Li2016
| Li2016 | |
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| BibType | ARTICLE |
| Key | Li2016 |
| Author(s) | Xiaoting Li |
| Title | Some discourse-interactional uses of yinwei ‘because’ and its multimodal production in Mandarin conversation |
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| Tag(s) | EMCA, Interactional linguistics, Mandarin, Prosody, Multimodal, Body, Storytelling, Sequence organization |
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| Year | 2016 |
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| Journal | Language Sciences |
| Volume | 58 |
| Number | |
| Pages | 51-78 |
| URL | Link |
| DOI | doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2016.04.005 |
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Abstract
Yinwei ‘because’ is a causal conjunction or preposition introducing clauses or NPs of reason or cause in Mandarin. In addition to its use as causal connective, yinwei seems to have other discourse-interactional functions. Adopting the methodology of conversation analysis and interactional linguistics, this study explores some discourse-interactional uses of yinwei in Mandarin face-to-face conversation. An examination of the data shows that one type of yinwei recurrently occurs after the possible completion of a sequence, connecting the subsequent utterances to the talk prior to the immediately preceding one. Specifically, it occurs in two sequential and interactional environments: after the possible completion of a recipient-initiated sequence that may change the ongoing (focus of the) topic, and after the possible closure of a storytelling. In each environment, yinwei is produced with particular prosodic and bodily-visual features and implements particular interactional tasks. This study shows that yinwei has fine-grained interactional functions of building (courses of) actions, organizing sequences and discourse, and accomplishing interactional tasks in Mandarin conversation.
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