Discourse Studies current issue

On assessing situations and events in conversation: `extraposition' and its relatives

Couper-Kuhlen, E., Thompson, S. A. — 2008-07-29

Recent research provides strong evidence that the syntacticization of recurrent multi-actional and interactional patterns for accomplishing social actions is quite a general phenomenon. Drawing on a body of audio and video recordings, we consider three pervasive conversational patterns whereby English speakers carry out the assessing of an event or situation, and the interactional contingencies which give rise to these patterns. We propose that one of these patterns (known as `extraposition') can be revealingly understood as having syntacticized to a grammatical and prosodically unified construction as an amalgamation of the other two patterns, which are interactional routines. We suggest that the `extraposition' construction provides a particularly elegant instance of how grammar emerges from the recurrent interactional practices which make up the fabric of our daily lives.

TV talk show therapy as a distinct genre of discourse

Xiaoping Yan, — 2008-07-29

Using therapeutic conversations from a televised talk show as the source data, this article investigates how people solve emotional problems in an institutional setting within a specific social cultural context. In light of the genre framework and the Systemic Functional Linguistics, the investigation considers the TV talk show therapy under examination a distinct genre. The claim is based on the linguistic evidence drawn from the analytical work. As a valid genre the talk show therapy has been characterized with the communicative intentionality to resolve emotional problems and to promote mental health to the public. These components in turn have shaped the generic structures, which become the crucial criteria that constitute a text as a genre. The article proposes that a broader conception of genre framework is an effective research method to describe the textual typologies and interpret the semantic structures of the social interaction in postmodern society.

The pragmatics of Akan greetings

Agyekum, K. — 2008-07-29

This article addresses greetings as one of the most frequent linguistic interactional routines among the Akan of Ghana. The article will look at the functions, situations, and the major forms of Akan greetings. The article will highlight the major functions of greetings such as the creation of social relationship, commitment to one another in social encounters and manifestation of an individual's communicative competence. It discusses the taxonomy of Akan greetings in terms of formality, periods, events and activities. The article further looks at the changes in greetings in the Akan modern society. The article treats greetings within the frameworks of ethnography of communication, politeness and speech act theory within anthropological linguistics.

Highlighted moves within an action: segmented talk in Japanese conversation

Morita, E. — 2008-07-29

Japanese conversational data reveal that Japanese speakers produce, and recipients orient to, smaller units of talk than what the conventional notion of a `turn constructional unit' (TCU) represents. Unlike TCUs, such units may be grammatically, prosodically and pragmatically incomplete and may happen on the sub-phrasal level of discourse, as Japanese conversationalists prosodically break up even a single semantic constituent with the insertion of an interactional particle. In this article, I give numerous examples of how such practices of separating a segment of talk are not random but are precisely embedded in the sequential organization of talk that participants co-create. I argue that such segmentation contributes to the interactional co-construction of a turn so as to highlight specifically a `move' Within the larger action that is implemented by the TCU. Doing so thereby provides opportunities for the participants to deal with local contingency problems without changing the global level of the pragmatic work of the turn.

Membership categorization and professional insanity ascription

Roca-Cuberes, C. — 2008-07-29

This study, based on three years of research and over 40 hours of videotaped interaction in psychiatry, investigates the issue of insanity ascription/exoneration in psychiatric interviews. Following Sacks's model of membership categorization analysis (MCA), this article analyzes the discursive resources that psychiatrists may draw on to achieve some conclusion regarding their patients' psychopathological status. As it turns out, psychiatrists' invocation of patients' putative membership categories plays a crucial role in the achievement of such a conclusion. I examine some fragments of psychiatric intake interviews (PIIs) and subsequent psychiatric interviews (SPIs). The analysis shows that the process that may lead to insanity ascription/exoneration in psychiatric interviews basically involves the use of mundane, commonsense reasoning.

Book review: EMANUEL A. SCHEGLOFF, Sequence Organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis, Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, xvi + 300 pp

Arminen, I. — 2008-07-29

Book review: EMANUEL A. SCHEGLOFF, Sequence Organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, xvi + 300 pp

McHoul, A. — 2008-07-29

Book review: M.A.K. HALLIDAY, Studies in Chinese Language, ed. J. Webster. London and New York: Continuum, 2006

Hui Lai, , Hailong Tian, — 2008-07-29

Book review: HELEN SAUNTSON and SAKIS KYRATZIS (eds), Language, Sexualities & Desires: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2007

Zhiying Xin, — 2008-07-29