Cover not available

In:Positioning the Self and Others: Linguistic perspectives
Edited by Kate Beeching, Chiara Ghezzi and Piera Molinelli
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 292] 2018
► pp. 177–195

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Chapter 8
Positioning of self in interaction

Adolescents’ use of attention-getters

Published online: 17 July 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.292.08aij
Abstract
Look, listen, come on, excuse me are examples of imperatives of verbs which have developed into discourse markers with an attention-getting function. It is shown that the functional markers are used by adolescents to position themselves in relation to what is said and other participants in the conversation in order to mark their disalignment with the norms of adult society. In the adolescents’ world impoliteness is the norm associated with creating a positive self-image of the speakers. Attention-getters are also an important part of how adolescents perform as tellers of narratives or anecdotes. Adolescents use attention-getters for irony and ‘mock politeness’ and in joking competitive exchanges.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background review: Attention-getters in previous work
  • 3.Data and methods: Corpus analysis of the attention getters
  • 4.Findings
    • 4.1 Look
      • 4.1.1 Look as a marker of relevance
      • 4.1.2 Look and turn-taking
      • 4.1.3 Look as argumentation marker
      • 4.1.4Patterns with look marking escalation
      • 4.1.5Patterns with look as a part of reported speech
    • 4.2 Listen
    • 4.3 Come on
    • 4.4 Excuse me
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
References (28)
References
Aijmer, Karin. 2010. “The Attention-getting Devices look, see and listen .” In The Prague School and Theories of Structure, edited by Martin Procházka, Markéta Mála, and Pavlína Saldová, 163–176. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bousfield, Derek. 2008. Impoliteness in Interaction. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brinton, Laurel J. 2001. “From Matrix Clause to Pragmatic Marker. The History of look-forms.” Journal of Historical Pragmatics 2 (2): 179–199. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary, and Kira Hall. 2005. “Identity and Interaction: a Sociocultural Linguistic Approach.” Discourse Studies 7 (4–5): 585–614. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carter, Ronald. 2004. Language and Creativity. The Art of Common Talk. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Company Company, Concepción. 2004. “(¿De)gramaticalización, subjetivización y reanálisis: la flexibilidad categorial del verb en la historia det espanol.” Revista de filología española 84: 29–66. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cuenca, Maria Josep, and Maria Josep Marín. 2000. “Verbos de Perceptión gramaticalizados como conectores: análisis contrastive espanol-catalán.” Revista española de lingüística aplicada 1: 215–237.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan. 2011. Impoliteness. Using Language to Cause Offence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dostie, Gaétane. 2004. Pragmaticalisation et marqueurs discursifs: analyse sémantique et traitement lexicographique. Brussels: De Boeck/Duculot.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 2001 [1989]. Language and Power. Longman: Harlow, England.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fedriani, Chiara & Ghezzi, Chiara. 2014. “ The Pragmaticalization of Verbs of Movement and Exchange in Latin and Italian: Paths of Development from Lexicon to Pragmatics.” In Studia linguistica et philologica in honorem Prof. Univ. Dr. Michaela Livescu, ed. by Ilona Badescu, and Mihaela Popescu, 116–139. Craiova: Editura Universitaria.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ghezzi, Chiara. 2012. “ Guarda, secondo me stai sbagliando! Marcatori interazionali da verbi di percezione in italiano contemporaneo.” In La lingua e la litteratura italiana in Europa: atti del Convegno internazionale di studi di Craiova, ed. by Elena Pirvu, 143–163. Craiova: Editura Universitaria.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ghezzi, Chiara, and Piera Molinelli. 2014. “Italian guarda, prego, dai. Pragmatic Markers and the Left and Right Periphery.” In Discourse Functions in the Left and Right Periphery: Crosslinguistic Investigations of Language Use and Language Change, ed. by Kate Beeching, and Ulrich Detges, 117–150. Leiden: Brill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Iliescu, Maria. 2011. “Les marqueurs d’appel en français et en roumain (et en allemand et en anglais).“ In Comparatio delectat, vol.1, ed. by Eva Lavric, Wolfgang Pöckl, and Florian Schallhart, 115–135. Frankfurt am Main: Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey. 2014. The Pragmatics of Politeness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners. 2002. Oxford: Macmillan Education.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pons Bordería, Salvador. 1998. Conexión y conectores: estudio de su relación en el registro informal de la lengua. Valencia: Departamento de Filología Española, Universitat de Valencia.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Poulsen, Birthe. 1996. “Samtidig tale i unges turtagning. [‘At the same time speaking in the youth’s retreat’].” Unpublished paper. University of Århus.
Romero Trillo, Jesús. 1997. “ Your attention, please: Pragmatic Mechanisms to Obtain the Addressee’s Attention.” Journal of Pragmatics 28: 205–221. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rossari, Corinne. 2006. « La preuve et regarde. » In Les marqueurs discursifs dans les langues romanes: approaches théoriques et méthodologiques, edited by Martina Drescher, and Barbara Frank-Job, 107–119. Frankfurt am Main: Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson. 1974. “A Simplest Systematics for Turn-taking in Conversation.” Language 50: 696–735. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stenström, Anna-Brita, Gisle Andersen, and Kristin Hasund. 2002. Trends in Teenage Talk: Corpus Compilation, Analysis and Findings. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stenström, Anna-Brita. 2013. “Spanish venga and its English Equivalents: A Contrastive Study of Teenage Talk.” In Contrastive Discourse Analysis. Functional and corpus perspectives, ed. by Maite Taboada, Susana Doval Suárez, and Elsa González Álvarez, 53–71. Sheffield/Bristol: Equinox.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tannen, Deborah. 1989. Talking Voices. Repetition, Dialogue, and Imagery in Conversational Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Waltereit, Richard. 2002. “Imperatives, Interruption in Conversation and the Rise of Discourse Particles: a Study of Italian guarda .” Linguistics 40: 987–1010. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Van Olmen, Daniël & Vittorio Tantucci
2022. Getting attention in different languages: A usage-based approach to parenthetical look in Chinese, Dutch, English, and Italian. Intercultural Pragmatics 19:2 ► pp. 141 ff. DOI logo
Van Olmen, Daniël
2021. Second person parentheticals of unintentional visual perception in British English. In Pragmatic Markers and Peripheries [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 325], ► pp. 251 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 28 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue