von Pragmatik-Mitarbeitern im Juli und August 2015
- Prof. Dr. Arnulf Deppermann: "Die Methodik der Konversationsanalyse und der multimodalen Interaktionsanalyse", 9.7.2015, Schellingstr. 5, Raum 003
Die Konversationsanalyse ist weltweit der verbreitetste Ansatz zur Analyse von Interaktionen in Alltag und Institutionen. Konversationsanalytische Studien untersuchen, mit welchen Praktiken InteraktionsteilnehmerInnen ihren Austausch organisieren und im Gespräch Verständigung und gemeinsam geteilte soziale Wirklichkeit herstellen. Im Vortrag werden die grundlegenden methodologischen Prinzipien des Ansatzes, das Verfahren der Transkription und Vorgehensweisen der Sequenz- und Kollektionsanalyse dargestellt. Über die Untersuchung von Audiodaten hinausgehend werden Aspekte der Videoanalyse der multimodalen Interaktion behandelt. Abschließend wird kurz auf konversationsanalytische Forschungen zur Unterrichtsinteraktion eingegangen.
- Prof. Dr. Arnulf Deppermann: "Konversationsanalyse", 17.7.2015
Gegenstand der Konversationsanalyse sind die Verfahren, mit denen Teilnehmende an einer verbalen Interaktion ihren Austausch organisieren und dabei soziale Wirklichkeit auf verschiedenen Ebenen der Sinnkonstitution herstellen. Die Konversationsanalyse befasst sich mit den grundlegenden Aufgaben der Gesprächskonstitution. Dazu gehören bspw. die Eröffnung und Beendigung von Gesprächen, die Organisation des Sprecherwechsels, die Kategorisierung und Darstellung von Sachverhalten, die Koordination des gemeinsamen Handelns oder die Performanz und Zuschreibung von Identitäten. Ziel der Untersuchung ist die Rekonstruktion konversationeller Praktiken, d.h. von sprachlich-kommunikativen Verfahren, die in bestimmten Gesprächskontexten zur Bearbeitung spezifischer Aufgaben und Probleme der Gesprächskonstitution eingesetzt werden. Diese Praktiken können mehr oder weniger allgemein, kulturspezifisch oder an besondere Aufgaben im Bereich institutioneller Interaktionen (wie Beratung, Gerichtsverhandlung) adaptiert sein. Je nach disziplinärem Interesse kann die Untersuchung linguistische Formen und Strukturen (interaktionale Linguistik), institutionelle Aufgaben und Probleme (applied conversation analysis) oder das multimodale Handeln in Arbeitskontexten (workplace studies) betreffen. Oftmals ist es zudem nötig, ethnografisches Hintergrundwissen einzubeziehen.
Die Konversationsanalyse arbeitet ausschließlich mit Ton- und Videoaufnahmen sowie Transkripten von Gesprächen. Dabei ist darauf zu achten, dass die Untersuchungsfragestellungen der Konstitutionsweise der Daten angepasst sind (Natürlichkeitsprinzip) und in intensiver Auseinandersetzung mit dem Datenmaterial spezifiziert werden. Die Methodik der Konversationsanalyse verknüpft die detaillierte Sequenzanalyse von Einzelfällen mit der Arbeit mit größeren Datenkollektionen, die unterschiedliche Realisierungen einer konversationellen Praxis enthalten.
In der Forschungswerkstatt soll anhand von Materialien von zwei Teilnehmenden an jeweils einer kleinen Kollektion von Fällen einer konversationellen Praxis gearbeitet werden. Bewerber_innen werden gebeten, ein kurzes Exposé ihrer für das Methodentreffen relevanten Forschungsfragen (ca. eine Seite) sowie eine Kollektion von drei zu bearbeitenden Transkripten (nach GAT oder CA/Jefferson-Notation) einzureichen. Für die Arbeit in der Forschungswerkstatt müssen die Daten zudem als Audiodatei (mp3/wav) oder Videofile (mpeg) bereit stehen.
