Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-qs9v7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-12T18:13:50.350Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Themes and Tails: The Discourse Functions of Dislocated Elements

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2008

Karin Aijmer
Karin Aijmer
Affiliation:
English Department, Lund University, Helgonabacken 14, 223 62 Lund, Sweden.
Get access

Abstract

The article deals with Themes (the function associated with left-dislocated structures) and Tails (the function associated with right-dislocated structures) in English conversation. The noun phrase is placed as Theme in “our maths chap he is an Indian” and as Tail in “they very often are these Eastern Europeans”. It is shown that Themes and Tails are functionally different phenomena. Themes are explained interactionally in terms of the negotiation of information which takes place between speaker and hearer, while Tails are associated with the interpersonal or polite function of speech.

Type
Research Article
Information
Nordic Journal of Linguistics , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , December 1989 , pp. 137 - 154
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Brazil, D. 1985. The Communicative Value of Intonation in English. Discourse Analysis Monograph 8. University of Birmingham: English Language Research.Google Scholar
Cotton, E.G. 1978. Noun–Pronoun Pleonasms: the Role of Age and Situation. Journal of Child Language 5, 489–499.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dik, S.C. 1981. Functional Grammar. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duranti, A. & Ochs, E. 1979. Left-Dislocation in Italian Conversation. In Givòn, T. (ed.) Syntax and Semantics 12. Discourse and Syntax. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Ekerot, L.-J. 1979. Syntax och informationsstruktur. In Hyltenstam, K. (ed.) Svenska i invandrarperspektiv: kontrastiv analys och språktypologi. Lund: Liber Läromedel.Google Scholar
Ellis, R. 1986. Understanding Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Givòn, T. 1979. Pronoun and Grammatical Agreement. In Li, C.N. (ed.) Subject and Topic. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Hughes, A. & Trudgill, P. 1979. English Accents and Dialects. An introduction to Social and Regional Varieties of British English. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Keenan, E.O. & Schieffelin, B.B. 1976. Foregrounding Referents: A Reconsideration of Left-Dislocation in Discourse. Proceedings of the Second Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistic Society. Berkeley, Cal.Google Scholar
Labov, W. & Fanshel, D. 1977. Therapeutic Discourse. Psychotherapy as Conversation. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Larsson, E. 1979. La dislocation enfrancais. étude de syntaxe générative. études Romanes de Lund 28. Lund: Gleerup.Google Scholar
Meichers, G. 1983. “It's a Sweet Thing, Is Tea-Cake”. A Study of Tag Statements. In Jacobson, S. (ed.) Papers from the Second Scandinavian Symposium on Syntactic Variation. Stockholm Studies in English LVII. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International.Google Scholar
Montgomery, M. 1983. The Functions of Left Dislocation in Spontaneous Discourse. In Morreall, J. (ed.) The Ninth LACUS Forum 1982. Columbia, SC: Hornbeam, pp. 425–432.Google Scholar
Ochs, E. 1979. Planned and Unplanned Discourse. In Givòn, T., (ed.) Syntax and Semantics 12. Discourse and Syntax. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Platt, J., Weber, H. & Lian, H.M. 1984. The New Englishes. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. & Svartvik, J. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Ross, J.R. 1967. Constraints on Variables in Syntax. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Cambridge, Mass: MIT.Google Scholar
Svartvik, J. & Quirk, R. 1980. A Corpus of English Conversation. (Lund Studies in English 56), Lund: Gleerup.Google Scholar
Tyson, A. 1976. Pleonastic Pronouns in Black English. Journal of English Linguistics 10, 54–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar