Reporting discourse, tense, and cognition / / by Tomoko I. Sakita.

• VerfasserIn: Sakita, Tomoko I.,
• Place / Publishing House: Amsterdam : : Elsevier,, [2002]; ©2002
• Year of Publication: 2002
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (305 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

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.