- Dr. Jörg Zinken / Prof. Dr. Arnulf Deppermann: "Towards a typology of imperative request actions", Panel: Mark Dingemanse & Giovanni Rossi, Pragmatic typology: new methods, concepts and findings in the comparative study of language in use (Teil 2), 27.7.2015
Imperative practices of talking participate in accomplishing a large number of social actions in informal interaction, which pursue the general objective of getting another person to do something. Some of these are sharing excitement (Julia, look!), nudging another to do an action that extends an already observable commitment (give me one) (Rossi 2012; Zinken and Ogiermann 2013), or pursuing compliance in the face of overt disalignment (come on, mo:ve back plea:se, Craven and Potter 2010). These are distinct actions in terms of the contexts they indexically invoke (and create), in terms of other practices of turn construction with which the imperative co-occurs, and in terms of the response that “completes” (Mead 1934, p. 77) the first speaker’s move as just that action. How many such imperative action types are there within the circumscribed domain of getting another person to do something? How are these actions accomplished in different languages? And what additional actions within the domain of requesting might be achieved with imperative turns in other languages? We take some first steps towards answering such questions by examining a few imperative actions in a few closely related languages. Specifically, our analyses are based on video-recordings of informal interactions in British English, German, and Polish. A general finding suggests that different imperative request actions occupy environments in which a speaker has grounds for expecting the other person’s commitment to a course of action launched or progressed by the request. Our findings suggest that labels such as orders or commands, which are frequently used in the (typological) literature on imperatives (e.g., Aikhenvald 2010) , are not good glosses for the actions most centrally accomplished with imperatives across languages. Also, our work contributes to a discussion of what “counts” as an action type – for speakers and for analysts (cf., Levinson 2013) .
- Dr. Nadine Proske / Prof. Dr. Arnulf Deppermann: "Between projection and expansion: Dass-complement clauses in German", Panel: Yael Maschler & Simona Pekarek Doehler, Emergent grammar and praxeological ecologies: Clause-combining and the organization of turns at talk (Teil 3), 27.7.2015
In German like in many other languages, matrix-clauses involving certain verbs (mainly mental and communication verbs) syntactically require and therefore project the production of a dass-complementclause (that-clause). Alternatively, the object complement may be realized pronominally: er hat gesagt, dass p or er hat das gesagt. In spoken German, however, we find turns in which both a pronominal direct object and a dass-complement clause are produced. In our paper, we will argue that such instances of double complementation may either be cases of projection or cases of expansion. In the projection case, the pronoun functions as a cataphoric expletive, i.e., a prospective indexical (cf. Goodwin 1996). It projects the following dass-clause which provides for the meaning of the pronominal object. This function of das is usually not accounted for in reference grammars of German, which regard es as the default correlate for ‘extraposed’ complement clauses (but see Zifonun/Hoffmann/Strecker 1997: 1475ff.). In the expansion case, the pronominal object is originally produced as an anaphoric pronoun whose reference is to be inferred from prior talk. The dass-clause is then produced as a non-projected expansion. Its production may be occasioned by recipients’ reactions displaying problems of understanding or the speaker may choose to add the dass-clause by his/her own design for clarification, specification or even modification of the meaning of the object pronoun available from prior talk. Nonprojected expansions of this kind may be delayed or even produced as increments to the speaker’s prior turn (cf. Schegloff 1996) after an intervening speaker-change, as in the example below: Initially, the pronoun das in ALs comment in line 08 anaphorically refers to UDs story of someone’s broken rim due to the kind of brake pads used on a bike (ending in line 01-02). After a pause (line 11) AL specifies the generalization (Das passiert dir bei Alufelgen ganz oft, ‘this often happens with aluminum rims’) he has made by adding a dass-clause (dass der Abrieb da höher ist bei den Felgen als bei den Bremsklötzen, ‘that there is more attrition of the rims than of the brake pad’, line 12). In the face of the partner’s uptake or lack thereof, speakers may thus use dass-increments to specify their prior turn in order to elicit a modified response from the partner.
