The development of competence in French interlanguage pragmatics: the case of the discourse marker 'donc'
Year: 2005
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The father (to his wife): -Here's what your daughter is reading: 'Tintin in the Soviet land' the daughter: -DM what? the mother: -Leave her DM alone!There are many other discourse markers in French, frequently used as well: donc was chosen for its presumed higher accessibility to language learners, for its frequency in native French conversation (Barnes, 1995(Barnes, , 1998) ) as well as in interactions involving speakers in immersion programs (Sankoff, Thibault, Nagy, Blondeau, Fonollosa & Gagnon, 1997), and finally for the array of discourse functions it fulfills.Used in its referential function, that is, to express logico-semantic relationships between two propositions, donc has several English equivalents: 'hence', 'thus', 'therefore', 'so'.For example in (2), donc is used to express a logical outcome:(2) B ne l'a pas lu donc il ne peut rien dire (Hansen, 1997:165) B. did not read it, therefore he cannot say anythingIn many instances, however, donc does not function as a connective, but functions metalinguistically.In many instances, the number of possible English equivalents seems to be restricted to 'so':() A. … et il tuait alors par exemple y avait euh comment elle s'appelait Myriam, qui jouait dedans qui jouait son role & tu vois && B. & mm mm && A. de Myriam, Collomb et puis un autre petit un tout petit Marseillais qui faisait craquer toutes les petites nanas je sais pas si tu te rappelles B. oui oui oui je vois A. & à peu près && B. & je sais pas && son prénom mais A. et bref alors donc ils jouent leurs roles et tout… (in Hansen, 1997:166) A. … and he was killing so for instance there was huh what was her name Myriam who played in it played her role & you see && B. & mm mm && (12) [DT: location of an apartment in Paris] Car: centrale c'est-à-dire il était où? Jen: c'était hm # si tu as euh # ici si tu as le cinquième Car: oui Jen: le quatorzième et le treizième et moi j'étais # oui c'était dans le treizième mais c'était: juste sur la frontière à quatorzième et le cinquième Car: la frontière Jen: <la frontière> (laughter) Car: <X> Jen: <non mais> à la euh Car: oui # d'accord oui Jen: donc c'était # quinze minutes à la Sorbonne <et>… Car: central that is to say where was he? Jen: it was hm # if you've got huh # her if you've got the fifth Car: yes Jen: the fourteenth and the thirteenth and me I was # yes it was in the thirteen but it was: just on the border at fourteenth and fifth Car: <the border> (laughter) Car: <X> Jen: <no but> at the huh Car: yes # ok yes Jen: so it was # fifteen minutes to the Sorbon <and>…
Author: Stéphanie Hélène Pellet
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1857331875