Péter B. Furkó is habil. associate professor in English Applied Linguistics and Vice Dean for Science and Research at the Department of English Linguistics, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary. He holds a PhD in Linguistics, an MA in English, and an MA in Classical Philology. He habilitated in linguistics with a thesis on discourse markers in spontaneous speech. His academic interests include variational pragmatics, literary pragmatics, pragmatic markers/discourse markers, and the study of media discourse. His articles and papers have appeared in several international journals and volumes published by Palgrave MacMillan, John Benjamins, Mouton De Gruyter, and Elsevier.Address: Dr. Furkó Bálint Péter, Vice Dean’s Office, Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in homepage: http://www.kre.hu/btk/index.php/furko-peter
The DiscourseNet: Collaborative Working Paper Series reflects ongoing research activity at the in... more The DiscourseNet: Collaborative Working Paper Series reflects ongoing research activity at the intersection of language and society in the interdis- ciplinary field of Discourse Studies. Prolonging the activities and publications of DiscourseNet, it welcomes contributions which actively engage in a dialogue across different theories of discourse, disciplines, topics, methods and methodologies. The DN CWPS is not “just another working paper series”. The DN CWPS is much more collabora- tive in spirit, as it gives you a constructive response by two experts as well as offering you the opportu- nities for social networking with researchers in your field of expertise. The goal of DN CWPS is supporting, extending and deepening debate, hence each accepted paper will obtain two reviews from experts in the paper's field. Both comments will be published in the appendix of the paper. Additionally, every author will be invited to the upcoming DiscourseNet meeting to present the paper and to get in touch with the commentators and other discourse researchers.
In the present case study we will take a discourse-pragmatic as well as contrastive approach to s... more In the present case study we will take a discourse-pragmatic as well as contrastive approach to some of the most frequently used discourse markers in spoken interaction: English I mean, of course, oh, well, I think and you know, and Hungarian hát (~'well'), mondjuk (~'let's say'), ugye (~'is that so?') and amúgy (~'otherwise', ~'by the way'). We will examine their use in three corpora: (1) a corpus of political interviews broadcast by the BBC and CNN between 2003 and 2011, (2) a corpus of different types of media discourse (including political interviews and panel discussions) broadcast between 2009 and 2012 by the Hungarian TV channels Duna TV, ATV, Hír TV, MTV and TV2, and (3) the HuComTech corpus, an annotated collection of informal Hungarian dialogues. The major question we would like to answer is whether or not the uses of the selected discourse markers differ across the various discourse types/genres (natural conversations, different...
After a brief overview of the literature on complimenting strategies, we present the results of r... more After a brief overview of the literature on complimenting strategies, we present the results of research aimed at finding gender-based differences in compliment response strategies based on Hungarian undergraduate students’ responses to discourse completion tasks. We found that in native language contexts, the patterns of the use of macro compliment response strategies are similar to those in previous research based on native speakers of English, however, female respondents participating in our research used more Agreement macro CRs in response to female compliments than to male ones, while male respondents offered Agreement macro strategies to male and female compliments with close to equal frequency. We have also found gender-based differences in the patterns of micro CR strategies as well as differences between Hungarian and EFL responses that are either due to misperceptions about native English norms or the lack of positive pragmatic transfer.
The aim of the first part of the paper is to consider possible ways of categorising and mapping t... more The aim of the first part of the paper is to consider possible ways of categorising and mapping the functional spectrum of discourse markers as well as to propose a model of discourse spaces, which, it is my hope, reflects the wide range of macroand micro functions DMs fulfill as well as the multiand interdisciplinary nature of DM research. In the second part, I illustrate two of the possible applications of the proposed model: (1) its usefulness in mapping the functional spectrum of the English DM oh, (2) the utility of the model for the contrastive analysis of English oh and Hungarian ó.
The aim of this chapter is twofold: firstly, it is to examine cinematographic representations of ... more The aim of this chapter is twofold: firstly, it is to examine cinematographic representations of Irish English pragmalinguistic features with special reference to the use of Irish English discourse markers in scripted (stylized) dialogues; the second aim is to contrast the stereotypes that can be observed in cinematographic representations with the actual pragmalinguistic features of Irish English based on recent findings of variational pragmatics.
