Negotiating a position within heteroglossic diversity: wh-clefts and it-clefts in written discourse

Abstract

It-clefts and wh-clefts (both basic and reversed) function as a rhetorical device by which authors negotiate an intersubjective position for themselves in relation to heteroglossic diversity. The representation of one of the clause elements as a semantic gap in the cleft clause opens up the utterance to heteroglossic negotiation. The establishment of the identity of that clause element by the clefted constituent closes down discussion. This study compares what types of clause elements are represented as semantic gaps in the cleft clauses of each of these three cleft constructions in the FLOB corpus of written British English, and finds that there are distinctive patterns of intersubjective positioning for each cleft type. These reflect, among other things, the different kinds of prominence each cleft type gives to its clefted constituent.