Betz2015
| Betz2015 | |
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| BibType | ARTICLE |
| Key | Betz2015 |
| Author(s) | Emma M. Betz |
| Title | Recipient design in reference choice: Negotiating knowledge, access, and sequential trajectories |
| Editor(s) | |
| Tag(s) | EMCA, Recipient Design, Person Reference, Epistemics, German, Projection, Formulations, Tellings |
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| Year | 2015 |
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| Journal | Gesprächsforschung: Online-Zeitschrift zur verbalen Interaktion |
| Volume | 16 |
| Number | |
| Pages | 137-173 |
| URL | Link |
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Abstract
This conversation analytic study investigates third-person reference in everyday German. In using person reference, speakers may refer to a person to achieve recognition, or they may do more than referring (Auer 1984; Enfield 2007; Schegloff 1996a). Thus, a particular reference term in a specific context may convey additional information about the speaker, recipient, referent, or the relationship between them. Through reference and reference repair, speakers can indicate association/distance, convey affective stance, and mark the type of trouble encountered with a given referent (Golato 2013; Stivers 2007). Speakers of German have a variety of forms available for nominal, in particular name, reference. This paper describes a particular type of third-person reference, the format 'definite article + person name' ('article+name', in short), e.g., die monika. By analyzing reference repair sequences, this study shows that 'article+name' is a recognitional form, presupposing that both speaker and recipient have independent epistemic access to the referent. Moreover, in specific contexts and contrasting with bare names, names preceded by articles can do more than referring. They index a stance towards the referent, that of 'tellability'. This paper documents one systematic environment for this use: story prefaces. In this context, the form projects and prefigures a telling. Speakers either identify the protagonist or the person whose viewpoint is taken, or they propose that there is tellable material about a shared referent available for topicalization. The next turn then provides an opportunity for co-participant alignment, in which case projected/proposed activities (e.g., gossiping) are properly launched or expanded, or for co-participant resistance to the conveyed stance of tellability. Resistance can in some instances be traced through changes in subsequent name reference forms, and the activities that were arguably projected do not get launched or expanded. This study shows how recipient design, notably (assumed) epistemic accessibility, shapes the selection of reference forms. Additionally, it shows how interactants negotiate action trajectories beyond the current turn through reference formulation. These findings illustrate the reflexive relationship between grammar and interaction: The German nominal system encodes various reference forms morphosyntactically (e.g., demonstrative, indefinite, or definite articles preceding names, bare names). This, in turn, allows speakers to index additional interactional information when they engage in the social activity of referring to persons.
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