1st Test

Question 1

What is an utterance?

Answer 1

A unit of speech communication which boundaries are determined by a change of speaking subjects which starts and ends with lg produced by one person at one point in interaction. eg written lg, an utterance could be a whole piece of writing, such as an email. Oral lg: lg produced by a speaker at any point in the interaction (aha!) or a presentation

Question 2

4 differences between written and spoken lg

Answer 2

1. Speaking tends to be more involved and writing more detached. Interlocutors are more involved interpersonally, whereas writers are more detached from their interlocutors.
2. Oral lg is more implicit whereas written is more explicit because it works at real time and speakers make adjustments and clarifications, and it progresses considering the ongoing feedback from the interlocutors. No such possibility in written. Text will be read in a lapsed time, therefore itrequires a higher level of detail so as to be understood.
3. Spoken lg in real time whereas written in a lapsed time. Difference between when the text is produced and received.
4. Spoken tends to be fragmented (less elaborate). Written is more elaborate in its organisation and a variety of linguistic choice. This has to be analysed in the light of specific examples.

Question 3

Medium and mode

Answer 3

Modes of communication (more or less speakerly or writerly) and medium of communication (spoken or written). Mode: the linguistic choices that you would associate with descriptions of written or spoken lg. The lexical, grammatical and d. features typically associated with each of them in linguistic description as used in a specific text. Medium: the channell through which lg is conveyed whether it be oral or written. The means through which lg is produced. eg. academic presentation (written mode and spoken medium). It is writerly in mode and speakerly in medium

Question 4

Text and discourse

Answer 4

Text is studied by text linguistics whereas d is studied by da. They are often used interchangeably to refer to a stretch of lg beyond the sentence.
Text is the product of lg use (an actual object)
D is the process of mg creation and interaction.
Both notions are studied by linguistics.
What is a text? It is an actual instance of lg both spoken or written. It is the manifestation of lg in the world drawing on our mental ideas of genre for particular functional and communicative purposes.
It has texture in that it functions as a unity with respect to its environment. From a da perspective we answer questions such as What is the context of situation? What is the socio.historical position of the people mentioned in the text, what ideologies do they reveal.
D: it is lg in context studied in authentic environments of lg use. It is a stretch of either spoken or written lg of any length. These stretches of lg that constitute d are analysed in terms of the connectors they hold with other texts but also with reference to their socio-political and historical connections.

Question 5

DA studies

Answer 5

Da studies authentic texts in context.
A text of any size written or spoken
Texts are studied in terms of the contexts in which they are found.
Texts are studied in terms of the intertextual relations with other texts.
Texts are analysed with reference to the ideologies and viewpoints which underpin them.
Texts are analysed with reference to their socio-political implications and consequences.
DA studies authentic lg in context and thus contributes to the understanding of human activity through lg.

Question 6

The structure of a definition in academic lg

Answer 6

Dereex
Define: X is defined ad
Reformulate: that is to say
Exemplify: for example

Question 7

Concept

Answer 7

The most basic mental entity. Abstract object that corresponds to a mental representation that we use to guide our action. We draw on characteristcs which we think are key. They operate with prototypes (clear examples of a concept that contain all the features that we would associate with the concept).
Concepts are fuzzy since they operate with prototypes (eg. that fit all features)
This class is similar in many ways to a prototype of a class but differs in its medium. eg. among others
Whenever we encounter a text we categorize it as being close to our mental idea of prototype or not.
Flexibility: we draw on prototypes to interpret texts.

Question 8

Mental model

Answer 8

A combination of concepts forming larger conceptual structures. A number of interconnected concepts. They can be physical or abstract entities. eg. The mental model of school which includes interrelated concepts such as ss, teachers, head teachers, books, etc.
Teacher roles: more abstract. School rules, teacher training.
We are very efficient using them because we negotiate and often we understand or produce text with them

Question 9

Schemas/schemata

Answer 9

Clusters of mental concepts which we draw on to interpret the world around us and also to interpret lg. In brief, well integrated chunks of k about the world, events, people and actions.
Concepts or mental structures that we develop through experience which allow us to interpret the world and also share interpretations with others.
-Difference between mental models and schemas:
Schema: the relation between concepts is more general.
Mental model: the relation between concepts is more complex
School: schema teacher-ss
Mental model implies more complex understanding. eg. how teachers and ss behave within school

