UNIVERSITÀ CATTOLICA DEL SACRO CUORE DI MILANO Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Linguistiche e Letterarie Ciclo XXI S.S.D.: L-LIN/12 SPONTANEITY IN AMERICAN ENGLISH: FACE-TO-FACE AND MOVIE CONVERSATION COMPARED Tesi di Dottorato di: Pierfranca FORCHINI Matr. Nº 3480098 Anno Accademico 2007/2008 UNIVERSITÀ CATTOLICA DEL SACRO CUORE DI MILANO Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Linguistiche e Letterarie Ciclo XXI S.S.D.: L-LIN/12 SPONTANEITY IN AMERICAN ENGLISH: FACE-TO-FACE AND MOVIE CONVERSATION COMPARED Tesi di Dottorato di: Pierfranca FORCHINI Matr. Nº 3480098 Coordinatore: Chiar.ma Prof.ssa Serena VITALE Anno Accademico 2007/2008 To Lucia, Stefy and Zoe, To my Karate Teacher, Nicola Ragno, To my Nonna Antonia, “Amazing Graces… bright shining as the sun…” To my Mom 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................................... 6 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 8 CHAPTER 1. UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES AND METHODOLOGY .............................. 12 1.1 INTERDEPENDENCE OF LANGUAGE STRATA AND MEANING AS FUNCTION IN CONTEXT.........................12 1.1.1 The Idiom Principle........................................................................................................................................15 1.1.2 Priming............................................................................................................................................................20 1.1.3 Implications of a Theory of Context...............................................................................................................22 1.2 AUTHENTIC DATA AND CORPORA....................................................................................................................................25 1.2.1 Advantages of Authentic-Data Oriented Analyses.........................................................................................26 1.2.1.1 Authentic Data vs. Intuition.....................................................................................................................................26 1.2.1.2 Authentic Data, Quantitative and Qualitative Analyses....................................................................................28 1.2.1.3 Authentic Data as Empirical Data ..........................................................................................................................29 1.2.1.4 Authentic Data and Electronic Processing............................................................................................................30 1.2.2 Corpora Drawbacks and Possible Solutions .................................................................................................31 1.3 UNITS OF ANALYSIS AND TOOLS........................................................................................................................................33 1.3.1 Multi-Dimensional and Micro Analyses ......................................................................................................34 1.3.2 The Longman Spoken American Corpus........................................................................................................41 1.3.3 The American Movie Corpus..........................................................................................................................42 1.3.3.1 Corpus Building Criteria .............................................................................................................................................45 1.3.3.2 Standardization and Transcription Criteria...........................................................................................................49 CHAPTER 2. FACE-TO-FACE CONVERSATION .......................................................... 52 2.1 SPOKEN AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE..................................................................................................................................52 2.2 KEY FEATURES OF SPONTANEOUS CONVERSATION ...................................................................................................54 2.3 DISCOURSE MARKERS ............................................................................................................................................................60 2.3.1 Terminology, Classification, and Approaches................................................................................................62 2.3.2 General Traits of Discourse Markers.............................................................................................................68 2.3.3 Focus on You Know: a Functional Categorization.......................................................................................74 2.4 SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT FRAMEWORK......................................................................................................................77 CHAPTER 3. MOVIE CONVERSATION .......................................................................... 80 3.1 MULTIPLICITY OF CHANNELS, CODES, AND MESSAGES ...........................................................................................82 3.2 FICTITIOUSNESS AND SPONTANEITY................................................................................................................................84 3.2.1 Non-Spontaneous Spoken Conversation ........................................................................................................84 3.2.1.1 Movie Constraints.......................................................................................................................................................86 3.2.2 Sounding Spontaneous: the Role of Language and the Movie Scriptwriter................................................88 3.2.2.1 Linguistic Features ......................................................................................................................................................93 3.2.2.2 Discourse Markers: the Case of You Know ............................................................................................................96 CHAPTER 4. MULTI-DIMENSIONAL AN ALYSIS ........................................................ 102 4.1 FACE-TO-FACE AND MOVIE CONVERSATION COMPARED.....................................................................................104 4.1.1 Dimension 1: Informational vs. Involved Production............................................................................... 106 4.1.2 Dimension 2: Narrative vs. Non-Narrative Concerns ............................................................................. 111 4.1.3 Dimension 3: Explicit vs. Situation-Dependent Reference......................................................................... 114 4.1.4 Dimension 4: Overt Expression of Persuasion...........................................................................................117 4.1.5 Dimension 5: Abstract vs. Non-Abstract Information.............................................................................. 119 4.2 FACE-TO-FACE CONVERSATION AND MOVIE GENRE..............................................................................................121 4.3 DISCUSSION OF THE MULTI-DIMENSIONAL RESULTS............................................................................................126 4 CHAPTER 5. MICRO-ANALYSIS .................................................................................... 130 5.1 FREQUENCY AND PLOT ANALYSIS OF YOU KNOW....................................................................................................130 5.2 THE DISCOURSE MARKER YOU KNOW........................................................................................................................134 5.2.1 Turn Positon ................................................................................................................................................ 137 5.2.2 Functions....................................................................................................................................................... 137 5.2.2.1 Telling Function........................................................................................................................................................138 5.2.2.2 Other Pragmatic Functions ....................................................................................................................................146 5.2.2.3 Functions of You Know within its Turn Position................................................................................................152 5.2.3 Part of a Bigger Cluster?.............................................................................................................................154 5.2.4 Comedies vs. Non-Comedies: a Matter of Genre?...................................................................................... 156 5.3 DISCUSSION OF THE MICRO-ANALYSIS RESULTS.....................................................................................................159 CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................................ 162 APPENDICES ..................................................................................................................... 170 REFERENCES ..................................................................................................................... 178 5 Acknowledgments This dissertation would not have come into being without precious help and