EXPRESSION OF ASSERTION, EMPHASIS AND OBJECTION.

1. INTRODUCTION.
1.1. Aims of the unit.

Unit 24 is primarily aimed to examine the English expression of assertion, emphasis and
disagreement in terms of their main structural features regarding form, function and main uses
in order to provide a relevant and detailed account of this issue. Therefore, the study will be
divided into nine chapters.

Thus, chapter 2 provides an analysis of the notions of assertion, emphasis and disagreement in
English in terms of form, main functions and uses. In fact, this introductory chapter aims at
answering questions such as, first, which linguistic levels are involved in the notions of
assertion, emphasis and disagreement; second; what they describe and how; and third, which
grammar categories are involved in their description at a functional level.

Once we have set up these notions within a linguistic framework, we shall continue on offering
the reader in chapter 3 a general introduction to the expression of assertion, emphasis and
disagreement regarding key concepts and theories which are closely related to them and which
prove to be essential in our analysis of all the three notions so as to get a relevant and overall
view of the whole unit. Thus, we shall start by revising some important concepts which are
closely related to the description of assertion, emphasis and disagreement: for instance, (1)
their expression within verbal vs. non-verbal communication; (2) the relevance of the field of
pragmatics within their study; and therefore (3) an analysis of the Speech Act Theory following
the main explorations of Austin (1975) and Searle (1969) on reviewing (a) types of speech acts,
(b) the notions of locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts and (c) performative verbs
as part of the illocutionary act; and finally, (4) the relevant relationship between syntactic
constructions and the illocutionary force. Once we have reviewed all these points, we are ready
to examine individually the expression of assertion, emphasis and disagreement in the
subsequent chapters.

Chapters 4, 5 and 6 will offer an individual analysis of each item regarding (1) definition of the
term; (2) the difference between the linguistic vs. non-linguistic means; (3) within the linguistic
means, an analysis of the main ways of expressing each item through (a) major syntactic
constructions and (b) main grammatical categories, namely by making comments on their
structural features, that is, morphology, phonology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics.

Chapter 7 provides an educational framework for the structural features of sentence structure
within our current school curriculum, and chapter 8 draws on a summary of all the points
involved in this study.

2. A LINGUISTIC FRAMEWORK FOR THE NOTIONS OF ASSERTION, EMPHASIS AND

DISAGREEMENT.

Before examining in detail the notions of assertion, emphasis and disagreement in English in
terms of form, main functions and uses, it is relevant to establish first a linguistic framework in
order to fully understand this issue. In fact, this introductory chapter aims at answering
questions such as, first, which linguistic levels are involved in the notions of assertion,
emphasis and disagreement; second, what they described and how; and third, which grammar
categories are involved in their description at a functional level.

2.1. Linguistic levels involved.

In order to offer a linguistic description of the notions under study, we must confine them to a
particular level of analysis so as to focus our attention on this particular aspect of language.
Yet, although there is no consensus of opinion on the number of levels to be distinguished, the
usual description of a language comprises four major components: phonology, grammar,
lexicon, and semantics, out of which we get give major levels: phonological, morphological and
syntactic, lexical, and semantic (Huddleston 1988). However, due to the relevance of the
speaker’s attitude with respect to the expression of assertion, emphasis and disagreement, we
shall include here the field of pragmatics within our analysis since it is a central element so as
to fully understand the items to be described.

First, the phonology describes the sound level, that is, the pronunciation (stress, rhythm, tone
and intonation) within the sentence structure. Secondly, since the two most basic units of
grammar are the word and the sentence, the component of grammar involves the
morphological level (i.e. third person singular in positive statements) and the syntactic level (i.e.
grammatical typology of sentences – statements, questions, commands and exclamations).
Third, the lexicon, or lexical level, lists vocabulary items which are closely related to the
expression of assertion, emphasis and disagreement (verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, etc).

Another dimension is the study of meaning, that is, semantics, or the semantic level, to which
all four of the major components are related regarding. We must not forget that a linguistic
description which ignores meaning is obviously incomplete, and in particular for our purposes,
where semantics plays a very important role in order to express what the speaker wants to say.
Similarly, from a functional approach, we must bear in mind the prominence of pragmatics in
speech acts when dealing with ‘how to say things in English’, that is, taking into account the
speaker’s attitude and the context where the sentence is uttered, where meaning and the
speaker’s attitude are essential elements in communicative exchanges (oral, written,
paralinguistic).

2.2. On defining assertion, emphasis and disagreement: what and how.

On defining these notions, we must link their linguistic description, that is, what they represent
(speech acts) to (1) how they are represented, both grammatically (different grammatical
categories: verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc) and syntactically (the types of sentences in which they
are embedded); and (3) to their function and why they are use din the speech act, that is, to
explain the speaker’s attitude. Traditionally, these notions have been defined as speech acts
(assertion, questions, orders and requests) which take place within certain types of sentences
(declaratives, interrogatives, imperatives) with a particular function (convey information – true
or false; elicit information; commands which cause others to behave in certain ways).

Since they are dined on the basis of sentence analysis, they are closely related to the domain of
text grammar and discourse analysis because of their syntactic structures and the different
illocutionary acts they may represent. In general, they work with a wide range of grammatical
constructions, from the simplest ones like the word to the largest unit of grammatical
description like the sentence. Both extremes will be taken into account when embedded in
larger stretches of language such as paragraphs and texts (discourse analysis).

Before examining them in detail, we shall provide a brief definition of each concept. First, the
notion of “assertion” is to be found within the study of acts of communication and, in
particular, within Searle’s theory of Speech Acts (1969) where he distinguishes five types:
representatives, commissives, directives, declarations, expressives and verdictives. Searle’s
theory states that ‘assertions’ are to be found within a ‘representative’ speech act which stand
for “some state of affairs”; and similarly, ‘emphasis’ and ‘disagreement’ are to be framed within
the ‘expressive’ speech act that indicate “the speaker’s psychological state or mental attitude”:
on emphasizing the prominence of a fact/person/thing on the part of the speaker or on
denying, showing opposition and contradicting other statements/ideas/facts/etc, respectively.

2.3. Grammar categories: open vs closed classes.

So far, in order to confine these three notions to particular grammatical categories, we must
review first the difference between open and closed classes since the structure of the sentence
involve both. Yet, grammar categories in English can be divided into two major sets called open
and closed classes. The open classes are verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs, and are said to
be unrestricted since they allow the addition of new members to their membership, whereas
the closed classes are the rest: prepositions, conjunctions, articles (definite and indefinite),
numeral, pronouns, quantifiers and interjections, which belong to a restricted class since they
do not allow the creation of new members. Yet, as we shall see, our three main concepts shall
deal with both classes since they will be represented by a wide range of grammatical categories
(verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, etc) and also by non-grammatical categories such as
gestures.

3. A GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE EXPRESSION OF ASSERTION, EMPHASIS AND

DISAGREEMENT.

Once we have set up these notions within a linguistic framework, we shall continue on offering
the reader a general introduction to the expression of assertion, emphasis and disagreement
regarding key concepts and theories which are closely related to them and which prove to be
essential in our analysis of all the three notions so as to get a relevant and overall view of the
whole unit.

Thus, we shall start by revising some important concepts which are closely related to the
description of assertion, emphasis and disagreement: for instance, (1) their expression within
verbal vs. non-verbal communication; (2) the relevance of the field of pragmatics within their
study; and therefore (3) an analysis of the Speech Act Theory following the main explorations
of Austin (1975) and Searle (1969) on reviewing (a) types of speech acts, (b) the notions of
locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts and (c) performative verbs as part of the
illocutionary act; and finally, (4) the relevant relationship between syntactic constructions and
the illocutionary force. Once we have reviewed all these points, we are ready to examine
individually the expression of assertion, emphasis and disagreement in the subsequent
chapters.

3.1. Verbal vs. non-verbal communication.

When dealing with interaction and speech act, the dimension of communication is essential in
terms of how we understand each other. Often, this act of communication is related to
speaking and writing but, for our purposes, we highlight the importance of body movement
and gestures in an attempt at expanding the ‘narrow conception of natural language
pragmatics’. Up to this point, it is relevant to establish the difference between verbal and non-
verbal communication in order to show how relevant are both in the interaction process.

The importance of non-verbal communication within the human interface proves highly
significant for natural pragmatics and the design of interactive systems based upon them. Body
moves create what we call ‘contact’, defined as a space of engagement among people who can
move in a rhythm of bodily take-turn. Several studies (Streeck 1993, McNeill et al. 1994) show
that gesture and speech are co-ordinated activities which play a vital role in enhancing speech
perception and production, and even suggesting that this relationship is essential for effective
communication.

The limitations of language pragmatics have consequences for the success of systems and their
effects on users, because natural language pragmatics cannot handle multi-modal human-
computer interfaces. Rhythmic body movements have been used for the learning of foreign
languages whereby the rhythmic intonational structure represents a facilitative condition for
learning, providing more human grounds for cognition and human orientated technology.

We suggest the idea of a dialogue act being applied to ‘body language’. Specifically, where body
movements are occurring in response to each other, whether this is related to a verbal
utterance or independent of it. Such moves are distinguished from representational or iconic
gestures of the verbal utterance which serve primarily to illustrate it. Thus, in conversation,
assertion may be represented by nodding or lifting up your hand; emphasis would be shown by
gestures with face and hands; and disagreement may be represented by frowning or moving
your head to both sides.

As we can see then, non-verbal communication can also convey information about the
conversation situation. Body moves comes under the category of cueing facts, as extra
linguistic facts and under cued information as they are also about conversation organisation. It
is from this perspective that body moves constitute a kind of information flow.

3.2. The relevance of Pragmatics.

Pragmatics was defined by the philosopher J.L. Austin as the study of “how to do things with
words” or perhaps “how people do things with words” in descriptive terms. But how does
pragmatics deal with out three main notions? The field of pragmatics is based on the
observation of how people use language to accomplish certain kinds of acts, broadly known as
‘speech acts’, and distinct from physical or mental acts like drinking a cup of coffee, thinking
about holidays, etc. Speech acts include asking for a cup of coffee, promising to book a holiday,
threatening to cancel the booking, ordering a room, and so on. However, as stated before,
most of these should be called “communicative acts”, since speech and even language are not
strictly required to speaking and writing but also to pointing to a pitcher and miming the act of
drinking.

But let us start by defining what a speech act is following the philosophers Austin (1962, 1975)
and Searle (1969, 1985) and then, let us examine the different types of speech acts and what a
speech act consists of, that is, the different types of speech acts in order to locate the
expression of assertion, emphasis and disagreement.

3.3. The Speech Act Theory.

The Speech Act Theory was inspired by the word of the British philosopher J.L. Austin who
posthumously published lectures How to do things with words (1975) influenced a number of
students of language including the philosopher John Searle (1969), who established speech act
theory as a major framework for the study of human communication. In contrast to the
assumptions of structuralism where ‘langue’ is seen as a system over ‘parole’ concerning the
speech act, speech act theory holds that the investigation of structure always presupposes
something about meanings, language use, and extralinguistic functions.
The theory of speech acts aims to do justice to the fact that even though words (and therefore,
phrases and sentences) encode information, people do more things with words than convey
information, and that when people do convey information, they often convey more than their
words encode. Although the focus of speech act theory has been on utterances, especially
those made in conversational and other face-to-face situations, the phrase ‘speech act’ should
be taken as a generic term for any sort of language use, oral or otherwise.

3.3.1.Main types of speech acts.

Searle (1969) summarizes Austin’s speech acts into five main categories: representatives,
directives, commissives, expressives, and declarations. Thus,

(1) firstly, representatives (also assertives) refer to some state of affairs by means of assertions,
claims and descriptions, that is, to tell people how things are by stating;

(2) secondly, directives, which are speech acts whose intention is to get the addressee to carry
out some action by means of commands, requests, dares or entreaties;

(3) thirdly, commissives, which are speech acts that commit the speaker to some future course
of action by means of promises, threats and vows;

(4) fourthly, expressives, which are speech acts that indicate the speaker’s psychological state
or mental attitude by means of greeting, congratulating, thanking or apologising in order to
express the speaker’s feelings and attitudes by thinking, forgiving, or blaming;

(5) and finally, declaratives, which are speech acts that themselves bring about a state of affairs
by means of marrying, naming, blessing or arresting. For instance, they bring about changes
through our utterances by means of brining about correspondence between the propositional
content and reality, through baptizing, naming, appointing or sacking.

Although these speech acts are abstract notions and do not necessarily or uniquely correspond
to particular English verbs, Searle (like Austin before him) lists a number of English verbs as
examples of the different types of speech acts. In examining what people say to one another,
we can use Searle’s classification in trying to understand what people are doing with language.
In a speech act we may find greetings, questions, or requests for information, assertions or
responses and assessments. Hence, assertions are to be found within representatives whereas
emphasis and disagreement are to be found in the expressive type.

3.3.2.Locutionary, illocutionary, perlocutionary acts.

The British philosopher Austin (1962) and the American Searle (1969) conceptualized speech
acts as comprising three components. First, the locutionary act (the act of saying something),
which is the actual form of an utterance; second, the illocutionary act, which is the
communicative force of the utterance; and third, the perlocutionary act, which is depicted as
the communicative effect of the utterance upon the feelings, thoughts, or actions of the
audience, of the speaker, or of other persons. In other words, a locutionary act has meaning; it
produces an understandable utterance. An illocutionary act has force; it is informed with a
certain tone, attitude, feeling, motive, or intention, and a perlocutionary act has consequence;
it has an effect upon the addressee.

Let us suppose, for example, that a spokesman utters the words, ‘The meeting will start in five
minutes’, reported by means of direct quotation. He is thereby performing the locutionary act
of saying that the meeting (i.e. the one he is tending) will start in five minutes (from the time of
utterance), and what is said is reported by indirect quotation (notice that what the spokesman
is saying, the content of his locutionary act, is not fully determined by the words he is using, for
they do not specify the meeting in question or the time of the utterance). In saying this, the
spokesman is performing the illocutionary act of informing the participants of the meeting’
imminent start and perhaps also the act of urging them to order a last drink. Whereas the aim
of these illocutionary acts is understood on the part of the audience, perlocutionary acts are
performed with the intention or producing a further effect, for instance, getting one’s audience
to believe that one actually possesses the attitude one is expressing is not an illocutionary but
a perlocutionary act. Therefore, the spokesman is performing all these speech acts, at all three
levels, just by uttering certain words.

