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Part of
Corpus Approaches to Language, Thought and Communication
Edited by Wei-lun Lu, Naděžda Kudrnáčová and Laura A. Janda
[Benjamins Current Topics 119] 2021
► pp. 133–155

Construction in conversation

An Interactional Construction Grammar approach to the use of xiangshuo ‘think’ in spoken Taiwan Mandarin

 | National Taiwan University (NTU)
 | National Taiwan University (NTU)
Although the Construction Grammar (CxG) model has yielded fruitful findings, the role that pragmatics plays in language has not yet been fully considered in this theoretical framework. The recent development of spoken corpora, however, enables construction grammarians to develop a new approach called Interactional Construction Grammar, which incorporates interactional factors into CxG analysis to account for patterns that involve interpersonal functions and global contexts. Adopting this approach, the present study attempts to examine the use of a complement-taking mental predicate xiangshuo in Taiwan Mandarin conversation and analyze the co-occurrence patterns of this cognitive verb with different subjects. We identify three sequential patterns in which xiangshuo most frequently occurs, including account-giving, contrast-projecting and involvement-constructing, and argue that only by taking into account the sequential context and interactional function can the distribution patterns of subjects and particles that recurrently collocate with xiangshuo be explained.
Keywords: Interactional Construction Grammar, complement-taking mental predicate, xiangshuo , spoken corpus, Taiwan Mandarin, sequential environment
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Previous research on xiangshuo
  • 3.Data and methodology
  • 4.The co-occurrence patterns of xiangshuo and different subjects
  • 5.Sequential patterns of xiangshuo in interaction
    • 5.1The account-giving sequence
    • 5.2The contrast-projecting sequence
    • 5.3The involvement-constructing sequence
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • Transcription conventions
  • References
Published online: 16 August 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.119.07hsi
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