Affiliation:
1. Research Unit for Languages and Literature , Faculty of Humanities, University of Oulu , Oulu , Finland
Abstract
Abstract
This paper studies adults’ responses to children’s requests by focusing on turns that account for not granting the request on the grounds of involvement in another activity, i.e., multiactivity. The data consist of everyday interactions among family members at homes and in cars. The collection – 17 request sequences – is analysed with the conversation analytic method. We show the following: first, account turns verbalise either the ongoing or the requested activity, or both; second, account turns are a practice for foregrounding and communicating “exclusive order”, i.e., they indicate that two progressing activities intersect with each other and cannot be progressed simultaneously, and that one activity is prioritised over another; third, account turns are used either to suspend or abandon the course of action initiated by the request; fourth, accounts – through various sequential and turn design features – display adults’ level of commitment to resuming and returning to the requested activity later; and, finally, accounts indicating high commitment negotiate the “sequential implicativenesses” of the intersecting courses of action, displaying orientation to progress initiated activities. Accounts that display partial or no commitment frame the prioritisation of an activity in terms of “incapability” or “unwillingness” to progress the request sequence and thereby construct the “limits of multiactivity” in situ.
Subject
Linguistics and Language,Philosophy,Communication,Language and Linguistics,Linguistics and Language,Philosophy,Communication,Language and Linguistics
Cited by
1 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献