The interpersonal function of clefts in English and Swedish
Seen from an interpersonal perspective, within the framework of Appraisal (Martin and White 2005), cleft constructions in English and Swedish function in the system of Engagement as a heteroglossic rhetorical device by which speakers and writers negotiate an authorial position for themselves while implicitly acknowledging the existence of alternative positions. The cleft clause opens up the utterance to heteroglossic negotiation by representing one of its clause elements as a semantic gap. The identity of the semantic gap is then identified by the clefted constituent in the superordinate clause. It-clefts and reversed wh-clefts have different clefting possibilities in English and Swedish, which means that it-clefts and reversed wh-clefts are used to negotiate different types of authorial positions.
Cited by (3)
Cited by three other publications
Bondi, Marina
2017.
What came to be called: evaluative what and authorial voice in the discourse of history.
Text & Talk 37:1
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Herriman, Jennifer
2012.
Word order and information structure in English and Swedish.
Linguistics and the Human Sciences 6:1-3
► pp. 129 ff.
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