Indexing a contrast: The do-construction in English conversation

This conversation-analytic paper reports on the structure and interactional use of what I term the ‘do-construction’ in English-language conversation: Utterances such as The kids do eat cake (cf. The kids eat cake). The argument developed here is that, at its core, the do-construction is used to index a contrast with a prior understanding. As will be shown, this prior understanding can be overtly demonstrated or merely presumed or potential, and it may be the understanding of the speaker him/herself, or that of the recipient. Similarly, the do-construction can be seen in a variety of sequential positions, and in conjunction with a range of social actions. Nonetheless, what binds this diversity of cases together is the use of the do-construction to introduce content into the interaction in a way that actively orients to a contrastive understanding. After establishing the contrastive work that this resource accomplishes as a general feature of turn design, we then consider how the use of the do-construction can be seen to be relevant to specific sequences of action. I conclude with a discussion of the relationship between the grammatical construction analyzed here and other-correction, and comment on some related resources for indexing contrasts in English

Polar answers

Peer reviewe

Actions in Practice: On details in collections

Several of the contributions to the Lynch et al. Special issue make the claim that conversation- analytic research into epistemics is ‘routinely crafted at the expense of actual, produced and constitutive detail, and what that detail may show us’. Here, we seek to address the inappositeness of this critique by tracing precisely how it is that recognizable actions emerge from distinct practices of interaction. We begin by reviewing some of the foundational tenets of conversation-analytic theory and method – including the relationship between position and composition, and the making of collections – as these appear to be primary sources of confusion for many of the contributors to the Lynch et al. Special Issue. We then target some of the specific arguments presented in the Special Issue, including the alleged ‘over-hearer’s’ writing of metrics, the provision of so- called ‘alternative’ analyses and the supposed ‘crafting’ of generalizations in epistemics research. In addition, in light of Lynch’s more general assertion that conversation analysis (CA) has recently been experiencing a ‘rapprochement’ with what he disparagingly refers to as the ‘juggernaut’ of linguistics, we discuss the specific expertise that linguists have to offer in analyzing particular sorts of interactional detail. The article as a whole thus illustrates that, rather than being produced ‘at the expense of actual, produced and constitutive detail’, conversation-analytic findings – including its work in epistemics – are unambiguously anchored in such detail. We conclude by offering our comments as to the link between CA and linguistics more generally, arguing that this relationship has long proven to be – and indeed continues to be – a mutually beneficial one

Empirical Legal Studies Before 1940: A Bibliographic Essay

The modern empirical legal studies movement has well-known antecedents in the law and society and law and economics traditions of the latter half of the 20th century. Less well known is the body of empirical research on legal phenomena from the period prior to World War II. This paper is an extensive bibliographic essay that surveys the English language empirical legal research from approximately 1940 and earlier. The essay is arranged around the themes in the research: criminal justice, civil justice (general studies of civil litigation, auto accident litigation and compensation, divorce, small claims, jurisdiction and procedure, civil juries), debt and bankruptcy, banking, appellate courts, legal needs, legal profession (including legal education), and judicial staffing and selection. Accompanying the essay is an extensive bibliography of research articles, books, and reports