Question 10

Frame/script

Answer 10

There are two types of schema: both are 2 types of info stored in our brains.
▶ Frame: non-sequential sets of concepts that are related among them (NOT SHARED)
▶ Scripts: a conventional sequence of activities, a socioculturally defined mental protocol for negotiating or understanding a situation. (SHARED)
We share an understanding of how the sequence will unfold.
“what’s a school?” T/ss/classrooms in a gral way. Frame
Some will think of ss first, or T first. This is a frame
“What’s a school day like?” T/SS/parents gathering for assembling. rows, hymn. Sequence of events. Shared. This is a script. They differ slightly.
Scripts are shared by people, but both frames and scripts are necessary for comprehension.
Synthesis
Field’s 3 types of schema:
a) world k: the content schema o a text. Previous k including encyclopaedic as well as world k. Frame’s scripts are part of this type of k.
b) K built from the text so far (meaning creation)
c) Previous exp. with the type of text (text schema): structure and form. Important for notion of genre.
🔸Mental schemas: in particular frames. They will set up expectations based on our previous k about the world, actions, people and events that we have dealt with.
🔸Scripts will help us predict what’s going to happen next. All of these help us use lg.
Field: can be divided in 3 types.
? The mg representations that develop as you listen. The focus is placed on mode of listening and reading.
❗Frames: k of the world you bring to your understanding of the documentary.
❗Scripts: What do you expect next as you watch.

Question 11

Genre

Answer 11

Genre schema: the ways in which we draw on and make use of the prior k of all aspects of genres including their typical contexts, forms, functions, lexis and grammar which we bring to bear as we interpret written and spoken texts. Whenever we encounter genre, we bring genre schemas to the situation to understand and process the genre in question.
1. Genre: a genre comprises a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes. These purposes are recognized by the expert members of the parent D community and therefore constitute a rationale for the genre. This rationale shapes the schematic structure of the D and influences and constraints choices of content and style (Swales 1990). This is developed from a D perspective, as he’s referring to a class of communicative events. He emphasises the communicative purpose as one of the key components.
Rationale: the reasons, the pples that guide the choice in the use of a com genre. Purpose guides the choices of content and style, and these purposes are recognized by the members of the com who share the com events to convey their purposes.
2. Another definition: A staged-goal oriented, purposeful activity in which speakers engage as members of a culure. Ex: staged activities such as making a dental appointment, buying vegetables, telling a story, writing an essay, applying for a job. (Martin, 2011). He emphasises social nature of genres involved in social life in cultural activities. This definition also brings to the foreground the fact that genre are staged, i.e. they constitute well-organized texts with stages that are recognized and shared with members of the community. He highlights the fact that there’s a clear goal in the activity carried out by means of lg use. He explicitly refers to human activities in which specific genres are used to carry out these activities.
3. Genres are diverse ways of acting, of producing social life in the semiotic modes. (Fairclough). He associates genres with life in a similar way as Bahktin talked about the production of utterances. How social lives affect genres. When a change takes place in social life, so there is a change in genre. Genres will change in time as life and social activities change. This capacity to evolve and change (characteristic of genres) as human activity does.
4. Paltridge: From a text-linguistic perspective. It’s a kind of text. Academic lectures and casual conversation are examples of spoken genres. Newspaper reports and academic essays are examples of written genres. Written vs spoken genres.
Bax: synthesis. Genres are guided by their purposes, in other words, by the functions which they are intended to fulfill. The purposes expressed in genres are defined by the community which uses them, not by the individuals, shared rules must be learned and used for genres to operate.
The key function of the genre governs the other features of the genre, its structure, content, lexis, grammar and so on.
Key defining feature of genres:
a. akin to mental structures (such as concepts, schema, how people resort to background k to understand.
b. ideal (genres) vs real (texts)
c. may include lg or not (buying sth without saying a word)
d. shared by members of a particular community
e. have names though not always
f. functions guide features (structure, layout, style, lexis, grammar)
g. identifiable by their structure, social and contextual factors
h. flexible, change, evolve, die out

Question 12

Structure of descriptive presentation in academic lg

Answer 12

Intro
Body
Conclusion

Question 13

Discourse modes

Answer 13

They are modes of operating with the lg, at a superordinate level above genre and texts.
They are pre-genres. They do not have a specific social functioning themselves. They are building blocks which we can draw on in many differents genres and then use them in actual texts in flexible ways for a range of purposes.
They are modes of thought and discourse that represent clear ways of interpreting the world and of “drawing mg from interaction with the world”.
They can enter in flexible ways into various genres making it possible for a genre to draw on one or more modes.
To narrate and to describe are different ways of operating with lg. However, when telling an anecdote we will recur to both modes at different times of the genre.
They are abstract ways of expressing relationships among the world❗ . eg. narrative will express relationship among the world which are different from a descriptive mode.
They can be characterised and distinguished in terms of their relationships to the world and also in terms of their linguistic features. They relate to time and place in different ways to create mgs within specific genres.

Question 14

Narrating mode

Answer 14

🔸Presents a sequence of events and states that has the same participants and/or causal and other consequential relations.
🔸Time sequence guides the sequence of events
🔸Contains a structure that follows a typical script: abstract, orientation, complicating action, evaluation, resolution and coda. Some may not always be present and some are key and always have to be present. (labov)
-Abstract: summarises central action
-Orientation: setting and characters
-Complicating event: what happened?
-Resolution: what happened in the end?
-Evaluation: purpose of the narrative
-Coda: connection with the present.

Question 15

Interacting mode

Answer 15

🔸Dialogic, 2-way nature in which each participant in the interaction offers a contribution.
🔸Charactierizes conversation, naturally associated with everyday conversation.
🔸Adjacency pairs: the building blocks of interacting mode. (who starts). Related utterances that constitute pair parts in interaction. Given the first, the second one is expected. There is a condition of relevance that holds in the conversation.
🔸Turn taking: (how long the floor is retained) The fundamental unit of description in conversation analysis. The lenght of time a speaker holds the floor: lenght in turn-taking. Constantly negotiated by speakers as they interact.
The turn can be anything from an audible sound.
Through a single word, sentence or a whole narrative.
Interview to a health professional: the floor is given to the professional which she holds for longers whiles. The interviewer initiates the adjacency pair.

Question 16

Describing mode

Answer 16

🔸Focus on specific particular objects, people and mental states.
🔸Time is static or suspended (no change or advancements)
🔸Frequent use of intensive verbs such as be, become, seem, appear.
🔸Have, verbs in the present simple or past to describe current situations or other verbal forms such as the present progressive to describe ongoing situations and activities.
🔸Descriptive adjectives and adverbs of frequency to describe actions.
🔸Focus on people, things, rather than events.

Question 17

Reporting mode

Answer 17

A discourse mode characterized by an account of situations from the temporal standpoint of the reporter.
🔸mainly concerned with events and states
🔸relating events from the point of view of the person doing the reporting.
🔸Deixis: Deictic verbs, a deictic use of the present perfect tense, deictic noun phrases, deictic adverbs of time and deictic adverbs of place.
🔸Frequency of deictic terms that is particular to this specific mode.

Question 18

Instructing mode

Answer 18

🔸Lg of human action as passed on by one subject to another or others so as to convey a mechanism of action or activity for pedagogic, work or any other purpose.
🔸Passing on of valued k on how to carry out a task that is of interest to the people in question.
🔸Imperative forms, verbs in the present simple tense to describe typical actions and adjectives to specify aspects of elements to be used as well as adverbs of frequency to tell the order of events.

Question 19

Definition of corpus

Answer 19

A corpus (plural corpora) is a collection of actually occurring texts (either spoken or written), stored and accessed by means of computers, and available for study and analysis by grammarians, lexicographers, teachers and language learners. Corpora can vary in size from fewer than a million words to several hundreds of millions. It is useful to see the frequency of individual items and their co-texts.

Question 20

Pples of corpus construction

Answer 20

1. The contents of a corpus should be selected without regard for the language they contain, but according to their communicative function in the community in which they arise.
2. Corpus builders should strive to make their corpus as representative as possible of the language from which it is chosen.
3. Only those components of corpora which have been designed to be
   independently contrastive should be contrasted.
4. Criteria for determining the structure of a corpus should be small in
   number, clearly separate from each other, and efficient as a group in
   delineating a corpus that is representative of the language or variety
   under examination.
5. Any information about a text other than the alphanumeric string of its
   words and punctuation should be stored separately from the plain text
   and merged when required in applications.
6. Samples of language for a corpus should wherever possible consist of
   entire documents or transcriptions of complete speech events, or should get as close to this target as possible. This means that samples will differ
   substantially in size.
7. The design and composition of a corpus should be documented fully
   with information about the contents and arguments in justification of
   the decisions taken.
8. The corpus builder should retain, as target notions, representativeness and balance. While these are not precisely definable and attainable goals, they must be used to guide the design of a corpus and the selection of its components.
9. Any control of subject matter in a corpus should be imposed by the use of external, and not internal, criteria.
10. A corpus should aim for homogeneity in its components while maintaining adequate coverage, and rogue texts should be avoided.

Question 21

Unplanned private talk

Answer 21

All genres of the spoken lg need to be described in terms of
1. public talk private talk
2. planned (in terms of linguistic content. eg lectures) unplanned ( occurs in real time, constructed reciprocally in the moment to moment interaction eg. a conversation with a friend).
Genres among people who do not know each other well and do not share a common background (eg service encounters).
Conversely, a conversation with a family member is an instance of private talk, i.e. the type of spoken lg that takes place among people who know each other well and socialize through conversation.
There seems to be a relationship between transactional purposes in talk when refering to planned public genres and the relationship b interactional purposes and unplanned private talk. i.e. most unplanned private genres have as their main purpose to keep up social relationships whereas planned public talk has a primary transactional purpose.
Interview: public planned. Questions have been thought previously
Casual conversation with friends: private unplanned
Talk to the manager for the first time: public unplanned.
Conversation is unplanned private talk. The interaction occurring in a context where participants know each other well or reasonably well and where interaction is in some way personal if not domestic. In consequence, it is more likely to take place among familiar participants in a private context.
We might expect more implicatures, overlaps, interruptions.

Question 22

Conversation

Answer 22

Daily talk, in real time, spontaneous.
It is:
🔸spoken: intonation is crucial. eg. key and prominence
🔸takes place spontaneously in real time (hesitations, unfinished sentences). Low lexical density, short unfinished utterances.
🔸occurs in a shared context: heavily relies on shared k of participants. deictics, pronouns, eliptic …
🔸is interactive, jointly constructed and reciprocal. Multi authored, mgs jointly constructed
🔸is primarily interpersonal in its function. used to keep up social relationships. v simple lg, topics
🔸is infml and a site for negotiation of social identities. (affiliation to a particular social group. emotional bonds)

Question 23

The vocab of conversation

Answer 23

Features of lexis that are typical of conversation:
1. the vocab: from an expanded notion of lexis. it is
words and groups of words
items operating different functions. not only lexical items but also grammatical items.

Question 24

Conversation has three main peculiarities

Answer 24

-2000 words lexical size: a person can function effectively in conversation with this amount of words.
-low lexical density and less lexical variey than written text. The number of content words in conversation is lower than in written lg. conversation uses simpler vocabulary than written lg.
-Higher lexical frequency (core lexicon). We can identify some items with higher frequency of use. This is the case with modal vocab, delexical verbs, interactive words, discourse markers, some nominal concepts, gral deictics, basic adjectives, basic verbs for actions and events.

Question 25

Lexical repetition

Answer 25

It is the **reiteration of lexical items** used to achieve discourse cohesion. i.e. it is the presence of a lexical item that is reintroduced in the D to build texture. 5 main types: -*Direct repetition*: repetition of exactly the same item. -*Desired forms* -*Synonyms*: or near synonyms -*Superordinate* -*Items from the same lexical set*. Repetition no only ties parts of D to other parts but it links speakers in relationships.?

Question 26

Vague lg

Answer 26

A feature of conversation which consists of the **substitution of specific lexical items** by words that express vagueness. eg. *thing, stuff, somewhere, etc / a lot of, loads of, a lot of, a bit of, some of you, etc*. vague quantities.

