Stivers2010a

From emcawiki
Jump to: navigation, search
Stivers2010a
BibType ARTICLE
Key Stivers2010a
Author(s) Tanya Stivers
Title An overview of the question–response system in American English conversation
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Question-response system, American English, Questions, Polar (yes/no) questions, Content (WH) questions, Conversation
Publisher
Year 2010
Language English
City
Month
Journal Journal of Pragmatics
Volume 42
Number 10
Pages 2772–2781
URL Link
DOI 10.1016/j.pragma.2010.04.011
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

Download BibTex

Abstract

This article, part of a 10 language comparative project on question–response sequences, discusses these sequences in American English conversation. The data are video-taped spontaneous naturally occurring conversations involving two to five adults. Relying on these data I document the basic distributional patterns of types of questions asked (polar, Q-word or alternative as well as sub-types), types of social actions implemented by these questions (e.g., repair initiations, requests for confirmation, offers or requests for information), and types of responses (e.g., repetitional answers or yes/no tokens). I show that declarative questions are used more commonly in conversation than would be suspected by traditional grammars of English and questions are used for a wider range of functions than grammars would suggest. Finally, this article offers distributional support for the idea that responses that are better “fitted” with the question are preferred.

Notes