Informational and relational functions of evidentiality in interaction

Abstract

Using conversation data from the British National Corpus, this paper investigates the role played by relational functions in the use of evidentiality in interaction, and how such functions interact with the ‘core’ function of evidentiality: to signal access to a source of evidence for or against a proposition. Further, this study looks into the themes authority, cooperation, and negotiation, which have been discussed in previous studies of evidentiality in interaction, and at how these themes manifest and, crucially, intersect with one another in the use of evidential markers. The qualitative analysis of the data finds relational functions to be a highly salient effect of evidential marking in conversation; while evidential markers appear to place focus on the informational content of a proposition, the effect achieved by their presence in the data of this study is found to be allowing the speaker to negotiate and manifest authority in a cooperative manner.