Question 27

Fillers

Answer 27

A **linguistic device** used to _fill a momentary hesitation_ produced by the demands of real time processing pressures. -*verbal fillers*: well, I mean, you know -processes to signal that a speaking turn is not yet finished

Question 28

D markers and other inserts

Answer 28

**Words or phrases that serve to show the way in which different parts of conversation are connected**. -within speaker turn or across speaker turns. -work at _local level_ by connecting adjacency utterances and also at a _global level_ by segmenting the flow of talk into larger chunks. They may vary in function depending on their position in conversation. eg. well (begins turn) also marks contrast in conversation. Also interjection, hedges, polite formulae, expressions such as bloody hell

Question 29

Routines and lexical phrases

Answer 29

They are **fixed and semi-fixed mutiword phrases**, i.e. lexical chunks that are used *to achieve conversational fluency*. They are called in many different ways depending on the author. Some authors refer to them as _multi-word phrases_, others refer to them as lexicalised items. It is also possible to find them as chunks or prefabricated lg. A routine or lexical phrase is a sequence which is continuous or discontinuous, words or other mg elements which *appear to be prefabricated and need to be stored and retrieved as a whole* from memory at the time of use. _3 main categories_: 1. lexical phrases 2. conversational routines 3. lexical... Many are idiomatic whereas others are non canonical. They can be fixed or flexible, i.e. they allow variation. What have we got to lose? If you say so Put your body into it. These are lexicalised phrases in conversation.

Question 30

Appraisal and involvement

Answer 30

Appraisal refers to the lg resources used to **negotiate emotions, judgements and valuations** alongside resources for amplifying and engaging with these evaluations. "Awful, amazing, incredible". Involvement refers to the lg resources used for **indexing group membership** and includes the use of names and other address terms. Use of name: "mum, dad, dear". They are used to show the commitment to the flow of talk by expressing their own stance and attitude towards what they are saying. Lg expressing judgments and valuations of Freddie's action: "good deed", "Good action".

Question 31

Differences between corpus and database

Answer 31

The corpus is developed **with a pple in mind**. You think of pples before collecting. The database does not follow a set of pples.

Question 32

Data derived from corpus analysis

Question 33

Complexity

Answer 33

The grammar of conversation Spoken lg has been seen traditionally as less complex than written. The simplicity of the spoken grammar has been attributed to its infml nature and to the constrains of real time production. Many have said that the sentence structure is highly complex. The complexity of the grammar of spoken lg is more like that of a dance. Halliday says its movable and intricate. This is the result of the fact that speakers in conversation use a number of relatively complex and sophisticated grammatical constructions. **The complexity is achieved not by embedding constituents within a predetermined sentence frame, but through the successive (and potentially limitless) accumulation of individual clause-like units**. The context is in a constant state of "flux" (continuous change) and the lg has to be equally mobile and alert. While the cummulative effec of these "add-ons" appears syntactically complex, each segment is relatively simple. C-units are an umbrella term for both clausal and non-clausal units, and are consedered to be the building blocks of spoken grammar, whereas sentences are to be written grammar. Coordinators: and, but, because, unless, so: all simple markers. **C-units joined together, one after the other, without many d-markers connecting them, but still the conversation hangs together**. This complexity is achieved by weaving together pieces of lg, pieces of clause-like units, some of them forming clauses, others non-clausal elements. All of them together to build up conversation. Main features of the grammar of conversation: 1. Heads and tails 2. Grammatical incompletion 3. Ellipsis 4. Deixis 5. Questions 6. Tense and aspect 7. Modality 8. Reporting

Question 34

Grammatical incompletion

Answer 34

Utterances which are either left incomplete or non standard in their blending (that is, where there is a grammatical mismatch between the start of an utterance and its completion). Owing to this, spoken lg is often ungrammatical. Abandonment Interruption Completion by another speaker Blending eg how did you know I'd...?

Question 35

Grammatical and lexical cohesion

Answer 35

A cohesive relation is one in which **the interpretation of one element in the discourse presupposes, and is dependent upon, another**. The connection that is created is integrated into the fabric (or texture) of the discourse. Halliday and Hasan (1985) distinguish between grammatical and lexical cohesive devices. Among the former are the various ways of referring, principally through the use of *demonstratives and pronouns*. In spoken language, cohesion is achieved across speaker turns as well as within them. So far, all the examples of reference we have looked at have referred back in the discourse. In other words, their reference has been **anaphoric**. But the reference can be forward (i.e. **cataphoric**). The reference is said to be **internal** to the text (or **endophoric**). But some references can only be interpreted by reference ‘outside’ the co-text, that is, to the context of situation – including the knowledge that is shared by the speakers. An example of this **exophoric** type of reference. It is a characteristic of spoken language that many of the references are exophoric, that is, their interpretation is context dependent. This quality is referred to by Hasan as explicitness. The production and interpretation of spoken discourse is facilitated by reference both to the ‘here-and-now’ of the immediate context, and to the speakers’ shared knowledge. Other grammatical means of achieving cohesion include the use of **substitution** and **ellipsis**. Another class of grammatical cohesive devices are those that signal the logical relation between elements, and are called **conjunctions**, or, less formally, linkers or linking devices. **Lexical means** by which links are made across stretches of discourse include the use of **repetition, synonyms and lexical chains** of topically related items. Perhaps more than any other factor, the use of lexical cohesion is an indicator of *topic consistency*, and hence contributes significantly to the sense that speakers are ‘talking to topic’, and that the talk is therefore coherent.