3.3.3.Illocutionary acts: performative verbs.

In How to Do Things with Words, Austin (1962) starts by enunciating a distinction between
constative and performative utterances. According to him, an utterance, which originally is a
spoken word or string of spoken words with no particular forethought or intention to
communicate a meaning, becomes constative if it describes some state of affairs whose
correspondence with the facts is either true or false. Performatives, on the other hand, do not
describe, report or constate anything as true or false. It is worth mentioning here that the
attitude of the person performing the linguistic act, his thoughts, feelings, or intentions is of
great relevance at this distinction.

But let us concentrate on the illocutionary acts and possible performative verbs for our
purposes. It has been claimed that statements, requests, promises and apologies are examples
of the four major categories of communicative illocutionary acts: constatives, directives,
commissives and acknowledgements, respectively, where each type of illocutionary act is
individuated by the type of attitude expressed. There is no generally accepted terminology
here but the borrowed terms ‘constative’ and ‘commissive’ from Austin and ‘directive’ from
Searle. The term ‘acknowledgement’ has been adopted over Austin’s ‘behabitive’ and Sealer’s
‘expressive’, for apologies, greetings, congratulations, etc, which express an attitude regarding
the hearer that is occasioned by some event that is thereby being acknowledged, often in
satisfaction of a social expectation.

Here we have some assorted examples of each type: (1) Constatives: affirming, alleging,
announcing, answering, attributing, claiming, classifying, concurring, confirming, conjecturing,
denying, disagreeing, disclosing, disputing, identifying, informing, insisting, predicting, ranking,
reporting, stating, stipulating; (2) directives: advising, admonishing, asking, begging, dismissing,
excusing, forbidding, instructing, ordering, permitting, requesting, requiring, suggesting,
urging, warning; (3) commissives: agreeing, guaranteeing, inviting, offering, promising,
swearing, volunteering; (4) acknowledgements: apologizing, condoling, congratulating,
greeting, thanking, accepting (acknowledging and acknowledgement).

3.4. Syntactic constructions and the illocutionary force.

It is worth remembering that in terms of their structural complexity sentences can be divided
into three types: simple, complex and compound. For our purposes this analysis will deal with
the main types of sentence structures based on their grammatical form (syntactic
constructions) and their function in communication (the illocutionary force) that is, from their
syntactic structures and their association with one particular function in speech acts.
Therefore, concerning the sentence grammatical form, the classification comprises four types:
declarative sentences, interrogative sentences, imperative sentences and exclamatory
sentences whereas the classification concerning their function in communication shows that
declarative sentences are chiefly used to make statements, interrogative sentences to ask
questions, imperative sentences to give commands and exclamatory sentences to make
exclamations, depending on the way speakers express their attitude through phonological,
syntactic and semantic cues.

Within this classification, the first four major types are named under the grammatical category
of adjectives: declarative, interrogative, imperative and exclamatory sentences whereas the
communicative functions are named under the grammatical category of nouns (i.e. statement,
question, command and exclamation, respectively). Yet, the grammatical form of sentences
shall establish the main morphological and syntactic features under the scope of simple
sentences, whose use correlates with different communicative functions (expressing assertion,
emphasis and disagreement).

It must be borne in mind that there is no one-to-one correspondence between the

grammatical form of a sentence and its function in communication. This means that sentences
with the same grammatical properties need not have the same illocutionary force and,
conversely, that grammatically different sentences can have the same illocutionary force. Thus,
the following request to have a pizza can be expressed in a variety of ways: ‘Let’s have a pizza’,
‘Shall we have a pizza?’, ‘Why don’t we have a pizza?’, ‘Would you like to have a pizza?’

4. THE EXPRESSION OF ASSERTION.

The expression of assertion will be namely approached by (1) defining the term “assertion” in
opposition to the one of “non-assertion”; (2) the difference between the linguistic vs. non-
linguistic means of asserting; (3) within the linguistic means, we shall examine the main ways
of expressing “assertion” through (a) major syntactic construction and (b) main grammatical
categories, by making comments on their structural features, that is, morphology, phonology,
syntax, semantics and pragmatics.

4.1. Definition: assertion vs. non-assertion.

In order to define the notion of “assertion”, we shall follow J.L. Austin who complains at the
beginning of his book How to Do Things with Words (1975), that “the business of a [sentence]
can only be to ‘describe’ some state of affairs, or to ‘state some fact’, which it must do either
truly or falsely”. Similarly, the notion of assertion has been defined as “a matter of stating with
conviction of emphasis” (Wilkins 1976) or as assertive sentences which are included in the
major category of statements (Quirk et al. 1975).

Traditionally, the term “assertion” has always been defined in opposition to the term “non-
assertion” with respect to certain types of sentences (as seen above) in terms of their
grammatical form (syntactic constructions) and their function in communication (the
illocutionary force), that is, in terms of the relationship between their syntactic structures and
their association with one particular function in speech acts. Accordingly, there will be certain
grammatical items which will be syntactically related to them according to their function in the
sentence. Hence, we get “assertive” vs. “non-assertive” items such as the partitives ‘some vs.
any’; the particles ‘neither vs. either’; the indefinite pronouns ‘someone vs. anyone’ and so on.
Austing reminds us that we perform all sorts of ‘speech acts’ besides making statements, and
there are other ways for them to go wrong, that is, what he called “explicit performative
utterances” by means of “explicit performative verbs” (i.e. ‘I nominate’, ‘You’re dismissed’, ‘The
assistant was fired’ and so on to perform acts of the very sort named by the verb, such as
nominating, dismissing or firing).

Hence, the notion of “assertion” is related, grammatically speaking (in terms of grammatical
categories and syntax) to the notions of ‘positive’ and ‘declarative’ sentences, but with respect
to their function in communication (their illocutionary force) it is chiefly used to make
‘statements’, by means of performative verbs (also called constatives), such as: affirming,
alleging, announcing, answering, attributing, claiming, classifying, concurring, confirming,
conjecturing, denying, disagreeing, disclosing, disputing, identifying, informing, insisting,
predicting, ranking, reporting, stating, stipulating.

On the contrary, the notion of non-assertion is related, grammatically speaking (in terms of
grammatical categories and syntax) to the notions of ‘(negative) statements’ and ‘interrogative’
sentences, but with respect to their function in communication (their illocutionary force) it is
chiefly used to make ‘negative statements’, by means of constative verbs again (i.e. denying,
disagreeing, disclosing, disputing, identifying, informing, insisting, predicting, ranking,
reporting, stating, stipulating (negatively)) and directive verbs (i.e. asking, begging, dismissing,
excusing, ordering, permitting, requesting, requiring, suggesting, urging, warning).

