Sprache im 20. Jahrhundert. Gegenwartssprache
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The paper deals with the use of ICH WEIß NICHT (‘I don’t know’) in German talk-in-interaction. Pursuing an Interactional Linguistics approach, we identify different interactional uses of ICH WEIß NICHT and discuss their relationship to variation in argument structure (SV (O), (O)VS, V-only). After ICH WEIß NICHT with full complementation, speakers emphasize their lack of knowledge or display reluctance to answer. In contrast, after variants without an object complement, in contrast, speakers display uncertainty about the truth of the following proposition or about its sufficiency as an answer. Thus, while uses with both subject and object tend to close a sequence or display lack of knowledge, responses without an object, in contrast, function as a prepositioned epistemic hedge or a pragmatic marker framing the following TCU. When ICH WEIß NICHT is used in response to a statement, it indexes disagreement (independently from all complementation patterns).
Our paper deals with the use of ICH WEIß NICHT (‘I don’t know’) in German talk-in-interaction. Pursuing an Interactional Linguistics approach, we identify different interactional uses of ICH WEIß NICHT and discuss their relationship to variation in argument structure (SV (O), (O)VS, V-only). After ICH WEIß NICHT with full complementation, speakers emphasize their lack of knowledge or display reluctance to answer. In contrast, after variants without an object complement, in contrast, speakers display uncertainty about the truth of the following proposition or about its sufficiency as an answer. Thus, while uses with both subject and object tend to close a sequence or display lack of knowledge, responses without an object, in contrast, function as a prepositioned epistemic hedge or a pragmatic marker framing the following TCU. When ICH WEIß NICHT is used in response to a statement, it indexes disagreement (independently from all complementation patterns).
Rejecting the validity of inferred attributions of incompetence in German talk-in-interaction
(2024)
This paper deals with pragmatic inference from the perspective of Conversation Analysis. In particular, we examine a specific variety of inferences - the attribution of incompetence which Self constructs on the basis of Other's prior action, hearable as positioning Self as incompetent (e.g., instructions, offers of assistance, advice); this attribution of incompetence concerns Self's execution of some practical task. This inference is indexed in Self's response, which highlights Self's expertise, or competence concerning the task at hand. We focus on two recurrent types of such responses in our data: (i) accounting for competence through formulations of prior experience with carrying out a practical action and (ii) explicit claims of competence for accomplishing this action. We analyze the interactional environments in which these responses occur, the ways in which the two practices index Self's understanding of being positioned as incompetent and the interactional work they do. Finally, we discuss how through rejecting and inferred attribution of incompetence, Self implicitly seeks to restore their face and defend their autonomy as an agent, yet, without entering an explicit identity-negotiation. Findings rest on the analysis of 20 cases found in video-recordings of naturally occurring talk-in-interaction in German from the corpus FOLK.
Based on German data from history-taking in doctor-patient interaction, the paper shows that the three basic syntactic types of questions (questions fronted by a question-word (w-questions), verb-first (V1) questions, and declarative questions) provide different opportunities for displaying understanding in medical interaction. Each syntactic questionformat is predominantly used in a different stage of topical sequences in history taking: w-questions presuppose less knowledge and are thus used to open up topical sequences; declarative questions are used to check already achieved understandings and to close topical sequences. Still, the expected scope of answers to yes/no-questions and to declarative questions is less restricted than previously thought. The paper focuses in detail on the doctors’ use of formulations as declarative questions, which are designed to make patients elaborate on already established topics, giving more details or accounting for a confirmation. Formulations often involve a shift to psychological aspects of the illness. Although patients confirm doctors’ empathetic formulations, they, however, regularly do not align with this shift, returning to the description of symptoms and to biomedical accounts instead. The study shows how displays of understanding are responded to not only in terms of correctness, but also (and more importantly) in terms of their relevance for further action.
The transition between phases of activities is a practical problem which participants in an interaction have to deal with routinely. In meetings, the sequence of phases of activity is often outlined by a written agenda. However, transitions still have to be accomplished by local interactional work of the participants. In a detailed conversation analytic case study based on video-data, it is shown how participants collaboratively accomplish an emergent interactional state of affairs (a break-like activity) which differs widely from the state of affairs which was projected by awritten agenda (the next presentation), although in doing so, the participants still show their continuous orientation to the agenda. The paper argues that the reconstruction of emergent developments in interaction calls for a multimodal analysis of interaction, because the fine-grained multimodal co-ordination of bodily and verbal resources provides for opportunities of sequentially motivated, relevant next actions. These, however, can amount to emergent activity sequences, which may be at odds with the activity types which are projected by an interactional agenda or expected on behalf of some institutional routine.