We will also investigate cases that are formally close to the projection cases because the clause containing das and the complement clause are prosodically integrated, but are functionally close to the expansion cases because the das is anaphoric. These 'mixed' cases seem to be a recurrent format in interactions that require participants to signal coherence when making an assessment and at the same time to specify the assessed referent. They thus function as pivot constructions that enable both stance taking and modification and are related to the biclausal format described by Günthner (2009) (dass-clauses expanding clauses that contain the expletive pronoun es). The study draws on data from everyday conversations and institutional interactions available publicly from the data-base FOLK ( cf. Schmidt 2014).
- Prof. Dr. Arnulf Deppermann / Henrike Helmer: "Definitions for all practical purposes of learning: Definitions in driving school lessons", Panel: Jack Bilmes, Gabriele Kasper & Richard Fitzgerald, Definition in interaction (Teil 3), 30.7.2015
In driving school lessons, instructors often introduce expressions of a more or less technical nature (B pillar, cruise control, sign-posting) while instructing students. These expressions are needed because they serve as canonical expressions for referring to actions and objects which recurrently become relevant in the process of learning how to drive. Often, however, the student does not already know them or s/he does not exhibit sufficient understanding, making definitional activities on the part of the instructor necessary. In the paper, we will deal with the verbal and gestural resources teachers use in order to clarify the 144 meaning of expressions which the student does not yet understand. Analysis takes into account the sequential and multimodal organization of definitions, how they are situationally occasioned, how they are negotiated and how indexical properties and processes figure in the activity of defining. The aspect of indexicality and the relevance of prior knowledge will be studied in more detail by looking at cases where several definitions are needed until understanding is accomplished. The main focus is on identifying the practices members use to define the meaning of the words they use being themselves part and parcel of the activities in which the words at issue are used. By now, we have identified four practices. Ostensive definition using pointing gestures, · Paradigmatic definition by producing lists of expressions, which make for a paradigm of semantic oppositions in which the expression at issue is located, Pragmatic definitions by explication of actions or the functioning of a referential object designated by the expression in question, Definition by using negative contrasts used as an additional means to clarify and constrain the local meaning of an expression. Often, several practices are combined to define locally relevant meanings. One aspect of the study is to identify how the choice of a definitional practice depends on the kind of word to be defined, the properties of the referent and its practical relevance for situated action. The study follows an interactional linguistic and multi-modal interaction analysis approach. It aims to contribute to the emerging field of an interactional semantics (Deppermann 2011) which studies the occasioned use of categories in interaction (Bilmes 2011). The data to be analyzed stem from a corpus of video-recordings of more than 70 hours of driving school lessons in Germany (2 instructors, 8 students, 2 cameras recording street view and participant view).
- Julia Kaiser / Prof. Dr. Arnulf Deppermann: "Achieving the transparency of action: Intention ascriptions in second position", Panel: Arnulf Deppermann, Action ascription: Attributions of actions to prior turns (Teil 2), 31.7.2015
Action ascription is indispensable for participants in interaction: The correct interpretation of a partner’s prior behavior as a certain action is vital for other participants in order to perform next actions which deal adequately with projections of the partner’s prior action, build their actions on shared understandings etc. (cf. Levinson 2013). However, a partner’s action may be ambiguous or indeterminate. In such cases, explication of the partner’s intentions is one way to make the locally relevant meaning of a partner’s behavior transparent and to make it an object of public, intersubjective confirmation, before producing a responding action. The study to be presented deals with intention ascriptions to an immediately prior, adjacent behavior of an interactional partner. It analyzed data from German talk-in-interaction, focusing on the use of the intentional predicate du willst/sie wollen (‘you want’) in second position. Data come from the German talk-in-interaction corpus FOLK (135 hrs./1,3 mill words) hosted at the IDS Mannheim. We will show that intention ascription responds to and explicates different sources of intransparency of a partner’s prior behavior. The partner’s behavior may be treated as being in need of explication in order to be intelligible at all. Oftentimes, however, intention ascription is used to make the partner’s behavior comprehensible as being part of a larger joint or individual project or strategy of the partner (i.e. a kind of of action, or as indexing the partner’s motives or reasons for the action. Crucially, in cases in which intention ascription is used to warrant for the intersubjective comprehensibility of the partner’s behavior, this is done with respect to identify how the partner’s action impinges on own future action, i.e. its possibilities, partner’s expectations and readiness for cooperation. There is, however, also an ironicizing use of intention ascription, which challenges the partner’s prior actions. Intention ascription then is used to reveal the partner’s hidden, strategic motives, criticize inapt intentions pursued by partner’s behavior or to ridicule or tease. In these cases, intention ascription is used to either morally comment on the partner’s performance and identity, revealing its “true” nature as opposed to what the partner “feigns”, or it is designed to let the partner know that the speaker is not “fooled” by the appearances the partner is seen to try to create. I.e. the speaker displays his own knowledge about the partner which is displayed to be in contrast to the partner’s assumption about the speaker’s naivety. But even ironicizing intention ascriptions may be formulated as check-questions and make partner’s statement relevant, because they can serve as a strategy to tease out the partner’s real objectives. The paper will discuss linguistic, sequential and functional properties of different practices and analyze how they are related to each other.
