discon: Discourse Connectors Analysis

#' discon: Tools for analysing discourse markers in text
#'
#' \pkg{discon} is a collection of R tools to enhance analysis of discourse 
#' connectors in text.  Discourse connectors are cohesive devices that can be 
#' used to help identify themes within a text.  This package provides 
#' computational means of extracting and visualizing various elements from the 
#' text that contain discourse connectors.  This can assist in qualitative 
#' analysis of discourse by identifying categories that may aide analysis (using 
#' the computer for efficiency and data coverage) towards generating themes.
#' 
#' ``Discourse connectors are devices used to bridge between turns (in speech) 
#' and sentences, indicating the logical relations among the parts of a the 
#' logical relations among the parts of a framework for the listener/reader. 
#' There are two major classes of discourse connectors: discourse markers and 
#' linking adverbials. Discourse markers -- forms like \emph{ok}, 
#' \emph{well}, and \emph{now} -- are restricted primarily to spoken 
#' discourse. These forms have distinct discourse functions, but it is difficult 
#' to identify the specific meaning of the word itself. In contrast, linking 
#' adverbials -- forms like \emph{however}, \emph{thus}, 
#' \emph{therefore}, \emph{for example} (\emph{e.g.}), and \emph{that is} 
#' (\emph{i.e.}) -- are found in both spoken and written registers, and 
#' they have greater inherent meaning than discourse markers.'' (Beiber, 2006, 
#' p. 66)
#' 
#' Please see the following resources for additional information:
#' 
#' \itemize{
#' \item Alemany, L. A. (2005). \href{http://www.cs.famaf.unc.edu.ar/~laura/shallowdisc4summ/tesi_electronica.pdf}{Representing discourse for automatic text summarization via shallow NLP techniques} (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona.  
#' \item Biber, D. (2006). \emph{University language: A corpus-based study of spoken and written registers}. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
#' \item Halliday, M. A. K. & Hasan, R. (1976). \emph{Cohesion in English}. English Language Series. London: Longman.
#' \item Kalajahi, S. A. R., Abdullah, A. N., Mukundan, J., & Tannacito, D. J. (2012). \href{http://goo.gl/eS0OwV}{Discourse connectors: An overview of the history, definition and classification of the term}. \emph{World Applied Sciences Journal, 19}(11), 1659-1673.
#' \item Linguistic Data Consortium. (2004) \href{http://www.itl.nist.gov/iad/mig/tests/rt/2004-fall/docs/SimpleMDE_V6.2-draft.pdf}{\emph{Simple metadata annotation specification (MDE)}}. University of Pennsylvania.  Retrieved from \url{http://www.itl.nist.gov/iad/mig/tests/rt/2004-fall/docs/SimpleMDE_V6.2-draft.pdf}
#' \item Ryan, G. W. & Bernard, H. R. (2003). \href{http://goo.gl/KdYxB8}{Techniques to identify themes}. \emph{Field Methods. 15}(1), 85-109. doi: \href{http://fmx.sagepub.com/content/15/1/85}{10.1177/1525822X02239569}
#' \item Schiffrin, D. (1987). \emph{Discourse markers}. London: Cambridge University Press.   
#' \item Schiffrin, D. (2001). \href{http://goo.gl/KbwG9I}{Discourse markers: Language, meaning, and context}. In D. Schiffrin, D., D. Tannen, & H. E. Hamilton, (Eds.) \emph{The handbook of discourse analysis} (pp. 54-75). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. 
#' \item Ward, N. (2000, October). \href{http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W00-1004}{Issues in the Transcription of English Conversational Grunts}. \emph{Proceedings of the 1st SIGdial Workshop on Discourse and Dialogue} (pp. 29-35). Hong Kong: Association for Computational Linguistics.  Retrieved from \url{http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W00-1004}
#' }
#' 
#' @docType package
#' @name discon
#' @aliases discon package-discon
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