This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Cuenca, M. J. Articles by Bach, C. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Contrasting the form and use of reformulation markers

University of Valencia, Maria.J.Cuenca{at}uv.es

Carme Bach

University Pompeu Fabra, carme.bach{at}upf.edu

This article deals with the form and use of reformulation markers in research papers written in English, Spanish and Catalan. Considering the form and frequency of the markers, English papers tend to prefer simple fixed markers and include fewer reformulators than Spanish and Catalan. On the contrary, formal Catalan and Spanish papers include more markers, some of which are complex and allow for some structural variability. As for use, reformulation markers establish dynamic relationships between portions of discourse which can be identified in our corpus with expansion, reduction and permutation. The analysis of the corpus shows that English authors usually reformulate to add more information to the concept (expansion), whereas Catalan and Spanish authors reduce the contents or the implicatures of the previous formulation more frequently than English.

Key Words: contrastive linguistics • equivalence • paraphrase • reformulation • reformulation markers • specialized discourse

Discourse Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2, 149-175 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1461445607075347


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?