Replication as speech enactment marker

Abstract

This thesis attempts to draw together all kinds of repetitions in discourse (reported speech, repetition and reduplication, collectively called replication) under a same approach that deals with them as speech enactment markers. An enactment can be defined as a way to negotiate expressive meaning in a specific place, so that partners of conversation can reach an appropriate interpretation of what is meant. Replication has itself the ability to regulate the expressive meaning, and participates therefore in the enactment of the speech. Regulation through replication can be made either by explicitly foregrounding what has to be inferred, by echoing one’own or somebody else’s words, or by sharing a mode of presence through modulation of a word’s tension. For all these reasons, it can be argued that replication is an essential device to align point of views and to synchronize speakers around a common perspective.