The role of discourse markers in text organization of the genre stand -up comedy in Portugal and in the United States Milana Andreevna Morozova Tese de Doutoramento em Linguística Julho, 2019 ii Tese apresentada para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Doutor em Linguística, realizada sob a orientação científica da Professora Doutora Maria Antónia Diniz Caetano Coutinho. Apoio financeiro da FCT no âmbito do Programa KRUse – Knowledge, Representation and Use. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This PhD journey has been a truly unique experience, and it would not have been possible to complete without the assistance and support I received from many people. I would like to thank the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) for the financial support during the four years of my research in Portugal (PD/BD/105766/2014). I am also grateful to the Linguistics Research Centre (CLUNL) of Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, which granted me financial support to present my research at various national and international conferences. I would like to express my special and sincere gratitude to my advisor Prof. Maria Antónia Coutinho for the confidence and trust you put in me from the start. I kindly appreciate your guidance and support over these years, not only regarding this thesis, but also my side projects and initiatives. My thanks also go to the members of CLUNL, and especially to the Grammar & Text team, who inspired my work and helped with valuable and constructive suggestions during the development of this thesis. I also thank my colleagues and the members of the Young Researchers Group of CLUNL for our shared academic ventures during Summer School in Linguistics and Forum for Linguistic Sharing. Finally, I wish to thank my family for their support and encouragement throughout my study. iv The role of discourse markers in text organization of the genre stand-up comedy in Portugal and in the United States Milana Andreevna Morozova Abstract In this thesis, conversational discourse markers (e.g. well, you know, bem, quer dizer) are seen as a genre parameter of stand-up comedy, i.e. a characteristic trait that constitutes the genre’s identity (Coutinho 2007). This assumption is based on the fact that stand-up comedy is typically described as a conversational form of art (Attardo 2001; Brodie 2014; Double 2014; Rutter 1997; Greenbaum 1999) and, therefore, similar to any interactive spoken practice, it is rich in discourse markers. The study explores the frequency, the functions, the distribution, the position and the role of the selected range of conversational discourse markers in text organization of the genre stand-up comedy. The results showed that there are three main tendencies regarding the implementation of this genre parameter in concrete texts (in American English and European Portuguese). Firstly, Portuguese units are predominantly non-discourse marking, whereas their English counterparts represent mostly discourse-marking uses. Secondly, new functions have been attested, i.e. to anticipate a shift between direct/indirect modes of speech, to signal personal experience and to address the audience. These newly emerging functions are closely related to the specificity of the genre stand-up comedy, namely, its narrative, autobiographical and interactive nature. The third and last observed tendency refers to the position of the discourse markers in text organization or text plan. All the selected discourse markers, with no exception, function within the body of a stand-up comedy act, performing a series of textual and/or interactional functions, according to the hypothesis of duo-domain (i.e. textual and interactional functions, as proposed in Brinton, 1996). Predominant occurrence of these units within the body of stand-up comedy acts indicates the importance of their textual functioning; the wide spectrum of functions they perform within the comedian’s act is used to structure, shape, mend, clarify, introduce, prepare, etc. the text for perception. In this respect, conversational discourse markers are akin to guiding devices within the text organization of the stand-up comedy. KEYWORDS: discourse markers, text plan, stand-up comedy, genre. v The role of discourse markers in text organization of the genre stand-up comedy in Portugal and in the United States Milana Andreevna Morozova Resumo Neste trabalho, os marcadores discursivos conversacionais (i.e., well, you know, bem, quer dizer, etc.) são vistos como um parâmetro de género stand-up comedy, ou seja, um traço característico que constitui a identidade de género (Coutinho 2007). Esta suposição é baseada no facto de o stand-up comedy ser tipicamente descrito como uma forma de arte conversacional (Attardo 2001; Brodie 2014; Double 2014; Rutter 1997; Greenbaum 