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My analysis of question-word questions in conversational question-answer sequences results in the decomposition of the conversational question into three systems of constitutive cues, which signal and contextualize the particular activity type in conversational interaction: (1) syntactic structure, (2) semantic relation to prior turn, and (3) prosody. These components are used and combined by interlocutors to distinguish between different activity types which (4) sequentially implicate different types of answers by the recipient in the next turn. Prosody is only one cooccurring cue, but in some cases it is the only distinctive one. It is shown that prosody, and in particular intonation, cannot be determined or even systematically related to syntactic sentence structure type or other sentence-grammatical principles, as most former and current theories of intonation postulate. Instead, prosody is an independent, autonomous signalling system, which is used as a contextualization device for the constitution of interactively relevant activity types in conversation.
This paper investigates speech styles and style-shifting in the speech of the moderator of a German radio participation programme. Style-shifting is shown to affect several distinct linguistic levels: phonetic, morphophonemic, syntactic, and lexical. The functions of style-shifting are related both to the discourse context and the broader institutional context. Relying on listeners' co-occurrence expectations with respect to language use in contexts and exploiting listeners' evaluations of processes of speech convergence and divergence, the moderator uses stereotypic markers at different style levels in locally strategic functions in discourse. On the one hand, thematic development is controlled by reinforcing obligations on the addressee. On the other hand, global social reciprocity patterns are constituted and secured. Patterns of reciprocity vary with different types of addressees. The conversational analysis of language variation shows that variation is not only a quantitative correlate of regional, social and contextual parameters as predominantly conceived of in sociolinguistics. Language variation is furthermore used as a means to signal social and interactive meaning in conversations.
Inhalt: 1. Einleitung 2. Das Problembehandlungsschema und die Analysekategorien 3. Korrekturtypen 3.1. Unmarkierte Ersetzung eines Bezugselements der voraufgegangenen Äußerung 3.2. Markierte Ersetzung eines Einzelelements der voraufgegangenen Äußerung 3.3. Markierte Ersetzung einer gesamten Bezugsäußerung 4. Präferenzstrukturen 5. Gemeinsamkeitsunterstellungen bei Selbst- und Fremdzuschreibungen von Verstehens- und Verständigungsproblemen
In unserem Beitrag werden wir uns mit einigen typischen syntaktischen und prosodischen Strukturen des türkendeutschen befassen, eines ethnischen Stils, der u.a. von Jugendlichen mit türkischem Migrationshintergrund gesprochen wird. Grundlage unsere Untersuchung sind zehn Telefon- und Face-to-Face Gespräche von türkischdeutschen jungen Frauen aus Berlin. Behandelt werden Nachstellungen, d. h. Konstruktionen, bei denen nicht-satzwertige Satzglieder, die nach schriftsprachlichen Normen im Mittelfeld vorgesehen sind, erst nach einem (ersten) möglich Satzende bzw. erst nach der rechten Satzklammer formuliert werden, oder bei denen Satzglieder aus dem Mittelfeld nach der rechten Satzklammer wieder aufgenommen und expliziert werden. Die nachgestellt Satzglieder können in prosodisch fortgesetzte und prosodisch abgetrennte, selbständige unterschrieben werden. Wir wollen zeigen, dass das Türkendeutsche einige Konstruktionen mit dem gesprochenen Standartdeutschen teilt, aber auch einige spezifische Konstruktionen ausgebildet hat. Die typisch türkendeutschen Konstruktionen werden offensichtlich als diskurspragmatische Fokussierungsstrategien verwendet.
