How Are Three Syntactic Types of Subordinate Clauses Different in Terms of Informational Weight?

Based on a video recording of conversational British English, this paper tests within the framework of Multimodal Discourse Analysis whether several different subordinate structures all express background information. Subordinate constructions have been described in syntax as dependent structures el...

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Main Authors: Manon Lelandais, Gaëlle Ferré
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Presses Universitaires du Midi 2017-01-01
Series:Anglophonia
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/anglophonia/1200
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author Manon Lelandais
Gaëlle Ferré
author_facet Manon Lelandais
Gaëlle Ferré
author_sort Manon Lelandais
collection DOAJ
description Based on a video recording of conversational British English, this paper tests within the framework of Multimodal Discourse Analysis whether several different subordinate structures all express background information. Subordinate constructions have been described in syntax as dependent structures elaborating on primary elements of discourse. Although their verbal characteristics have been deeply analysed, few studies have focused on the articulation of the different communicative modalities in their production or provided a qualified picture of their informational input. Beyond showing that subordinate constructions express different types of prominence, the results suggest that the creation of focalisation mainly relies on gestural cues in these constructions. Changes in the modal configuration throughout the sequence suggest modalities are dynamic and flexible resources for expressing background or foreground information in subordinate constructions relatively to their syntactic type.
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institution Kabale University
issn 1278-3331
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language English
publishDate 2017-01-01
publisher Presses Universitaires du Midi
record_format Article
series Anglophonia
spelling doaj-art-818a8ba4e0ce41168f91e0732722c7d52025-01-30T12:33:15ZengPresses Universitaires du MidiAnglophonia1278-33312427-04662017-01-012310.4000/anglophonia.1200How Are Three Syntactic Types of Subordinate Clauses Different in Terms of Informational Weight?Manon LelandaisGaëlle FerréBased on a video recording of conversational British English, this paper tests within the framework of Multimodal Discourse Analysis whether several different subordinate structures all express background information. Subordinate constructions have been described in syntax as dependent structures elaborating on primary elements of discourse. Although their verbal characteristics have been deeply analysed, few studies have focused on the articulation of the different communicative modalities in their production or provided a qualified picture of their informational input. Beyond showing that subordinate constructions express different types of prominence, the results suggest that the creation of focalisation mainly relies on gestural cues in these constructions. Changes in the modal configuration throughout the sequence suggest modalities are dynamic and flexible resources for expressing background or foreground information in subordinate constructions relatively to their syntactic type.https://journals.openedition.org/anglophonia/1200prosodyinformation structuresubordinationMultimodal Discourse Analysisgesture
spellingShingle Manon Lelandais
Gaëlle Ferré
How Are Three Syntactic Types of Subordinate Clauses Different in Terms of Informational Weight?
Anglophonia
prosody
information structure
subordination
Multimodal Discourse Analysis
gesture
title How Are Three Syntactic Types of Subordinate Clauses Different in Terms of Informational Weight?
title_full How Are Three Syntactic Types of Subordinate Clauses Different in Terms of Informational Weight?
title_fullStr How Are Three Syntactic Types of Subordinate Clauses Different in Terms of Informational Weight?
title_full_unstemmed How Are Three Syntactic Types of Subordinate Clauses Different in Terms of Informational Weight?
title_short How Are Three Syntactic Types of Subordinate Clauses Different in Terms of Informational Weight?
title_sort how are three syntactic types of subordinate clauses different in terms of informational weight
topic prosody
information structure
subordination
Multimodal Discourse Analysis
gesture
url https://journals.openedition.org/anglophonia/1200
work_keys_str_mv AT manonlelandais howarethreesyntactictypesofsubordinateclausesdifferentintermsofinformationalweight
AT gaelleferre howarethreesyntactictypesofsubordinateclausesdifferentintermsofinformationalweight