Communicating the Image of Venice: the Use Of Discourse Markers in Websites And Digital Travel Guidebooks in English
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.13136/2281-4582/2017.i10.481Abstract
The study investigates a corpus of websites and digital travel guidebooks–collected in a corpus–that promotethe city of Venice using English as alingua francato convey the promotional message. The study examines acorpus of texts already used in three previous contributions to conduct a more detailed analysis of the stylisticfeatures present in the digital texts. The aim is to understand how the promotional message is conveyed to avaried audience who has different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. In particular, it is here investigated theuse of discourse markers (DMs), and their semantic and pragmatic relationships with respect to the context ofoccurrence. To do so, Bruce Fraser’s definition and classification of DMs will be used to analyse the corpus .Results show that the DMs investigated share the common pragmatic function of ‘topic orientation markers’,i.e., they signal an aspect of the organization of the ongoing discourse. Semantically, however, they havedifferent–but very specific–relationships with the surrounding segments of discourse. More specifically, theauthors of the texts preferably use DMs to signal that a warning, a reminder, or some advice, will follow in thenext segmentReferences
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---. Understanding Pragmatic Markers. A Variational Pragmatic Approach. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
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Andersen, Gisle. “The Pragmatic Marker Like from a Relevance-Theoretic Perspective.” Discourse Markers.
Descriptions and Theory. Eds. Andreas H. Jucker, and Yael Ziv. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1998. 147-
170.
---. Pragmatic Markers and Sociolinguistic Variation: A Relevance Theoretic Approach to the Language of
Adolescents. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2001.
Bell, David. “Cancellative Discourse Markers: A Core/Periphery Approach.” Pragmatics 8 (1998): 515-541.
Blakemore, Diane. “Are Apposition Markers Discourse Markers?” Journal of Linguistics 32 (1987): 325-347.
---. “‘So’ as a constraint on relevance.” Mental Representations. The Interface between Language and Reality.
Ed. Ruth M. Kempson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. 183-195.
Brinton, Laurel J. “The Development of Discourse Markers in English.” Historical Linguistics and Philology. Ed.
Jacek Fisiak. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990. 45-71.
---. Pragmatic Markers in English. Grammaticalization and Discourse Functions. Berlin/NY: Mouton de Gruyter,
1996.
Brown, Gillian, and George Yule. Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Cesiri, Daniela. “Promoting Venice through digital travel guidebooks: a case study of texts written in English
and in Italian.” CULTUS 9 (2016): 49-67.
---. “Balancing Tourism Promotion and Professional Discourse: A Corpus-based Analysis of Digital Travel
Guidebooks Promoting Venice in English.” Professional and Academic Discourse: an Interdisciplinary
Perspective. Ed. Chelo Vargas Sierra. EPiC Series in Language and Linguistics, EasyChair Publications
2 (2017a): 247-255.
Available at http://www.easychair.org/publications/EPiC. Last Visited October 1, 2017.
---. “Representing Venice’s local culture to foreign tourists: the use of the ‘languaging’ technique in websites
in English.” Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie Occidentale 51 (2017b): 195-216.
CLAWS Part-of-Speech Tagger. Available at http://ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/claws/. Last Visited October 1,
2017.
Crystal, David, and Derek, Davy. Advanced Conversational English. London: Longman, 1975.
Degand, Liesbeth, Bert Cornilie and Paola Pietrandrea, eds. Discourse Markers and Modal Particles.
Categorisation and Description. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins, 2013.
Dann, Graham. The Language of Tourism. A Sociolinguistic Perspective. Wallingford UK: CAB International,
1996.
de Haan, Pieter, and Kees van Esch. “Assessing the Development of Foreign Language Writing Skills:
Syntactic and Lexical Features.” Corpus Linguistics Beyond the Word: Corpus Research from Phrase
to Discourse. Ed. Eileen Fitzpatrick. Amsterdam/New York: Brill Rodopi, 2007. 185-202.
Diemer, Stefan, and Maximiliane Frobenius. “When Making Pie, All Ingredients Must Be Chilled. Including You.