Based on data from a Mid-German dialect area of Dresden, this article presents research on the structure and functions of regionalized intonation. The Dresden data comes from informal conversation-like settings and illustrates a contour that is typical of the Dresden city vernacular: a contour previously named and described as the Dresden Fallbogen. An analysis of the phonetic forms and phonological structures of the contour is provided, and its use and function in conversational interactions is described. Additional methods of investigating the perception and identification of these contours by subjects in an experimental setting are also given. The article concludes with remarks about the possible relevance of this contour as a signal of identity
Lists as embedded structures and the prosody of list construction as an interactional resource
(2003)
Fallbögen im Dresdnerischen
(2003)
This article describes a salient intonation contour of the Dresden urban vernacular which Gericke (1963) called 'Fallbogen' (falling curve). The contour is described both structurally and functionally. The structural analysis describes the phonetic trajectory of the contour and the phonological structure and alignment of the contour with the syllables of the utterance. In the functional analysis, the use of the contour is investigated in its conversational context. The 'Fallbogen' is reconstructed as a contour which is deployed in order to signal and constitute emphasis and heightened emotive involvement in talk-in-interaction; this analysis is validated with recourse to recipients' responses in the utterances following the use of the 'Fallbogen' contour
After reviewing the research on Saxon regionalized intonation and giving an overview of our research project on regionalized intonation in German, a particular salient regionalized intonation contour from the Dresden vernacular is described in detail. In addition to a more widespread contour that is also used in the Berlin vernacular, albeit in different contexts, the so-called 'upward staircase contour' which is formed by a lower plateau, a rise and a higher plateau, the Dresden vernacular also uses very salient regionalized variants of such staircase contours: These variants entail upward staircases with, metaphorically speaking, two steps; i.e. after the lower plateau and the rise up to a higher plateau, the pitch rises up again in order to form a third plateau. Depending upon the alignment of the second rise and the third plateau, with only the final unaccented syllable of the intonation phrase or with the nuclear accented syllable and the following tail, the contour needs to be distinguished, yielding either an 'upward staircase with an additional final rise plateau' or a 'double upward staircase'. These two contours are shown to be used in different conversational contexts and in different functions in the Dresden vernacular. - Data for this study come from natural speech by speakers of the Dresden vernacular. The phonetic and phonological analysis of the contour is based on auditive, acoustic-phonetic and phonological methodology; the functional analysis of the utterances with the salient contours relies on the techniques of conversation analysis
Inhalt: 1. Grundbegriffe einer interpretativ-soziolinguistischen Stilanalyse 1.1 Vobemerkung 1.2 Vorläufer und Übergänge 1.3 Stil als sozial und interaktiv interpretiertes Signalisierungsmittel 1.3.1 Der holistische Charakter von Stil 1.3.2 Stilisierung 1.4 Aufgaben und Ziele 2. Einordnung der Beiträge und Aufbau des Bandes 2.1 Gemeinsamkeiten 2.2 Zu den Beiträgen im Einzelnen
Content: 1. Introduction 2. The notion of speech style: from a dependent variable to contextualization cue 3. Speech styles in conversation from a German Sozialamt 3.1 Extracts from conversation 3.2 Speech style constituting cues 3.3 Choice and alternation of speech styles in conversation 4. Summary and conclusions
A system of descriptive categories for the notation and analysis of intonation in natural conversation is presented and discussed in relation to other systems currently suggested for incorporation in discourse analysis, The categories are based on purely auditive criteria. They differ from e.g. tonetic approaches by relying more on transcribers' and analysts' perception of the form and internal cohesiveness of contours, especially with respect to rhythmicality and/or pitch contour (gestalt). Intonation is conceived of as a relational phenomenon; the role of intonation in conversational utterances can only be analyzed by considering its co-occurrence with other properties of utterances like syntactic, semantic and discourse organizational structures and devices. In general, intonation is viewed as one signalling system contributing to the contextualization of utterances in their conversational context. A broad functional differentiation between different types of intonation categories seems plausible: Local categories like accents might fulfill mainly semantic functions, while global categories like different contour types might fulfill primarily functions with respect to the interactive coordination of activities in conversation.
The role of intonation in the organization of repair and problem handling sequences in conversation
(1988)
Transcripts of repair and/or problem handling sequences from natural conversations are presented and analyzed with special reference to the role of intonation in the interactive organization of these sequences. It is shown that (a) in the initiation of so-called repair or local problem handling sequences, intonation is used as a type-distinctive device, and (b) in the handling of a global problem handling sequence, intonation is systematically used as a means to constitute and control participant cooperation. In general, intonation is analyzed as one contextualization cue cooccurring with specific syntactic, semantic and discourse organizational devices to signal the status of an utterance in conversational context. It is hypothesized that especially in the global problem handling sequence, different categories of intonation, i.e. different accent and contour types, are systematically used to signal and control participants' interactive problem handling in different, indexically relevant ways simultaneously.
