Research Group on Discourse and Grammar

Description

The DIGRAM group focuses its research activity on the analysis of grammatical aspects with a relevant discursive projection from a perspective that includes and goes beyond the study of text grammar and textual cohesion.

Specifically, he has worked and continues to work on connectors and discourse markers in general from a descriptive and contrastive perspective (basically contrasting Catalan with English and Spanish and, occasionally, with other Romance languages), the use of demonstratives, the function of encapsulating nouns or the pragmatic functions of verba dicendi in discourse, among others, in discursive construction. These textual aspects are related to discourse genre and channel.

The research is based on oral corpus of political discourse (electoral debate and parliamentary debate), conversation and semi-directed interview (CUBO and JEFE of the UB) and written corpus, such as novels or the Corpus Textual Informatizado de la Lengua Catalana (IEC), depending on the aspect under study. We have been collaborating for years with the GREPAD group at the UB (http://www.ub.edu/grepad/). Currently, M. J. Cuenca is working on the project Polarization and Digital Discourses: Critical and Socio-Cognitive Perspectives (PODDS) at the UAM.

Goals CT

The general objective of the group is the analysis of grammatical and textual aspects with a discursive projection and how they affect textual coherence and adequacy. This objective is specified in several specific objectives:

To study the boundaries between referential and connecting mechanisms, analysing the creation of connective units from lexical units or units of a referential nature.
To analyse the functioning of encapsulatory nouns and verba dicendi as key elements in discursive sequencing and in the integration of different enunciative plans, respectively.
To deepen the modalising function of discourse markers, modal markers and noun encapsulators as a persuasive strategy of subjectification or objectification of information.
To study linguistic marks and strategies with a marked argumentative and ideological value.

Research lines

Communication verbs in speech
Pragmatic functions of verba dicendi in discourse.
Study of connectors and discourse markers
Study of the functioning of connectors, interjections and discourse markers in Catalan from a descriptive and contrastive perspective (structural and functional, lexicographical, discursive and textual organisation aspects).
Phoric mechanisms of textual cohesion
Analysis of phoric mechanisms of textual cohesion: textual demonstratives, encapsulating nouns and endophoric mechanisms of cohesion. Functioning, discursive projection and relationship with discourse markers.

Management