Heritage1994
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 |
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.
Notes