On the Discourse Functions of Like : With Special Reference to the Corpus
- 발행기관 서강대학교
- 지도교수 이성범
- 발행년도 2009
- 학위수여년월 2009. 2
- 학위명 석사
- 실제URI http://www.dcollection.net/handler/sogang/000000045088
- 본문언어 영어
초록/요약
본 논문은 영어에서 흔히 쓰이는 like의 담화 기능에 대해 주로 다루고 있다. like의 담화 기능을 자세히 알아보기 위하여 먼저 접속사인 as와 전치사인 like를 비교 분석하고, 비슷한 기능을 하는 것처럼 보이는 이 두 단어가 실제 담화에서 어떤 다른 분포를 보이는지를 코퍼스 분석을 통해 연구한다. 코퍼스는 실제 언어가 어떻게 사용되고 있는지를 보여준다는 점에서 매우 유용한 언어 자료이다. 이 논문에서는 Brown Corpus, Frown Corpus, the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English 그리고 the Corpus of Spoken Professional American English를 이용하여 like가 담화에서 얼마나 다양한 기능을 담당하고 있는지를 알아 본다. 그리고 담화에서의 like가 이처럼 다양한 기능을 담당하게 된 것을 문법화(Grammaticalization) 이론과 관련성 이론(Relevance theory)을 통하여 분석해 본다. 또 well, now, anyway 등과 같은 화용 표지와 더불어 like가 화용적으로 어떠한 의미를 지니는지에 대해 연구한다.
more초록/요약
This study is mainly concerned with the discourse functions of the word like in English. In order to examine discourse functions of like, the thesis explores the discourse functions of the English conjunction as and the preposition like and compares as and like. Although these two words seem on the surface to have similar functions, they are not in fact exactly the same. Most traditional grammar books refuse to allow like to be used as a conjunction. They say the usage of like to introduce a clause is not recommended. However, in informal English (usually in spoken English), like is often used as a conjunction instead of as. A corpus analysis is a useful process because it gives an opportunity to review prescriptive grammar and the actual use of language. Usually, school grammar tends to emphasize the logic of language and determines whether the grammar is right or wrong. That is why its rules are sometimes unnatural. However, speakers’ linguistic experiences can be a more powerful method for the real world language acquisition. It should not be regarded as the destruction of grammar. Based on the analyses of tokens from the Brown corpus, the Frown corpus, the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English, and the Corpus of Spoken Professional American English, this paper compares as and like in regard to their functions in sentences. Another main topic of this research paper is other functions of the word like. Like is a multifunctional word, used in various ways to deliver many different meanings. A careful analysis of tokens from the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE) and the Corpus of Spoken Professional American English (CSPAE) show that like can be used not only as a lexical item, but also as a discourse marker, hedge, and approximator. “Conversation is expressive of politeness, emotion, and attitude” as Biber et al say. Metalinguistic uses of the word like are discussed later in this paper. This study discusses the use of like as a hedge, conjunction, approximator, or discourse marker with the concept of grammaticalization. According to Hopper & Traugott (2003), grammaticalization means that “the change whereby lexical terms and constructions come in certain linguistic contexts to serve grammatical functions, and, once grammaticalized, continue to develop new grammatical functions.” At the beginning, the word like was used as an adjective and a verb. However, it has gone through grammaticalization and these days like is frequently used as a function word as well as a content word. Also, relevance theory will provide an adequate framework to explain the discourse functions of the word like. This paper also discusses how the word like contributes to discourse cohesion. Sometimes, like can be used to increase cohesion and sometimes it can be used to decrease cohesion. It depends on what kinds of context it is used. Like is one of the most commonly used talk units in English conversation. As Bolden (2006, p681) states, conversation is “not purely informational but a medium for social action.” In this sense, like might be one of the interactive factors. These kinds of interactive factors between speaker and recipient contribute to the talk-in-interaction (Brown, 1985, p.273). This is why we can find the word like more in spoken data than in written data. Pragmatic inference is required to fill the gap encoded by linguistic content and the proposition expressed as Andersen (2000, p.17) points out.
more목차
Chapter I Introduction = 1
Chapter II Theoretic Approaches to the Word Like = 7
2.1 Word History = 7
2.2 Grammaticalization Theory = 8
2.3 Relevance-theoretic Approach = 11
Chapter III Method = 15
3.1 Data Collection and Methodology = 15
3.1.1 Corpus = 16
3.1.2 MonoConc Pro 2.2 = 17
Chapter IV A Corpus Analysis = 19
4.1 Data Analysis and Discussion = 19
4.1.1 As and Like = 19
4.1.2 Like as a Conjunction in Spoken English = 20
4.1.3 The Difference between As and Like as a Preposition before a Noun = 22
4.1.4 Comparison with Asand Like after Negatives = 23
4.2 More Functions of Like = 24
4.2.1 Discourse Marker Like = 28
4.2.2 Hedge Like:Epistemic-Imprecision = 29
4.2.3 Approximator Like = 31
4.2.4 Be+like as an Introducer of Quoted Speech = 32
4.2.5 Idiomatic Expressions = 34
4.3 Like only in Spoken English = 35
4.3.1 Like as an Example-Inducing Marker = 35
4.3.2 Like in End Position = 36
4.3.3 Idiomatic Use of it+be+like = 37
4.4 Remaining Problems = 37
4.4.1 Items with Ambiguity = 37
4.4.2 Ambiguity between True Comparisons and Hedged Modal Form = 38
4.4.3 Intensifier Like = 39
4.4.4 LikeasaNoun-suffix = 40
Chapter V Like as a Pragmatic Marker = 41
5.1 Like as a Cohesion Marker = 41
5.2 Like as a Continuative = 43
Chapter VI Conclusions = 46
References = 51
