The interactional emergence of conditional clauses as directives: constructions, trajectories and sequences of actions

Abstract

This article concerns the sequential emergence of Finnish and Swedish insubordinated jos and om 'if' adverbial clauses in interaction from a synchronic, online use perspective. The authors first demonstrate that such clauses function as complete directives without any main clauses, and that recipients treat them as such, responding to the directive as soon as the insubordinate clause is produced. It is then shown that many insubordinated conditionals used as directives (ICDs) are associated with a certain orderly sequential pattern organized in adjacency pairs, which bears a certain similarity to bona fide conditional clauses. This suggests that conditional clause patterns, including insubordinated ones, emerge in interaction in response to actions done and not done by the recipients of the requests, and are thus a product of the interaction of participants in conversation.

2. Insubordination and the contextually sensitive emergence of if-requests in Swedish and Finnish institutional talk-in-interaction

“…The analysis is attuned to routinized trajectories of actions and embodied, nonverbal resources that accompany the realization of this type of directive action especially in certain kinds of institutional interaction. This study is thus a continuation to our prior work (Lindström, Lindholm, and Laury 2016), which concentrated on the sequential and structural emergence of insubordinate conditionals in both mundane and institutional interaction.…”

“…When collecting cases of insubordinate conditional clauses we have consulted several hours of recordings and transcripts of them in the Finnish and Swedish conversation archives at the University of Helsinki, including face-toface and telephone conversations and ranging from everyday to institutional settings (see Laury, Lindholm, and Lindström 2013;Lindström, Lindholm, and Laury 2016). This larger data collection contains 185 instances of insubordinate conditional clauses, 121 in Swedish, 64 in Finnish.…”

“…However, we need to achieve a better understanding of the interactional and contextual factors that produce insubordinate conditional clauses as full-fledged interactional moves. In an earlier study (Lindström, Lindholm, and Laury 2016), we have discussed the sequential emergence of insubordinate and more canonical conditional constructions showing that the process is often stepwise and dependent on local interactional contingencies, not least the conduct of the co-participant (by complying or not with a request). In the present analysis we will sharpen this picture by taking into account multimodal aspects of communication.…”

“…Interactional approaches to insubordination are still fairly uncommon, but we note the "dyadically dependent" analysis of insubordinate complement clauses that has been put forward by Sansiñena, De Smet, and Cornillie (2015), and specifically that of Spanish que-constructions in Gras and Sansiñena (2015); see 1 We use the somewhat vernacular term "'if' request" in this study because of its functional transparency and practicality. In an earlier study (Lindström, Lindholm, and Laury 2016), which the present one builds on, we have called these structures insubordinated conditionals used as directives (ICDs). Other terms that have been used, possibly covering a wider spectrum of phenomena than that discussed here, include "suspended" or "free conditionals" (see Vallauri Lombardi 2016).…”

Variation in address practices across languages and nations

“…When presenting this request, she uses T address three times: om du berättar lite om hur du har de nuförtiden hur du mår för tillfälle då 'if you.T tell me a little bit about how you.T are doing nowadays how you.T are feeling at the moment'. Her use of a conditional clause makes the request less direct than an imperative (Lindström et al 2016; see also extract (7) below).…”