- Jan Gorisch / Emina Kurtic / Ella Page / Bill Wells / Guy Brown / Laurent Prévot: Prosodic matching and turn competition in multi-party conversations, Panel: Ward Nigel, Richard Ogden, Oliver Niebuhr & Nancy Hedberg, Contribution to Prosodic constructions in dialog, 28.7.2015
Prosodic constructions used to compete for the speaking turn in conversation have been widely studied (French & Local (1983), Kurtić et al. (2013)). Usually, turn competition arises in overlapping talk between at least two speakers. Coordination between participants in their prosodic design of talk (Szczepek-Reed, 2006) and social action (Gorisch et al. 2012), as well as entrainment in more general terms (Levitan et al. 2011), is well established in the literature. Nevertheless, previous studies on turn competition and overlap do not investigate the prosodic design of turn competitive incomings in reference to the orientation of the speakers to each other. Rather, they assume that prosodic constructions are used for turn competition regardless of the co-participants’ design of the turn. In this paper, we ask whether the prosodic design of turn competitive talk is co-constructed between two participants talking in overlap. More specifically, we investigate whether the prosodic design of one participant’s in-overlap talk is developed with respect to the interlocutor’s prosodic features during the same portion of overlapped talk, and whether this prosodic matching can discriminate between the overlaps that are competitive and those that are not.
Our analyses are based on two-speaker overlaps drawn from a corpus of multi-party face-to-face conversation between four friends recorded in British English (Kurtic et al. 2012) . 3407 instances of two- speaker overlaps have been extracted from 4 hours of talk. Two independent conversation analysts performed the interactional categorisation of overlaps into competitive and non-competitive for all these two-speaker overlap instances and achieved a good agreement of alpha=0.807 (Krippendorff 2004) as measured on a subset of 808 overlaps selected for our initial analysis. For the analysis of prosodic features we focus on F0 related features: mean, slope, span and contour, all of which have previously been shown to be used by each overlapping speaker separately for turn competition (Kurtic et al. 2009; Oertel et al. 2012) . We investigate the similarity in F0 mean, slope and span by correlating these features across the two participants. For F0 contour, a similarity coefficient is computed using dynamic programming method described in Gorisch et al. (2012). We consider the difference in F0 contour similarity in competitive and non-competitive overlaps as an indication of intonational matching being a turn competitive resource. We conduct these analyses for overlaps that are clearly competitive or non- competitive as indicated by inter-annotator agreement. In addition, we qualitatively explore those cases that annotators disagree on in order to investigate whether they reveal further important interactional or prosodic features of in-overlap talk.
Our preliminary results suggest that conversational participants attend and adapt to the interlocutor during overlap depending on whether they return competition or not. We explain our findings in relation to previous work on turn competition in overlap, discuss the quantitative method employed and also address 183 the possible consequences of our results for the study of prosodic realization of other social actions in conversation.