Lexical, Syntactic and interactive Features in Online Discourse – A Synchronic Study of Food Blogs.”
Culinary Linguistics. The chef's special. Ed. Cornelia Gerhardt. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins,
2013. 53-81.
Erman, Britt. “Pragmatic Markers Revisited with a Focus on You Know in Adult and Adolescent Talk.” Journal
of Pragmatics 33 (2001): 1337-1359.
Fraser, Bruce. “Pragmatic Formatives.” The Pragmatic Perspective. Selected Papers from the 1985
International Pragmatics Conference. Eds. Jef Verschueren, and Marcella Bertuccelli-Papi. Amsterdam:
Benjamins, 1987. 179-194.
---. “Types of English Discourse Markers.” Acta Linguistica Hungarica 38.1-4 (1988): 19-33.
---. “An Approach to Discourse Markers.” Journal of Pragmatics 14.3 (1990): 383-398.
---. “Discourse Markers across Language.” Pragmatics and Language Learning 4 (1993): 1-16.
---. “Pragmatic Markers.” Pragmatics 6.2 (1996): 167-190.
---. “Commentary Pragmatic Markers.” Estudios Ingleses de la Universidad Complutense 5 (1997): 115-127.
---. “Contrastive Discourse Markers.” Discourse Markers: Description and Theory. Eds. Andreas H. Jucker and
Yael Ziv. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins, 1998. 301-326.
---. “What are Discourse Markers?” Journal of Pragmatics 31 (1999): 931-952.
---. “Squib. The Case of the Empty S1.” Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2001): 1625-1630.
---. “The English Contrastive Discourse Marker instead.” Functional Perspectives on Grammar and Discourse.
In Honour of Angela Downing. Eds. Christopher S. Butler, Raquel Hidalgo Downing, and Julia Lavid.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins, 2007. 301-312.
---. “An Account of Discourse Markers.” International Review of Pragmatics 1 (2009a): 293-320.
---. “Topic Orientation Markers.” Journal of Pragmatics 41(2009b): 892-898.
---. “The Combining of Discourse Markers – A Beginning.” Journal of Pragmatics 86 (2015): 48-53.
Halliday, M. A. K., and Ruqaiya Hasan. Cohesion in English. London: Longman, 1976.
Jucker, Andreas H., and Yael Ziv, eds. Discourse Markers: Description and Theory. Amsterdam/Philadelphia:
Benjamins, 1998.
Kang, Ning, and Qiaofeng Yu. “Corpus-Based Stylistic Analysis of Tourism English.” Journal of Language
Teaching and Research 2.1. (2011): 129-136.
Lenk, Uta. Marking Discourse Coherence: Functions of Discourse Markers in Spoken English. Tübingen: Narr,
1998.
Levinson, Stephen C. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Longacre, Robert E. “‘Mystery’ Particles and Affixes.” Papers from the 12th Regional Meeting. Chicago
Linguistic Society. Eds. Salikoko S. Mufwene, Carol A. Walker, and Steever B. Sanford. Chicago:
Chicago Linguistic Society, 1976. 468-475.
Lutzky, Ursula. “Discourse Markers? Well, …Delimiting the Basic Features of Discourse Markers.” Vienna
English Working Papers 5.1 (2006): 3-24.
Miraglia, Alessandra. Annuario del Turismo 2015. Venezia: Comune di Venezia: Assessorato al Turismo,
2016.
Müller, Simone. Discourse Markers in Native and Non-Native English Discourse. Amsterdam: Benjamins,
2005.
Norrick, Neal R. “Discourse Markers in Oral Narrative.” Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2001): 849-878.
Schiffrin, Deborah. “Discourse Markers: Language, Meaning, and Context.” The Handbook of Discourse
Analysis. Eds. Deborah Schiffrin, Deborah Tannen, and Heidi E. Hamilton. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001. 54-
75.
---, Deborah Tannen and Heidi E. Hamilton, eds. The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell,
2001.
---. Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Schourup, Lawrence C. Common Discourse Particles in English Conversation. New York: Garland, 1985.
---. “Tutorial Overview. Discourse Markers.” Lingua 107 (1999): 227-265.
Scott, Mike. Wordsmith Tools Version 6.0. Stroud: Lexical Analysis Software, 2012.
Urgelles-Coll, Miriam. The Syntax and Semantics of Discourse Markers. London/New York: Continuum, 2010.
van Dijk, Teun A. “Pragmatic Connectives.” Journal of Pragmatics 3 (1979): 447-456.
---. Understanding Pragmatic Markers. A Variational Pragmatic Approach. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press, 2013.
Andersen, Gisle. “The Pragmatic Marker Like from a Relevance-Theoretic Perspective.” Discourse Markers.
Descriptions and Theory. Eds. Andreas H. Jucker, and Yael Ziv. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1998. 147-
170.
---. Pragmatic Markers and Sociolinguistic Variation: A Relevance Theoretic Approach to the Language of
Adolescents. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2001.
Bell, David. “Cancellative Discourse Markers: A Core/Periphery Approach.” Pragmatics 8 (1998): 515-541.
Blakemore, Diane. “Are Apposition Markers Discourse Markers?” Journal of Linguistics 32 (1987): 325-347.
---. “‘So’ as a constraint on relevance.” Mental Representations. The Interface between Language and Reality.
Ed. Ruth M. Kempson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. 183-195.
Brinton, Laurel J. “The Development of Discourse Markers in English.” Historical Linguistics and Philology. Ed.
Jacek Fisiak. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990. 45-71.
---. Pragmatic Markers in English. Grammaticalization and Discourse Functions. Berlin/NY: Mouton de Gruyter,
1996.
Brown, Gillian, and George Yule. Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Cesiri, Daniela. “Promoting Venice through digital travel guidebooks: a case study of texts written in English
and in Italian.” CULTUS 9 (2016): 49-67.
---. “Balancing Tourism Promotion and Professional Discourse: A Corpus-based Analysis of Digital Travel
Guidebooks Promoting Venice in English.” Professional and Academic Discourse: an Interdisciplinary
Perspective. Ed. Chelo Vargas Sierra. EPiC Series in Language and Linguistics, EasyChair Publications
2 (2017a): 247-255.
Available at http://www.easychair.org/publications/EPiC. Last Visited October 1, 2017.
---. “Representing Venice’s local culture to foreign tourists: the use of the ‘languaging’ technique in websites
in English.” Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie Occidentale 51 (2017b): 195-216.
CLAWS Part-of-Speech Tagger. Available at http://ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/claws/. Last Visited October 1,
2017.
Crystal, David, and Derek, Davy. Advanced Conversational English. London: Longman, 1975.
Degand, Liesbeth, Bert Cornilie and Paola Pietrandrea, eds. Discourse Markers and Modal Particles.
Categorisation and Description. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins, 2013.
Dann, Graham. The Language of Tourism. A Sociolinguistic Perspective. Wallingford UK: CAB International,
1996.
de Haan, Pieter, and Kees van Esch. “Assessing the Development of Foreign Language Writing Skills:
Syntactic and Lexical Features.” Corpus Linguistics Beyond the Word: Corpus Research from Phrase
to Discourse. Ed. Eileen Fitzpatrick. Amsterdam/New York: Brill Rodopi, 2007. 185-202.
Diemer, Stefan, and Maximiliane Frobenius. “When Making Pie, All Ingredients Must Be Chilled. Including You.
Lexical, Syntactic and interactive Features in Online Discourse – A Synchronic Study of Food Blogs.”
Culinary Linguistics. The chef's special. Ed. Cornelia Gerhardt. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins,
2013. 53-81.
Erman, Britt. “Pragmatic Markers Revisited with a Focus on You Know in Adult and Adolescent Talk.” Journal
of Pragmatics 33 (2001): 1337-1359.
