Publications

Publication details [#26183]

Leith, Dick. 1995. Tense variation as a performance in a Scottish folktale. Language in Society 24 (1) : 53–77.

Publication type

Article in journal

Publication language

English

Keywords

discourse analysis | folk tale | performance1 | tense | variability

Language as a subject

Scottish

Place, Publisher

Cambridge University Press

ISBN

0047-4045

Journal WWW

journals.cambridge.org/

Annotation

This comparative analysis of the 1954 and 1983 performances of the same Scottish folktale "The green man of knowledge" reveals the existence of hitherto unacknowledged patterns and affecting factors in the use of the historic present tense. The co-occurence of a special 'norm' pattern with other performance features is argued to mark 'full performance".