Part of
Discourse TopicsRichard Watson Todd
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 269] 2016
► pp. v–x
Table of contents
List of figures
ix
List of tables
xi
Glossary of commonly used abbreviations
xiv
Introduction
1
Chapter 1Investigating discourse topics
5
1.1Uses of discourse topics in applied linguistics
6
1.2Defining and operationalising discourse topics
7
1.2.1Connectedness
11
1.2.2Aboutness
13
1.2.3Relevance
13
1.2.4Topics, connectedness, aboutness and relevance
14
1.3Text linguistics
15
1.4A preliminary analysis of discourse topics
17
1.5Data analysed
23
1.6Conclusion
27
Chapter 2Topic boundaries
29
2.1Problems in identifying topic boundaries
30
2.2Signals of topic boundaries
32
2.2.1Topic-shift markers and phrases
32
2.2.2Lexico-semantic indicators of topic boundaries
35
2.2.3Markedness, phonology and other signals of topic boundaries
38
2.3Identifying topic boundaries in discourse
40
2.4Conclusion
47
Chapter 3Identifying topics
49
3.1How to express topics
50
3.2Sentence topics and discourse topics
51
3.3Identifying topics in discourse
54
3.4Ways of identifying topics
57
3.4.1Word frequencies for topic identification
58
3.4.2Lexical chaining
60
3.4.3Text-specific hierarchies
61
3.4.4Text-specific networks of associations
62
3.4.5Combining sentence topics
63
3.5Conclusion
64
Chapter 4Topic development
67
4.1Typologies of topic development
69
4.2Linguistic features of topic development
71
4.3An exchange structure analysis of topic development
73
4.4Applications of topic development
79
4.5Conclusion
81
Chapter 5Text linguistic analyses of discourse topics
83
5.1Theme-rheme progression analysis
87
5.2Given-new progression analysis
98
5.3Lexical cohesion analysis
107
5.4Topic-based analysis using relations
123
5.4.1Average distance of a move
133
5.4.2Frequency of moves
134
5.4.3Frequency of coherence breaks
136
5.4.4Recycling of concepts and moves
136
5.5Topic-based analysis using associations
137
5.6Conclusion
147
Chapter 6Comparing the analyses of discourse topics
149
6.1Triangulation of methods of analysis
153
6.2The location of topic boundaries
156
6.3The topics and topic entities identified
162
6.4The types of topic development
172
6.5Validation of the results of the analyses against human judgments
174
6.6Conclusion
191
Chapter 7Applying discourse topic analysis
193
7.1Text selection
193
7.2Analysing the texts
196
7.3Text 3: Uses of topics
197
7.4Text 4: Wikitalk
205
7.5Text 5: Satirical sermon
213
7.6Text 6: Anecdote
221
7.7Comparison of methods for Texts 3 to 6
227
7.8Comparison of analysis of Texts 3 to 6
231
7.9Text 7: A longer text
234
7.10Conclusion
239
Chapter 8Implications of discourse topics
241
8.1Topic identification
242
8.1.1Topic-based analysis using relations
244
8.2Topic boundaries
246
8.3Topic development
249
8.4Natural Language Processing applications
250
8.5Other applications of discourse topics
257
8.6Conclusion
259
References
261
Appendix ATranscription conventions
281
Appendix BText 1: Classroom discourse
283
Appendix CText 3: Uses of topics
285
Appendix DText 4: Wikitalk
289
Appendix EText 5: Satirical sermon
293
Appendix FText 6: Anecdote
297
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