Refine
Year of publication
- 2022 (3) (remove)
Document Type
- Part of a Book (2)
- Article (1)
Has Fulltext
- yes (3)
Is part of the Bibliography
- yes (3)
Keywords
- Deutsch (2)
- Formulierung (2)
- Konversationsanalyse (2)
- Archiv für gesprochenes Deutsch (AGD) (1)
- GeWiss-Korpus (1)
- German (1)
- Gesprochene Sprache (1)
- Hamburger Zentrum für Sprachkorpora (1)
- Handlung (1)
- Herder-Institut (Leipzig) (1)
Publicationstate
Reviewstate
- (Verlags)-Lektorat (2)
- Peer-Review (1)
Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (2)
- de Gruyter (1)
While the role of intentions in the constitution of actions gives rise to complex and heavily controversial questions, it appears to be indisputable that action ascription in interaction mostly does without any overt ascription of intention. Yet, sometimes participants explicitly ascribe intentions to their interlocutors in order to make sense of their prior actions. The chapter examines intention ascriptions in response to a partner’s adjacent prior turn using the German modal verb construction willst du/wollen Sie (do you want). The analysis focuses on the aspect of the prior action the intention ascription addresses (action type, projected next action, motive etc.), the action the intention ascription performs itself, and the next action they make relevant from the prior speaker. It was found that intention ascriptions are used to clarify and intersubjectively ground the meaning of the prior turn, which seems otherwise underspecified, ambiguous or puzzling. Yet, they are also used to adumbrate criticism, e.g., that the prior turn projects a course of future actions which is considered to be inadequate, or to expose a concealed, problematic allegedly “real” meaning of the prior turn.
We examine moments in social interaction in which a person formulates what another thinks or believes. Such formulations of belief constitute a practice with specifiable contexts and consequences. Belief formulations treat aspects of the other person's prior conduct as accountable on the basis that it provided a new angle on a topic, or otherwise made a surprising contribution within an ongoing course of actions. The practice of belief formulations subjectivizes the content that the other articulated and thereby topicalizes it, mobilizing commitment to that position, an account, or further elaboration. We describe how the practice can be put to work in different activity contexts: sometimes it is designed to undermine the other's position as a subjective 'mere belief', at other times it serves to mobilize further topic talk. Throughout, belief formulations show themselves to be a method by which we get to know ourselves and each other as mental agents.