The present paper will analyse manifestations of the journey metaphor from a critical discourse a... more The present paper will analyse manifestations of the journey metaphor from a critical discourse analytical perspective in order to observe how the journey metaphor is used as a discourse strategy in mediatized political speeches and interviews whereby political actors manipulate the second-frame interactional participants (the audience) into sharing a (spurious) sense of solidarity with them. There are three hypotheses that will be tested in the course of the analysis: the first is that a wide-variety of realjourney elements are exploited for the political metaphor of journey, and there is a concrete correspondence between journey vehicles and political scenarios. The second hypothesis is that journey metaphors that are used in political speeches, celebrity interviews and confrontational political interviews are of different types and complexity. The third hypothesis is that the manipulative intent behind the use of metaphors is exposed in the latter types of mediatized political di...
The aim of the present paper is to explore the difficulties translators have to face when transla... more The aim of the present paper is to explore the difficulties translators have to face when translating discourse markers in general, and reformulation markers in particular. In the first part of the paper I will attempt to answer the question of why discourse markers are notoriously difficult to translate. Next, I will look at some of the genre-specific features pertaining to the translation of scripted discourse and subtitles. In the second part of the paper, after providing an overview of previous research into reformulation and reformulation markers, I will present the results of a case study of the translation of the English reformulation markers I mean and actually into Hungarian. By way of concluding, I will argue that a wider repertoire of translation strategies is needed in order to achieve dynamic equivalence in the target text.
The aim of the paper is to examine common Irish English stereotypes in cinematographic representa... more The aim of the paper is to examine common Irish English stereotypes in cinematographic representations of Irish English with special reference to pragmatic features and sociopragmatic norms. After giving an overview of some of the ways in which the concepts of ‘stereotype’ and ‘stereotyping’ are defined and used in sociolinguistics and sociopragmatics, selected features of the Irish English pragmalect (the use of pragmatic markers, the performance of speech acts such as requests, compliment responses and thanks minimizers) will be discussed and contrasted with the (highly stereotypical) representation of Irish English in the films Intermission and The Guard.
Approaches to Discourse Particles, a collection of twenty-three papers, each written by a differe... more Approaches to Discourse Particles, a collection of twenty-three papers, each written by a different author, presents an invaluable contribution to both the narrower field of discourse particle/marker research and the broad fields of pragmatics and discourse analysis. As far as the former is concerned, despite the rapidly growing body of research on linguistic expressions referred to as discourse markers (henceforth DMs), discourse connectives, discourse operators, discourse particles, cue phrases, pragmatic markers, framing devices, etc. (the list could go on as a function of the number of theoretical frameworks that have been applied to the study of these items), and despite the general agreement on the importance of such items in utterance interpretation, there is a lot of controversy over the type of meaning they express and the criteria one can use to assign DM status to a given token of a linguistic item. The heterogeneity of the research field is mainly caused by two propertie...
The present paper will analyse manifestations of the journey metaphor from a critical discourse a... more The present paper will analyse manifestations of the journey metaphor from a critical discourse analytical perspective in order to observe how the journey metaphor is used as a discourse strategy in mediatized political speeches and interviews whereby political actors manipulate the second-frame interactional participants (the audience) into sharing a (spurious) sense of solidarity with them. There are three hypotheses that will journey elements are exploited for the political metaphor of journey, and there is a concrete correspondence between journey vehicles and political scenarios. The second hypothesis is that journey metaphors that are used in political speeches, celebrity interviews and confrontational political interviews are of different types and complexity. The third hypothesis is that the manipulative intent behind the use of metaphors is exposed in the latter types of mediatized political discourse to varying degrees as a result of the different degrees of pragmatic accountability adhered to in the two basis of the qualitative analysis presented in the paper, whereas the third hypothesis is not borne out by the data.
The appropriate use of pragmatic markers – non-propositional well, you know, of course, etc. – is... more The appropriate use of pragmatic markers – non-propositional well, you know, of course, etc. – is necessary for successful business communication (which is, for the most part, cross-cultural communication), however, pragmatic markers take a back seat in TEFL, TESL, and most notably, in TESP contexts. In our paper we will, first of all, discuss the major issues related to the concept of communicative competence as well as the role of PMs in shaping EFL and ESL speakers’ communicative competence. Next, some remarks will be made about the possible sources of the difficulties that may hinder the acquisition and/or learning of PMs, finally, the results of a case study will be presented, which aimed at mapping the functional spectrum of PMs as they are used in selected General Business English textbooks.
