In conversation analysis, questions are explicated in sequential terms. They constrain relevant types and forms of response in the next turn, and the specifics of response construction provide resources that inform how questions and their actions and constraints are understood. This article aims to contribute to our cross-linguistic understandings…

The present study sets out to investigate the structures and functions of vague expressions in Persian. The data under scrutiny include a 15-hour corpus of informal conversations. The corpus reveals some unique vague expressions including "rhyming words," "replacing expressions," and "the affective completer."…

"Demonstrations" (e.g., direct quotations, conversational facial portrayals, conversational hand gestures, and figurative references) lack conventional meanings, relying instead on a resemblance to their referent. Two experiments tested our theory that demonstrations are a class of communicative acts that speakers are more likely to use…

The current study examined phonetic convergence when talkers alternated roles during conversational interaction. The talkers completed a map navigation task in which they alternated instruction Giver and Receiver roles across multiple map pairs. Previous studies found robust effects of the role of a talker on phonetic convergence, and it was…

In ordinary conversation, speakers experience pressures both to produce utterances suited to particular addressees and to do so with minimal delay. To document the impact of these conversational pressures, our experiment asked participants to produce brief utterances to describe visual displays. We complicated utterance planning by including…

This article examines one of the ways in which matters of truth, appropriateness, and acceptability are raised and managed within the course of everyday conversation. Using the methodology of conversation analysis, we show that by repeating what another participant has said and doing so with a high rise-fall intonation contour, a speaker claims…

In the context of texts that depicted either a minimally confrontational conversation (study 1) or a more confrontational argument (study 2) with a close friend, the use of ironic criticism was rated as being more humorous, polite, and positive, yet also as more sarcastic and mocking than direct criticism. Although our results were consistent with…

Many communicative situations present interlocutors with the opportunity to use multiple modalities to establish shared perspectives on conversational referents, a process known as grounding. In the current study, we use a card-matching task to examine how conversational grounding in younger and older adults is influenced both by direct visual…

This article considers points in turn construction where conversation researchers have shown that talk routinely continues beyond possible turn completion, but where bodily-visual behavior doing such turn extension work is found. The bodily-visual behaviors examined share many features with verbal turn extensions, but it is argued that embodied…

As part of a growing body of conversation analytic research on epistemics in social interaction, this study explores various uses of the Japanese sentence-final particle "kke", which conveys the speaker's claim that she or he has some degree of uncertainty in recalling something from the past. The study aims to demonstrate how "mental" concepts…

This article offers an interactional account of turn continuations in Chinese conversation, which are characterized as (a) being effected by latching/rush-through, (b) being clauses with predicates, either main or adverbial, and (c) taking a retrospective orientation in the kind of interactional work they do. Close examination reveals that while,…

At the possible completion of a turn constructional unit (TCU) that has not selected a next speaker, a speaker has two available options: either begin a new TCU or continue the one that has just come to a point of possible completion. This article describes some of the complex turns that result from exercising the second option. These can be seen…

This article explores the viability of the analytic distinction between "turn-constructional unit (TCU) continuation" (i.e., continuing a turn beyond a point of possible completion with grammatically dependent material) and "new TCU" (i.e., continuing a turn with grammatically independent material) when hypotactic clause combinations are involved.…

Drawing on a corpus of 35 hours of videotaped face-to-face conversations collected in Beijing and Hebei, China, this conversation analytic study examines self-praising behavior of Mandarin speakers in everyday social interaction. Focusing on two reporting practices--reporting another's words and reporting "just the facts"--the investigation…

Frames are cognitive structures of knowledge grounded in people's social interaction in recurrent sociocultural activities or individual incidences. Discussion concerning the knowledge in frames largely focuses on its linguistic manifestation with regard to roles and role relations in scenes. Little attention has been paid to the scriptal…