420 Englisch
Refine
Document Type
- Article (3) (remove)
Language
- English (3)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (3)
Keywords
- Konversationsanalyse (3) (remove)
Publicationstate
- Postprint (1)
Reviewstate
- Peer-Review (1)
As an Introduction to the Special Issue on "Formulation, generalization,
and abstraction in interaction,’’ this paper discusses key problems of a conversation
analytic (CA) approach to semantics in interaction. Prior research in CA and
Interactional Linguistics has only rarely dealt with issues of linguistic meaning in
interaction. It is argued that this is a consequence of limitations of sequential
analysis to capture meaning in interaction. While sequential analysis remains the
encompassing methodological framework, it is suggested that it needs to be complemented
by analyzing semantic relationships between choices of formulation in
the interaction, ethnography, and structural techniques of comparing selected
options with possible alternatives. The paper describes the methodological approach
taken to interactional semantics by the papers in the Special Issue, which analyse
practices of generalization and abstraction in interaction as they are accomplished
by formulations of prior versions of reference and description.
Based on German speaking data from various activity types, the range of multimodal resources used to construct turn-beginnings is reviewed. It is claimed that participants in talk-in-interaction need to deal with four tasks in order to construct a turn which precisely fits the interactional moment of its production:
1. Achieve joint orientation: The accomplishment of the socio-spatial prerequisites necessary for producing a turn which is to become part of the participants’ common ground.
2. Display uptake: Next speaker needs to display his/her understanding of the interaction so far as the backdrop on which the production of the upcoming turn is based.
3. Deal with projections from prior talk: The speaker has to deal with projections which have been established by (the) previous turn(s) with respect to the upcoming turn.
4. Project properties of turn-in-progress: The speaker needs to orient the recipient to properties of the turn s/he is about to produce.
Turn-design thus can be seen to be informed by tasks related to the multimodal, embodied, and interactive contingencies of online-construction of turns. The four tasks are ordered in terms of prior tasks providing the prerequisite for accomplishing a later task.
This paper analyses one specific conversational practice of formulation
called ‘notionalization’. It consists in the transformation of a description by a prior
speaker into a categorization by the next speaker. Sequences of this kind are a
‘‘natural laboratory’’ for studying the differences between descriptions and categorizations
regarding their semantic, interactional, and rhetorical properties:
Descriptive/narrative versions are often vague and tentative, multi unit turns,
which are temporalized and episodic, offering a lot of contingent, situational,
and indexical detail.
Notionalizations turn them into condensed, abstract, timeless, and often
agentless categorizations expressed by a noun (phrase) within one turn
constructional unit (TCU).
Drawing on audio- and video-taped German data from various types of interaction,
the paper focuses on one particular practice of notionalization, the formulation
of purportedly common ground by TCUs prefaced with the connective also.
The paper discusses their turn-constructional and morphological properties, pointing
out affinities of notionalization with language for special purposes. Notionalizations
are used for reducing detail and for topical closure. They provide grounds for
emergent keywords, which can be reused to re-contextualize topical issues and
interactional histories efficiently. Notionalizations are powerful means for accomplishing
intersubjectivity while pursuing (sometimes one-sided) practical relevancies
at the same time. Their inevitably perspective design thus may lead to re-open
the issue they were deemed to settle. The paper closes with an outlook to other
practices of notionalization, pointing to dimensions of interactionally relevant
variation and commonalities.