Vorträge auf der IIEMCA Conference 2015 – Living the material world, The International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis, 4.-7.8.2015, Kolding, Dänemark:
- Prof. Dr. Arnulf Deppermann: "Categorization for action: The relevance of membership categories for anticipatory driving", Panel D: MCA/MOBILITY (Paul McIlvenny & Laura Bang), 4.8.2015
It is a basic tenet of ethnomethodology and CA that categories are relevant for action (cf. e.g. Hester/Eglin 1997; Antaki/Widdicombe 1998). The concept of ‘category-bound activities’ (Sacks 1972) formulates the insight that membership categories are tied to expectations about how category members (normatively) should behave and (descriptively) will behave. Categories are “inference-rich” (Sacks 1992:40; Schenkein 1978), because they allow the prediction of future behavior and they provide accounts for observed behaviors of category members.
Since social action builds on expectations about alter ego’s actions, membership categorization does not only imply expectations about the persons so-categorized. It is also crucial to the design of the actions which the categorizer him/herself produces in interaction with categorized persons. Category-bound expectations of partners’ actions are relevant for orienting one’s own behavior when people interact with each other. This does not only apply to focused encounters (Goffman 1963), but also to non-focused interactions, such as participating in traffic.
The paper will deal with the relevance of membership categorization for anticipatory driving in driving school lessons. The study draws on a corpus of 70 hours of driving school lessons in German (2 instructors, 9 students), recorded with two cameras (street view through windshield, front view on passengers). In this setting, instructors categorize other participants in traffic in the context of actions like instructing, warning, requesting, explaining rules and accounting for mistakes and problems. The prime function of categorizing other participants in traffic lies in the relevancies which their factual or to-be-expected category-bound actions have for the design of the student’s driving activities. Relevant categories concern traffic participants,- who are less skilled than others and may act unpredictably: children, elderly people, animals, strangers who do not know their way around,
- who may sanction the driver: police,
- who are experienced and highly skilled: professional drivers (bus-drivers),
- who (are likely to) infringe traffic regulations: motocyclists, taxi drivers, speeding motorists,
- who are particularly vulnerable: pedestrians, bicycle riders.
In many cases, category-bound actions to be expected are explicitly stated by instructors or invoked to explain traffic participants’ actions. This is often combined with an explication of options of adaptive driving with respect to these other categories of traffic participants. Relevant dimensions of anticipatory adaptive driving concern, for example:
- the need for specific attention and care from the driver like driving slowly, monitoring other’s behavior closely, renouncing to risky actions,
- the degree of trust which can be put in the partner’s correct, mindful, rational, etc. behavior, allowing for performing planned behaviors like overtaking, crossing an intersection, etc.,
- the question whether the student’s own driving may be modeled upon others’ driving behavior,
- the need to closely monitor one’s own actions such as controlling speed.
Categorization work in driving school is part of the socialization of driving. The social world of traffic participants becomes divided into and elucidated by categories accounting cognitively for category-bound expectations of others’ actions, pragmatically for the choice and design of own driving activities and normatively for the moral assessment of others’ and own actions.
- PD Dr. Axel Schmidt: "The specific materiality of media worlds - projections and preparations in theatrical rehearsals", Paper Section Creativity, 7.8.2015
Media Products and Stagings are a specific kind of material environment: They use resources of the 'real world' (for instance bodies, things, settings, techniques) to accomplish an 'artificial world' (a media product or a play world) for spectatorship. The study of media production is a field which is particularly apt for gaining insights in the accomplishment of media worlds and their handling with material resources.
Based on a corpus of 30 hours of video recordings from theater rehearsals (from both amateur and full-professional ensembles) I will argue that projections and preparations are two different kinds of activities which are relevant for the transition between the real world and the play word in rehearsal interactions. While projections anticipate the play world verbally (for instance by giving instructions or making suggestions), preparations are activities which produce material parts of the play world (for example attaching props or building a certain physical formation). Preparations are a specific class of actions which alter the material world in a direct way.
On the basis of a multimodal analysis of selected video extracts I will
1. show how preparations are designed to contribute to the accomplishment of media resp. play worlds,
2. delineate different forms of preparations and their relatedness with projections and
3. consider the more general implications of the difference between "verbalizing" (projections) and "materializing" (preparations) for the temporalities of interactional organization.
