VERB PATTERNS IN TRIAL DISCOURSE: THE CASE OF I THINK

Magdalena Szczyrbak

doi:10.5817/DI2020-2-119

VERB PATTERNS IN TRIAL DISCOURSE: THE CASE OF I THINK

Vol.13,No.2(2020)

Magdalena Szczyrbak

https://doi.org/10.5817/DI2020-2-119

PDF

Abstract

This study revisits the usage of I think in courtroom interaction based on transcripts from a murder trial. The analysis focuses on the structural diversity of I think and some of its variant forms, and it demonstrates pragmatic functions associated with the individual patterns. As the data reveal, I think performs the roles reported in earlier studies (discourse marker, hedge, booster, face-saving device, opinion marker, mindsay marker) as well as increases epistemic distance and decreases the degree of imposition in courtroom questioning. The findings obtained in the current research are also compared with Kaltenböck’s (2013) results documenting various uses of I think and other comment clauses in diachronic spoken data. This comparison demonstrates that, on the one hand, well-established patterns involving I think are frequent in the courtroom data and, on the other, that the recent trends with variant forms of I think – which have been identified in non-specialist settings – are scantily represented.

Keywords:
comment clauses; epistemic stance; I think; jury trial; mental verbs; trial discourse

References

Aijmer, K. (1997) ‘I think – an English modal particle.’ In: Swan, T. and Westvik, O. J. (eds) Modality in Germanic Languages: Historical and Comparative Perspectives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 1-47. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110889932.1

Bednarek, M. (2006) ‘Epistemological positioning and evidentiality in English news discourse – a text-driven approach.’ Text & Talk 26(6), 635-660. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/TEXT.2006.027

Biel, Ł. (2007) ‘Communicative distance in interaction: Verbal and nonverbal expression in English.’ In: Kiełtyka, R., Osuchowska, D. and Rokosz-Piejko, E. (eds) Language, Literature, Culture and Beyond. Festschrift for Grzegorz A. Kleparski on his 50 th Birthday. Rzeszów: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Rzeszowskiego. 175-183.

Brinton, L. (2008) The Comment Clause in English. Syntactic Origins and Pragmatic Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511551789

Emet, S. (2017) ‘I just think...: The meaning and discourse role of just.’ Online document. 1 May 2019<http://research.clps.brown.edu/linglangfiles/2017-03-01%20-%20 ‘I%20just%20think‘%20-%20The%20meaning%20and%20discourse%20role%20of%20‘just‘%20(Steve%20Emet,%20Brown).pdf

Fetzer, A. (2014) ‘I think, I mean and I believe in political discourse. Collocates, functions and distribution.’ Functions of Language 21(1), 67-94. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.21.1.05fet

Haiman, J. (1983) ‘Iconic and economic motivation.’ Language 59, 781-819. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/413373

Huddleston, R. and Pullum, G. K. (2002) The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316423530

Kaltenböck, G. (2010) ‘Pragmatic functions of parenthetical I think.’ In: Kaltenböck, G., Mihatsch, W. and Schneider, S. (eds) New Approaches to Hedging. Amsterdam: Elsevier. 243-272. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004253247_012

Kaltenböck, G. (2013) ‘The development of comment clauses.’ In: Aarts, B., Close, J., Leech, G. and Wallis, S. (eds) The Verb Phrase in English. Investigating Recent Language Change with Corpora. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 286-317. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139060998.013

Kärkkäinen, E. (2003) Epistemic Stance in English Conversation: A Description of its Interactional Functions, with a Focus on I think. (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 115). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.115

Kärkkäinen, E. (2007) ‘The role of I guess in conversational stancetaking.’ In: Englebretson, E. (ed.) Stancetaking in Discourse. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 183-219. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.164.08kar

Martinez Vazquez, M. (2018) ‘A corpus-based study of I am thinking in political speeches.’ Revista de Lenguas para Fines Específicos 24(2), 107-123. DOI: https://doi.org/10.20420/rlfe.2018.368

Mullan, K. (2010) Expressing Opinions in French and Australian English Discourse. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.200

Partington, A. (2017) ‘Varieties of non-obvious meaning in CL and CADS: From hindsight post-dictability to sweet serendipity.’ Corpora 12(3), 339-367. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3366/cor.2017.0124

Partington, A., Duguid, A. and Taylor, C. (2013) Patterns and Meanings in Discourse: Theory and Practice in Corpus-assisted Discourse Studies (CADS). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.55

Pichler, H. (2009) ‘The functional and social reality of discourse variants in a northern English dialect: I DON’T KNOW and I DON’T THINK compared.’ Intercultural Pragmatics 6(4), 561-596. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/IPRG.2009.028

Prince, E. F., Frader, J. and Bosk, C. (1982) ‘On hedging in physician-physician discourse.’ In: Di Pietro, R. J. (ed.) Linguistics in the Professions: Proceedings of the Second Annual Delaware Symposium on Language Studies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. 83-97.

Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. and Svartvik, J. (1985) A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.

Scheibman. J. (2001) ‘Local patterns of subjectivity in person and verb type in American English conversation.’ In: Bybee, J. and Hopper, P. (eds) Frequency and the Emergence of Linguistic Structure. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 61-89. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.45.04sch

Scott, M. (2012) WordSmith Tools (version 6), Stroud: Lexical Analysis Software.

Szczyrbak, M. (in press) ‘I’m thinking and you’re saying. Speaker stance and the progressive of mental verbs in courtroom interaction.’

Tottie, G. (1991) Negation in English Speech and Writing. San Diego: Academic Press.

Traugott, E. C. (1995) ‘Subjectification in grammaticalisation.’ In: Stein, D. and Wright, S. (eds) Subjectivity and Subjectivisation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 31-54. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511554469.003

Traugott, E. C. (2007) ‘The concepts of constructional mismatch and type-shifting from the perspective of grammaticalization.’ Cognitive Linguistics 18, 523-557. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/COG.2007.027

Van Bogaert, J. (2006) ‘I guess, I suppose and I believe as pragmatic markers: Grammaticalization and functions.’ Belgian Journal of English Language and Literatures (new series) 4, 129-149.

Van Bogaert, J. (2009) The Grammar of Complement-taking Mental Predicate Constructions in Present-day Spoken British English. PhD dissertation. University of Ghent.

Van Bogaert, J. (2010) ‘A constructional taxonomy of I think and related expressions: accounting for the variability of complement-taking mental predicates.’ English Language and Linguistics 14(3), 399-427. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1360674310000134

Wierzbicka, A. (2006) English: Meaning and Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Metrics