Ziel dieses Aufsatzes ist es zu zeigen, daß und weshalb Intonationsmodelle, die die Prämissen des traditionellen systemisch-tonetischen Ansatzes teilen, ungeeignet sind für die Analyse natürlicher Sprachverwendung in konversationeller Interaktion. Insbesondere die Grundeinheit der 'Tpngruppe'/'Toneinheit'/'Intonationsphrase' wie auch die Analyse des 'Tonmusters' bzw. der letzten Tonhöhenbewegung der Einheit im Hinblick auf die Unterscheidung und Differenzierung von Satzarten bzw. Satzmodi sind auf die Analyse kontextfreier Sätze zugeschnitten und kaum auf die Verhältnisse der Sprachverwendung in natürlicher konversationeller Interaktion übertragbar. Eine alternative Analyse der Intonation als interaktiv relevantes Signalisierungssystem ermöglicht bessere und plausiblere Beschreibungen. Nleine alternative Konzeption basiert auf der empirischen Analyse eines Korpus natürlicher Daten aus informellen Alltagsgesprächen. Das Ergebnis dieser Analyse ist, daß Intonation als unabhängiges, autonomes Signalisierungssystem aufgefaßt werden muß. Für die derzeit üblichen Ansätze der phonologischen Intonationsforschung ergibt sich die Forderung nach noch stärkerer als bisher angenommener Modularisierung: Zwar steht die Wahl der Akzentstelle in systematischer Beziehung zu grammatischen Prinzipien und muß mit Bezug auf die Grammatik analysiert werden, aber die Wahl der Tonhöhenbewegung kann nicht mit Bezug auf die Grammatik erklärt werden: die letzte Tonhöhenbewegung unterscheidet nicht grammatisch relevante Satzarten/Satzmodi, sondern interaktiv relevante Aktivitätstypen in der konversationeilen Interaktion, die auch je unterschiedliehe sequentielle Implikationen für die konditioneil relevante Antwort haben.
Interactional linguistics is grounded on the premise that language should not be analyzed in terms of context‐free linguistic structures but as a resource for the accomplishment of actions in social interaction. With this in mind, interactional linguistics takes an interdisciplinary approach to a linguistic analysis that aims at an understanding of how language is both shaped by and itself shapes the actions it is used for. Interactional linguistics combines an interest in linguistic phenomena and structures with the theory and methodology of conversation analysis (CA) and contextualization theory (CT). It is conceptualized as an interface between linguistic analysis and the analysis of social interaction.
Gemeinsame Anfänge
(2020)
Dieser Aufsatz ist eine persönlich-biographische Würdigung für Ewald Reuter, mit Fokus auf die Anfänge unserer gemeinsamen Entwicklung zum Sprachwissenschaftler bzw. zur Sprachwissen-schaftlerin im Rahmen des sozio-kulturellen Milieus der Fakultät für Linguistik und Literatur-wissenschaft (LiLi-Fakultät) der Universität Bielefeld in den 1970iger Jahren.
Wir wollen mit der folgenden Analyse am Beispiel der Bürger-Verwaltungs-Kommunikation verdeutlichen, daß sich die Anwendung linguistischer Beschreibungsverfahren bei der Interpretation von Texten — in diesem Fall von gesprochenen Texten, die den Erfahrungsbereich der Schüler betreffen — als hilfreich erweisen kann. Sie kann dazu beitragen, in der Praxis immer wieder erlebte Kommunikationsprozesse und darin auftretende Verständigungsprobleme besser zu durchschauen und damit auf eigenes Handeln in diesen Prozessen vorzubereiten.
Meine empirische Analyse von w-Fragen im Kontext von Frage-Antwort-Sequenzen aus natürlichen informellen Alltagsgesprächen resultiert in der Dekomponierung der konversationeilen Frage in ihre für die Produktion und Interpretation der damit vollzogenen Aktivität konstitutiven Merkmale. Diese stammen aus vier autonomen Signalisierungssystemen: (1) syntaktische Struktur, (2) semantische Beziehung zum Vorgängerturn, (3) prosodische Struktur und (4) die Antwort im Folgetum. Aktivitätstyp-unterscheidende Strukturen aus diesen vier Systemen werden in Kookkurrenz miteinander verwendet zur Herstellung und Signalisierung jeweils spezifischer Aktivitätstypen mit jeweils unterschiedlichen sequentiellen Implikationen im Hinblick auf die spezifische konditionell relevante Antwort im Folgeturn. Meine Analyse zeigt, daß einige in der Linguistik bisher i.d.R. unhinterfragt vorausgesetzte Annahmen zum Zusammenhang von Grammatik und Prosodie bzw. Intonation nicht haltbar sind. Intonation steht nicht in einer systematischen Beziehung zu Satztypen bzw. Satzmodi und auch nicht zu bisher oft herangezogenen pragmatischen "Verlegenheitskategorien" wie 'Höflichkeit' o.a. Vielmehr muß Prosodie als unabhängiges Signalisierungssystem betrachtet werden, aus dem Interaktionspartner Strukturen frei auswählen, um diese auf interaktiver Ebene in Kookkurrenz mit anderen Signalen als aktivitätstyp-unterscheidende Merkmale zur Herstellung interaktiv unterschiedlicher Fragetypen zu verwenden.