4.2. Linguistic vs. non-linguistic means.

It is quire relevant to bear in mind that we may approach the notions of “assertion” or “non-
assertion” both in linguistic and non-linguistic terms, that is, through linguistic constructions
(oral and written grammatical constructions) and also in terms of non-linguistic ways of
asserting/non-asserting such as body movements (i.e. nodding, vs. moving your head to both
sides; smile vs frown; an assertive look vs. an enquiring look); physical contact (i.e. hand-
shaking, kissing, touching, etc as a signal of assertion vs. pushing someone away, spitting,
shrugging your shoulders as a signal of non-assertion); and significant roles of gestures and
mimes (i.e. your hand closed with thumbs up or down; eyes wide open).

Following van Ek & Trim (2001), we come across the notion of politeness conventions” which is
closely related to linguistic and non-linguistic paradigms. Based on some universal
considerations, these conventions go beyond the simple and direct way of using the foreign
language in conversing with people who share the same mother tongue and social background
as the speaker. Yet, it is possible for the foreign learner (who is unaware of the convention of
the foreign country) to be misinterpreted and give unintentional offence to partners who are
themselves unaware that the conventions they follow are not shared by the whole world. For
instance, many foreigners try to compensate in this respect by smiling, making eye contact and
generally showing goodwill through body language.

Unfortunately, according to van El & Trim, “the conventions od body language also vary
considerably from one culture to another and smiles and eye contact can be misunderstood as
intrusive in one and their absence misunderstood as rejection in another. It is therefore
increasingly important for learners, particularly as their linguistic and pragmatic command of a
language improves and arouses higher expectations in their interlocutors, to be aware of the
main features of politeness in speech so as to recognise them in the speech of others and
respond appropriately”.
They add that “the twin principles of concern and respect for the partner lead to two kinds of
politeness: positive and negative. ‘Positive’ politeness is shown by expressing interest in
partners’ interests, activities, opinions, beliefs, etc., congratulating, praising, etc but also
sympathising with their troubles. This may go together with physical closeness and contact,
prolonged eye contact and sharing of emotion signals.”

On the contrary, ‘positive’ politeness contrasts with ‘negative’ politeness in which the speaker
tries to avoid embarrassment, distress or displeasure by showing an awareness of the demands
made on the partner. This implies imparting factual information and expressing attitudes by
qualifying simple declarative sentences which, for our purposes, will be examined in the
following section under the heading of “linguistic means: main structural features.”

4.3. Linguistic means of expressing assertion.

We shall carry out the analysis of the main linguistic means of expressing “assertion” in terms
of functional and grammatical approach, that is, we shall approach this issue by reviewing, first,
major syntactic constructions (functioning at sentence level) and second, those grammatical
categories (working at word/phrase level), such as assertive vs. non-assertive items.

4.3.1.Main syntactic structures.

The main syntactic constructions in order to express assertion or non-assertion are related to
the structure of the simple sentence, being declarative (positive or negative statement) or
interrogative (questions). Therefore, we may find (1) positive statements realized by constative
verbs; (2) negative statements realized by constative verbs; (3) statements realized by question
form; (4) statements realized by the combination of questions and question-tags; (5)
statements realized by the form of rhetorical questions; (6) statements realized by exclamatory
form; and (7) statements realized by negative form.

(1) Positive statements by means of simple declarative sentences may be classified by groups of
functional categories, for instance:

Imparting and seeking information, by means of (a) stating and reporting (i.e. My sister has
left); (b) identifying things/people/role (i.e. This is my house/father/job); (c) the use of “thing,
believe, expect, etc” as introducers or as tags. If they are unstressed, their use does not
indicate uncertainty or lack of confidence (i.e. I think his mother is French. She comes from
Paris, I believe).

Moreover, we find the use of “you know, of course”, imply that the partner is not ignorant (i.e.
Of course, his mother is French, you know).

To express degrees of certainty in confident and tentative assertion. Thus, confident assertion
in (a) declarative sentences by means of adverbs “certainly, definitely, beyond any doubt, etc”
(i..e She is certainly pregnant); (b) complement + clause (i.e. I am quite sure that he died); (c)
declarative sentences with stressed “do, be or auxiliary” (i.e. I most certainly did post the
letter); or tentative assertion by means of (a) noun phrases + to seem/appear/look + (to be)
(i.e. The essay seems to be brilliant); (b) it looks as if/as though + statement (i.e. It looks as if
she is coming); (c) declarative sentence + I think, with low rising intonation (i.e. He’s French, I
think).

To correct a positive or a negative statement by means of short answers. For instance, in a

sentence like “She is in Italy”, the short answer would be “No” + tag, with falling-rising
intonation (i.e. No, it isn’t’) whereas when correcting a negative statement in a sentence like
“We didn’t go to York”, the answer would be “Yes” + tag with falling-rising intonation (i.e. Yes,
you did).

(2) We may also express negative statements by means of non-assertive declarative sentences,
for instance:

By denying positive statements (i.e. You have passed your driving test. I can’t believe it/That’s
quite untrue), using the structure “No + negative tag” (i.e. No, I wasn’t) or by stating simple
negative statements (i.e. I didn’t drive fast).

When implying correction by telling the partner that a mistake has been made. Offence can be
avoided by apologising for (a) correcting (i.e. I’m sorry, but the party isn0t tonight. It’s o
Saturday); (b) presenting the correction as a different opinion (i.e. Forty-one? I thought he was
thirty).

When expressing reluctance (i.e. I don’t want to complain but I have to do it) or seeking the
partner’s understanding (i.e. I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but you must leave now).

When apologising of expressing regret (i.e. I’m sorry, but your work is not good enough). This is
especially frequent with prohibitions and withholding permission (i.e. I’m sorry, but you can’t
go out tonight).

In addition, we use this type to assert ignorance (i.e. I’ve no idea; I haven’t a clue; I don’t
know); to express remembering or forgetting persons, things, facts and actions (i.e. I can’t
remember; I forgot why I came here).

When denying the ability to do something (i.e. I can’t speak Spanish fluently).

(3) Positive statements may also appear under the form of questions when demanding
confirmation or denial and the meaning will be conveyed by intonation. For instance, a
sentence like “You saw him then?” with rising intonation is functioning as a question. If the
sentence has an assertive structure, we expect a positive answer; on the contrary, if the
sentence has a non-assertive structure, we shall expect a negative answer “You didn’t see him
then?”.

(4) In addition, we may find the combination of questions + questions tags. Then, if we expect
positive confirmation, we shall make a positive statement (with falling intonation) + a negative
tag (with rising intonation) (I.e. You talked to him, didn’t you?) whereas if we expect a negative
answer, we shall make a negative statement (with falling intonation) + a positive tag (with rising
intonation) (i.e. You didn’t see him, did you?).

(5) We may also find statements realized by the form of rhetorical questions, that is, they are
interrogative in structure but function as strong assertions (i.e. Isn’t it sad enough to ‘cry?/Are
you sure I have no reasons to be ‘upset?). As we can observe, the negative rhetorical question
functions as a strong positive assertion whereas the second, a positive rhetorical question,
function as a strong negative assertion. IT is worth noting they expect no answers; that’s why
they are called rhetorical.

