Heritage1994

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Heritage1994
BibType ARTICLE
Key Heritage1994
Author(s) John Heritage, Marja-Leena Sorjonen
Title Constituting and maintaining activities across sequences: and-prefacing as a feature of question design
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Medical EMCA, conversation analysis, institutional interaction, turn design, Questions
Publisher
Year 1994
Language
City
Month
Journal Language in Society
Volume 23
Number 1
Pages 1–29
URL Link
DOI 10.1017/S0047404500017656
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

The role of the connective and is here considered as a preface to questions in spoken interaction. Using data from informal medical encounters, it is argued that and-prefacing is used to link a question to a preceding question/answer pair or pairs. In such contexts, and-prefacing indicates that the questions it prefaces have a routine or agenda-based character. This in turn can be a resource which invokes and sustains an orientation to an activity or course of action that is implemented through a series of question/answer pairs, but transcends any individual pair. The general characteristics of and-prefaced questions are contrasted with “contingent” or “follow-up” questions, which are not normally and-prefaced. Some strategic uses of and-prefaced questions are described, and the role of the device within the more general sociolinguistic context of the data is discussed.

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