A Study of Discourse Functions of ‘Where Constructions’ in Written and Spoken Registers in English

Abstract

This work was explored with the assumptions that the wh-item where may have other functions apart from its primary function as an interrogative property or questioning. Most discussions on the use of the ‘where’ as a linguistic item focus on its basic use as an indicator of an interrogative. This work has explored the discourse functions of ‘where’ in order to reveal some added functions either than its basic functions as an interrogative marker. Three research questions were set as a guide: what are the discourse functions of where-constructions in English, what is the distribution of occurrences of the discourse functions of where-constructions across selected written and spoken registers, and what kinds of where-compounds are used across written and spoken registers and their functions? The study is situated within the theoretical perspective of constructionalisation, a theory which is grounded in constructional grammar. The study employed qualitative research design, specifically, the content analysis method. The study shows that where has other functions aside its primary function as a word with an interrogative property, as data used for the analysis was drawn from Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The analysis revealed six discourse functions of ‘where’ compounds; extending, reporting, informative, referring, rhetorical, and locative function. The analysis revealed that the Rhetorical function is mostly used in spoken register while the analysis revealed that Informative function applied more in newspaper register. Locative function, on the other hand, is revealed to be appearing mostly in newspaper register meanwhile, the extending function is very frequent in Academic register but the referring function is used more in Spoken. Finally, Reporting function is used more in newspaper register. The study has revealed that out of the 17 ‘where compounds’ considered for the study, 5 of them occurred more frequently. These frequent ‘where compounds’ are: whereas, whenever, whereby, whereabouts and wherein. The study contributes to research on constructions in English.