1999) e, portanto, sendo similar a qualquer prática oral interativa, rica em marcadores discursivos. O estudo explora a frequência, as funções, a distribuição, a posição e o papel de uma gama selecionada de marcadores discursivos na organização textual do género stand-up comedy. Os resultados indicam três tendências principais na realização deste parâmetro de género em textos concretos (em inglês americano e português europeu). Em primeiro lugar, as unidades em português são predominantemente não-discursivas, enquanto as suas congéneres inglesas representam, na sua maioria, usos de marcação discursiva. Em segundo lugar, novas funções foram identificadas, i.e., antecipar uma mudança entre os modos de fala (direto/indireto), sinalizar a experiência pessoal e dirigir-se diretamente ao público. Essas novas funções estão intimamente relacionadas com a especificidade do género stand-up comedy, a sua natureza narrativa, autobiográfica e interativa, respetivamente. Por fim, constatou-se que todos os marcadores discursivos selecionados, sem exceção, funcionam dentro de um ato de stand-up comedy, realizando uma série de funções textuais e/ou interacionais (Brinton, 1996), demostrando assim a importância do seu funcionamento textual. O amplo espectro de funções que desempenham dentro do ato de comediante é usado para estruturar, moldar, corrigir, esclarecer, introduzir, preparar, etc., o texto para compreensão do público. Deste ponto de vista, os marcadores discursivos conversacionais são semelhantes a guias de orientação dentro da organização do texto no género stand-up comedy. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: marcadores discursivos, plano de texto, stand-up comedy, género. vi CONTENTS I Introduction 1. 1. Context and motivation………………………………………….. 1 1. 2. Research framework……………………………………………... 3 1. 3. Research questions………………………………………………. 5 1. 4. Thesis outline……………………………………………………. 6 II Linguistic and non-linguistic research of stand-up comedy II. 1. The history of stand-up comedy: tracing the origins……………. 10 II. 1. 1. Stand-up in the United States………………………….. 10 II. 1. 2. Stand-up in the UK…………………………………….. 12 II. 1. 3. Comparing stand-up comedy in the US and in the UK… 14 II. 1. 4. Stand-up comedy in the Anglophone world today……... 15 II. 2. The rise of stand-up comedy in Portugal………………………... 16 II. 3. What is stand-up comedy?............................................................. 20 II. 4. Key features of stand-up comedy……………………………….. 22 II. 5. Linguistic approaches to stand-up comedy……………………… 27 II. 5. 1. Semantico-pragmatic approaches……………………….. 27 II. 5. 1. 1. The Semantic Script Theory of Humor (SSTH).. 27 II. 5. 1. 2. The General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH).. 29 II. 5. 1. 3. Revision of GTVH by Attardo (2001)……….. 33 II. 5. 1. 4. Revision of GTVH by the GRIALE Research Group (2012)…………………………………………….. 38 II. 5. 2. Conversation Analysis (CA) approach………………….. 39 II. 5. 3. Pragmatic approaches…………………………………… 42 II. 6. Summary…………………………………………………………… 45 III Stand-up comedy as a genre III. 1. Socio-discursive approaches to genre……………………………… 47 III. 1. 1. Bakhtin on the notion of speech genre…………………... 47 vii III. 1. 2. Text genre and discourse type in the framework socio-discursive interactionism (SDI)……………………………………………… 50 III. 1. 3. Text genre and text type in the socio-interactionism perspective by Marcuschi (2005)…………………………………………….. 53 III. 1. 4. Discourse genre according to Textual Analysis of Discourses (Adam)……………………………………………………………. 55 III. 2. Some converging principles on language, text and genre between the socio- discursive approaches and Systemic Functional Linguistics…………….. 58 III. 3. Approaches to structuration of texts……………………………….. 62 III. 3. 1. General infrastructure of texts (Bronckart)……………… 62 III. 3. 2. Sequences and text plan (Adam)………………………… 65 III. 3. 2. 1. Narrative sequence……………………………. 70 III. 3. 2. 2. Argumentative sequence……………………… 72 III. 3. 2. 3. Explicative sequence………………………….. 73 III. 3. 2. 4. Descriptive sequence………………………….. 74 III. 3. 2. 5. Dialogal sequence…………………………….. 75 III. 3. 3. On the notion of texture (Halliday & Hasan)……………. 75 III. 4. Synthesis of speech genre theories in light of stand-up comedy…… 78 IV Discourse markers IV. 1. General theoretical background on discourse markers…………….. 85 IV. 1. 1. Terminological discussion………………………………. 85 IV. 1. 2. Main approaches to the study of discourse markers…….. 90 IV. 1. 3. Main characteristics……………………………………… 93 IV. 1. 4. Functions of discourse markers…………………………. 100 IV. 2. Conversational discourse markers in stand-up comedy: previous research………………………………………………………………….. 103 IV. 2. 1. The English discourse markers well, you know and I mean..103 IV. 2. 1. 1. Well…………………………………………. 103 IV. 2. 1. 2. You know……………………………………. 109 IV. 2. 1.