Question 36

Heads and tails

Answer 36

Optional slots either before or after the body of the message. The head slot typically consists of a NP which serves to identify key info such as the topic and to establish a common frame of reference for what follows. "My friend Sara, she came home yesterday evening". My friend Sara anticipates the referent of she Whereas the head slot fulfils a largely **prospective** function, the tail slot is more **retrospective** in its use, serving to extend, reinforce, mitigate, clarify or otherwise comment on, what the speaker is saying or has just said. 🔸Typical tail-slot items are: ⫸question tags ⫸interrogatives: there's a nice big pub there, no? ⫸reinforcement: you're clever, you are ⫸NP identifier: yeah she's nice, Suzie ⫸Evaluative adj: He left forever, terrible ⫸Vague category identifier: you trying to make me talk or sth? ⫸comment clause: she is her friend, I think The body of the message is preceded or followed by these optional slots into which matter (typical non-clausal) may be inserted!

Question 37

Ellipsis

Answer 37

The deliberate omission of items, such as subject, pronouns, and vb complements, that are redundant or recoverable from the immediate context, either the linguistic or the situational context. The emitted items can consist of single words and phrases. Commonly omitted items include: Sentence subjects: Met her the other day, liked her a lot. Subjects and operators: "listening" (mg: I'm listening) Auxiliary verbs: she going More frequent at the beginning of utterances rather than in the middle or at the end.

Question 38

Deixis

Answer 38

The use of lg devices such as personal pronouns, demonstratives (this and that), and adverbials (such as here, there, now and then), so that speakers can make reference to such features, of the immediate context as themselves and the other people present (what is called personal deixis), the immediate space (spatial deixis), and the time (temporal deixis). Because conversation takes place in a shared temporal and spatial context (unless, of course, it is a over the telephone), speakers frequently make direct reference to features of the immediate situation. High proportion of deictic expressions in casual conversation. You know what THAT means?

Question 39

Questions

Answer 39

Traditionally defined as the **grammatical inversion** of terms to elicit info or request confirmation of info from the interlocutor. However, with regard to syntactic form, questions can first be classified according to whether they take an interrogative or a declarative form. -**Declarative questions** are relatively common in conversation compared to other registers -comprising roughly ten percent of all question forms. They function primarily as requests for confirmation. "you are married?" -**Questions with subject-object inversion** -i.e. those that are interrogative rather than declarative in form- can be further subdivided into: ---those that are **fully independent clauses**: "have you been there lately?" ---those that are **elliptical**: "have you?"

Question 40

Tense and aspect

Answer 40

Tense is **a grammatical marker of the verb** used as a grammatical marker of time, while aspect serves to distinguish between verbal situations that are seen as **in progress (or not) or complete or not**. However, there are important differences in the frequency and distribution of these verb forms: -differences that reflect both the "here-and-now" nature of conversation, as well as its largely interpersonal function. -the present tense most common tense in casual conversation, outnumbering the past tense. -Perfect aspect is also far less frequent than simple forms in conversation -Progressive aspect is uncommon in conversation

Question 41

Modality

Answer 41

The use of modal verbs which is associated with the expression of interpersonal meaning. Modality, very broadly, is defined as the way speakers indicate their attitude or judgements with regard to the message in hand. (emotion) → attitude. -The modal verbs can, will and would are extremely common in conversation, as are the semi modals have to, used to and going to. -The modals may, shall and must are relatively infrequently found in the data, and must is used more to mark togical necessity, especially with regard to the past (that must've been awful).

Question 42

Reporting

Answer 42

A feature of the grammar of conversation which involves the use of verbs referring to the speech behaviour of participants in conversation in order to frame what is being said. "I was telling José that..." "And then he says to me..." "I was telling you that"... Continuous: extension of framing function of the progressive.