The paper addresses the issue of categorization and category membership with respect to the funct... more The paper addresses the issue of categorization and category membership with respect to the functional class of discourse markers. In the course of the paper I will review possible criteria for discourse marker status and examine them from the perspectives of three alternative hypotheses about the development of discourse markers: grammaticalization theory; its modified version, the pragmaticalization hypothesis; and the cooptation hypothesis. The characteristics outlined in the paper suggest that the functional class of DMs constitutes a radial category either in the light of grammaticalization / pragmaticalization or the cooptation hypothesis, thus, a network model along the lines of Pelyvás (1995) is the most appropriate way of characterizing individual DMs in terms of prototypicality.
The present case study takes a discourse-pragmatic approach to some of the most frequently used d... more The present case study takes a discourse-pragmatic approach to some of the most frequently used discourse markers (henceforth DMs) in spoken English: I mean, of course, oh, well, I think and you know. The point of departure in this research is a set of discourse-pragmatic relations and functions, such as conversation management, thematic control, concession, elaboration, reformulation, ventriloquizing, and marking evidentiality. After looking at which DMs signal these relations and functions in our corpora, we identify a set of English DMs whose members display markedly different pragmatic behaviours across various subgenres of spoken English such as naturally-occurring conversations and mediatised political interviews.
In the present case study we will take a discourse-pragmatic as well as contrastive approach to s... more In the present case study we will take a discourse-pragmatic as well as contrastive approach to some of the most frequently used discourse markers in spoken interac-tion: English I mean, of course, oh, well, I think and you know, and Hungarian hát (~'well'), mondjuk (~'let's say'), ugye (~'is that so?') and amúgy (~'otherwise', ~'by the way'). We will examine their use in three corpora: (1) a corpus of political interviews broadcast by the BBC and CNN between 2003 and 2011, (2) a corpus of different types of media discourse (including political interviews and panel discussions) broad-cast between 2009 and 2012 by the Hungarian TV channels Duna TV, ATV, Hír TV, MTV and TV2, and (3) the HuComTech corpus, an annotated collection of informal Hungarian dialogues. The major question we would like to answer is whether or not the uses of the selected discourse markers differ across the various discourse types/genres (natural conversations, different types of political interviews and panel discussions).
The aim of the present paper is to explore the difficulties translators have to face when transla... more The aim of the present paper is to explore the difficulties translators have to face when translating discourse markers in general, and reformulation markers in particular. In the first part of the paper I will attempt to answer the question of why discourse markers are notoriously difficult to translate. Next, I will look at some of the genre-specific features pertaining to the translation of scripted discourse and subtitles. In the second part of the paper, after providing an overview of previous research into reformulation and reformulation markers, I will present the results of a case study of the translation of the English reformulation markers I mean and actually into Hungarian. By way of concluding, I will argue that a wider repertoire of translation strategies is needed in order to achieve dynamic equivalence in the target text.
The DiscourseNet: Collaborative Working Paper Series reflects ongoing research activity at the in... more The DiscourseNet: Collaborative Working Paper Series reflects ongoing research activity at the intersection of language and society in the interdis- ciplinary field of Discourse Studies. Prolonging the activities and publications of DiscourseNet, it welcomes contributions which actively engage in a dialogue across different theories of discourse, disciplines, topics, methods and methodologies. The DN CWPS is not “just another working paper series”. The DN CWPS is much more collabora- tive in spirit, as it gives you a constructive response by two experts as well as offering you the opportu- nities for social networking with researchers in your field of expertise. The goal of DN CWPS is supporting, extending and deepening debate, hence each accepted paper will obtain two reviews from experts in the paper's field. Both comments will be published in the appendix of the paper. Additionally, every author will be invited to the upcoming DiscourseNet meeting to present the paper and to get in touch with the commentators and other discourse researchers.
