Pseudo-clefts in Italian talk-in-interaction and in interaction-as-represented

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Abstract

This article examines Italian pseudo-clefts (PCs) as documented in diverse settings of interaction (ordinary, institutional, multiparty, etc.), as well as in interactions reported by daily newspapers. After an overview of the grammatical and semantic properties of PCs, mainly based on the literature and Italian grammars, the article empirically analyzes attested PCs from two different vantage points, interactional linguistics and text linguistics. By focusing on two different kinds of data, it (i) provides a fine-grained description of PCs in present-day Italian, and, more specifically, (ii) highlights the differences in PCs occurring in talk-in-interaction vs. journalistic texts, in particular in reported speech. It shows that the way in which linguists conceptualize PCs is largely informed by the specific features of the data considered, such as temporality, sequentiality, and embodiment for talk-in-interaction, and spatiality, hierarchy and textual structures for newspaper articles. Finally, the article provides an overview of the most significant properties of PCs as they appear in both sets of data. It highlights the theoretical and empirical differences between the two frameworks chosen to analyze PCs, and reflects on the heuristic benefits and difficulties in combining different research traditions.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number103227
Number of pages33
JournalLingua
Volume271
Publication statusPublished - 1 May 2022
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

Scopus 85128809741
Mendeley 3f458bc9-13f6-3342-97e4-5fc8b2ce12cd
unpaywall 10.1016/j.lingua.2021.103227

Keywords

Research priority areas of TU Dresden

DFG Classification of Subject Areas according to Review Boards

Subject groups, research areas, subject areas according to Destatis

Keywords

  • Grammar, Interactional linguistics, Italian pseudo-clefts, Spoken-written empirical data, Text linguistics, Uses and functions

Library keywords