생략의 담화기능적 연구 = Discourse Functional Approach to Ellipsis

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The purpose of this paper is to show the function of ellipsis in English discourse. This paper first defines ‘ellipsis’ as a communicative option to omit from sentences contextually available elements that are structually required by the elements that do appear in those sentences. Ellipsis is an option to cut down on redundancy with a view to make information more salient in discourse. Thus ellipsis can be called discourse deletion. Ellipsis is distinguished from ‘obligatory deletion’. which merely links the deep or intermediated structure of a sentence with a structure close to the surface. The major characteristic of ellipsis is the fact that the full form of what has been deleted is generally recoverable from the context, linguistics or situation.
The paper then distinguishes three subcategories of ellipsis on the basis of the source for recoverability : textual ellipsis, situational ellipsis, and structural ellipsis.
The major part of this paper is about the discourse function of ellipsis with relation to selectivity, information conveyance, linguistic economy, cohesion, and perlocutionary effect : (1) The ellipsis process is applied selectively. This is because there are contexts in which deletion of optional constituents is unacceptable, and because there is a tendency that the speaker selects a different focus depending on his discourse purpose. (2) There is an order of deletion in which less important information should be deleted first and more important information last. Constituents left behind by ellipsis are generally interpretable as carrying more important information or focal information, to which the speaker wants to draw the listener's attention. Ellipsis is also used to present a marked contrast on the constituent of new information by deleting the constituent of old information. (3) As for linguistic economy, language is used so as to best served the functional needs with the least possible effort in a real communication situation. In other words, the speaker is supposed to utter as little as possible to convey a message, and the listener is supposed to make the minimal mental effort to understand the message. Thus, ellipsis is assumed to work in such a way as to satisfy the least effort principle (4) Cohesion is a semantic ralation between an element in the text and some other element that is crucial to the interpretation of it. Constituents left behind by ellipsis can be interpreted with reference to the preceding context. Thus, ellipsis is assumed to have a cohesive force. (5) Through deleting some elements of the utterance, which are semantically distinctive and which might cause negative perlocutionary effects, the speaker can avoid a personal confrontation with the listener.
In conclusion, ellipsis plays an important role in English discourse as a grammatical device for drawing the listener's attention to the focal information with the least possible effort. Thus, further research for ellipsis needs to be done form the discourse functional perspective.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• 1. 서 론
• 2. 생략의 개념
• 3. 생략의 유형
• 4. 생략과 정보전달
• 4.1 선택성
• 4.2 경제성
• 4.3 정보성
• 4.4 응집성
• 4.5 효과성
• 5. 결 론
• <참고문헌>