In the present case study we will take a discourse-pragmatic as well as contrastive approach to s... more In the present case study we will take a discourse-pragmatic as well as contrastive approach to some of the most frequently used discourse markers in spoken interaction: English I mean, of course, oh, well, I think and you know, and Hungarian hát (~'well'), mondjuk (~'let's say'), ugye (~'is that so?') and amúgy (~'otherwise', ~'by the way'). We will examine their use in three corpora: (1) a corpus of political interviews broadcast by the BBC and CNN between 2003 and 2011, (2) a corpus of different types of media discourse (including political interviews and panel discussions) broadcast between 2009 and 2012 by the Hungarian TV channels Duna TV, ATV, Hír TV, MTV and TV2, and (3) the HuComTech corpus, an annotated collection of informal Hungarian dialogues. The major question we would like to answer is whether or not the uses of the selected discourse markers differ across the various discourse types/genres (natural conversations, different...
After a brief overview of the literature on complimenting strategies, we present the results of r... more After a brief overview of the literature on complimenting strategies, we present the results of research aimed at finding gender-based differences in compliment response strategies based on Hungarian undergraduate students’ responses to discourse completion tasks. We found that in native language contexts, the patterns of the use of macro compliment response strategies are similar to those in previous research based on native speakers of English, however, female respondents participating in our research used more Agreement macro CRs in response to female compliments than to male ones, while male respondents offered Agreement macro strategies to male and female compliments with close to equal frequency. We have also found gender-based differences in the patterns of micro CR strategies as well as differences between Hungarian and EFL responses that are either due to misperceptions about native English norms or the lack of positive pragmatic transfer.
The aim of the first part of the paper is to consider possible ways of categorising and mapping t... more The aim of the first part of the paper is to consider possible ways of categorising and mapping the functional spectrum of discourse markers as well as to propose a model of discourse spaces, which, it is my hope, reflects the wide range of macroand micro functions DMs fulfill as well as the multiand interdisciplinary nature of DM research. In the second part, I illustrate two of the possible applications of the proposed model: (1) its usefulness in mapping the functional spectrum of the English DM oh, (2) the utility of the model for the contrastive analysis of English oh and Hungarian ó.
The aim of this chapter is twofold: firstly, it is to examine cinematographic representations of ... more The aim of this chapter is twofold: firstly, it is to examine cinematographic representations of Irish English pragmalinguistic features with special reference to the use of Irish English discourse markers in scripted (stylized) dialogues; the second aim is to contrast the stereotypes that can be observed in cinematographic representations with the actual pragmalinguistic features of Irish English based on recent findings of variational pragmatics.
The present paper will analyse manifestations of the journey metaphor from a critical discourse a... more The present paper will analyse manifestations of the journey metaphor from a critical discourse analytical perspective in order to observe how the journey metaphor is used as a discourse strategy in mediatized political speeches and interviews whereby political actors manipulate the second-frame interactional participants (the audience) into sharing a (spurious) sense of solidarity with them. There are three hypotheses that will be tested in the course of the analysis: the first is that a wide-variety of realjourney elements are exploited for the political metaphor of journey, and there is a concrete correspondence between journey vehicles and political scenarios. The second hypothesis is that journey metaphors that are used in political speeches, celebrity interviews and confrontational political interviews are of different types and complexity. The third hypothesis is that the manipulative intent behind the use of metaphors is exposed in the latter types of mediatized political di...
The aim of the present paper is to explore the difficulties translators have to face when transla... more The aim of the present paper is to explore the difficulties translators have to face when translating discourse markers in general, and reformulation markers in particular. In the first part of the paper I will attempt to answer the question of why discourse markers are notoriously difficult to translate. Next, I will look at some of the genre-specific features pertaining to the translation of scripted discourse and subtitles. In the second part of the paper, after providing an overview of previous research into reformulation and reformulation markers, I will present the results of a case study of the translation of the English reformulation markers I mean and actually into Hungarian. By way of concluding, I will argue that a wider repertoire of translation strategies is needed in order to achieve dynamic equivalence in the target text.
