(Non)referentiality in Conversation Edited by Michael C. Ewing and Ritva Laury

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Ewing, Michael C., editor.

Laury, Ritva, editor.

Series:

Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 0922-842X 344

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Discourse studies.

Pragmatics.

Local Subjects:

Discourse studies.

Pragmatics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (v, 209 pages)

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2024

Summary:

Although there is a large literature on referentiality, going back to at least the nineteenth and early twentieth century, much of this early work is based on constructed data and most of it is on English. The chapters in this volume contribute to a growing body of work that examines referentiality through naturalistic data in context. Taking an interactional approach to (non)referentiality, contributors to this volume ask how participants talk in real time about persons and things as individuals or as categories, and what distinguishes 'referential' from 'nonreferential', 'specific' from 'nonspecific', and 'generic' from 'nongeneric'. Crucially, we ask whether these distinctions even matter to participants in conversation, and if they do, what the evidence for that would be. Contributors investigate these issues using data from conversational interaction in a variety of social contexts - including between close friends and family to more casual acquaintances, in service encounters, and between adults and children - and in a range of languages: English, Finnish, French, Indonesian, Japanese and Mandarin. Collectively, the chapters develop insights showing that reference is often fluid, dynamic, and indeterminate, that referential indeterminacy is typically unproblematic for participants, that shifts in referentiality tend to be tied to specific social goals, and that reference and referentiality emerge dialogically and interactionally. Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Chapter 1. Toward the interactional relevance of (non)referentiality / Ritva Laury, Michael C. Ewing and Sandra A. Thompson

Chapter 2. Elusive referentiality and allusive reference in Indonesian conversation / Michael C. Ewing

Chapter 3. First and second person forms as resources for open reference and participation in Finnish everyday conversations / Marja-Liisa Helasvuo and Karita Suomalainen

Chapter 4. The (non)referentiality of the word raha 'money' in Finnish conversation / Ritva Laury

Chapter 5. Young children's experience of referentiality and nonreferentiality in dialogue / Marine Le Mené Guigourès, Anne Salazar-Orvig, Christine da Silva-Genest and Haydée Marcos

Chapter 6. (Non)referentiality of silent reference in Japanese conversation / Yoshiko Matsumoto

Chapter 7. The indeterminacy and fluidity of reference in everyday conversation / Tsuyoshi Ono and Sandra A. Thompson

Chapter 8. Manipulating referentiality and creating phaticness / Ryoko Suzuki

Chapter 9. An interactional approach to generic second person expressions in Mandarin conversation / Hongyin Tao

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Other Format:

Hardbound version:

ISBN:

9789027247049

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.