Inhalt: 1 Einleitung 2 Zum Sprechstil Umgangssprache als Bezugsstil 3 Gesprächssteuerung: thematische Steuerung von Sachverhaltsdarstellungen 3.1 Gesprächssteuerung gegenüber Hörern 3.2 Gesprächssteuerung gegenüber Experten 4 Stilwechsel 4.1 Stilwechsel gegenüber Hörern 4.2 Stilwechsel gegenüber Experten 5 Pragmatische Konsequenzen
Inhalt: 1. Einleitung 2. Präferenzstrukturen bei der Behandlung von Verständigungsproblemen 2.1. Selbstzuschreibung vor Fremdzuschreibung 2.2. Selbstzugeschriebene Verstehensprobleme: Referenzprobleme vor lokalen Bedeutungsverstehensproblemen vor lokalen Erwartungsproblemen 2.3. Fremdzugeschriebene Probleme: "Wortverwechslungen" vor "Irrtümern" vor Inferenz- oder Erwartungsproblemen 3. Das Imagekonzept als Erklärung: Präferenzen für die Wahrung und Pflege des Selbst- und des Fremd-Image
Inhalt: 1 Einleitung 2 Datengrundlage für die vorliegende Fallstudie :Erstkontaktgespräche im Vergleich 2.1 Vorbemerkungen 2.2 Präsentation der Vergleichs-Gespräche 3 Vergleichende Analyse der Gespräche 3.1 Die Gesprächseröffnung und der Beginn der Anliegensbehandlung im Vergleich 3.2 Themenentwicklung und Fokussierungsabfolge im Vergleich 4 Fazit
Sequences from natural conversations, which are in ethnomethodological conversational analysis analyzed as "other-initiated self-repair", are here described as sequences in which participants manifest and treat local problems of understanding. This approach, which takes participants' perspectives into account, shows that these sequences have a detailed internal structure: - Participants use different types of problem manifestation to signal different types of problems of understanding; syntactic and prosodic cues are used as type-differentiating devices in problem manifestation; for different types of problems different assumptions with respect to the degree of reciprocity can be reconstructed as underlying problem manifestation and problem treatment. - There is a relation of conditional relevance holding between specific types of problem manifestation and specific types of problem treatment. - Problem types are ordered in relation to each other in terms of preference structures. Thus, an analysis which takes participants' perspectives into account and which looks more closely at linguistic signalling cues allows to differentiate between various types of internal structures within so-called repair sequences.
After a review of previous work on the prosody of emotional involvement, data extracts from natural conversations are analyzed in order to argue for the constitution of an 'emphatic (speech) style', which linguistic devices are used to signal heightened emotive involvement. Participants use prosodic cues, in co-occurrence with syntactic and lexical cues, to contextualize turn-constructional units as 'emphatic'. Only realizations of prosodic categories that are marked in relation to surrounding uses of these categories have the power to contextualize units as displaying 'more-than-normal involvement'. In the appropriate context, and in cooccurrence with syntactic and lexical cues and sequential position, the context-sensitive interpretation of this involvement is 'emphasis'. Prosodic marking is used in addition to various unmarked cues that signal and constitute different activity types in conversation. Emphatic style highlights and reinforms particular conversational activities, and makes certain types of recipient responses locally relevant. In particular, switches from non-emphatic to emphatic style are used to contextualize 'peaks of involvement' or 'climaxes' in story-telling. These are shown in the paper to be 'staged' by speakers and treated by recipients as marked activities calling for displays of alignment with respect to the matter at hand. Signals of emphasis are deployable as techniques for locally organizing demonstrations of shared understanding and participant reciprocity in conversational interaction.
