Drew Paul Conversation, Context and Action - Requesting.ppt

Conversation, Context and Action: Requesting Paul Drew (with Traci Curl/Walker Richard Ogden) University of York UK Context: the immediate prior turn at talk Deixis, especially pronominalisation Repetition of words phrases in prior turn Ellipsis (Paired) social actions Context: what participants know about one another Address terms (“Roul’s mother”in ex. 8) What’s going on in one another’s lives Implicitness, irony and collusion (ex.9) Deixis and relationship (Fillmore’s ‘social deixis’)(compare coming and going in exs. 10 11) Requesting, context Participants/speakers also orient to context when making requests - in their selection of which form of request to use Two frequently used request forms Modals (“Could you…”) - used in social calls between family and friends (ex.13) “I was wondering if…” forms used when phoning institutional agency, workplace or similar (exs. 14 15) …but modals may be used in institutional talk Express urgency of situation Used by persons with institutional identities So selection reflects entitlement and contingency Entitlement Contingency Continuum from High entitlement/Low contingency (Imperative forms etc.) to Low entitlement/High contingency (“I wonder if…”) Speakers’ orientations to appropriate request forms Moment-by-moment adjustments in design of turn (self-repair) - specifically of the request form to be used - reflects participants’ orientations to context, and ‘possibility’ of granting (contingency) (Exs.18 19) Calls to the police In emergency calls (999) to police, callers generally do not use overt request forms; just report an incident When they make explicit requests, generally use modal forms Modal forms indicate entitlement to request urgent assistance Context changes In ex.22 context changes in same call Lines 1-16 speaks to operator Urgency - high entitlement in descriptions of incident Lines 20-42 speaks to police officer Degrades urgency When calls go wrong Inappropriate assessments of en