In other words : variation in reference and narrative / Deborah Schiffrin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schiffrin, Deborah.

Series:

Studies in interactional sociolinguistics ; 21.

Studies in interactional sociolinguistics ; 21

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Reference (Linguistics).

Narration (Rhetoric).

Sociolinguistics.

Physical Description:

xvi, 373 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Summary:

What we say always consists of prior words, structures, and meanings that are combined in new ways and re-used in new contexts for new listeners. In this book, Deborah Schiffrin looks at two important tasks of language - presenting "who" we are talking about (the referent), and "what happened" to them (their actions) in a narrative - and explores how this presentation alters in relation to emergent forms and meanings. Drawing on examples from both face-to-face talk and public discourse, she analyzes a variety of repairs, reformulations of referents, and retellings of narratives, ranging from word-level repairs within a single turn-at-talk, to life story narratives told years apart. Bringing together work from conversation analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, cognitive semantics, pragmatics, and variation analysis, In Other Words will be invaluable for scholars wishing to understand the many different factors that underlie the shaping and re-shaping of discourse over time, place, and person.

Contents:

1 Variation 1

2 Problematic referrals 33

3 Anticipating referrals 69

4 Reactive and proactive prototypes 110

5 Referring sequences 154

6 Reframing experience 199

7 Retelling a story 241

8 Who did what (again)? 277

9 Redoing and replaying 314

Appendix 1 Transcription conventions for data excerpts 341

Appendix 2 Four versions of Susan Beer's capture story 342

Appendix 3 Jack Cohen's narrative about Joey Bishop's childhood prank 349.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [353]-371) and index.

ISBN:

0521481597

052148474X

OCLC:

62132856

Publisher Number:

9780521481595 (hbk.)

9780521484749 (pbk.)