(6) Moreover, we can find statements realized by exclamatory form, that is, they belong to the
exclamatory type with interrogative form since their elements are inverted. They have the
yes/no question structure with a final falling tone which asks for confirmation on the part of
the listener about the speaker’s comment. Note that they are usually conveyed with a positive
sense (i.e. isn’t she beautiful!/Wasn’t it an exciting evening!).

4.3.2.Main grammatical categories.

Regarding the main grammatical categories that may express assertion, we must address
certain assertive and non-assertive items which are to be drawn from a wide variety of
grammatical categories. For instance:

(1) From the open classes, we find verbs (performative and constative verbs) which may be
assertive (i.e. affirming, claim, state, agree, answer, confirm, inform, report, etc) or non-
assertive (i.e. deny, disagree, disclose, refuse, etc); nouns derived from the previous verbs (i.e.
affirmation vs negation, acceptance vs refusal, agreement vs disagreement, etc); adjectives (i.e.
affirmative vs negative, accepted vs refused, full vs empty, allowed vs prohibited, etc) and
adverbs (i.e. already vs yet, always vs never, often vs hardly ever, sometimes vs ever, certainly
vs uncertainly, etc).

(2) From the closed classes, we may mention prepositions with a certain assertive and non-
assertive meaning (i.e. in vs out, on vs off, with vs without, etc); conjunctions (i.e. or vs nor; and
(addition) vs but (opposition), moreover vs however, etc); indefinite articles (i.e. some vs any);
indefinite pronouns (i.e. somebody vs nobody, something vs nothing, etc); non-count pronouns
(i.e. all vs none, each vs neither); quantifiers (i.e. many vs a few, a little vs none); and numerals
(i.e. zero vs one).

(3) Within idiomatic expressions, we may mention the opposites (assertive vs non-assertive
respectively) “forever and ever vs any longer”; “Would you like some coffee?” (where the use
of assertive ‘some’ within a non-assertive context means we expect a positive answer); “of
course vs by no means”; “whatever vs at all”; “We didn’t see a soul”; etc.

5. THE EXPRESSION OF EMPHASIS.

The expression of emphasis will be namely approached by (1) defining the term “emphasis”; (2)
the difference between the linguistic vs non-linguistic means of emphasizing; (3) within the
linguistic means, we shall examine the main ways of expressing “emphasis” through (a) major
syntactic constructions and (b) main grammatical categories, by making comments on their
structural features, that is, morphology, phonology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics.

5.1. Definition: the notion of emphasis.

The term “emphasis” is defined as “the force or stress” laid on a word or words to make the
significance clear, or to show the importance or special value of something (people, things,
actions, statements)”. The notion of “emphasis” is to be found within the classification of the
expressive function by means of which speech acts indicate the speaker’s psychological state or
mental attitude by means of exclaiming, greeting or congratulating in order to express the
speaker’s feelings and attitudes by emphasizing relevant information through oral and/or
written devices.

When we make a statement with conviction of emphasis, we are highlighting a piece of

information in our speech to give it a special prominence or a special value, so the notion is
related then, grammatically speaking (in terms of grammatical categories and syntax) to the
notions of declarative sentences, imperative sentences and exclamatory sentences. However,
with respect to their function in communication (their illocutionary force) it is chiefly realized
by ‘statements’, ‘commands’ and ‘exclamations’ depending on the way speakers express their
attitude through phonological, syntactic and semantic cues.

It must be borne in mind again that there is no one-to-one correspondence between the
grammatical form of a sentence and its function in communication. This means that sentences
with the same grammatical properties needs not have the same illocutionary force and,
conversely, that grammatically different sentences can have the same illocutionary force. Thus,
the following statement may convey different meaning depending on where the stress is
placed, for instance, ‘Cristine gave me a new CD yesterday’ (i.e. It was Cristine, and not Betty;
she gave it to me and not borrowed; it was to me and not to you; it was a new CD and not old,
and so on).

5.2. Linguistic vs. non-linguistic means.

It is quite relevant to bear in mind again that we may approach the notions of “emphasis” both
in linguistic and non-linguistic terms, that is, through linguistic constructions (oral and written
grammatical constructions) and also in terms of non-linguistic ways, such as body movements
(i.e. jumping, clapping, pointing with your finger, etc); physical contact (i.e. hugging, holding
someone in your arms tightly, kissing repeatedly, etc); and significant role of gestures and
mimes (i.e. victory signal, mouth wide open, non-stop smiling, etc).

5.3. Linguistic means of expressing emphasis.

We shall carry out the analysis of the main linguistic means of expressing “emphasis” in terms
of functional and grammatical approach, that is, we shall approach this issue by reviewing, first,
major syntactic constructions (functioning at sentence level) and the basis of declarative
sentences and second, those grammatical categories involved in its description (working at
word/phrase level).

5.3.1.Main syntactic structures.

The main syntactic constructions in order to express emphasis may be given in oral and written
contexts. Therefore, we may find (1) emphasis within the oral context regarding main changes
in pronunciation; (2) emphasis withing the written context; (3) parenthetic expressions; (4)
interjections; (5) emphasis through word order; (6) through repetition; (7) through
reinforcement tags; (8) statements realized by the form of rhetorical questions; (9) exclamatory
specific structures; and finally, (10) swear words as idiomatic expressions.

(1) Emphasis may be realized in speech in declarative sentences by means of:

- End-focus, which means that the last open-class item in the sentence is often the most
prominent (i.e. Robert is living in LONDON). However, if the context requires this, it is possible
to depart from the normal pattern by shifting the focus to other words. This is called
contrastive focus, for instance, Robert is LIVING in London (not working/driving/having lunch),
ROBERT is living in London (not Jack/Phillip/Charles) and so on (Aarts 1988).

- Stress, rhythm, tone and intonation in declarative sentences (i.e. His mother is a doctor).
Those words to be highlighted because of their relevance in content are to be stressed and
therefore, pronounced louder than normal.

Note that vowels may become longer and will be pronounced after a pause, especially primary
auxiliary and modal auxiliary verbs. In this case, those words which usually have weak
pronunciation in the speech chain (schwa reduction) will be pronounced in their strong forms.
Moreover, we shall use strong stress (i.e. This man is dangerous); high falling nucleus on the
prominent word (i.e. It’s really ‘great); fall-rise intonation in subordinate groups (i.e. Studying is
ok. Exams are ‘hell).

(2) In written contexts, emphasis is realized by: punctuation marks, such as full points, colon,
semicolon, dash, commas, parentheses (also brackets), quotation marks, questions marks,
exclamation marks, hyphen, apostrophe and abbreviations.

Moreover, we can use emphasis in printed or word-processed texts by the use of special
devices such as italics, use of bolding, use of capitals, underlining, special fonts, colours, etc.

(3) Closely related to punctuation are parenthetic expressions, which are marked by intonation
in speech and punctuation in writing. Their function in the sentence is to highlight the previous
or following sentence element. For instance, “Leave me alone, he said”.

(4) Similarly, interjections are separated from the rest of the sentence by a comma (in writing)
and a pause (in speech), for instance, “Oh, so that’s what he wanted”, “Oh, no! I can’t believe
it!”

(5) As we can see, sentences can express emphasis in a variety of ways. Another option is to
highlight important information through word order in the sentence. For instance, word order
involves a change in the linear order in which the words normally appear, that is, certain parts
of the sentence are given emphasis by moving them to front-position. Compare: “He lost his
watch at the beach/His watch he lost at the beach/At the beach he lost his watch”.

