By the study of the Romanian reformulation discourse marker (RM) adică “I mean/ namely” the author points out that the economy principle, implied in the pragmatic theories of Grice (1975) or Sperber/ Wilson (1986) is subordinated to the fact that the speaker makes an effort to produce a clear and correct message and, if dissatisfied, he does not hesitate to rephrase what he has just said. At the cognitive level, the RM brings to light the speaker’s inferences and the critical evolution of his utterances.
The article describes intrapersonal clarifying stances introduced by adică: corrections, expansions (in the form of definite descriptions, synonyms, explanations), enumeration, and summaries. The interpersonal stances indicate the speaker’s determination to ensure the best possible transmission of information (definitions, narrowing or broadening of ad hoc concepts, anaphora resolutions). Often adică introduces cross-language translations if the previous phrase contains an expression in a foreign language.
Reformulated sentences, often introduced by a specific RM, express the speaker’s attempt to make his message as understandable as possible. The speaker’s reformulation is a manifestation of his (negative) estimation of the accuracy and/ or the accessibility of what was said, as well as of his efforts to make adjustments.