Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen

Cause - Condition - Concession - Contrast: Cognitive and Discourse Perspectives

In this collection of original and innovative papers, new light is thrown on the nature and the expression of the four probably most-researched coherence relations.

Commentary on Stivers and Rossano: “Mobilizing Response”

Stivers and Rossano’s (2010/this issue) study draws our attention to a phenomenon that we have all experienced at one time or another, yet which has received little scrutiny in Conversation Analysis (CA): Let us call it for the moment the case of “absent but not noticeably absent” responses. To handle this phenomenon the authors propose a model of response relevance, applicable to all types of social interaction, which incorporates a notion of gradience: Responses are said to be more or less relevant depending on the formal design of initiating turns. In other words, speakers can opt to exert more or less coercion on recipients by virtue of the way they produce initiating turns. Prima facie, this model appears to provide an elegant account for the phenomenon of “absent but not noticeably absent” responses. It takes a welcome perspective by focusing on formal turn design and treating nonverbal features such as prosody and gaze on an equal footing with verbal ones. Yet in some respects the model would seem to need further specification, while in others it may be too specific to apply universally. More fundamentally, however, the proposal to treat conditional relevance as gradient has far-reaching consequences for the analysis of conversation, and these demand careful consideration rather than being adopted unquestioningly. In the following I will discuss these points separately before suggesting an alternative way of thinking about response relevance.

Situated phonologies: patterns of phonology in discourse contexts

A consideration of phonology in discourse contexts raises fundamental questions concerning the domain of phonology, the nature of phonological units and features, and the nature of discourse. In this section I outline assumptions that have previously been made with respect to these issues and contrast them with new ways of thinking about sound patterns in situated language use.

Turn Continuation and Clause Combinations

This article explores the viability of the analytic distinction between “turn-constructional unit (TCU) continuation” (i.e., continuing a turn beyond a point of possible completion with grammatically dependent material) and “new TCU” (i.e., continuing a turn with grammatically independent material) when hypotactic clause combinations are involved. The focus is on causal clause combinations, which may be either lexico-syntactically marked (e.g., as in English with because) or lexico-syntactically unmarked but prosodically cohesive. Based on data from ordinary conversation, it is found that both marked and unmarked forms are used in turn continuation, with the unit containing the account (the causal clause) being delivered after the completion of a unit implementing the accountable action. Both marked and unmarked forms of causal clause combination, when used in turn continuation, allow for intervening talk after the accountable; both prioritize the account in establishing relevancies for what happens next. Yet, in current conceptualizations of turn continuation, they would be classified differently, with marked forms counting as “TCU continuation” and unmarked forms as “new TCU.” The implications of this unsatisfactory state of affairs are discussed in the conclusion.

Interjektionen zwischen Lexikon und Vokalität: Lexem oder Lautobjekt?

Anstelle der herkommlichen Wortklasse Interjektion pladiert dieser Beitrag fur eine erweiterte Auffassung von Lautobjekten (hier auch ‚Vokalisierungen‘ genannt), wie sie von tatsachlichen Sprechern in konkreten Interaktionszusammenhangen produziert werden. Fokussiert wird der Gebrauch von Lautobjekten als affektgeladene Reaktion auf eine Mitteilung im Gesprach. Anhand eines Korpus von naturlich vorkommenden englischen Alltagsgesprachen werden drei Thesen erlautert: (1) Manche Lautobjekte bilden Lexeme, deren Form eine konventionalisierte prosodische Lautgestalt einschliest, (2) Lautobjekte werden als Teil einer korperlichen Gestalt produziert und (3) manche nicht-lexikalisierten Lautobjekte konnen ahnliche Funktionen wie lexikalisierte Lautobjekte ubernehmen. Zum Schluss wird auf die sprachtheoretische Relevanz von Lautobjekten eingegangen.

Finding a Place for Body Movement in Grammar

ABSTRACT Keevallik’s impressive survey of how body movements affect grammatical choices is a timely reminder that language use in social interaction does not occur in a vacuum. Yet although body movements can be intercalated in complex ways with the grammatical structure of utterances, I argue here that they are not part of grammar in a strict sense of the word. In “composite” utterances they fill slots that grammatical structures create, without being grammatical elements themselves.