ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the patterns of use of pronouns and vocatives in the intimate context-type in comparison to their use in other context-types. Pragmatic markers are textual and interpersonal markers that closely attend to what is happening in the communication situation and remark explicitly on aspects of the on-going speech event. Although there is much debate on issues such as the terminology used to refer to them, their definition and their polysemous nature, it is generally accepted that, through a process of grammaticalisation, they have acquired functions that are both textual in that they organise discourse and interpersonal in that they encode aspects such as speaker attitude or involvement in some way depending on the context. The corpus findings suggest that the intimate discourse is characterised by patterns that facilitate the paradoxical nature of intimate relationships which are constantly balancing the need for involvement with the need for non-imposition.