Other parts undergo inversion, that is, part of the sentence (or phrase structure) is moved
before the subject. We may find two types: subject verb inversion (i.e. Her are your books!; Off
we go) in which inversion will not take place if the subject is a personal pronoun (i.e. Here he
is! And not Here is he); the other type is subject operator inversion, which is almost
compulsory in most questions (i.e. Is he at home? Are you going to have dinner at Queen’s
tonight?), certain grammatical structures (i.e. Hardly had I finish writing the letter he left;
Seldom have I felt word) and specific idiomatic expressions (i.e. Not a word did he say; under
no circumstances must you leave, etc).

By means of cleft sentences and pseudo-cleft sentences. The formers are a construction which
makes it possible to put special emphasis on a particular constituent. This is done by ‘cleaving’
the sentence into two parts in such a way that the resulting sentence is of the pattern: “It + be
+ emphasized constituent + who/that…” (i.e. It was this e-mail that Peter sent last week). The
emphasized constituents may function as subject, direct object and adverbials. Other
constituents such as indirect object, object attribute and predicator are less frequently
emphasized in this way, but we do find sentences like: “It was John I lent my camera to; This
was the lecture that Peter did in Beirut”, etc. Note that in certain contexts it is possible to leave
out the that-clause (i.e. It was because he was abroad; it’s just that he is a fool).

On the other hand, “pseudo-cleft sentences, like cleft sentences, are used to give special
emphasis to a particular part of the sentence, and can be described as subject-predicator-
subject attribute sentences, in which the subject is realized by a ‘what-clause’, the predicator
by a form of ‘be’ and the subject attribute by a noun phrase, an infinitive or an -ing participle
(i.e. What killed him was alcohol/What they are doing is spoiling their children)” (Aarts 1988).
This type of sentence can be in initial or middle position (i.e. I didn’t know what to do).
(6) Also, we can use the device of repetition (also reinforcement, reiteration), which is a stylistic
device mainly used in colloquial speech which, for purposes of emphasis, repeats some
sentence elements for the sake of emphasis, focus or thematic arrangement (i.e. You look
much, much younger than ten years ago! You bad, bad girl!).

(7) On the other hand, we can also use reinforcement tags, which are placed in initial or final
position in the sentence in order to reinforce the idea presented in the main sentence (i.e.
She’s a generous woman, she is; Getting late, he is; Hates the alarm clock, Peter does).

(8) Another device is that of rhetorical questions. Similarly to the expression of emphasis, these
statements are realized by an exclamatory structure but have interrogative form since their
elements are inverted. They have the yes/no question structure with a final emphatic falling
tone which asks for confirmation on the part of the listener about the speaker’s comment.
Note that they are usually conveyed with a positive sense (i.e. Isn’t she beautiful!/Wasn’t it an
exciting evening!). Note that when they are stated in the positive form (i.e. Has she said her
first words!/Am I stupid!) they are pronounced with stress on the operator and subject.

(9) By means of exclamatory specific structures, where the subject precedes the verb such as.

They are introduced by phrases opening with the words ‘how’ + adjective/adverb/statement
(i.e. How beautiful she is!/How fast you drive!/How I used to like chocolate!) or ‘ what’ + a(n) +
(adjective) + noun/noun phrase (i.e. What a wonderful day!/What a wonderful day we have
had today!). The syntactic order is therefore changed to the extent that the WH- item (who or
what) may be taken from its usual position (i.e. statements) to initial prominence to express
emphasis. Another structure is “such/so + (adjective) + noun (i.e. He is such a good student!;
they are so nice to me!)”.

These expressions are quite common in everyday usage and we can find them in many
different patterns, both formal and informal ones. For instance, the formal ones, “How quickly
you run!” or “What a nice time we had today!”, when pronounced with falling intonation, they
may convey the meaning of boredom, unconcerned, or even sarcastic (i.e. how annoying the
film is!). Often used in ordinary colloquial speech, they may convey the meaning of strong
surprise or indignation (i.e. What a surprise!).

(10) On the other hand, informal ways of exclamations in colloquial speech are swear words,
which are considered to be idiomatic expressions, for instance, “Really!; Damn!; Bloody dog!;
Oh, my God!; Good heavens!; Shit!;” and so on.

5.3.2.Main grammatical categories.

Regarding the main grammatical categories that may express emphasis, we must address
certain emphatic items which are to be drawn from a wide variety of grammatical categories.
For instance:

(1) From the open classes, we find verbs (performative and constative verbs) which convey the
meaning of “emphasize an action” as in a gradual scale (i.e. like, love, fancy, to be crazy for, go
wild). Other verbs are of the type of “underline, highlight, emphasize, point out, etc”; within
this type, we may mention the relevant role of modal auxiliary and primary auxiliary verbs on
the expression of emphasis. For instance, modal auxiliary verbs give more emotional force to
the whole sentence when stressed and pronounced with strong pronunciation since they
convey the meaning of ‘contrast’, that is, probability vs. certainty’, ‘present vs. future’,
‘necessity vs. obligation’, etc (i.e. might vs. must; is vs. was vs. will be; need vs. must, etc); note
that the position of some adverbs (certainly, really, etc) is different from normal placing.
Compare ‘You have certainly taken the right decision’ (normal) vs. ‘You certainly have taken the
right decisions’ (emphatic).

On the other hand, the primary verb ‘do’ has a very important role in sentences which have no
modal auxiliary verbs. For instance, it may convey the meaning of ‘emotion’ (i..e You did look
gorgeous last night); ‘persuasion’ (i.e. Do be quiet!); ‘contrast’ (i.e. Why didn’t you tell me? – I
did tell you, don’t you remember?); and ‘an expected result’ (i.e. Finally, the player scored the
decisive goal).

Also, nouns derived from the previous verbs (i.e. underlining, highlighting, emphasis, etc) play
an important role when emphasizing; adjectives (i.e. underlined, emphasized, pointed out, etc)
may also have an emphasizing function when referring to extreme adjectives, for instance,
compare ‘excited vs. thrilled’, ‘little vs. tiny’, ‘big vs. huge’, ‘afraid vs. frightened’, etc; adverbs
(i.e. certainly, really, definitely, etc) can take a special position in the sentence before the verb,
since it is the first part of the verb (modal or primary auxiliary) which carries the stress (i.e. I
really ‘do like terror films).

(2) From the closed classes, we may mention prepositions with a certain emphatic meaning (i.e.
onto, inside, outside, etc); conjunctions (i.e. moreover, furthermore, in addition, on top of that,
and even, etc); emphatic reflexive pronouns (i.e. myself, yourself, himself, herself, etc) as in ‘She
fixed the alarm clock by herself’; quantifiers (i.e. very, quite, rather, a few, many, a little, really,
such + (adjective) + noun, so, so much/many, too much/many, etc).

(3) Within idiomatic expressions (all over the world; he is such a good swimmer!, etc), including
swear words (i.e. I can’t record the bloody song!, I damn well hope it stops raining!, etc).

