Discourse Readjustment(s) in Contemporary English

By: Blandine Pennec

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Synopsis: This study examines the linguistic tools which enable speakers and writers to propose adjustments and re-adjustments of the sentences they’ve just produced, as well as the goals they fulfil by doing so. We examine corrections, reformulations, specifications, modifications of points of views and link them with discursive strategies. (Re)-adjustments can be made in order to express oneself in a better way, to favor comprehension by adapting to the addressee, to structure one’s intervention, to play on the potentialities of language (polysemy, homonymy, ambiguity), to mention the main purposes associated with the use of those devices. The study focuses on the markers associated with those strategies. Therefore, it links the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic levels.