Intersubjectivity, Progressivity, and Accountability: Studies in Turn Design

By examining different features of turn design, this conversation-analytic dissertation investigates a range of “account-able” “members’ resources” (Garfinkel 1967) that are mobilized by participants in the service of intersubjectivity, progressivity, and the interactional negotiation thereof. First I describe the structure and interactional use of what I term the ‘do-construction’ in English-language conversation (e.g., The kids do eat cake; cf. The kids eat cake). It is illustrated that, across a variety of sequential positions and in conjunction with a range of social actions, this construction is used consistently to index a contrast. After establishing the contrastive work that this resource accomplishes as a general feature of turn design, I consider how the use of the do-construction can be seen to be relevant to particular sequences of action, and conclude with a discussion of the relationship between this grammatical construction and ‘embedded other-correction’ (Jefferson 1987). Chapter 3 reports on a subset of do-construction cases in which the contrast indexed through use of the do-construction is not with the content proper of a prior utterance or sequence of utterances, but rather with a potential implication thereof. That is, this grammatical resource is routinely mobilized to index contrasts not only with explicit or otherwise demonstrated understandings (as in the majority of the cases in Chapter 2), but also with possible ambiguities and potential misapprehensions that might be gleaned from prior talk. Through the use of the do-construction in such contexts, speakers can be seen to be actively holding themselves and one another accountable for the commonsense inferences (Garfinkel 1967; Sch?tz 1962) that prior talk may have generated, while simultaneously working to refine and shore up the shared understanding being developed with their hearers. Chapter 4 takes as its point of departure the distinction between “unmarked” and “marked” progressivity across turns within a sequence (Heritage 2013, 2015, frth.), examining two turn-initial particles in Spanish: bueno and pues. The chapter argues that both bueno and pues preface some “unexpectedness” to come in the responsive turn, but a different sort of “unexpectedness” is foreshadowed by each particle. I demonstrate that bueno-prefaced turns do not overtly problematize the prior utterance, but rather accept its terms before departing from them, and thereby acquiesce to the prior turn’s design (albeit a marked form of acquiescence compared to a turn that is not qualified with a turn-initial particle). Pues-prefaced responses, on the other hand, are directly addressed to the prior turn, but they cast that prior turn’s action or design as problematic in some way. That is, rather than acquiescing to the terms of the first-position utterance (as with bueno), pues-prefaced responses target and problematize some aspect of the prior turn, thereby noticeably ‘pushing back’ on, for example, its presuppositions or epistemic stance. In this way, pues-prefacing is also a harbinger of “unexpectedness”, but, contrary to the case of bueno, the unexpectedness of pues derives from the second speaker’s comparatively on-record registration of difficulty with the terms set for response by the prior turn, as opposed to his/her tacit acceptance thereof.The final substantive chapter of this dissertation aims to unpack Schegloff’s (2007a: 15) reference to “the measure of progressivity” by arguing that progressivity must be conceptualized as a scalar phenomenon. That is, rather than yes-progressivity vs. no-progressivity (i.e., as a binary or dichotomous variable), participants in interaction can be seen to orient to the existence of a continuum from more-progressivity to less-progressivity. Moreover, in addition to being better aligned with participants’ own understanding of this feature of interaction, it is demonstrated that such an analytic reconceptualization provides an important new dimension on which to examine various practices deployed in naturally occurring talk, as we equip ourselves with a means to ask not only whether a turn is moving forward vs. backward, but also how much. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of the inextricable links between intersubjectivity and progressivity as accountably scalar phenomena. Taken together, the chapters of this dissertation argue that intersubjectivity, progressivity, and accountability must be conceptualized as collaboratively constructed features of interaction that are achieved on a moment-by-moment basis, in and through the details of quotidian conduct. Exploration of such practices therefore sheds important light on the ground-level means through which we negotiate and maintain social life with one another

Intersubjectivity, Progressivity, and Accountability: Studies in Turn Design

By examining different features of turn design, this conversation-analytic dissertation investigates a range of “account-able” “members’ resources” (Garfinkel 1967) that are mobilized by participants in the service of intersubjectivity, progressivity, and the interactional negotiation thereof. First I describe the structure and interactional use of what I term the ‘do-construction’ in English-language conversation (e.g., The kids do eat cake; cf. The kids eat cake). It is illustrated that, across a variety of sequential positions and in conjunction with a range of social actions, this construction is used consistently to index a contrast. After establishing the contrastive work that this resource accomplishes as a general feature of turn design, I consider how the use of the do-construction can be seen to be relevant to particular sequences of action, and conclude with a discussion of the relationship between this grammatical construction and ‘embedded other-correction’ (Jefferson 1987). Chapter 3 reports on a subset of do-construction cases in which the contrast indexed through use of the do-construction is not with the content proper of a prior utterance or sequence of utterances, but rather with a potential implication thereof. That is, this grammatical resource is routinely mobilized to index contrasts not only with explicit or otherwise demonstrated understandings (as in the majority of the cases in Chapter 2), but also with possible ambiguities and potential misapprehensions that might be gleaned from prior talk. Through the use of the do-construction in such contexts, speakers can be seen to be actively holding themselves and one another accountable for the commonsense inferences (Garfinkel 1967; Sch?tz 1962) that prior talk may have generated, while simultaneously working to refine and shore up the shared understanding being developed with their hearers. Chapter 4 takes as its point of departure the distinction between “unmarked” and “marked” progressivity across turns within a sequence (Heritage 2013, 2015, frth.), examining two turn-initial particles in Spanish: bueno and pues. The chapter argues that both bueno and pues preface some “unexpectedness” to come in the responsive turn, but a different sort of “unexpectedness” is foreshadowed by each particle. I demonstrate that bueno-prefaced turns do not overtly problematize the prior utterance, but rather accept its terms before departing from them, and thereby acquiesce to the prior turn’s design (albeit a marked form of acquiescence compared to a turn that is not qualified with a turn-initial particle). Pues-prefaced responses, on the other hand, are directly addressed to the prior turn, but they cast that prior turn’s action or design as problematic in some way. That is, rather than acquiescing to the terms of the first-position utterance (as with bueno), pues-prefaced responses target and problematize some aspect of the prior turn, thereby noticeably ‘pushing back’ on, for example, its presuppositions or epistemic stance. In this way, pues-prefacing is also a harbinger of “unexpectedness”, but, contrary to the case of bueno, the unexpectedness of pues derives from the second speaker’s comparatively on-record registration of difficulty with the terms set for response by the prior turn, as opposed to his/her tacit acceptance thereof.The final substantive chapter of this dissertation aims to unpack Schegloff’s (2007a: 15) reference to “the measure of progressivity” by arguing that progressivity must be conceptualized as a scalar phenomenon. That is, rather than yes-progressivity vs. no-progressivity (i.e., as a binary or dichotomous variable), participants in interaction can be seen to orient to the existence of a continuum from more-progressivity to less-progressivity. Moreover, in addition to being better aligned with participants’ own understanding of this feature of interaction, it is demonstrated that such an analytic reconceptualization provides an important new dimension on which to examine various practices deployed in naturally occurring talk, as we equip ourselves with a means to ask not only whether a turn is moving forward vs. backward, but also how much. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of the inextricable links between intersubjectivity and progressivity as accountably scalar phenomena. Taken together, the chapters of this dissertation argue that intersubjectivity, progressivity, and accountability must be conceptualized as collaboratively constructed features of interaction that are achieved on a moment-by-moment basis, in and through the details of quotidian conduct. Exploration of such practices therefore sheds important light on the ground-level means through which we negotiate and maintain social life with one another

