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Article published In:
Vagueness and Elasticity of 'Sort of' in TV Discussion Discourse in the Asian Pacific
Edited by Vahid Parvaresh and Grace Zhang
[Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 29:1] 2019
► pp. 9–32

Sort of in Australian English

The elasticity of a pragmatic marker

| The University of Melbourne, Australia
| La Trobe University, Australia | University of Derby, UK
| UNSW Canberra at the Australian Defence Force Academy, Australia

This study examines the pragmatic functions of sort of in Australian English (AuE), utilising discourse from 12 months of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s television program Q&A. It explores the frequency of sort of uses in context with a focus on multifunctionality. Uses are classified in a data-based schema which synthesises the previously described pragmatic functions of sort of and locates these within Zhang’s (2015) Elastic Language framework. The article thus provides an understanding of the pragmatic functions of sort of in public discussion contexts within AuE, arguing, most notably, that sort of performs five of Zhang’s six functions, rather than just the two previously reported, and that in accounting for the complex uses of this pragmatic marker, a wider range of subtypes needs to be distinguished within two of the functions.

Keywords: sort of , pragmatic marker, pragmatic function, Australian English, television discourse
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Previous research
    • 2.1 Sort of as a pragmatic marker
    • 2.2Elastic language
    • 2.3Context of use: Television panel discussion
  • 3.Methods and materials
    • 3.1The television program Q&A
    • 3.2The Q&A corpus
      • 3.2.1Participants
      • 3.2.2Topic
      • 3.2.3Instances of sort of
    • 3.3Coding
  • 4.Results and analysis
    • 4.1Overview of data
    • 4.2Functional frequency, distribution and co-occurrence
    • 4.3Exemplification of common pragmatic functions
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 16 May 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/japc.00019.mul
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