The paper studies how the German connectives "also" and "dann" are used as displays of understanding in talk-in-interaction. It is shown that the use of also at turn-beginnings in pre-front-field position is a routine practice to explicate implicit meanings of the prior turn of the partner, which is presented for confirmation. Also thus indexes that explicated meanings are taken to be intersubjective, i.e. part of the interlocutors’ common ground. Turn-initial dann(in front-field position), in contrast, is routinely used to (a) index the formulation of a unilateral inference from the partner’s prior turn which is not claimed to have already been communicated by the partner, and is (b) used to preface different kinds of next actions which are framed as being a consequence from the preceding action of the partner. Drawing on data from four genres of talkin- interaction (conversation, psychotherapy, doctor-patient interaction, broadcasted talk shows), the paper discusses how functions of also and dann are related to their positions concerning turn-construction and topological fields, prosodic design, collocations, sequential structures and participation frameworks of the interaction.
Die Relevanz der Gesprächsforschung steht außer Frage: Gespräche sind grundlegend für jede Form menschlicher Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft. Ob in Unternehmen, im Schulunterricht oder in der Politik, ob im privaten Liebesgeflüster, in der Talk-Show oder im Internet-Chat: Unablässig erzeugen, verändern und repräsentieren wir unsere Welt in Gesprächen. Gesellschaft, Kultur und Geschichte wären undenkbar ohne verbale Interaktion. So ubiquitär Gespräche sind, so unendlich vieles ist involviert, wenn Gespräche geführt und verstanden werden sollen. Sicher, zuallererst Sprache, doch noch vieles mehr: Stimme, Blicke, Gesten, Gefühle und Hintergedanken, soziale Voraussetzungen und Folgen, physische Prozesse und historische Situationen. Dies sind natürlich, recht verstanden, nicht verschiedene "Dinge", die man sorgsam nebeneinander stellen könnte. Diese Mannigfaltigkeit von Perspektiven zeigt an, dass das, was in Gesprächen und durch sie geschieht, nicht auf einen einzigen Zugang, etwa den einer einzigen Disziplin oder Schule zu reduzieren ist.
Der vorliegende Aufsatz untersucht, wie Negationen in Gesprächen verwendet werden können, um Interpretationen des Sprecherhandelns durch den Partner zu beeinflussen und zu steuern. Zunächst werden die dafür benötigten theoretischen und methodischen Werkzeuge vorgestellt: die interaktionsanalytischen Konzepte des Adressatenzuschnitts und des common ground (CG), Grundzüge der Syntax und Semantik der Negation sowie ihre Funktionsweise als Verfahren zur Abwahl von Annahmen erster, zweiter und dritter Ordnung. Im empirischen Teil wird im Einzelnen gezeigt, wie Negationen genutzt werden, um im Gesprächsverlauf prospektiv und retrospektiv die Deutung von Sprecherhandlungen durch den Adressaten zu beschränken. Die interaktionalen Motivationen und die rhetorischen Potenziale des Einsatzes von Negationen zur Interpretationsrestriktion werden aufgezeigt. Die Analyse demonstriert die Notwendigkeit einer differenzierenden Sicht auf das Konzept des Adressatenzuschnitts.
Die Konversationsanalyse ist aufgrund ihrer empirischen und gegenstandsfundierten Methodologie vielen anderen Ansätzen der Erforschung von Gesprächen überlegen. Diese Überlegenheit hat jedoch einen gravierenden Mangel: Die Konversationsanalyse verfügt über keine adäquate Interpretationstheorie und ignoriert deshalb, wie grundlegend die Wissensvoraussetzungen des Analytikers und ihr Einsatz für Prozess und Resultate konversationsanalytischer Untersuchungen sind. Am Beispiel ethnographischen Wissens wird gezeigt, an welchen systematischen Stellen spezifische Hintergrundwissensbestände genutzt werden können, um zu einer adäquateren konversationsanalytischen Auswertung zu gelangen. Abschließend wird diskutiert, welchen Prüfkriterien der Einsatz ethnographischen Wissens bei der Konversationsanalyse zu genügen hat.
Conversation Analysis (CA) and Discursive Psychology (DP) reject the view that assumptions
about cognitive processes should be used to account for discursive phenomena. Instead, cognitive
issues are respecified as discursive phenomena. Discursive psychologists do this by
studying discursive practices of talking about mental phenomena and using mental predicates.
This approach is exemplified by a study of the use of constructions with German verstehen
(‘to understand’) in conversation. Some conversation analysts take another approach,
namely, inquiring into how participants display mental states in talk-in-interaction. This is
exemplified by a study of how grammatical constructions are used to display different types
of inferences drawn from a partner’s prior turn. It will be argued that the constructivist, antiessentialist
stance which CA and DP take with regard to cognition is a prosperous line of
research, which has much in its favor from a methodological point of view. However, it
can be shown that tacit assumptions about cognitive processes are still inevitable when
doing CA and DP. As a conclusion, the paper pleads for an enhanced awareness of how cognitive
processes come into play when analysing talk-in-interaction and it advocates the integration
of a more explicit cognitive perspective into research on talk-in-interaction.