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When Written is Spoken: Dislocation and the Oral Code1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 July 2010

MAIRI McLAUGHLIN
MAIRI McLAUGHLIN*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
*
Address for correspondence: Mairi McLaughlin, Department of French, University of California, Berkeley, 4125 Dwinelle Hall, MC #2580, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article suggests a refinement of the link between dislocated constructions and the oral code. The research is based on an investigation of a mixed-medium corpus of contemporary French, including spoken language, journalistic prose and literary fiction. It is shown first that the form and function of dislocations vary according to the level of orality of the voice in which they are found: in particular, the intermediary nature of citations in newspaper articles is emphasised. It is then argued that the strict association of dislocation with the stylistic function of orality should be modified, since conveying orality does not always seem to be the primary motivation for dislocation.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of French Language Studies , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , July 2011 , pp. 209 - 229
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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Footnotes

1

I would like to thank Wendy Ayres-Bennett and José Deulofeu for their help and guidance while I was carrying out the research presented here. I would also like to thank two anonymous reviewers who provided very detailed commentaries on an earlier version of this article.

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