Towards a speech-gesture profile of discourse markers: The case of ‘I mean’

Chen, Yaoyao, Adolphs, Svenja and Knight, Dawn ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4745-6502 2024. Towards a speech-gesture profile of discourse markers: The case of ‘I mean’. Lingua 312 , 103836. 10.1016/j.lingua.2024.103836

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Abstract

Our study aims to develop a new corpus pragmatic approach for exploring the gesture patterns (i.e. functions and forms) co-occurring with the discourse marker ‘I mean’, including a comparison with previous research on another discourse marker (i.e. ‘you know’). We selected and analysed 246 instances of ‘I mean’ and 88 gestures that co-occur with these instances from the supervisory sub-corpus of the Nottingham Multimodal Corpus (654 mins, 118,508 words). A functional framework for the analysis of speech functions was developed based on the emerging speech patterns surrounding ‘I mean’. This included three functions: ‘editing’, ‘introducing modifications’ and ‘ending modifications’. The co-occurring gestures were categorised into four functional types: pragmatic, referential, beat and deictic gestures. The main results of the speech analysis of ‘I mean’ suggest that ‘I mean’ tends to be used predominantly as a marker of ‘editing’ (163 instances, 66.26%) and ‘introducing modifications’ (80 instances, 32.52%), both of which emphasise the speaker’s intention to present additional information. These findings largely resemble those of ‘you know’; however, the functions of ‘you know’ are more varied. The analysis of the gesture patterns co-occurring with ‘I mean’ shows that both the ‘editing’ and ‘introducing modifications’ functions tend to co-occur with pragmatic gestures that serve a similar function of presenting and offering information (e.g., open hand palm up and open hand palm oblique gestures), mirroring the results of ‘you know’. These results suggest a functional coordination between discourse markers and gestures.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	English, Communication and Philosophy
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	0024-3841
Funders:	Macau University of Science and Technology, Economic and Social Research Council
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	14 August 2024
Date of Acceptance:	14 October 2024
Last Modified:	26 Nov 2024 11:26
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/171389

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