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In this article we examine moments in which parents or other caregivers overtly invoke rules during episodes in which they take issue with, intervene against, and try to change a child’s ongoing behavior or action(s). Drawing on interactional data from four different languages (English, Finnish, German, Polish) and using Conversation Analytic methods, we first illustrate the variety of ways in which parents may use such overt rule invocations as part of their behavior modification attempts, showing them to be functionally versatile interactional objects. Their interactional flexibility notwithstanding, we find that parents typically invoke rules when, in the course of the intervention episode, they encounter trouble with achieving an acceptable compliant outcome. To get at the distinct import of rule formulations in this context, we then compare them to two sequential alternatives: parental expressions of an experienced negative affective state, and parental threats. While the former emphasize aspects of social solidarity, the latter seek to enforce compliance by foregrounding a power asymmetry between the parent and the child. Rule formulations, by contrast, are designedly impersonal and appear to be directed at what the parents construe as shortcomings in common-sense practical reasoning on the child’s part. Reflexively, the child is thereby cast as not having properly applied common-sense ‘practical reason’ when engaging in what is treated as the problematic behavior or action. Overt rule invocations can, therefore, be understood as indexical appeals to practical reason.
Meta-communicative practices are generally reflexive in a fairly obvious sense: Inasmuch as speakers use them to talk about or comment on earlier/subsequent talk, they use language self-reflexively. In this paper, we explore a practice that is reflexive not only in this meta-communicative sense but also in a sequential-interactional one: Prefacing a conversational turn with I was gonna say. We show that the I was gonna say-preface furnishes the following general semantic-pragmatic affordances: (1) It retroactively relates the speaker’s subsequent talk to preceding talk from a co-participant, (2) it embodies a claim to prior, now-preempted, communicative intent with regard to what their co-participant has (just) said/done, (3) it therefore displays its speaker’s orientation to the relevance or the appropriate placement of the action(s) done in their own subsequent talk at an earlier moment in the interaction, and (4) it reflexively re-invokes, or retrieves, this earlier moment as the relevant sequential context for their action(s). We then go on to illustrate how speakers draw on these sequentially reflexive affordances for managing recurrent interactional contingencies in specific sequential environments. The paper ends with a discussion of the role that reflexivity plays in and for the deployment of this practice.
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.
Action ascription can be understood from two broad perspectives. On one view, it refers to the ways in which actions constitute categories by which members make sense of their world, and forms a key foundation for holding others accountable for their conduct. On another view, it refers to the ways in which we accountably respond to the actions of others, thereby accomplishing sequential versions of meaningful social experience. In short, action ascription can be understood as matter of categorisation of prior actions or responding in ways that are sequentially fitted to prior actions, or both. In this chapter, we review different theoretical approaches to action ascription that have developed in the field, as well as the key constituents and resources of action ascription that have been identified in conversation analytic research, before going on to discuss how action ascription can itself be considered a form of social action.
Action ascription is an emergent process of mutual displays of understanding. Usually, the kind of action that is ascribed to a prior turn by a next action remains implicit. Sometimes, however, actions are overtly ascribed, for example, when speakers expose the use of strategies. This happens particularly in conflictual interaction, such as public debates or mediation talks. In these interactional settings, one of the speakers’ goals is to discredit their opponents in front of other participants or an overhearing audience. This chapter investigates different types of overt strategy ascriptions in a public mediation: exposing the opponent’s use of rhetorical devices, exposing the opponent’s use of false premises, and exposing that an opponent is telling only a half-truth. This chapter shows how speakers use ascriptions of acting strategically as accusations to disclose their opponents’ intentions and ‘truths’ that the opponents allegedly conceal and that are detrimental to their position.
Bringing together a team of global experts, this is the first volume to focus on the ways in which meanings are ascribed to actions in social interaction. It builds on the research traditions of Conversation Analysis and Pragmatics, and highlights the role of interactional, social, linguistic, multimodal, and epistemic factors in the formation and ascription of action-meanings. It shows how inference and intention ascription are displayed and drawn upon by participants in social interaction. Each chapter reveals practices, processes, and uses of action ascription, based on the analysis of audio and video recordings from nine different languages. Action ascription is conceptualised in this volume as not merely a cognitive process, but a social action in its own right that is used for managing interactional concerns and guiding the subsequent course of social interaction. It will be essential reading for academic researchers and advanced students interested in the relationship between language, behaviour and social interaction.
In diesem Beitrag wird, anhand eines juristischen Kommentars eines Fallbeispiels, zunächst gezeigt, dass Handlungen bzw. deren Unterlassungen durch sprachliche Be- bzw. Zuschreibungen überhaupt erst solche konstruiert werden. Das heißt auch: Intentionalität ist erst durch die Sprache fass- und verhandelbar. In einem zweiten Teil werden strafrechtliche Zuschreibungspraktiken und deren Kriterien – die Nichteinhaltung eines Gebots bzw. die Übertretung eines Verbots – dargestellt und diskutiert.