Edinburgh University Press Understanding Pragmatic Markers: A Variational Pragmatic Approach

This is a study of pragmatic markers in a corpus of spoken English. Pragmatic markers are multifunctional and this can make it difficult to describe their meaning and potential. In particular, we know little about pragmatic markers and prosody, their sociolinguistic use or their distribution across text types. This book looks at pragmatic markers in a corpus of spoken English, with a focus on the functions performed by the markers in different types of text. Karen Aijmer explores the syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and discourse aspects of the markers. By taking a broader perspective on the markers, classifying them, describing their class-specific properties and analysing individual markers, she assesses whether any generalisations can be made about the prosody of the markers. It includes a definition of pragmatic markers in the context of the book. It features chapter-long case studies of the pragmatic markers well, in fact and actually. Each chapter has a clear introduction and conclusion. From the Back Cover Understanding Pragmatic Markers is inspired by recent ideas in pragmatics on variation in language use with regard to social, cultural and regional factors. Karin Aijmer argues that in addition to a general analysis of pragmatic markers we need to take into account their occurrence in different varieties of English, text types and activity types. Expanding the study of pragmatic markers in this way broadens the area of study and results in a better knowledge of pragmatic markers in general. By discussing the different theoretical frameworks, methodologies such as corpus linguistics and the debates around the categorisation of the functions of pragmatic markers, this accessible introduction brings students and scholars in linguistics up-to-date with this dynamic field of research. Karin Aijmer is Professor Emeritus at the University of Gothenburg. Cover image: @ CactuSoup/iStockphoto. Cover design: [EUP logo] www.euppublishing.com About the Author Karin Aijmer is Professor of English and Head of the English Department at Goteborg University.