Article published in:
Discourse approaches to evidentiality in Spanish
Edited by Marta Albelda Marco and María Estellés
[Pragmatics and Society 9:3] 2018
► pp. 402–428
Special Issue Section

What genres tell us about evidentials and vice versa

A study of al parecer in Spanish parliamentary debates

| University of Valencia
The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it aims to delve into the influence of contextual discursive factors in determining the type of evidential chosen and the pragmatic functions developed by evidentials in Spanish parliamentary discourse; second, it shows how evidentials can also provide useful new insight on the genre. A corpus study has been carried out studying the Spanish evidential discourse marker al parecer in parliamentary debates. The analysis shows how real examples of al parecer hardly fit any category of evidentials posited previously; data also illustrates how factors such as the discursive role or the part of the parliamentary process do affect the meaning of al parecer and change the pragmatic nuances conveyed by the discourse marker.
Keywords: Evidentiality, Spanish, parliamentary discourse, al parecer , genre
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The evidential discourse marker al parecer: Semantic and pragmatic approaches
    • 2.1Semantic aspects: The evidential basis of al parecer
    • 2.2Pragmatic aspects – linguistic variation of al parecer: Genres and contextual preferences
  • 3.Methodology: Corpus and selection of the examples
    • 3.1Corpus selection
    • 3.2Database
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1What parliamentary discourse can tell us about al parecer
      • a. Al parecer as a general indirect evidential
      • b. Al parecer as a reportative evidential
      • c. Al parecer as a non-firsthand evidential (Aikhenvald 2003)
      • d. Al parecer as a circumstantial evidential
      • e. Al parecer as a generic inferential
    • 4.2What al parecer can tell us about parliamentary discourse
      • 4.2.1Internal variables
      • 4.2.2External variables
      • 4.2.3External criteria, internal criteria: A cross comparison
  • 5.Taxonomical complexity of evidentials in parliamentary discourse
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 28 June 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.16034.est
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