6. THE EXPRESSION OF DISAGREEMENT.

The expression of “disagreement” will be namely approached by (1) defining the term
“disagreement” in opposition to that of “agreement”; (2) the difference between the linguistic
vs. non-linguistic means of disagreeing; (3) within the linguistic means, we shall examine the
main ways of expressing “disagreement” through (a) major syntactic constructions and (b)
main grammatical categories, by making comment son their structural features, that is,
morphology, phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.

6.1. Definition: agreement vs disagreement.

The term “disagreement” is defined as “the way of expressing a different view or different
opinions in a speech act”. Traditionally, the term “disagreement” has always been defined in
opposition to the term “agreement” with respect to certain types of sentence sin terms of their
grammatical form (syntactic constructions) and their function in communication (the
illocutionary force), that is, in terms of the relationship between their syntactic structures and
their association with one particular function in speech acts.

The notion of “disagreement” is to be found within the classification of the expressive function
by means of which speech acts indicate the speaker’s psychological state or mental attitude by
means of disagreeing in order to express the speaker’s feelings and attitudes towards other
opinions or views through oral and/or written devices. Hence, we get items which show
disagreement, such as verbs (disagree, refuse other views, etc), expressions such as ‘I’m sorry
but…’, and so on.
When we make a statement with absence of agreement, we relate it grammatically speaking
(in terms of grammatical categories and syntax) to the notions of declarative sentences,
imperative sentences and exclamatory sentences. However, with respect to their function in
communication (their illocutionary force) it is chiefly realized by ‘statements’, ‘commands’ and
‘exclamations’ depending on the way speakers express their attitude through phonological,
syntactic and semantic cues.

Once more it must be borne in mind that there is no one-to-one correspondence between the
grammatical form of a sentence and its function in communication. This means that sentences
with the same grammatical properties need not have the same illocutionary force and,
conversely, that grammatically different sentences can have the same illocutionary force. Thus,
the following statements may convey the same meaning “I don’t think so” and “Rubbish!”.

Hence, the notion of “disagreement” is related, grammatically speaking (in terms of

grammatical categories and syntax) to the notions of ‘positive’ and ‘declarative’ sentences, but
with respect to their function in communication (their illocutionary force) it is chiefly used to
make ‘statements’, by means of performative verbs (also called constatives), such as: alleging,
conjecturing, denying, disagreeing, stipulating, and so on. Similarly, the expression of
agreement by means of the verbs agreeing, supporting, providing, etc.

6.2. Linguistic vs. non-linguistic means.

We may approach the notions of “disagreement” or “agreement” both in linguistic and non-
linguistic terms, that is, through linguistic constructions (oral and written grammatical
constructions) and also in terms of non-linguistic ways of asserting/non-asserting, such as body
movements (i.e. agreement: nodding, smile, an assertive look vs. disagreement: moving your
head to both sides, frown, an angry look); physical contact (i.e. hand-shaking, kissing, touching,
showing the palm of your hand, etc) and significant roles of gestures and mimes (i.e. your hand
closed with thumbs up or down; not looking straight into someone’s eyes).

As stated in the previous section, the notions of “politeness conventions” are closely related to
linguistic and non-linguistic paradigms regarding disagreement. Based on some universal
considerations, it is possible for the foreign learner to give unintentional offence to partners
who are themselves unaware that eh conventions they follow are not shared by the whole
world. For instance, many foreigners try to compensate in this respect by smiling, making eye
contact and generally showing goodwill through body language.

Unfortunately, according to van Ek & Trim, “the conventions of body language also vary
considerably from one culture to another and smiles and eye contact can be misunderstood as
intrusive in one and their absence misunderstood as rejection in another. It is therefore
increasingly important for learners, particularly as their linguistic and pragmatic command of a
language improves and arouses higher expectations in their interlocutors, to be aware of the
main features of politeness in speech so as to recognise them in the speech of others and
respond appropriately”.

6.3. Linguistic means of expressing disagreement.

We shall carry out the analysis of the main linguistic means of expressing “disagreement” in
terms of functional and grammatical approach, that is, we shall approach this issue by
reviewing, first, major syntactic constructions (functioning at sentence level) on the basis of
declarative sentences and second, those grammatical categories involved in its description
(working at word/phrase level).

6.3.1.Main syntactic structures.

The main syntactic constructions in order to express disagreement may be given in oral and
written contexts. People usually avoid expressing disagreement bluntly so they try to soften the
expressions so as not to express strong contradictory points of view. Traditionally, there is a
three-fold classification into simple disagreement, tactful disagreement and strong
disagreement. We shall follow for our purposes van Ek & Trim’s classification (2001) where we
shall examine (!) disagreement by means of statements regarding main changes in
pronunciation; (2) weak disagreement (tactful); and (3) strong disagreement by means of
idiomatic expressions and swear words.

(1) The expression of disagreement may be realized when we try to avoid blunt disagreement,
for instance, in positive statements such as ‘I don’t agree with you; That’s not right; You’re
wrong about that; I’m afraid you are not right’ and so on. As we can see they are polite
expressions in negative statements, observe: “Tomorrow isn’t Wednesday – (oh) yes, it is” or “I
think + positive statement” (I think it’s Wednesday tomorrow) with contrastive stress by short
answers, such as “No, it isn’t; Not so; Certainly not; I don’t think so” and so on. We may also
enquiry about disagreement (or agreement) by means of questions (i.e. Do you agree; What do
you think?; statement + question tag with rising intonation: She is French, isn’t she?).

Another option is to invite disagreement with a statement by using the construction: “Surely
you don’t think + that clause” (i.e. Surely you don’t think it’s cold?).

(2) We can also convey the meaning of weak or tactful disagreement by using gentle
grammatical constructions which stand for apologies or adjustments to the speaker’s point of
view, for instance, by introducing the conjunction “but”, as in the sentences “English is said to
be a difficult language to learn but I think that’s not true”, “That’s true, but pronunciation is
easer”, “Do you think so? – Actually, I find it quite difficult”. When disagreement is explicit, we
express it in gentle terms (i.e. I’m not sure; I wonder if you…; I beg to differ; I can’t agree; I’d
rather disagree with you, I am against war, etc); sometimes we must infer the meaning as the
expressions is too polite (i.e. I must say I am not sure your saying is true; I think rather
different; If you don’t mind me telling you, there are some mistakes in your essay)..

(3) Finally, when expressing strong disagreement, we must be careful not to offend someone:
by uttering a straightforward answer with falling intonation (That’s quite late – No, it isn’t; I0m
sorry but you have failed your exam; I can’t stand your perfume); by including more formal
expression (i.e. I can’t go along with that; I would take issue with that; I wholly and fully
disagree, etc); by including the structure “with respect…” in colloquial speech to make our
disagreement more polite (i.e. With respect, you should be studying; We should as him now,
shouldn’t we?); by expressing strong disagreement with idiomatic expressions and swear
words (i.e. Absolutely nonsense!; Rubbish!; I couldn’t agree less; No way!; How can you say
that/such thing!; Come off it!; That’s ridiculous!; etc).

6.3.2.Main grammatical categories.

