Table Of Content;
SKRIFTER UTGIVNA AV INSTITUTIONEN FOR NORDISKA SPRÅK
~ID UPPSALA UNIVERSITET
46~
ANNA LINDSTROM
Language as social action
Grammar, prosody, and interaction
in Swedish conversation
INSTITUTIONEN FOR NORDISKA SPRÅK
VID UPPSALA UNIVERSITET
1999
SKRIFUfTEGRI VANVAI NSTITUTFIOORNN OERND ISSKPAR AK
VIUDP PSAULNAI VERSITET
46
ANNLAI NDSTROM
Languaassg oeca icatli on
Grammparro,s aondidyn ,t eraction
inS wedciosnhv ersation
Mesdv esnasmkm anfattning:
Sprsiimok s ochiaanld ling
Grammpartoiskoo,cid hni t erisa vketnissoaknma t al
INSTITUTFI6ORNN EONR DISSKPAR AK
YIDU PPSAULNAI VERSITET
1999
-----
Dissertation for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Scandinavian Languages pre
sented at Uppsala University in 1999
Abstract
Lindstrom, A., 1999: Language as social action. Grammar, prosody, and interaction in Swedish
conversation. (Spri\k som social handling. Grammatik, prosodi och interaktion i svenska samtal.)
Skrifter utgivna av Jnstitutionenfor nordiska sprak vid Uppsala universitet 46. 198 pp. Uppsala.
ISBN 91-506-1339-1.
This study contributes to a larger research programme that links grammar and prosody on the one
hand with talk-in-interaction on the other. An underlying assumption of this study is that language
is key to the organization of social action. Language is shaped by the fact that it is used by inter
actants to engage in a range of social activities whilst at the same time it also shapes these activities.
Grammar and prosody are important resources for both the production and understanding of social
action.
The data consists of recordings of naturally occurring mundane Swedish conversation. Using
conversation analysis (CA), the author describes and analyzes the interactants' orientations as dis
played through their turns-at-talk. Three phenomena are introduced that can be identified by and
are constituted through aspects of grammar or prosody. The fust of these is the or-inquiry. This is
a yes/no-question that ends with the Swedish conjunction el/er 'or'. It is argued that this syntactic
construction marks the action the turn otherwise engages in as problematic. Second, the sequential
environment of deferred action requests, invitations, and proposals is examined. A deferred action
is one that cannot be immediately satisfied. The study demonstrates that an affirmative response
token is insufficient to agree with or accept a deferred action request, invitation, or proposal. An
additional unit of talk is required where the recipient makes a commitment to satisfy the deferred
action in the future. Third, the study focusses on a prosodic variant of the Swedish affirmative re
sponse tokenja. The analysis suggests thatja projects non-alignment when it is produced with a
stretch and rising pitch contour in the tum-initial position of a responsive action. This provides a
resource for the interactional negotiation of alignment or agreement. The three phenomena that the
study introduces may be of relevance for languages other than Swedish.
Key words: Conversation analysis, grammar, prosody, interaction, preference organization, affili
ation, disaffiliation, or-inquiry, deferred actions, response tokens, Swedish conversation.
