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Positioning the Self and Others: Linguistic perspectives
Edited by Kate Beeching, Chiara Ghezzi and Piera Molinelli
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 292] 2018
► pp. 105–125

Chapter 5
Beyond the notion of periphery

An account of polyfunctional discourse markers within the Val.Es.Co. model of discourse segmentation

This paper offers an alternative analysis to the Subjectivity, Intersubjectivity and Peripheries Hypothesis or SIPH (Beeching, Degand, Detges, Traugott and Waltereit 2009; Traugott 2012; Beeching and Detges 2014; Higashizumi, Onodera and Sohn 2016). The SIPH focuses on the left and right peripheries of a single reference unit: sentence, utterance or turn. Against this unidimensional analysis, this paper argues in favour of a bidimensional analysis such as the one offered by the Val.Es.Co. model where eight different-scope units and four positions per unit offer a more flexible way to capture the evolution of discourse markers. The analysis of Sp. ¿no? (huh?), mira (look), oye (hey) and ¡vaya! (wow!) reveals that the subjective and intersubjective positioning of the speakers is better accounted for by taking the discourse unit and the meaning of the DM into account, rather than its structural position at the left or right periphery of an utterance.

Keywords: discourse segmentation, Val.Es.Co. model, left periphery, right periphery, (inter)subjectivity, discourse markers
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1 Traugott (2012) and the problems for the SIPH: Sp. oye (hey) and mira (look), no doubt and surely
    • 2.2The Val.Es.Co. model of discourse units: Towards a solution
      • 2.2.1Background
      • 2.2.2The units: Interventions, acts and subacts
  • 3.Findings
    • 3.1An alternative analysis using the VAM proposal
    • 3.2A diachronic problem: The evolution of no doubt and surely within the VAM
  • 4.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgment
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 17 July 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.292.05sal
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