Conversation analysis and speech act performance

Author(s):  
Marta González-Lloret
2018 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-55
Author(s):  
Giorgio Antonioli ◽  
Manuela Caterina Moroni

Abstract In this paper we present a selection of preliminary results of our research project “Intonation and Meaning”, in which we compare recurrent intonation contours in German and Italian regional varieties. We apply the method of German Interactional Prosody Research (Interaktionale Prosodieforschung), which in turn is based on Conversation Analysis, to a sample of selfcollected empirical data. Our aim is to show the value of intonation as a resource to contextualize speech activities and to point out form-function relationships between intonation patterns and speech act types. In this respect, we observe the usage of intonation contours with rising accent (L*H) and with falling accent (H*L) in the utterance of question activities, and provide evidence for the fact that the latter represent a distinctive type of questions with epistemic presupposition, whereas L*H correlates rather with default, modally unmarked questions.


Author(s):  
Stephen C. Levinson

The essential insight of speech act theory was that when we use language, we perform actions—in a more modern parlance, core language use in interaction is a form of joint action. Over the last thirty years, speech acts have been relatively neglected in linguistic pragmatics, although important work has been done especially in conversation analysis. Here we review the core issues—the identifying characteristics, the degree of universality, the problem of multiple functions, and the puzzle of speech act recognition. Special attention is drawn to the role of conversation structure, probabilistic linguistic cues, and plan or sequence inference in speech act recognition, and to the centrality of deep recursive structures in sequences of speech acts in conversation.


Pragmatics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Foluke Olayinka Unuabonah

This study explores metapragmatic comments in Nigerian quasi-judicial public hearings, involving interactions between complainants, defendants and a hearing panel, with a view to investigating their forms, features, distribution and functions. The data are analysed quantitatively and qualitatively from a discourse-pragmatic framework that incorporates Verschueren’s theory of metapragmatics, Mey’s pragmatic act theory, Grice’s Cooperative Principle and conversation analysis. Four types of metapragmatic comments are used: speech act descriptions, talk regulation comments, maxim adherence/violation related comments and metalinguistic comments. Their distribution and functioning are shown to be partly predictable from properties of the speech event, while they also co-determine the nature and development of the analysed hearings.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2018 (1) ◽  
pp. 249
Author(s):  
Allan Nicholas

Requesting can be a difficult speech act for EFL learners. However, current classroom materials do not always provide effective guidance, frequently lacking explicit instruction or failing to embed requests in wider conversations. Conversation analysis (CA), focusing on requesting in authentic talk, has been proposed as a potential resource for the EFL classroom. In the current study, the effectiveness of CA-informed classroom instruction in promoting development in learner requesting was investigated, focusing on a single participant. There were 3 study phases—a preprogramme set of requesting tasks; a short program of instruction, informed by the CA literature; and a further set of requesting tasks. Pre-and postprogramme transcript data and requesting models drawn by the participant were analysed. Postprogramme requesting performances were found to generally be more complex, with lengthier opening, requesting, and closing sequences. Learner requesting models also showed evidence of developing understanding of how requests are co-constructed in conversation. EFL学習者にとって、依頼行為は、難しい発話行為となりえる。しかしながら、授業で使用する教材は、効果的なガイダンスが提示されていないことがあり、明白な指示もしばしば不足し、また様々な会話での依頼行為を盛り込めていない。会話分析(CA)は、実際の会話での依頼行為にフォーカスし、EFLの授業のリソース候補として提唱されてきた。本論文では、CAに基づく授業指導の有効性を探っている。今回のCAは一人の実験参加者に着目し、3段階に分けて調査した。指導前の依頼行為、CA研究に基づく短かい指導、指導後の依頼行為である。そして、指導前後の会話データと、実験参加者が描いた依頼の会話チャートを分析した。指導後は、依頼行為が全体的により複雑化し、会話の始まり、依頼、そして結びまでが長くなることが判明した。また、学習者が描いた依頼の会話チャートでも、会話での依頼行為の(参加者による)共同の組み立て方をより理解した形跡が見られた。


2006 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leelo Keevallik

In contemporary informal Estonian, the negative verb form ei tea ‘don't know’ has become a routinized part of generic questions, in which the agent is left unexpressed. This pattern is in accordance with the general impersonal and reference-avoiding style of conversing in Estonia. The study outlines a continuum of synchronic usages from the original expressions sa ei tea ‘you don't know’ and ma ei tea ‘I don't know’ to the epistemic usages of (ei) tea, which are specifically tied to the speech act of questioning. The data is interactional and the analysis relies on the interpretation of (ei) tea-questions by the participants themselves, following the methodology of conversation analysis. It is demonstrated that the development of (ei) tea displays phonological and semantic erosion, pragmatic strengthening, subjectification, and decategorialization. Thus, grammaticalization theory is here combined with interactional linguistics in order to display the emergence of a grammatical structure from a discourse pattern.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 1099-1103
Author(s):  
Akobirova Sarvar Tuevna, Et. al.

The article considers condolence as a form of English speech etiquette, analyzed as an expressive speech act. The relevance of teaching speech etiquette in a situation of condolence lies in the fact that the effectiveness of learning English increases in the conditions of modeling a real communicative situation. Linguistic means of speech act expression are considered. It introduces sociolinguistics by means of five areas of research: quantitative sociolinguistics, conversation analysis, register variation, discourse analysis, and the sociology of language.


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