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A Quantitative Study of Right Dislocation in Cantonese Spoken Discourse
Christy Choi-Ting Lai1, Sam-Po Law1, Anthony Pak-Hin Kong2
1University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR.
Language and Speech
|February 1, 2017
Summary
Right Dislocation (RD) is a focus marker influenced by planning time. This study found RD use in Cantonese monologues varies with genre and cognitive load, especially in personal narratives.
Area of Science:
- Linguistics
- Psycholinguistics
- Sociolinguistics
Background:
- Right Dislocation (RD) is theorized as a focus marker with an affective role, potentially linked to conversational planning time constraints.
- Investigating RD in monologues offers insights into its function beyond conversational turn-taking.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine how genre type, planning load, and affective function influence the use of Right Dislocation (RD) in Cantonese monologues.
- To compare RD occurrence in different discourse genres and relate it to cognitive load and emotional expression.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of discourse data from 144 native Cantonese speakers.
- Comparison of RD frequency across three genres: procedural description, story-telling, and personal event recount.
- Examination of RD co-occurrence with narrative structure, cognitive load indicators (e.g., narrative position), and disfluencies.
Main Results:
- RD occurrence was lowest in structured procedural descriptions and highest in less structured personal event recounts.
- RD frequency increased towards the end of narratives, correlating with higher cognitive load and disfluency.
- Personal event recounts showed a higher percentage of RD used for explicit emotional expression.
- RD occurred less frequently in monologues compared to previous conversational studies.
Conclusions:
- The use of Right Dislocation (RD) is significantly influenced by genre characteristics (structure, style) and cognitive planning load.
- RD functions as a discourse marker sensitive to contextual factors like genre and speaker's cognitive state.
- Findings suggest RD's affective and focus-marking roles are modulated by discourse production constraints.
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