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Friday,
January 10 / 1:30 - 3:30 P.M. / Free Foundational research on conversational turn taking suggests that when a speaker talks past a point of possible turn completion, such continuation represents an interactional accomplishment, with the turn-taking system supporting the "precision timing" of turn beginnings (Jefferson, 1973, Sacks et al. 1974). The artful placement of next speaker turn beginnings can be accounted for with reference to the combined trajectories of grammar and prosody in a current turn. Notably, though, in a study of features of turn completion, Ford and Thompson (1996) found it necessary to include a category of "pragmatic" or "action" completion; by this, they referred to the contribution of sequential action to unit projection; that is, grammar and intonation are not adequate alone. Pragmatic or action projection is the projection\ of a relevant action trajectory based on a recognizable, unfolding co-constructed activity. This contribution to projection is, of course, completely in line with the general findings of conversation analysis. However, in integrating turn projection as a basic function of language, discourse functional linguistics can benefit from more detail and precision; likewise, careful research at the intersection of CA and functional linguistics will be of benefit to CA itself, CA being a research tradition that builds on a constant questioning of the taken-for-granted mechanisms, resources and practices that participants treat as real and required as engage in social interaction. Ford is the author of "Grammar in Interaction: Adverbial Clauses in American English Conversations" and the coeditor of "The Language of Turn and Sequence." This event is
sponsored by the IHC LISO Research Focus Group Lecture. |
