterogeneity
• 1.5. Semantic sources of vagueness markers
• 1.5.1. Smallness: un po'
• 1.5.2. Approximation, hyponymous or comparative
• reference: come, tipo
• 1.5.3. Manner deixis: così
• 1.5.4. Demurring: insomma
• 1.5.5. Adversativeness and concession: comunque
• 1.5.6. Addition: anche
• 1.5.7. Discussion
• 1.6. Vagueness markers and strategical heterogeneity
• 1.6.1. Approximation
• 1.6.1.1. General extenders
• 1.6.2. Metadiscourse relativisation
• 1.6.3. Reference to deixis
• 1.6.4. General nouns
• 1.7. Vagueness markers as strategically polite use of language
• 1.8. Discussion
• 2. Vagueness markers between pragmatic variation and change
• 2.1. Vagueness markers as discourse-pragmatic variables
• 2.2. Style and discourse-pragmatic variation
• 2.3. The social embedding of discourse-pragmatic variation
• 2.4. Age of speakers as a factor of variation
• 2.5. Discourse pragmatic features between variation and change
• 2.6. Discussion
• 3. Corpora and methodologies of analysis
• 3.1. The analysis of vagueness markers: an onomasiologic
• and socio-pragmatic approach
• 3.2. Discourse-pragmatic features and radio phone-in shows
• 3.3. Constraining the variables, managing corpora representativeness, balance and sampling
• 3.4. Corpora transcription and the annotation tool
• 3.5. The theoretical model of discourse segmentation
• 4. The use of vagueness markers between age variation and pragmatic change
• 4.1. Vagueness markers: functions, forms, and contexts of use in different age cohorts
• 4.2. Approximation
• 4.2.1. General extenders
• 4.2.2. Exemplification strategies
• 4.2.3. Addition strategies
• 4.3. Metadiscourse relativization
• 4.3.1. Hypothetical strategies
• 4.4. Reference to deixis
• 4.5. General nouns
• 4.6. Discussion
• 5. Case studies
• 5.1. Vagueness markers from discourse and pragmatic markers
• 5.1.1. Exemplification markers
• 5.1.2. Metadiscourse markers
• 5.1.3. Discussion
• 5.2. Forms and trajectories
• 5.2.1. Un po'
• 5.2.2. Così
• 5.2.3. Cioè
• 5.3. Discussion
• 6. Concluding remarks
• References.