Toward the grammar of spoken language - tags in the English language

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25370547
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: English linguistics
• Research Institution: Kanazawa University
• Principal Investigator: Sawada Shigeyasu 金沢大学, 外国語教育研究センター, 教授 (00196320)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: spoken language / tags

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This project is an attempt to advance a theory of tag expressions with the aim of constructing a grammar of spoken language. Although tags are observed in a wide range of spoken English, school grammar has unfortunately been treating them as an appendage to main clauses, as easily recognized by its very name. Having analyzed an amount of utterances or lines used in a certain series of radio dramas, I have tried to investigate the patterns of various types of tags, which are basically subcategorized into four: question tags, command tags, exclamatory tags, and statement tags. I have added response tags to the categorization of tags.
Based on the results obtained from the research, I have made up an online learning material that helps English learners understand the nature of tags, and incorporated the results of this project into one of the chapters in the academic publication published in April, 2016.

Free Research Field

英語学