Fictive interaction and the conversation frame

Abstract

We deal with the notion of fictive interaction, namely the use of the conversation frame in order to structure cognition, discourse, and grammar (Pascual 2002, 2006b, 2014). We discuss how thought and the conceptualization of experience are partly modeled by the pattern of conversation, and present the kinds of fictive interaction on different levels: the discourse, the inter-sentential, the sentential, and intra-sentential level, down to the morpheme. We also provide a list of its defining characteristics (conversational features, non-actual and non-token interpretation, metonymy), and discuss what makes this ubiquitous phenomenon, widespread across languages, discourse genres, and sociolinguistic groups, worth studying, and what its theoretical implications are. The chapter closes with an overview of the structure and content of this volume.

Online Hate Speech in the European Union

“…These various interactional roles have been shown to be relevant to dialogically-oriented discursive strategies, such as constructed dialogue (Tannen 2007) and fictive interaction (Pascual and Sandler 2016), which have affinities with the Bakhtinian notions of polyphony and heteroglossia. Constructed dialogue is Tannen's preferred term for reported speech since such speech is always recontextualised into new discursive contexts, while fictive interaction concerns "the use of the conversation frame to structure cognition, discourse, and grammar" (Pascual and Sandler 2016: 3) and covers phenomena such as talking to oneself, engaging in dialogues with virtual participants, or using rhetorical questions. One could also argue that the technological affordances of online platforms impact on participant roles.…”

Constructions of speech and thought representation

“…The previous section stressed the idea that what is represented as speech or thought need not actually have occurred at all, or with such and such specific words, mainly by pointing to contexts where the prior existence of an “original” is logically precluded. A broader point has emerged from work initiated by Pascual (e.g., Pascual, 2014; Pascual & Sandler, 2016), who studied how the frame of a face‐to‐face conversation is routinely used in language to “structure mental, discursive and linguistic processes” (Pascual, 2014, p. 9). The usage can cover a broader range of phenomena, also including, for instance, cases where a communication verb is interpreted “fictively” (e.g., my watch says it's 12 noon ) or where inanimate objects are telling us something (as when a cotton tote bag “says” I'm not a plastic bag ), fictive speech acts (as when people say Call me crazy, but… ), and uses of apparent direct speech snippets at levels of structure below the clause, as in (5): An I love you no I love you more routine (Pascual, 2014, p. 63) …”

“…An ambitious part of the fictive interaction research paradigm relates to language typology (e.g., Pascual & Sandler, 2016): where in English and some other Standard Average European languages the notion may appear to be mainly a “type of creative language use” (Spronck & Casartelli, 2021, p. 2), many languages around the world use apparent speech constructions to grammatically and entirely conventionally express meanings as varied as mental states, emotional and attitudinal states, desires, intentions, attempts, states of affairs, causation, reason, purpose and future tense (the listing is that given in Pascual, 2014, p. 90 with terms used as intended there). Consider an example such as (6), from Wan (a Mande language of Ivory Coast):…”

In a Manner of Speaking: How Reported Speech May Have Shaped Grammar

“…While this analysis is explicitly embedded in a cognitive linguistic account that sees conversation as a cognitive Gestalt that humans may use in order to make sense of the world, its empirical foundation is strong. Not only are examples of fictive interaction as in (1) common cross-linguistically (Pascual and Sandler, 2016a;McGregor, 2019), they affect a heterogeneous set of sentence types and linguistic structures (Pascual and Sandler, 2016b).…”