Grammar in everyday talk : building responsive actions
AUTHOR : Thompson, Sandra A.
CALL NO : PE1106 T476g 2015
IMPRINT : Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, c2015
Drawing on everyday telephone and video interactions, this book surveys how English speakers use grammar to formulate responses in ordinary conversation. The authors show that speakers build their responses in a variety of ways: the responses can be longer or shorter, repetitive or not, and can be uttered with different intonational ‘melodies’. Focusing on four sequence types: responses to questions (‘What time are we leaving?’ – ‘Seven’), responses to informings (‘The May Company are sure having a big sale’ – ‘Are they?’), responses to assessments (‘Track walking is so boring. Even with headphones’ – ‘It is’), and responses to requests (‘Please don’t tell Adeline’ – ‘Oh no I won’t say anything’), they argue that an interactional approach holds the key to explaining why some types of utterances in English conversation seem to have something ‘missing’ and others seem overly wordy.
- Based on a rich collection of empirical data, such as telephone and video communication from everyday interactions
- Demonstrates that grammatical patterns and regularities can be best understood by reference to the interactional contexts in which they occur
- Argues that the precise formulation chosen by respondents depends on the subtle interactional work they hope to accomplish with their utterance
