Collaborating on Contributions to Conversations

Clark, Herbert H.; Schaefer, Edward F.

doi:10.1016/b978-0-444-87144-2.50008-2

Cited by 65 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…We share Clark's perspective that spoken communication involves collaboration; speakers and listeners actively collaborate to arrive at a shared meaning (Clark & Schaefer, 1987;Clark & Wilkes-Gibbs, 1986). But whether speakers consciously select and use cataphoric devices as a collaborative strategy is unclear.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cataphoric Devices in Spoken Discourse

Gernsbacher¹,

Jescheniak²

1995

Cognitive Psychology

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We propose that speakers mark key words with cataphoric devices. Cataphoric devices are counterparts to anaphoric devices: Just as anaphoric devices enable backward reference, cataphoric devices enable forward reference. And just as anaphoric devices mark concepts that have been mentioned before, cataphoric devices mark concepts that are likely to be mentioned again. We investigated two cataphoric devices: spoken stress and the indefinite this. Our experiments demonstrated three ways that concepts marked by cataphoric devices gain a privileged status in listeners' mental representations: Cataphoric devices enhance the activation of the concepts that they mark; cataphoric devices suppress the activation of previously mentioned concepts; and cataphoric devices protect the concepts that they mark from being suppressed by subsequently mentioned concepts.When people communicate, they talk about actions, events, ideas, other people, and a host of topics. We shall refer to these topics as "concepts" in a discourse. Some concepts are introduced but never referred to again; other concepts play a key role in the discourse. Speakers would benefit if those key concepts achieved a privileged status in their listeners' mental representations because speakers could refer to key concepts assured that their listeners could easily access them. Listeners would benefit, too: They could use key concepts as cornerstones when developing their mental representations.In this paper, we propose that speakers mark key concepts with certain discourse devices, what we call cataphoric devices. In this paper, we also demonstrate how concepts marked by cataphoric devices gain a privileged status in the mental representations that listeners build when comprehending discourse. WHAT ARE CATAPHORIC DEVICES?We envision cataphoric devices as counterparts to anaphoric devices. Anaphoric devices enable backward reference. For instance, English speakers use anaphoric devices like the pronoun she or the definite noun phrase the woman to refer to a previously mentioned female. Speakers master the use of anaphoric devices as they are mastering communication.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cataphoric Devices in Spoken Discourse

Gernsbacher¹,

Jescheniak²

1995

Cognitive Psychology

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“…-The vast majority of other-initiations, 81.5 percent of cases (n=185), locate a specific trouble source in a prior turn (only 18.5% are open), in line with the preference for specificity in the selection of otherinitiations of repair (Schegloff et al, 1977;Clark and Schaefer, 1987). -The most frequent format for other-initiation is a candidate understanding (28.2%, n=64).…”

Section: Distribution Of Oir Practices In Englishmentioning

confidence: 96%

Other-initiated repair in English

Kendrick

2015

Open Linguistics

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Abstract:The practices of other-initiation of repair provide speakers with a set of solutions to one of the most basic problems in conversation: troubles of speaking, hearing, and understanding. Based on a collection of 227 cases systematically identified in a corpus of English conversation, this article describes the formats and practices of other-initiations of repair attested in the corpus and reports their quantitative distribution. In addition to straight other-initiations of repair, the identification of all possible cases also yielded a substantial proportion in which speakers use other-initiations to perform other actions, including non-serious actions, such as jokes and teases, preliminaries to dispreferred responses, and displays of surprise and disbelief. A distinction is made between otherinitiations that perform additional actions concurrently and those that formally resemble straight other-initiations but analyzably do not initiate repair as an action.

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“…to a more restricted OIR, in this case spelling out that the problem involves the object of the verb "see" ("who?") (for the ordering of repair initiators, see Clark and Schaefer 1987;Schegloff, Jefferson, and Sacks 1977). The distinction between open and restricted repair initiations is further discussed in Section 4.…”

Section: Non-minimal Oir Sequencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Other-initiated repair in Icelandic

Gísladóttir

2015

Open Linguistics

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Abstract:The ability to repair problems with hearing or understanding in conversation is critical for successful communication. This article describes the linguistic practices of other-initiated repair (OIR) in Icelandic through quantitative and qualitative analysis of a corpus of video-recorded conversations. The study draws on the conceptual distinctions developed in the comparative project on repair described in the introduction to this issue. The main aim is to give an overview of the formats for OIR in Icelandic and the type of repair practices engendered by them. The use of repair initiations in social actions not aimed at solving comprehension problems is also briefly discussed. In particular, the interjection ha has a rich usage extending beyond open other-initiation of repair. By describing the linguistic machinery for other-initiated repair in Icelandic, this study contributes to the typology of conversational structure and to the still nascent field of Icelandic social interaction studies.

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Collaborating on Contributions to Conversations

Cited by 65 publications

References 11 publications

Cataphoric Devices in Spoken Discourse

Cataphoric Devices in Spoken Discourse

Other-initiated repair in English

Other-initiated repair in Icelandic

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