Fraser, Bruce. “Pragmatic Formatives.” The Pragmatic Perspective. Selected Papers from the 1985
International Pragmatics Conference. Eds. Jef Verschueren, and Marcella Bertuccelli-Papi. Amsterdam:
Benjamins, 1987. 179-194.
---. “Types of English Discourse Markers.” Acta Linguistica Hungarica 38.1-4 (1988): 19-33.
---. “An Approach to Discourse Markers.” Journal of Pragmatics 14.3 (1990): 383-398.
---. “Discourse Markers across Language.” Pragmatics and Language Learning 4 (1993): 1-16.
---. “Pragmatic Markers.” Pragmatics 6.2 (1996): 167-190.
---. “Commentary Pragmatic Markers.” Estudios Ingleses de la Universidad Complutense 5 (1997): 115-127.
---. “Contrastive Discourse Markers.” Discourse Markers: Description and Theory. Eds. Andreas H. Jucker and
Yael Ziv. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins, 1998. 301-326.
---. “What are Discourse Markers?” Journal of Pragmatics 31 (1999): 931-952.
---. “Squib. The Case of the Empty S1.” Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2001): 1625-1630.
---. “The English Contrastive Discourse Marker instead.” Functional Perspectives on Grammar and Discourse.
In Honour of Angela Downing. Eds. Christopher S. Butler, Raquel Hidalgo Downing, and Julia Lavid.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins, 2007. 301-312.
---. “An Account of Discourse Markers.” International Review of Pragmatics 1 (2009a): 293-320.
---. “Topic Orientation Markers.” Journal of Pragmatics 41(2009b): 892-898.
---. “The Combining of Discourse Markers – A Beginning.” Journal of Pragmatics 86 (2015): 48-53.
Halliday, M. A. K., and Ruqaiya Hasan. Cohesion in English. London: Longman, 1976.
Jucker, Andreas H., and Yael Ziv, eds. Discourse Markers: Description and Theory. Amsterdam/Philadelphia:
Benjamins, 1998.
Kang, Ning, and Qiaofeng Yu. “Corpus-Based Stylistic Analysis of Tourism English.” Journal of Language
Teaching and Research 2.1. (2011): 129-136.
Lenk, Uta. Marking Discourse Coherence: Functions of Discourse Markers in Spoken English. Tübingen: Narr,
1998.
Levinson, Stephen C. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Longacre, Robert E. “‘Mystery’ Particles and Affixes.” Papers from the 12th Regional Meeting. Chicago
Linguistic Society. Eds. Salikoko S. Mufwene, Carol A. Walker, and Steever B. Sanford. Chicago:
Chicago Linguistic Society, 1976. 468-475.
Lutzky, Ursula. “Discourse Markers? Well, …Delimiting the Basic Features of Discourse Markers.” Vienna
English Working Papers 5.1 (2006): 3-24.
Miraglia, Alessandra. Annuario del Turismo 2015. Venezia: Comune di Venezia: Assessorato al Turismo,
2016.
Müller, Simone. Discourse Markers in Native and Non-Native English Discourse. Amsterdam: Benjamins,
2005.
Norrick, Neal R. “Discourse Markers in Oral Narrative.” Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2001): 849-878.
Schiffrin, Deborah. “Discourse Markers: Language, Meaning, and Context.” The Handbook of Discourse
Analysis. Eds. Deborah Schiffrin, Deborah Tannen, and Heidi E. Hamilton. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001. 54-
75.
---, Deborah Tannen and Heidi E. Hamilton, eds. The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell,
2001.
---. Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Schourup, Lawrence C. Common Discourse Particles in English Conversation. New York: Garland, 1985.
---. “Tutorial Overview. Discourse Markers.” Lingua 107 (1999): 227-265.
Scott, Mike. Wordsmith Tools Version 6.0. Stroud: Lexical Analysis Software, 2012.
Urgelles-Coll, Miriam. The Syntax and Semantics of Discourse Markers. London/New York: Continuum, 2010.
van Dijk, Teun A. “Pragmatic Connectives.” Journal of Pragmatics 3 (1979): 447-456.
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