Bolden-Guimaraes2012

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Bolden-Guimaraes2012
BibType ARTICLE
Key Bolden-Guimaraes2012
Author(s) Galina B. Bolden, Estefania Guimaraes
Title Grammatical flexibility as a resource in explicating referents
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Grammar, Reference
Publisher
Year 2012
Language
City
Month
Journal Research on Language and Social Interaction
Volume 45
Number 2
Pages 156–174
URL Link
DOI 10.1080/08351813.2012.673861
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

This article examines one aspect of interplay between grammar and social interaction: how speakers of different languages explicate referents that had been referred to tacitly, i.e., without using an explicit referential expression. The focus is on situations when speakers go on to explicate the referent in the transition space, after bringing the turn constructional unit to a possible completion. Depending on the grammatical affordances of the language, rendering a tacit reference explicit may either expose or mask this operation. Focusing on the latter, we show that the grammars of Russian and Brazilian Portuguese (and, to a lesser extent, English) enable speakers of these languages to explicate referents by extending a possibly complete turn constructional unit with a grammatically fitted increment and, thereby, embed this remedial operation into the progressive construction of the turn without engaging repair machinery. We discuss how tacit referring and flexible word order can enable speakers to carry out this repair-like operation in a covert or embedded fashion, and we examine some interactional functions of this referent-explicating operation.

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