Anna Lindstrom, Department of Scandinavian Languages, Uppsala University, P.O. Box 527,
SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden
© Anna Lindstrom 1999
ISSN 0083-4661
ISBN 91-506-1339-1
Printed in Sweden 1999
Textgruppen i Uppsala AB
Contents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.1 The phenomena . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.2 Grammar, prosody, and interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.2.1 Interactional approaches to the study of grammar . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.2.2 Interactional approaches to the study of prosody . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.3 Methodological orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1.3.1 A sociological context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
1.3.2 Conversation analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
1.3.3 Conversation analysis in Scandinavia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
1.4 Preference organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
1.4.1 Preferred and dispreferred actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
1.4.2 Pre-sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
1.5 Organization of study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2 The data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.1 Description of data corpus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.1.1 Ethnographic information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.1.1.1 The families that recorded telephone conversations . . . . . 44
e
2.1.1.2 The family that recorded dinner conversations . . . . . . . . . 45
2.1.2 Recording set-up.................................... 45
2.1.2.1 Audio recordings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
2.1.2.2 Video recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
2.1.3 Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
2.2 Transcription . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
2.2.1 Transcribing phonetic variants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
2.2.2 Transcribing pitch rise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
2.2.3 Timing silences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
2.3 Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
2.4 Sampling and quantification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3 Marking problematicity: the or-inquiry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.2 Isolating the or-inquiry as a tum in its own right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.2.1 Differentiating the or-inquiry from similar tum-constructions
that have been analyzed in other language communities . . . . . . . . 56
3.2.2 Tum design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.2.2.1 Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.2.2.2 Determining possible completion points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.2.2.3 Syntactic completion points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.2.2.4 Pragmatic completion points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.2.3 Turn transition between or-inquiry and next turn . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.2.3.1 Overlap onset at projectable completion of or-inquiry . . 65
3.2.3.2 The intonation contour at the tum boundary . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.2.3.3 Delayed uptake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3.2.4 Sequential appropriateness of activity done in next tum . . . . 70
3.2.5 Sequential uptake in the tum after next tum .. , . . . . . . . . . . . 73
3.2.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3.3 Swedish research on or-inquiries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3.4 Marking problematicity with the or-inquiry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.4. l Marking problematicity in talk-in-interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.4.2 Or-inquiries that run counter to the preference displayed in
the prior talk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
3.4.2.1 Making an offer that is unwarranted by the prior talk . . . 79
3.4.2.2 Refusing to fulfill an expectation to speak on behalf of
a spouse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
3.4.2.3 Declining a request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
3.4.2.4 Pursuing a topic that has been resisted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
3.4.3 Or-inquiries that in and of themselves are dispreferred . . . . . 85
3.4.3.1 A pre-complaint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
3.4.3.2 Checking whether the recipient knows about an embar-
rassing incident . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
3.4.3.3 Mis-aligning with a troubles-telling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
3.4.3.4 Disaligning with the line pursued in the previous talk . . 91
3.4.3.5 Formulating something that was conveyed in the prior
talk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
3.4.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
3.5 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
4 Acceptances and grantings of deferred action requests, invitations,
and proposals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
4.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
4.2 Deferred actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
4.3 Evidence that the affirmative response token does not satisfac-
torily complete a claim of alignment with a deferred action re
quest/proposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
4.3.1 The affirmative response token is typically produced as a tum
prefa ce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
4.3.2 When the affirmative response token is produced as its own
TCU, recipients still orient to the relevance of an extended tum 112
4.3.3 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
4.4 Using the affirmative response token to claim hearing and under
standing and project granting or acceptance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
4.4.1 Claiming hearing and understanding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
4.4.2 Projecting acceptance or granting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
4.4.3 Summary......................................... 125
4.5 Accomplishing granting or acceptance with the next tum compo-
nent .................................................. 125
4.5.1 Making an explicit commitment to fulfill the deferred action . 125
4.5.1.1 Displaying granting or acceptance by referring to the de
ferred action request, invitation, or proposal with an indexical
expression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
4.5.1.2 Displaying granting or acceptance by resaying action
verbs from the PPP of the base sequence ................. 129
4.5.2 Initiating a new action which demonstrates that the deferred
action will be satisfied .................................. 132
4.5.3 Summary .......................................... 134
4.6 Compound responses in other sequential environments . . . . . . . . . 134
4.7 Discussion ............................................ 138
5 Projecting a non-aligning responsive action with the curledja ....... 140
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
5.2 Literature review ....................................... 145
5.2.1 Dispreference markers and the avoidance of disagreement ... 145
5.2.2 Interactional significance of marked prosodic forms ........ 146
5.2.2.lThe English well ................................. 147
5.2.2.2 The Finnish nii .................................. 147
5.2.3 Swedish research .................................... 149
5.2.4 Summary .......................................... 149
5.3 Non-aligning responses that are prefaced with a curledja ....... 150
5.3.1 Hedges ........................................... 150
5.3.2 Pre-rejections ...................................... 154
5.3.3 Rejections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
5.3.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
5.4 Projecting non-alignment with the curledja .................. 159
5 .5 Addressing the inappropriateness of the prior action . . . . . . . . . . . 164
5.6 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
6 Concluding discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
6.1 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
6.1.1 The phenomena . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
6.1.2 Convergences ...................................... 175
6.2 Contributions of study ................................... 176
6.3 Challenges for future research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Sammanfattning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Appendix: Transcription conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
l
Tables and figure
Tables
Table l. Type of action that the deferred action PPP engages in 106
Table 2. Design of the responsive tum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Table 3. Syntactic form of the utterance that implements the deferred
action PPP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Table 4. Action responded to by the SPP including the curledja . . . . . . 144
Table 5. Syntactic form of the PPP of the curledja sequence . . . . . . . . 144
Figure
Figure 1. The pitch contour of the curledja 141
Acknowledgments
The analysis that forms the basis for this study was originally implemented and
first presented as a doctoral dissertation at the Department of Sociology at the
University of California, Los Angeles. I am grateful to the Department of Scan
dinavian Languages at Uppsala University for offering me the opportunity to
(re)present the study within their publication series. Professor Bengt Nordberg
helped make the work more accessible and relevant to a Swedish audience.
