Title

The Emergence of a Beneficial Reception Marker: The Discourse-Pragmatic Functions of doze in Hong Kong Cantonese

Author

Hugo Wing-yu Tam

Genre

Article

Pages

539-585

DOI

10.6503/THJCS.202109_51(3).0004

Download

PDF

Language

Chinese

Key words

grammaticalization, intersubjectivity, politeness, Emergent Grammar, modern Cantonese, Gwongdungwaa 廣東話

Abstract

This paper describes the discourse-pragmatic functions of doze 多謝 (‘many thanks’) in spoken Cantonese discourse. Two functions of doze were found which have not previously been described. The audio/video data comes from spoken corpora and consists of 107 instances. The study shows that doze is a multifunctional discourse marker: doze functions as a marker of response to tangible receiving, response to congratulations or a compliment, response for declining an invitation, and response to unexpected promise making. This study suggests that doze is originally a stative verb of expressing gratitude; it retains the meaning of thanking and encodes during conversational interaction the attitudes between the speaker and the listener toward the beneficial event. Some grammaticalization effects involving conventional inferencing are witnessed and demonstrate the evolution of a stative verb to a beneficial reception marker via conversational development. This paper also captures the subtle differences between doze and mgoi 唔該 in Hong Kong Cantonese. It contributes to the understanding of grammaticalization, Emergent Grammar, and politeness in the Asian context.