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Studies at the Grammar-Discourse Interface: Discourse markers and discourse-related grammatical phenomena
Edited by Alexander Haselow and Sylvie Hancil
[Studies in Language Companion Series 219] 2021
► pp. 127–156

Chapter 5
The meaning and functions of French je pense (que)

A constructionalist and interactional account

| The University of Manchester
| The University of Manchester

This paper examines the meanings of the French construction je pense (que) (‘I think (that)’, henceforth JP), as well as its uses in social interaction. We propose an account of JP as a micro-construction with two basic elements of coded meaning, either one of which may be pragmatically foregrounded in a given context of use. As a direct result of its constructional meaning, which we argue is situated at the context level rather than at the content level of discourse, the expression frequently functions as a pragmatic marker in conversation. We show that uses of JP may fulfil both interpersonal, face-related functions and discourse-organizational ones. Our analysis has implications for the way JP and similar expressions in French and other languages are categorized and how their pragmatic functions may be seen to have developed. It also raises interesting questions with regard to the psycholinguistic processing of such constructions.

Keywords: pragmatic markers, epistemic verbs, parentheticals, Construction Grammar, Interactional Linguistics
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Previous studies
  • 3.Presentation of the data
  • 4.The meaning(s) of je pense (que)
    • 4.1 Je pense (que) as a micro-construction
    • 4.2Constructional meaning of je pense (que)
    • 4.3Fine-tuning the analysis of je pense (que): Comparison with je crois / trouve (que)
      • 4.3.1 Je pense (que) vs je crois (que)
      • 4.3.2 Je pense (que) vs je trouve (que)
  • 5.Interactional functions of je pense (que)
    • 5.1 Je pense (que) as a face-saving device
      • 5.1.1 Je pense (que) as a redressive action for the speaker’s face
      • 5.1.2 Je pense (que) as a redressive action for the hearer’s face
    • 5.2Discourse-organizational functions
      • 5.2.1Indicating a transition in the speaker’s turn-in-progress
      • 5.2.2Projecting a preferred answer: Je pense (que) in question-answer formats
  • 6.Correlations between the position and the function of je pense (que)
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 3 June 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.219.05ang
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