Abstract
The project I will present is part of an effort to create a systematic grammar of Danish talk-in-interaction. This effort has been carried out for ten years by the research group DanTIN (Danish talk-in-interaction) which runs the homepage samtalegrammatik.dk, on which the grammar is being built step by step. I will present this project briefly, but the main focus will be on GEL, what we do and how, and I will show data exemplifying our three subprojects, which we will discuss.
Our research questions are:
- How are questions, directives and the negotiation of participation carried out with linguistic means?
- What do the specific action formats identified in RQ1 do and how are they interpreted in talk-in-interaction?
- Which factors influence the choice of grammatical structure for forming questions, directives and negotiating participation?
- How can we create a grammatical description that reflects actual language use in talk-in- interaction in a theoretically defensible and yet accessible way?
The three subprojects investigate the formation of questions and of directive actions, and how participation is invited and negotiated in utterances that are not first pair part utterances. Our results will enter into the larger framework of samtalegrammatik.dk, but we will also use them to discuss theoretical questions concerning grammatical resources and the relationship between abstract patterns and social action formats. I will only touch briefly on the theoretical part.
About the lecturer
Jakob Steensig is an associate professor at the School of Communication and Culture, Department of Linguistics, Aarhus university, Denmark. He has been one of the pioneering researchers of Danish everyday interaction. Among others, his research topics include grammar of everyday talk and dialogue particles (e.g. øh(m), okay, altså) as well as such core topics in conversation analysis as epistemics and affiliation in interaction. Previously, he has led the project DanTIN: The grammar of Danish talk-in-interaction. Currently, he is about to launch a new project on Grammar in Everyday life (GEL).