Intensifiers as stance markers A corpus study on genre variations in Mandarin Chinese

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http://limnieng.bol.ucla.edu/Revised Manuscript for CLD (Intensifier).pdf

Intensifiers as stance markers
A corpus study on genre variations in Mandarin Chinese

Ni-Eng Lim and Huaqing Hong

University of California, Los Angeles / Nanyang Technological University

While the study of Mandarin Chinese intensifiers has been prolific, the methodologies used have been limited to comparative and grammaticalization studies, revealing little about the discourse-pragmatic usages of individual intensifiers. Utilizing a balanced corpus composed of 15 different prototypical genres, the associative strength of 12 commonly used intensifiers in each genre was statistically determined based on their frequency distribution. The results reveal a clear preference pattern of intensifiers across a range of “written” and “spoken”-based genres. Upon the premise that the genre preferences of intensifiers stem from matching dimensions of communicative intent/discourse context between genre and intensifier, genre-analysis was conducted to unveil the core “stances” each intensifier might possibly project. In conclusion, it is argued that genre-analysis based on empirical corpus data provides a valid alternative means to uncover seemingly “covert” aspects of language use.

Keywords: Corpus Linguistics, genre-analysis, stance markers, intensifiers, Mandarin

DOI: 10.1075/cld.3.2.01lim

In: Chinese Language and Discourse 3:2. 2012. iii, 158 pp. (pp. 129–166)
 
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