This book, which can be read independently, deals with more specifically linguistic problems in semantics and contains substantial original material.

Organised into three sections covering the place of semantics in linguistics, the description of sentence and word meanings, and current theoretical approaches to semantics, this book is aimed at undergraduates as well as general readers.

Evidentiality has been extensively studied in linguistics for its function in coding the source of knowledge or for expressing the speaker’s attitude towards knowledge. However, few studies examine how evidential marking is sensitive and responsive to the unfolding talk and actions of the participants in social interaction. Analyzing audio and video data of naturally occurring conversations in Korean in a conversation analysis framework, this article demonstrates how the speaker often makes the choice of evidential marking or shifts the choice of (...) evidential marking according to the participant’s response, achieving certain interactional functions. The speaker makes a strategic choice to use the experiential evidential marking -telako or shifts from zero-evidential marking to overt experiential evidential marking -telako for the same proposition to achieve entitlement, objectivity, or detachment regarding his claim. This study shows that, in social interaction, the choice of the speaker’s evidential marking is relative and interactively organized rather than static and predetermined. (shrink)

The practice of medicine involves obtaining, evaluating and analyzing information drawn from a variety of sources; thus physicians assess and act upon information that varies in terms of both reliability and the extent to which it may be directly perceived. In the hospital setting, physicians’ progress notes provide a record of this process that serves as a primary means of communication between treaters who are not co-present with one another; accordingly, in order to permit independent evaluation of the information they (...) contain, physicians have developed a repertoire of linguistic devices to express differing attitudes towards the information that their notes convey. In this article, through the microanalysis of a pediatric resident’s note, I demonstrate how physicians use evidential markers, including the passive voice and agentless constructions, to construct frameworks of credibility and responsibility that both underlie and enable medical work. These grammatical devices permit the physician-reader to weigh for himself or herself the evidence which supports the conclusions reached. (shrink)