Weatehrall2011
Weatehrall2011 | |
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BibType | ARTICLE |
Key | Weatehrall2011 |
Author(s) | Ann Weatherall |
Title | 'I don’t know' as a pre-positioned hedge |
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Tag(s) | Discursive Psychology, Epistemics |
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Year | 2011 |
Language | English |
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Journal | Research on Language and Social Interaction |
Volume | 44 |
Number | 4 |
Pages | 317–337 |
URL | Link |
DOI | 10.1080/08351813.2011.619310 |
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Abstract
The present article reports on a study of a previously underexamined type of I don't know in everyday talk. The targets were all in first position and were syntactically complete utterances that were prepositioned or preliminary to a next thing within a turn. A core of 32 instances was drawn from a much larger collection of I don't knows taken from New Zealand, British, and American English corpora. The target I don't knows were preliminary to two broad categories of actions—first assessments and approximations. The findings suggest the target I don't knows function as a prepositioned hedge—a forward-looking stance marker displaying that the speaker is not fully committed to what follows in their turn of talk
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