The aim of the paper is to examine common Irish English stereotypes in cinematographic representa... more The aim of the paper is to examine common Irish English stereotypes in cinematographic representations of Irish English with special reference to pragmatic features and sociopragmatic norms. After giving an overview of some of the ways in which the concepts of ‘stereotype’ and ‘stereotyping’ are defined and used in sociolinguistics and sociopragmatics, selected features of the Irish English pragmalect (the use of pragmatic markers, the performance of speech acts such as requests, compliment responses and thanks minimizers) will be discussed and contrasted with the (highly stereotypical) representation of Irish English in the films Intermission and The Guard.
Approaches to Discourse Particles, a collection of twenty-three papers, each written by a differe... more Approaches to Discourse Particles, a collection of twenty-three papers, each written by a different author, presents an invaluable contribution to both the narrower field of discourse particle/marker research and the broad fields of pragmatics and discourse analysis. As far as the former is concerned, despite the rapidly growing body of research on linguistic expressions referred to as discourse markers (henceforth DMs), discourse connectives, discourse operators, discourse particles, cue phrases, pragmatic markers, framing devices, etc. (the list could go on as a function of the number of theoretical frameworks that have been applied to the study of these items), and despite the general agreement on the importance of such items in utterance interpretation, there is a lot of controversy over the type of meaning they express and the criteria one can use to assign DM status to a given token of a linguistic item. The heterogeneity of the research field is mainly caused by two propertie...
The present paper will analyse manifestations of the journey metaphor from a critical discourse a... more The present paper will analyse manifestations of the journey metaphor from a critical discourse analytical perspective in order to observe how the journey metaphor is used as a discourse strategy in mediatized political speeches and interviews whereby political actors manipulate the second-frame interactional participants (the audience) into sharing a (spurious) sense of solidarity with them. There are three hypotheses that will journey elements are exploited for the political metaphor of journey, and there is a concrete correspondence between journey vehicles and political scenarios. The second hypothesis is that journey metaphors that are used in political speeches, celebrity interviews and confrontational political interviews are of different types and complexity. The third hypothesis is that the manipulative intent behind the use of metaphors is exposed in the latter types of mediatized political discourse to varying degrees as a result of the different degrees of pragmatic accountability adhered to in the two basis of the qualitative analysis presented in the paper, whereas the third hypothesis is not borne out by the data.
The appropriate use of pragmatic markers – non-propositional well, you know, of course, etc. – is... more The appropriate use of pragmatic markers – non-propositional well, you know, of course, etc. – is necessary for successful business communication (which is, for the most part, cross-cultural communication), however, pragmatic markers take a back seat in TEFL, TESL, and most notably, in TESP contexts. In our paper we will, first of all, discuss the major issues related to the concept of communicative competence as well as the role of PMs in shaping EFL and ESL speakers’ communicative competence. Next, some remarks will be made about the possible sources of the difficulties that may hinder the acquisition and/or learning of PMs, finally, the results of a case study will be presented, which aimed at mapping the functional spectrum of PMs as they are used in selected General Business English textbooks.
The paper addresses the issue of categorization and category membership with respect to the funct... more The paper addresses the issue of categorization and category membership with respect to the functional class of discourse markers. In the course of the paper I will review possible criteria for discourse marker status and examine them from the perspectives of three alternative hypotheses about the development of discourse markers: grammaticalization theory; its modified version, the pragmaticalization hypothesis; and the cooptation hypothesis. The characteristics outlined in the paper suggest that the functional class of DMs constitutes a radial category either in the light of grammaticalization / pragmaticalization or the cooptation hypothesis, thus, a network model along the lines of Pelyvás (1995) is the most appropriate way of characterizing individual DMs in terms of prototypicality.
The present case study takes a discourse-pragmatic approach to some of the most frequently used d... more The present case study takes a discourse-pragmatic approach to some of the most frequently used discourse markers (henceforth DMs) in spoken English: I mean, of course, oh, well, I think and you know. The point of departure in this research is a set of discourse-pragmatic relations and functions, such as conversation management, thematic control, concession, elaboration, reformulation, ventriloquizing, and marking evidentiality. After looking at which DMs signal these relations and functions in our corpora, we identify a set of English DMs whose members display markedly different pragmatic behaviours across various subgenres of spoken English such as naturally-occurring conversations and mediatised political interviews.
