Korpusbasierte Analyse vorgeformter Ausdrücke in natürlichen Gesprächen

Abstract

Usage and function of prefabricated or phraseological expressions have so far been analyzed recurring to mainly written, often journalistic or literary language productions. Conversational form of usage and interactive aspects could therefore not been taken into account as they are accessible exclusively through the analysis of oral and dialogical corpora. This paper thus focuses on the study of sequences from German talk shows and other conversational corpora in order to shed light on different aspects of the use of prefabricated turns in naturally occurring conversations. Firstly, actually produced forms of phrasemes in everyday conversation are being analyzed, frequently differing from those lemmatized in dictionaries. Seconly, routine formulae, inextricably linked to specific communicative situations, are being defined as belonging to the class of phrasemes on behalf of their polyfactoriality even when they are monolexical. The central section of the paper then deals with the interactive conversational treatment of idiomatic expressions as one important category of phrasemes via the conversational activities of participants: rephrasals and paraphrases of different kinds, play on words or idioms or else cumulative use of idioms in mainly final phases of sequences or conversations. However, some of them also remain untreated so that the analyst cannot conclude to an adequate semantic interpretation by the recipient. Quite frequently, nevertheless, contextual elements of a semantic and/or thematic nature make an appropriate interpretation reasonably likely. Based on these considerations the paper finally formulates necessary consequences for linguistics in general, for lexicology and lexicography as well as foreign language teaching.

Keywords

• prefabricated language
• naturally-occurring conversation
• conversational treatment
• context