Interactional Linguistics - Volume 2, Issue 1, 2022

This paper offers some reflections on the study of morphology – broadly speaking, ‘word formation’ – as a participants’ resource in social interaction. I begin by calling attention to morphology as a comparatively underexamined component of linguistic structure by conversation analysts and interactional linguists, in that it has yet to receive the same dedicated consideration as have, e.g., phonetics and syntax. I then present an ongoing study of suffixes/suffixation in Spanish – focusing on diminutives (e.g., –ito), augmentatives (e.g., –ote), and superlatives (i.e., –ísimo) – and describe how the sequentiality of interaction can offer analysts profound insight into participants’ orientations to morphological resources. With what I refer to as ‘morphological transformations’ – exemplified here in both same-turn and next-turn positions – interactants sequentially construct and expose morphological complexity as such, locally instantiating its relevance in the service of action. It is argued that a focus on transformations therefore provides analysts with a means to ‘break into’ morphology-based collections. A range of cases are presented to illustrate this methodological approach, before a concluding discussion in which I describe how morphology-focused investigations may intersect with explorations of other interactional phenomena.

Large conversational activities (e.g., storytelling) necessitate a suspension of ordinary turn-taking rules. In the resulting constellation of main speaker and recipient, minimal displays of cooperative recipiency become relevant at particular junctures. We investigate this mechanism by focusing on the Egyptian Arabic particle ʔāh ‘yeah’ when thus used. We observe that tokens of ʔāh are mobilized by main speakers via the opening of prosodic slots at local pragmatic completion points. The prosodic design of the particle at these points is sensitive to prior talk and displays recipients’ alignment at the structural, action-sequential, and relational levels. This is done through variation of three prosodic features, namely, rhythm-based timing, pitch configuration, and prominence. The measure of alignment proposed by ʔāh is implicative for the continuation of the turn. While smooth progression suggests that ʔāh is understood to be sufficiently fitted and aligned, expansions are traceable to a departure from the terms set by prior talk, which can be heard to indicate lesser alignment. We propose to view ʔāh response tokens as a subset of positionally sensitive responses to part-of-activity actions that are crucial for the co-accomplishment of a large activity.

This article discusses how evidential and egophoric making is used to manage knowledge in interaction. To this end, it analyzes interactional data from Wutun (mixed Sinitic, Northwest China) and Upper Napo Kichwa (Quechuan, Ecuador). Wutun has an egophoric marking system, which, according to the definition of egophoricity, encodes involvement/lack of involvement in the described event. Upper Napo Kichwa has a set of evidentials, which, according to theory, encode the source of evidence for a given proposition. The two languages are typologically unrelated. However, when we look closely at how speakers of Wutun and Kichwa use epistemic markers, we discover functional similarities not predicted by the dominant definitions of epistemicity and evidentiality. In both languages, the use of the markers is conditioned by the interpersonal context of the interaction, and speakers use egophoric and evidential marking to signal their epistemic rights and responsibilities with respect to other speech-act participants.

The present study investigates how remembering is publicly displayed during storytelling in Oral History Interviews with Italian-speaking witnesses of labor camps during WWII. We focus on the use of the first-person indicative mi ricordo (‘I remember’). In this particular narrative genre, mi ricordo is recurrently used by narrators, as it makes the act of remembering publicly accessible. Drawing upon the methods of Interactional Linguistics, we identify two practices involving the use of mi ricordo: projecting the transition to the narration of a specific episode and displaying epistemic credibility towards facts. We argue that these practices correspond respectively to prospective and retrospective scopes of mi ricordo. Furthermore, a fine-grained multimodal analysis shows that narrators make the scopes of mi ricordo recognizable through recurrent multimodal gestalts, which encompass verbal, prosodic and bodily resources. In the discussion, we argue that the recognizable gestalts are routinized ways of dealing with the emergent character of remembering in oral history interviews and with the interactional tasks that are relevant in this particular communicative genre. The findings highlight that doing remembering is a multimodal accomplishment.