In the present case study we will take a discourse-pragmatic as well as contrastive approach to s... more In the present case study we will take a discourse-pragmatic as well as contrastive approach to some of the most frequently used discourse markers in spoken interac-tion: English I mean, of course, oh, well, I think and you know, and Hungarian hát (~'well'), mondjuk (~'let's say'), ugye (~'is that so?') and amúgy (~'otherwise', ~'by the way'). We will examine their use in three corpora: (1) a corpus of political interviews broadcast by the BBC and CNN between 2003 and 2011, (2) a corpus of different types of media discourse (including political interviews and panel discussions) broad-cast between 2009 and 2012 by the Hungarian TV channels Duna TV, ATV, Hír TV, MTV and TV2, and (3) the HuComTech corpus, an annotated collection of informal Hungarian dialogues. The major question we would like to answer is whether or not the uses of the selected discourse markers differ across the various discourse types/genres (natural conversations, different types of political interviews and panel discussions).
The aim of the present paper is to explore the difficulties translators have to face when transla... more The aim of the present paper is to explore the difficulties translators have to face when translating discourse markers in general, and reformulation markers in particular. In the first part of the paper I will attempt to answer the question of why discourse markers are notoriously difficult to translate. Next, I will look at some of the genre-specific features pertaining to the translation of scripted discourse and subtitles. In the second part of the paper, after providing an overview of previous research into reformulation and reformulation markers, I will present the results of a case study of the translation of the English reformulation markers I mean and actually into Hungarian. By way of concluding, I will argue that a wider repertoire of translation strategies is needed in order to achieve dynamic equivalence in the target text.
The DiscourseNet: Collaborative Working Paper Series reflects ongoing research activity at the in... more The DiscourseNet: Collaborative Working Paper Series reflects ongoing research activity at the intersection of language and society in the interdis- ciplinary field of Discourse Studies. Prolonging the activities and publications of DiscourseNet, it welcomes contributions which actively engage in a dialogue across different theories of discourse, disciplines, topics, methods and methodologies. The DN CWPS is not “just another working paper series”. The DN CWPS is much more collabora- tive in spirit, as it gives you a constructive response by two experts as well as offering you the opportu- nities for social networking with researchers in your field of expertise. The goal of DN CWPS is supporting, extending and deepening debate, hence each accepted paper will obtain two reviews from experts in the paper's field. Both comments will be published in the appendix of the paper. Additionally, every author will be invited to the upcoming DiscourseNet meeting to present the paper and to get in touch with the commentators and other discourse researchers.
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Papers by Furkó Péter
successful business communication (which is, for the most part, cross-cultural communication), however,
pragmatic markers take a back seat in TEFL, TESL, and most notably, in TESP contexts. In our paper we will,
first of all, discuss the major issues related to the concept of communicative competence as well as the role of
PMs in shaping EFL and ESL speakers’ communicative competence. Next, some remarks will be made about the
possible sources of the difficulties that may hinder the acquisition and/or learning of PMs, finally, the results of a
case study will be presented, which aimed at mapping the functional spectrum of PMs as they are used in
selected General Business English textbooks.
this research is a set of discourse-pragmatic relations and functions, such as conversation management, thematic control, concession, elaboration, reformulation, ventriloquizing, and marking evidentiality. After looking at which DMs
signal these relations and functions in our corpora, we identify a set of English DMs whose members display markedly different pragmatic behaviours across various subgenres of spoken English such as naturally-occurring conversations
and mediatised political interviews.
successful business communication (which is, for the most part, cross-cultural communication), however,
pragmatic markers take a back seat in TEFL, TESL, and most notably, in TESP contexts. In our paper we will,
first of all, discuss the major issues related to the concept of communicative competence as well as the role of
PMs in shaping EFL and ESL speakers’ communicative competence. Next, some remarks will be made about the
possible sources of the difficulties that may hinder the acquisition and/or learning of PMs, finally, the results of a
case study will be presented, which aimed at mapping the functional spectrum of PMs as they are used in
selected General Business English textbooks.
this research is a set of discourse-pragmatic relations and functions, such as conversation management, thematic control, concession, elaboration, reformulation, ventriloquizing, and marking evidentiality. After looking at which DMs
signal these relations and functions in our corpora, we identify a set of English DMs whose members display markedly different pragmatic behaviours across various subgenres of spoken English such as naturally-occurring conversations
and mediatised political interviews.