Grammar in Everyday Talk: Building Responsive Actions

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.

Author: Sandra A. Thompson, Barbara A. Fox, Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 06/04/2015
Pages: 356
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.42lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.81d
ISBN: 9781107031029

About the Author
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth: - Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen is a senior researcher associated with the Center of Excellence for Research on Intersubjectivity in Interaction at the University of Helsinki in Finland.Thompson, Sandra A.: - Sandra A. Thompson is Research Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara.Fox, Barbara A.: - Barbara A. Fox is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Colorado, Boulder.