Patterns of use of referring expressions in English and Japanese dialogues
The main aim of the thesis is to investigate how discourse entities are linked with topic chaining and discourse coherence by showing that the choice and the distribution of referring expressions is correlated with the center transition patterns in the centering framework. The thesis provides an integrated interpretation in understanding the behaviour of referring expressions in discourse by considering the relation between referential choice and the local and global coherence of discourse. The thesis has three stages: (1) to provide a semantic and pragmatic perspective in a contrastive study of referring expressions in English and Japanese spontaneous dialogues, (2) to analyse the way anaphoric and deictic expressions can contribute to discourse organisation in structuring and focusing the specific discourse segment, and (3) to investigate the choice and the distribution of referring expressions in the Map Task Corpus and to clarify the way the participants collaborate to judge the most salient entity in the current discourse against their common ground. Significantly, despite the grammatical differences in the form of reference between the two languages, the ways of discourse development in both data sets
Yoshida, Etsuko
discourse entities ; topic chaining ; Japanese language ; English language ; noun phrases ; topic entity
Patterns of use of referring expressions in English and Japanese dialogues. The main aim of the thesis is to investigate how discourse entities are linked with topic chaining and discourse coherence by showing that the choice and the distribution of referring expressions is correlated with the center transition patterns in the centering framework. The thesis provides an integrated interpretation in understanding the behaviour of referring expressions in discourse by considering the relation between referential choice and the local and global coherence of discourse. The thesis has three stages: (1) to provide a semantic and pragmatic perspective in a contrastive study of referring expressions in English and Japanese spontaneous dialogues, (2) to analyse the way anaphoric and deictic expressions can contribute to discourse organisation in structuring and focusing the specific discourse segment, and (3) to investigate the choice and the distribution of referring expressions in the Map Task Corpus and to clarify the way the participants collaborate to judge the most salient entity in the current discourse against their common ground. Significantly, despite the grammatical differences in the form of reference between the two languages, the ways of discourse development in both data sets
patterns use refer_expression english_japanese dialogue main_aim investigate discourse entity link topic chain discourse coherence show choice distribution refer_expression correlate center transition pattern center framework provide integrated interpretation behaviour refer_expression discourse consider_relation referential choice local_global coherence discourse three_stage provide semantic_pragmatic perspective contrastive_study refer_expression english_japanese spontaneous dialogue_analyse way anaphoric deictic expression contribute discourse_organisation structure focus_specific discourse segment investigate choice distribution refer_expression map task corpus clarify way participant collaborate judge salient entity current_discourse common_ground significantly despite grammatical difference form reference two_language way discourse development data_set