What Textual Relationships Demand Phonetic Focus?

Abstract

This study examines the textual relationships involved in the use of italics which is considered by the researchers to be the author’s way of textually signalling what in speech would be realized with phonetic prominence. Four Swedish children’s stories were studied. Each instance of italics usage was analysed. Italics usage seemed to fall into two categories, contrast or emphasis, and phonetic focus seems to be the most appropriate way for the author to signal this. In order to interpret the examples, it was necessary to take the beliefs of the individual characters and the common ground into consideration. The authors argue that processing some examples involved accommodating a contrast set and that this process often characterised cases of emphasis