Curl2006
| Curl2006 | |
|---|---|
| BibType | ARTICLE |
| Key | Curl2006 |
| Author(s) | Traci S. Curl |
| Title | Offers of assistance: Constraints on syntactic design |
| Editor(s) | |
| Tag(s) | EMCA, Conversation Analysis, Offers, Telephone, Sequence organization, Syntax |
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| Year | 2006 |
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| Journal | Journal of Pragmatics |
| Volume | 38 |
| Number | 8 |
| Pages | 1257-1280 |
| URL | Link |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.pragma.2005.09.004 |
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Abstract
This conversation analytic study explicates the sequentially-specific syntactic formats of offers. The study focuses on offers made in telephone calls, in which one speaker proposes to satisfy another's want or need, or to assist in resolving a difficulty experienced by another. The analysis shows how different syntactic constructions allow speakers to foreground either themselves or their would-be recipients: speakers can display agency in initiating offers of assistance, or they can expose the implicit desires of others. Within the corpus, offers were identified as made by the caller as a reason for calling, or as generated within the course of the interaction itself, and so made by either speaker (caller or called). Interactionally-generated offers either propose to solve latent problems, or are responsive to overt problems. Reason-for-calling offers are made by using the conditional if. However, offers of remedy for problems educed from previous talk are always produced with the syntactic format do you want me to X; and offers responsive to overt problems are never produced with do you want. The analysis shows how participants display an orientation, through their use of self-repair and other mechanisms, to the normative force of the distribution of the syntactic forms of offers.
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