Stauffenburg Linguistik
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27
Using instances of conversations of among German adolescents, this paper aims at an empirical, conversation analytic reconstruction of interactional procedures by which participants accomplish locally relevant meanings of words. Object of the study is the evaluative adjective assi, which is a common item of German adolescents' slang. Evaluative adjectives are said to be either polysemous or underspecified in meaning. The paper shows how interactionalists accomplish local meanings of the item by using it in certain sequential environments (story prefaces, comments and conclusions) which are related to genres of moral entertainment (e.g. gossip, fictitious stories). Locally relevant features of word-meaning (such as affective meaning, lexical opposition, exclusion of semantic features) are specified in more detail by interactionalists as they use specialized practices (such as expressive enactments, contrasting, blocking implications) which are realized by specific linguistic means (such as paraverbal strategies, negation, disjunctive connectives).
27
The paper discusses the range of findings and theoretical concepts on which a conversation analytic study of the constitution of meaning in interaction might draw. It focuses on research on problems of word-semantics and linguistic categorization in context which have been researched by cognitivists and conversation analysts. While cognitive studies have mainly dealt with semantic representation, syntactico-semantic composition and the impact of pragmatic and inferential factors on interpretation, discursive approaches have centered upon interactional processes and the uses and functions of categorization in talk-in-interaction. The article concludes with a discussion of the prospects and eventual benefits of a more intense combination of the cognitive and the discursive approach.
27
Using instances of conversations of among German adolescents, this paper aims at an empirical, conversation analytic reconstruction of interactional procedures by which participants accomplish locally relevant meanings of words. Object of the study is the evaluative adjective assi, which is a common item of German adolescents' slang. Evaluative adjectives are said to be either polysemous or underspecified in meaning. The paper shows how interactionalists accomplish local meanings of the item by using it in certain sequential environments (story prefaces, comments and conclusions) which are related to genres of moral entertainment (e.g. gossip, fictitious stories). Locally relevant features of word-meaning (such as affective meaning, lexical opposition, exclusion of semantic features) are specified in more detail by interactionalists as they use specialized practices (such as expressive enactments, contrasting, blocking implications) which are realized by specific linguistic means (such as paraverbal strategies, negation, disjunctive connectives).
27
The paper discusses the range of findings and theoretical concepts on which a conversation analytic study of the constitution of meaning in interaction might draw. It focuses on research on problems of word-semantics and linguistic categorization in context which have been researched by cognitivists and conversation analysts. While cognitive studies have mainly dealt with semantic representation, syntactico-semantic composition and the impact of pragmatic and inferential factors on interpretation, discursive approaches have centered upon interactional processes and the uses and functions of categorization in talk-in-interaction. The article concludes with a discussion of the prospects and eventual benefits of a more intense combination of the cognitive and the discursive approach.
47
Using different constructions with the German item vcrstchcn (engl. understand), the current study addresses the relationship between lexical and constructional meaning. Construction grammar and cognitive grammar reject the theoretical distinction between (a semantic) lexicon and (a formal) syntax (e.g., Langacker: 2000). Instead, they take constructions to be the units of linguistic competence. It is claimed that constructions consist of form-meaning-pairings (e.g. Goldberg: 1995; Croft: 2001). From this view, it follows that formal variation should result in functional variation. Lexical items should therefore acquire different meanings depending on the constructions in which they occur. To test this claim, 300 instances of uses of the German lexical item verstehen in talk-in-interaction were inspected for the local meanings verstehen acquires in each case. The article compares the semantics of verstehen in two different constructions: The discourse marker verstehst du? (engl. do you understand?) and the negative construction [NP] nicht verstehen [COMP], The data show a poly- semic spectrum of meanings of verstehen, which is similar for both constructions. The precise local meaning of verstehen in most cases depends on pragmatic and discursive factors and is not provided for by the constructions themselves. There are, however, subtypes of the two constructions that satisfy the condition of being a form-meaning-pair. As a conclusion, some prospects for the conceptualization of different sources of meaning within a construction grammar approach are suggested.