Inhalt: 1. Einleitung 2. Zur jüngeren Forschungsgeschichte 3. Analyse der Voranstellungen vor den Satz im Deutschen 3.1. Struktur der Voranstellungen vor den Satz 3.1.1. Linksversetzung 3.1.2. ,Freies Thema' 3.1.3. Das Problem der sauberen Abgrenzung der beiden Konstruktionen 3.2. Funktionen der Voranstellungen 3.2.1. Linksversetzungen 3.2.2. Freie Themen 3.2.3. Von der erwartbaren Verwendung „abweichende Fälle" 4. Fazit
Einleitung
(1997)
Discourse style
(1997)
Introduction
(1996)
On the basis of our data from telephone and face-to-face conversations between adolescent girls and young women of ethnic Turkish background who live in Berlin, we will describe some characteristic structures of the ethnic style of speaking that is called 'Turkendeutsch', 'Turkenslang', 'Kanak sprak' or the like. In our data, this style of speaking is not deployed throughout the speakers' conversations, butonly in particular turns and turn-constructional units (TCUs). The utterances most typical of this style exhibit specific combinations of syntactic and prosodic features that are unusual for colloquial and/or regionalized varieties of German. Among the structures recurrently found are specific kinds of pre- and post-positioned constituents before and after their 'host' sentences, the separation of turn-constructional units into very short prosodic units, the deployment of both lexical stress as well as utterance accentuation as a resource for stylistic variation, and the constitution of particular rhythmic patterns. In our paper, we will discuss some of these structures and show how they arc used its a resource to achieve particular tasks in conversational interaction.
Communicative Style
(1999)
Communicative style
(2009)
Lists as embedded structures and the prosody of list construction as an interactional resource
(2007)
After giving an overview of the treatment of lists in the literature, I describe lists in German talk-in- interaction. I show that, apart from the preference for three-part lists described by Jefferson (1990), lists are embedded in a larger three-component structure that the list is the middle part of. For lists proper, I suggest to differentiate between closed and open lists that are produced with different kinds of practices. It is the prosody that is used to suggest the list as made up of a closed or an open number of list items, irrespective of its syntactic embedding. I then concentrate on open lists, in particular their intonation. Open lists may be produced with different kinds of, albeit similar, intonation contours. But it is not so much the particular intonation contour that is constitutive of lists, but a variety of similar contours plus the repetition of the chosen contour for at least some or even all of the list items. Furthermore, intonation is deployed to suggest the interpretation of a potential final list item as either a designed list completer or as another designed item of the list. The design of this final list item as a completer or as another list item is used as a practice to signal the non-completion or completion of the list proper. But even after completing the list proper, the larger three-component structure also has to be closed in order to embed and accommodate the list into the surrounding sequential interaction. For the analysis of the practices of list construction I am concentrating on the role of prosody, especially intonation, giving evidence to show that intonation is indeed one of the methodically used constitutive cues that makes the production and structuring of lists recognizable for recipients.
This paper reports on some recent work on affectivity, or emotive involvement, in conversational storytelling. After presenting the approach, some case studies of the display and management of affectivity in storytelling in telephone and face-to-face conversations are presented. The analysis reconstructs the display and handling of affectivity by both storyteller and story recipient. In particular, I describe the following kinds of resources: the verbal and segmental display: Rhetorical, lexico-semantic, syntactic, phonetic-phonological resources; the prosodic and suprasegmentalvocal display: Resources from the realms of prosody and voice quality; visual or "multimodal" resources from the realms of body posture and its changes, head movements, gaze, and hand movements and gestures. It is shown that the display of affectivity is organized in orderly ways in sequences of storytelling in conversation. I reconstruct (a) how verbal, vocal and visual cues are deployed in co-occurrence in order to make affectivity in general and specific affects in particular interpretable for the recipient and (b) how in turn the recipient responds and takes up the displayed affect. As a result, affectivity is shown to be managed by teller and recipient in storytelling sequences in conversation, involving both the reporting of affects from the story world as well as the negotiation of in-situ affects in the here-and-now of the storytelling situation.
The paper investigates cases in which the recipients' affiliation with the speaker's affect in telling a complaint story is not (or not only) expressed through assessments or shorter comments or response cries but (also) through tellings of a complaint story of their own. After first complaint stories, next speakers may continue with similar or contrasting second or subsequent stories, in order to accomplish affiliation with the prior speaker's story and affective stance. Similar stories are contextualized as such with similar footings or similar embodiments; contrasting stories are contextualized as such with other footings and/or other embodiments. Nevertheless, not all subsequent stories are receipted as affiliative: the study of a deviant case shows how a subsequent story can be produced and treated as disaffiliative.