Regarding the main grammatical categories that may express emphasis, we must address
certain emphatic items which are to be drawn from a wide variety of grammatical categories.
For instance:
(1) From the open classes, we find verbs (perofmrative and constative verbs) which convey the
meaning of “contradicting an opinion” (i.e. disagree, differ, deny, stipulate, etc). Also nouns
derived from the previous verbs (i.e. disagreement, difference, denial, etc) play an important
role; adjectives (i.e. different (point of view), separate (views), distant, etc); adverbs (i.e.
actually, wholly, fully, etc) can take a special position in the sentence before the verb either at
the beginning (i.e. Actually, I think…) or in the middle (i.e. I wholly and fully disagree).

(2) From the closed classes, we may mention prepositions with a certain emphatic meaning (i.e.
Come off it, go along with, etc); conjunctions (i.e. but); and quantifiers (i.e. rather, really, such a
+ (adjective) + noun, etc).

(3) Within idiomatic expressions (i.e. Don’t talk rubbish!; Nonsense!; Come off it, etc), including
swear words (i.e. Rubbish!; Fuck you!, etc).

7. EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS.

The various aspects of the expression of assertion, emphasis and disagreement dealt with in
this study is relevant to the learning of the vocabulary of a foreign language since differences
between the vocabulary of the learner’s native language (L1) and that of the foreign language
(L2) may lead to several problems, such as the incorrect use of grammatical or idiomatic
expressions, especially because of the syntactic, morphological, and semantic processes
implied in these categories.

This study has looked at the expression of assertion, emphasis and disagreement within lexical
semantics, morphology and syntax in order to establish a relative similarity between the two
languages that Spanish-speaking students would find it useful for learning English if these
connections were brought to their attention, especially when different categories may be
overlapped (assertion, emphasis and disagreement through statements).

It has been suggested that a methodology grounded in part in the application of explicit
linguistic knowledge enhances the second language learning process. In the Spanish curriculum
(BOE 2002), the expression of assertion, emphasis and disagreement is envisaged from earler
stages of ESO in terms of stating their opinions about hobbies, people, things (asserting,
emphasizing or disagreeing) up to higher stages of Bachillerato, towards more complex
constructions, such as those of emphasis (i.e. He is such a good swimmer; What a nice day!;
How good it is to be here!, etc).

The expression of assertion, emphasis and disagreement has been considered an important
element of language teaching because of its high-frequency in speech. We must not forget that
the expression of these items is mainly drawn from both closed class categories, such as
adverbs, adjectives, and nouns, and open class categories such as prepositions which have a
high frequency of use when speaking or writing, and even when miming or using body
language.

Hence, the importance of how to handle these expressions cannot be understated since you
cannot communicate without it. Current communicative methods foster the ‘teaching’ of this
kind of specific linguistic information to help students recognise new L2 words. Learners cannot
do it all on their own. Language learners, even 2 nd year Bachillerato students, do not
automatically recognize similarities which seem obvious to teachers; learners need to have
these associations brought to their attention.
So far, we have attempted in this discussion to provide a broad account of the expression of
assertion, emphasis and disagreement in order to set it up within the linguistic theory, going
through the localization of their main syntactic structures, and finally, once correctly framed a
brief presentation of the three main items under study. We hope students are able to
understand the relevance of handling correctly the way of asserting, emphasizing and
disagreeing in everyday life communication.

8. CONCLUSION.

How language represents the world has long been, and still is, a major concern of philosophers
of language. It is worth noting that although assertions, questions and orders are fairly
universal, and most of the world’s languages have separate syntactic constructions that
distinguish them, other speech acts do not have a syntactic construction that is specific to
them. For instance, an utterance like “If you leave now, I’ll never talk to you again!” may be
identified as a threat by most English speakers.

However, English has no special sentence form for threats. The if-construction used here is not
specific to the speech act of threatening and even, such a construction might also express a
promise of simple a cause-and-effect relationship between the two physical events uttered by
the speaker. Moreover, almost any speech act is really the performance of several acts at once,
distinguished by different aspects of the speaker’s intention: there is the act of saying
something, what one does in saying, such as requesting or promising, and how one is trying to
affect one’s audience.

Making a statement may be the paradigmatic use of language, but there are all sort of other
things we can do with words. We can make requests, ask questions, give orders, make
promises, give thanks, offer apologies, expressing emphasis and disagreeing. In general, speech
acts are acts of communication. To communicate is to express a certain attitude, and the type
of speech act being performed corresponds to the type of attitude being expressed. For
example, a statement expresses a belief, a request expresses a desire, and an apology
expresses a regret.

As an act of communication, a speech act succeeds if the audience identifies, in accordance

with the speaker’s intention, the attitude being expressed. In next section, we shall address the
expression of assertion, emphasis and disagreement through different grammatical categories
and different syntactic constructions which will make relevant these previous considerations
already presented. Throughout this unit we have shown the correlation between types of
illocutionary act and types of expressed attitude. In many cases, such as asserting, emphasizing
and disagreeing, as well as all types of acknowledgements, the act and the attitude it
expressed presuppose a specific conversational or other social circumstance.

Pretheoretically, we think of an act of communication, linguistic or otherwise, as an act of

expressing oneself. This rather vague idea can be made more precise if we get more specific
about what is being expressed. Communicative success is achieved if the speaker chooses his
words in such a way that the hearer will, under the circumstances of utterance, recognize his
communicative intention. So, for example, if you spill some beer on someone and say ‘oops’ in
the right way, your utterance will be taken as an apology for what you did.

So far, in this study we have attempted to take a fairly broad view of the expression of
assertion, emphasis and disagreement since we are also assuming that there is an intrinsic
connexion between its learning and successful communication. Yet, we have provided a
descriptive account of Unit 24, title “The expression of assertion, emphasis and disagreement”
whose main aim was to introduce the student to the different ways of expressing these acts of
speech. In doing so, the study provided first a linguistic framework for our three items in order
to get some key terminology on the issue, and further developed within a grammar linguistic
theory, described in syntactic terms as we were dealing with syntactic structures.

In fact, asserting, emphasizing and disagreeing are speech acts which are a central element in
communicative competence and in the acquisition of a second language since students must
be able to express their thoughts, opinions and emotions in their everyday life in many
different situations and in detail. As stated before, the teaching of these expression comprises
four major components in our educational curriculum: phonology, grammar, lexicon, and
semantics, out of which we get five major levels: phonological, morphological and syntactic,
lexical, and sematic plus that of pragmatics, which offers us the social context in which we must
use them.

In fact, our students must have a good knowledge at all those levels. First, on phonology which
describes the sound level. Secondly, since the two most basic units of grammar are the word
and the sentence, they must have a good grammatical knowledge, which involves the
morphological level and the syntactic level. Third, the lexicon, or lexical level, lists vocabulary
items, that is, different constative verbs and other expression to denote assertion, emphasis
and disagreement, specifying how they are pronounced, how they behave grammatically, and
what they mean. Finally, another dimension between the study of linguistic form and the study
of meaning is semantics and that of pragmatics.

Therefore, it is a fact that students must be able to handle the four levels in communicative
competence in order to be effectively and highly communicative in the classroom and in real
life situations. Our three current expressions prove highly frequent in our everyday speech, and
consequently, we must encourage our students to have a good managing of them.