On the Sequential Negotiation of Identity in Spanish-Language Discourse: Mobilizing Linguistic Resources in the Service of Social Action

This dissertation takes an ethnomethodologically-grounded, conversation-analytic approach in investigating the sequential deployment of linguistic resources in Spanish-language talk-in-interaction. Three sets of resources are examined: 2nd-person singular reference forms (tú, vos, usted), indicative/subjunctive verbal mood selection, and Spanish-English intersentential code-switching. In each case, we ask: How is it that these elements of language are mobilized by speakers to accomplish identity in the service of social action in interaction?With regard to 2nd-person reference forms, we illustrate how the turn-by-turn progression of talk can make relevant shifts in the linguistic means through which speakers refer to their hearers. It is demonstrated that these shifts contribute to the objective of an utterance by mobilizing the pragmatic meaning of a pronominal form to embody a recalibration of who the interactants project they are to one another--not in general, but rather at a particular moment in the ongoing interaction. In the case of verbal mood selection, we analyze the production of indicative (realis) vs. subjunctive (irrealis) morphology in syntactic constructions that license the use of either mood. It is argued that accounts of verbal mood selection which are based solely on individual-level cognitive realities fall short of explaining the moment-by-moment, dialogic production of morphology in sequences of naturalistic social interaction.Finally, in examining Spanish-English code-switching practices, we posit a parallel between language discordance and other sorts of nonconforming responsive utterances, arguing that code-switching in second position claims epistemic independence or primacy with regard to the knowledge invoked in the prior turn. Like repetitional responses in monolingual talk-in-interaction, code-switched turns in second position make a structural break with the language terms, constraints, and expectations set up by the first position turn, and thus they agentively resist the design of that previous turn to (re)assert their rights to the knowledge in question.Through the systematic analysis of this diverse array of interactional resources, it is argued that the deployment of linguistic structure is an integral component of how human identities are (re-)created--in and through social interaction with others. By grounding our inquiry in what Harold Garfinkel referred to as "members' resources" for producing and recognizing action, we are able to reconceptualize identity as a sequentially-conditioned, malleable, and collaborative achievement between co-participants in talk. The dissertation as a whole thus actively problematizes the commonly held sociolinguistic and discourse-analytic views of speaker identities and situated contexts as immutable constructs, and instead argues in favor of more micro-level conceptualizations of these phenomena as emergent features of the moment-by-moment discourse being co-constructed through the deployment of linguistic structure

I was gonna say… On the doubly reflexive character of a meta-communicative practice

Meta-communicative practices are generally reflexive in a fairly obvious sense: Inasmuch as speakers use them to talk about or comment on earlier/subsequent talk, they use language self-reflexively. In this paper, we explore a practice that is reflexive not only in this meta-communicative sense but also in a sequential-interactional one: Prefacing a conversational turn with I was gonna say. We show that the I was gonna say-preface furnishes the following general semantic-pragmatic affordances: (1) It retroactively relates the speaker’s subsequent talk to preceding talk from a co-participant, (2) it embodies a claim to prior, now-preempted, communicative intent with regard to what their co-participant has (just) said/done, (3) it therefore displays its speaker’s orientation to the relevance or the appropriate placement of the action(s) done in their own subsequent talk at an earlier moment in the interaction, and (4) it reflexively re-invokes, or retrieves, this earlier moment as the relevant sequential context for their action(s). We then go on to illustrate how speakers draw on these sequentially reflexive affordances for managing recurrent interactional contingencies in specific sequential environments. The paper ends with a discussion of the role that reflexivity plays in and for the deployment of this practice