This paper deals with rhetorically intended questions in the Zhuangzi, a foundational text of Daoism (fourth century bc). Such questions are generally meant to evoke silent answers in the addressee’s mind, thereby involving a fictive type of interaction (Pascual 2006, 2014). We analyse… read more
What makes The Daily Show with Jon Stewart so successful as social and political satire? Rhetorical theorists and critics have identified several mechanisms for satisfying the show’s satiric and parodic aim, which include parodic polyglossia, contextual clash, and satirical specificity (Waisanen,… read more
This paper explores the use of non-quotational direct speech – a construction displaying deictic perspective persistence – in the Hebrew Bible, an ancient text of great cultural significance. We focus on the use of non-quotational direct speech to introduce intentions, hopes, motives, or states… read more
This article explores direct speech involving fictive interaction, that is not functioning as an ordinary quote (e.g. “a look of ‘I told you so’”; Pascual, 2006, 2014). We specifically deal with its use as a literary strategy, in which different fictive speech constructions may serve to: (i)… read more
Autism is characterized by repetitive behavior and difficulties in adopting the viewpoint of others. We examine a communicative phenomenon resulting from these symptoms: non-prototypical direct speech for non-reports involving an actual utterance from previously produced discourse (e.g. quoting… read more
This chapter deals with strategically motivated discourse to show the fundamental role of the conversation frame in language for specific purposes. We focus on imagined speech acts in which advertised products and/or the “problems” they tackle are fictively addressed through non-genuine yes-no… read more
We explore how fictive interaction (Pascual 2002, 2014), manifested as echolalia (i.e. prior speech repeated verbatim), is successfully used by autistic children as a compensatory strategy in conversation. We video-recorded four Brazilian autistic children between the ages of 4 and 12 in… read more
We deal with the notion of fictive interaction, namely the use of the conversation frame in order to structure cognition, discourse, and grammar (Pascual 2002, 2006b, 2014). We discuss how thought and the conceptualization of experience are partly modeled by the pattern of conversation, and present… read more
This study deals with the use of expository questions as discourse strategy in Zhuangzi (4th c. B.C.), a foundational text of Daoism. We treat this particular type of non-information-seeking questions (e.g. “Why? Because…”) as a manifestation of conversational monologues, which are themselves… read more
This paper deals with a prosecutor’s closing argument in a murder trial I did fieldwork on in California in 2000. This discourse is analyzed through the conceptual blend of the deceased victim ‘testifying’ through legal evidence. The emergence and argumentative power of this blend is examined vis à… read more
Attested instances of persuasive discourse were examined from the perspective of conceptual blending theory to reveal that serious argumentative points are often made via the construction of unrealistic blended cognitive models. The unrealistic character of these models is often related to… read more
Since the 1970s, the use of the Dutch preposition van in the (semi-)quotative function has been noted by several linguists and language users as rapidly increasing in informal speech. In this sense, it can be compared to the English quotative marker like, which is also used to introduce direct… read more