Bengt has not only given detailed comments on substantive issues but has also
helped me master some of the stylistic requirements that are particular to the
series. I have appreciated his diligence and patience. Ulla Borestam agreed to
read the manuscript on short notice and also gave useful advice. Annika Pers
son assisted with proofreading. My colleagues at FUMS provided a supportive
working environment. I would also like to thank my advisor Manny Schegloff
and the members of my dissertation committee at UCLA, Steven Clayman,
John Heritage, Alessandro Duranti, and Raimo Anttila whilst noting that they
have not commented on this particular version of the manuscript. Last but not
least I thank the persons who agreed to make the recordings that form the foun
dation of the study. Without their cooperation and trust this study would pot
have been possible ..
Heby, March 24, 1999
Anna Lindstrom
I,.
i,
1:
l
1 Introduction
This dissertation focusses on the intersections between grammar, prosody, and
interaction. Using recordings of naturally occurring Swedish conversation, I
describe how interactants use grammar and prosody to achieve social activities.
Instead of treating language as a neutral conduit between speakers and hearers,
I view it as a tool for engaging in social life. Linguistic resources such as gram
mar and prosody are thus put to work within interaction. A particular syntactic
form or prosodic contour is not happenstance but designed for the construction
of social action. This does not necessarily mean that the interactants have a dis
cursive consciousness of this process. That aspects of grammar and prosody are
key to the implementation of a social activity is evident in the interaction itself.
Activities an~ built in and through talk.1 This dissertation explicates how this is
done by focussing on how grammar and prosody both organizes and is organ
ized by interaction.
This study builds on and contributes to research that links grammar and pros
ody on the one hand with interaction on the other (cf. Couper-Kuhlen & Selt
ing, 1996a; Ochs, Schegloff & Thompson, 1996). Focussing on grammar,
Schegloff, Ochs & Thompson (1996) argued that the study of interaction ~s vi
tal for understanding grammar. This is so because "grammar's integrity and ef
ficacy are bound up with its place in larger schemes of organization of human
conduct and with social interaction in particular" (p. 3). One might even argue
that grammar emerges from and is shaped by interaction (cf. Schegloff, 1996c,
pp. 54-55). This idea will be explored in chapters 3 and 4 where I will show
that particular syntactic constructions are associated with and perhaps even de
signed for the accomplishment of social activities.
Couper-Kuhlen & Selting made a case for the benefits of linking prosody
and interaction. They argued that
prosodic features can be reconstructed as members' devices, designed for the organ
ization and management of talk in social interaction. They can be shown to function
as part of a signalling system which-together with syntax, lexico-semantics, kine
sics and other contextualization cues-is used to construct and interpret tum-con
structional units and turns-at-talk (Couper-Kuhlen & Selting, 1996b, p. 25; cf. Sell
ing, 1992, 1995).
1 The primary data base for the dissertation is telephone conversations. I will therefore focus on
talk as a resource for building social action. However, for co-present interaction, non-vocal ac
tivities such as eye gaze and body orientation are perhaps equally important as words are (cf. Good
win, 1981).
