All Outputs (25)

Crosslinguistic paths of pragmatic development The acquisition of actually and en fait by British and French children (2022)
Journal Article

Diachronic studies of discourse markers suggest they follow a unidirectional developmental path, from propositional to textual and expressive uses. The present study tests whether children acquire the propositional (literal) before the expressive (pr... Read More about Crosslinguistic paths of pragmatic development The acquisition of actually and en fait by British and French children.

Discourse-pragmatic markers, fillers and filled pauses: Pragmatic, cognitive, multimodal and sociolinguistic perspectives (2022)
Journal Article

Despite being the object of considerable research effort over several decades, the status and function of discourse-pragmatic markers (DPMs), fillers and filled pause (FPs) continue to be at the forefront of an expanding field of scholarly debate.... Read More about Discourse-pragmatic markers, fillers and filled pauses: Pragmatic, cognitive, multimodal and sociolinguistic perspectives.

The trajectory of changing rhoticity in Bristol English: A consultative paper (2022)
Preprint / Working Paper

This consultative paper by Blaxter, Beeching, Coates, Murphy and Robinson presents data on rhoticity in Bristol English. Through an investigation into the speech of 30 Bristol speakers the study demonstrates that this traditional feature is declining... Read More about The trajectory of changing rhoticity in Bristol English: A consultative paper.

Can filled pauses be represented as linguistic items? Investigating the effect of exposure on the perception and production of um (2021)
Journal Article

The current paper presents three studies that investigated the effect of exposure on the mental representations of filled pauses (um/uh). In Study 1, a corpus analysis identified the frequency of co-occurrence of filled pauses with words located imme... Read More about Can filled pauses be represented as linguistic items? Investigating the effect of exposure on the perception and production of um.

Each p[ɚ]son does it th[ɛː] way: Rhoticity variation and the community grammar (2019)
Journal Article

This paper examines individual differences in constraints on linguistic variation in light of Labov’s (2007) proposal that adult change (diffusion) disrupts systems of constraints and Tamminga, MacKenzie, and Embick’s (2016) typology of constraints.... Read More about Each p[ɚ]son does it th[ɛː] way: Rhoticity variation and the community grammar.

Introduction: Strategic uses of politeness formulae. Analytical approaches and theoretical accounts (2019)
Journal Article

This essay introduces the special issue of the Journal of Pragmatics, co-edited by Beeching and Murphy, entitled Doing (mock) im/politeness.

Apologies in French and English: An insight into conventionalisation and im/politeness (2019)
Journal Article

© 2019 This paper argues that a cross-linguistic study of the lexical semantics of terms used to apologise in English and French can shed light on the conventionalisation of (mock) politeness. Despite the long historical interdependence between the t... Read More about Apologies in French and English: An insight into conventionalisation and im/politeness.

Introduction (2018)
Book Chapter

This volume brings together contributions inspired by discussions that took place during the Panel “Positioning the self and others: Linguistic traces” which was held at the 14th IPrA Conference in Antwerp, 26–31 July 2015. Though much work has been... Read More about Introduction.

Metacommenting in English and French: A variational pragmatics approach (2018)
Book Chapter

© 2018 John Benjamins Publishing Company. Metacommenters allow speakers to take some distance from a particular lexical selection, or enter into a negotiation with their interlocutors. A variational pragmatics approach is taken to the investigation o... Read More about Metacommenting in English and French: A variational pragmatics approach.

Just a suggestion: just/e in French and English (2017)
Book Chapter

Reflexivity and discourse-pragmatic variation and change (2017)
Book Chapter

This chapter takes a corpus linguistic approach to the investigation of reflexive, or metacommenting, expressions in French, primarily si tu veux/si vous voulez (STV/SVV). STV and SVV form part of a range of frequently occurring reflexive devices whi... Read More about Reflexivity and discourse-pragmatic variation and change.

Insights from contrastive linguistics: Translating 'sort of' into French (2016)
Book Chapter

Identifying the meanings and functions of pragmatic markers such as well, you know, I mean and sort of has posed a considerable challenge for linguists in semantics and pragmatics, particularly those interested in semantic change and pragmaticalisati... Read More about Insights from contrastive linguistics: Translating 'sort of' into French.

Pragmatic Markers in British English: Meaning in Social Interaction (2016)
Book

Fundamental to oral fluency, pragmatic markers facilitate the flow of spontaneous, interactional and social conversation. Variously termed ‘hedges’, ‘fumbles’ and ‘conversational greasers’ in earlier academic studies, this book explores the meaning,... Read More about Pragmatic Markers in British English: Meaning in Social Interaction.

Alors/donc/then at the right periphery: Seeking confirmation of an inference (2016)
Journal Article

This paper compares the functions and development of right peripheral (RP) alors, donc and then in French and English. These items developed historically from temporal expressions, they express consequence and can serve, intersubjectively, as an appe... Read More about Alors/donc/then at the right periphery: Seeking confirmation of an inference.

Variability in native and non-native use of pragmatic markers: The example of well in role-play data (2015)
Book Chapter

Researching Sociopragmatic Variability: Perspectives from Variational, Interlanguage and Contrastive Pragmatics (2015)
Book

Researching Sociopragmatic Variability showcases a range of research approaches and brings together new findings from three key areas: variational pragmatics, interlanguage pragmatics and contrastive pragmatics. The volume investigates sociopragmati... Read More about Researching Sociopragmatic Variability: Perspectives from Variational, Interlanguage and Contrastive Pragmatics.

Discourse Functions at the Right and Left Periphery: Crosslinguistic Investigations of Language Use and Language Change (2014)
Book

A basic property of human language is that it unfolds in time; the left and right margin of discourse units do not behave in a symnmetrical fashion. The working hypothesis of this volume is that discourse elements of the left periphery have mainly su... Read More about Discourse Functions at the Right and Left Periphery: Crosslinguistic Investigations of Language Use and Language Change.

A parallel corpus approach to investigating semantic change (2013)
Book Chapter

Traugott and Dasher (2002) draw our attention to items at the extreme right of the spectrum of semantic change where the canonical or core meaning is almost entirely bleached. Lexicographers and semanticists have struggled to pin down the senses of s... Read More about A parallel corpus approach to investigating semantic change.

Sociolinguistic aspects of lexical variation in french (2012)
Book Chapter

In his volume on Parisian French, Lodge (2004) highlights the importance of lexical variation in French, finding it anomalous that sociolinguists, in the Labovian tradition at least, have neglected this highly salient aspect of speaker identity. As... Read More about Sociolinguistic aspects of lexical variation in french.

Semantic change: Evidence from false friends (2010)
Journal Article

Functional linguists are in general agreement that semantic change may be triggered as part of the negotiation of meaning in interactional contexts: a 'one-off' contextual implicature generalises to become a new core meaning of a lexical item (Traugo... Read More about Semantic change: Evidence from false friends.