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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2022

Wonder: An instance of pragmaticalisation? From lexical cognitive senses to discursive strategies

Résumé

Wonder belongs to the broad category of mental verbs, more specifically to two subclasses of mental verbs, namely cognitive verbs and emotive verbs. We may find it in sentences expressing either a mental process or an affective stance, licensing a wide range of complements, mainly preposition phrases (e.g. about-PP, at-PP) and various types of finite clauses (e.g. if-clauses, Wh-clauses, that-clauses). Moreover, wonder can also be used as a discourse marker, in parenthetical constructions or in exclamatory sentences, for instance. In its cognitive sense, wonder can have the discursive function of reporting or can be used as a discourse marker of quoted thought, then resembling the quoting verbs of speech such as say. It can also be viewed as a marker of politeness at the beginning of requests. As for emotive wonder, it can acquire a discursive dimension, expressing either probability, near-certainty, or doubt, incredulity. Few studies have been devoted to the verb wonder and its various meanings and discursive functions. How and why has wonder come to be such a polysemic and multifunctional verbal unit? The present study addresses this multifaceted question in both an enunciative and cognitive perspective, and sets out to accomplish three main goals: first, to identify the discursive uses of wonder, both in its cognitive and emotive senses, by presenting a thorough analysis of the different types of sentences in which it is used; second, to shed light on the factors that allow for the varied discursive functions of wonder, as it is not in itself a discourse marker; third, to determine whether wonder can be analysed as an instance of pragmaticalisation in some contexts. These aims are achieved using a qualitative, corpus-based analysis, which helps to understand to what extent different grammatical codings embody specific ways of viewing the scene. The matrix-clause hypothesis, according to which comment clauses or parentheticals like, I wonder, may be derived from I wonder + complement clause, is then discussed. It turns out that syntax is motivated by meaning and pragmatics: the syntactic constructions contribute to both conveying particular meanings and carrying out precise discursive functions that are adapted to the speaker’s intentions. The study thus takes a panchronic approach to identify the wider evolution of the verb wonder. From our study it emerges that, although wonder is not in itself a discourse marker, the operations this verb marks lend themselves to discursive strategies including impoliteness (a Face Threatening Act – FTA) as well as negative and positive politeness, in the terms of Brown and Levinson, and Kerbrat-Orrechioni. In some contexts it also appears to allow an uncertain speaker to elicit manifestations of positive politeness (backchannels) from the co-speaker. As such, the role of wonder as a politeness marker depends on an interaction between the properties of the marker and a number of contextual factors, including for example how a speaker positions himself and his co-speaker relative to the propositions involved.
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Dates et versions

hal-03808733 , version 1 (10-10-2022)

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  • HAL Id : hal-03808733 , version 1

Citer

Christelle Lacassain. Wonder: An instance of pragmaticalisation? From lexical cognitive senses to discursive strategies. Verbs of thought and speech. Pragmaticalization paths across languages, Alberto Pardal Pardin; Eveling Garzon; Rodrigo Verano, Sep 2022, Salamanca, Spain. ⟨hal-03808733⟩
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