Abstract
This paper presents a study of participants’ use of direct reported speech (DRS) in storytelling during dinner table conversation in French. Focusing on reported dialogues, the analysis corroborates earlier conversation analytic findings showing that speakers regularly use linguistic, prosodic and paralinguistic resources to stage the characters whose speech is being reported; thereby speakers display their stance on behalf of those characters and their conduct. Additionally, the analysis documents that speakers use DRS within reported dialogues as a powerful means for depicting their own adequate conduct in the face of a purportedly “deviant” conduct of a third party. In the specific context of our data, in which an au-pair interacts with her host family, such direct reported dialogues are used both by the mother and the au pair as a means to enact shared expectations about the appropriateness of a caregiver’s conduct in the face of the “deviant” conduct of a child. In light of these findings, the representation of past dialogues by means of DRS appears as a practical resource by means of which participants enact identities such as mother and caregiver and thereby reflexively construct and negotiate the related epistemic entitlements.
About the authors
Evelyne Berger is currently a Post-Doc at the Finnish Centre of Excellence in Intersubjectivity in Interaction at the University of Helsinki. She works currently in a third-party funded project on grammatical practices for structuring storytelling activities in French ordinary conversations. Her research interests include also turn-taking practices, repair organization, embodied conducts, second language talk, and classroom interactions.
Simona Pekarek Doehler is professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Neuchâtel. In her research she explores how communicative resources, including language, emerge from the process of interaction. Her work has appeared e.g. in Discourse Processes, the Modern Language Journal and Journal of Pragmatics. She has co-edited, with J. K. Hall and J. Hellermann, L2 Interactional Competence and Development (2011).
Appendix: List of glosses
- AUX
auxiliary
- CLI
clitic
- DEM
demonstrative
- DET
determiner
- IMPF
imperfect tense
- IO
indirect object
- PL
plural
- PP
past participle
- PRE
Ppreposition
- PRO
pronoun
- PRS
present tense
- PRT
particle
- SG
singular
- 1SG:
first person singular
- SUB
subject
References
Bangerter, Adrian, Eric Mayor & Simona Pekarek Doehler. 2011. Reported speech in conversational narratives during shift handover meetings of nursing care units. Discourse Processes 48. 184–214.10.1080/0163853X.2010.519765Search in Google Scholar
Clift, Rebecca & Elizabeth Holt. 2007. Introduction. In Elizabeth Holt & Rebecca Clift (eds.), Reporting talk. Reported speech in interaction, 1–15. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth. 1999. Coherent voicing: On prosody in conversational reported speech. In Wolfram Bublitz, Uta Lenk & Eija Ventola (eds.), Coherence in spoken and written discourse: How to create it and how to describe it, 11–32. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/pbns.63.05couSearch in Google Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth. 2007. Assessing and accounting. In Elizabeth Holt & Rebecca Clift (eds.), Reporting talk. Reported speech in interaction, 81–119. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Drew, Paul. 1998. Complaints about transgressions and misconduct. Research on Language and Social Interaction 31. 295–325.10.1080/08351813.1998.9683595Search in Google Scholar
Günthner, Susanne. 1999. Polyphony and the layering of voices in reported dialogs: An analysis of the use of prosodic devices in everyday reported speech. Journal of Pragmatics 31. 695–708.10.1016/S0378-2166(98)00093-9Search in Google Scholar
Heritage, John. 2012. Epistemics in action: Action formation and territories of knowledge. Research on Language and Social Interaction 45(1). 1–29.10.1080/08351813.2012.646684Search in Google Scholar
Holt, Elizabeth. 1996. Reporting on talk: The use of direct reported speech in conversation. Research on Language and Social Interaction 29. 219–245.10.1207/s15327973rlsi2903_2Search in Google Scholar
Holt, Elizabeth. 2000. Reporting and reacting: Concurrent responses to reported speech. Research on Language and Social Interaction 33. 425–454.10.1207/S15327973RLSI3304_04Search in Google Scholar
Holt, Elizabeth. 2007. ‘I’m envying your chop up mind’: Reporting and enacting. In Elizabeth Holt & Rebecca Clift (eds.), Reporting talk. Reported speech in interaction, 47–80. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511486654.004Search in Google Scholar
Klewitz, Gabriele & Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen. 1999. Quote-unquote. The role of prosody in the contextualization of reported speech sequences. Pragmatics 9(4). 459–48510.1075/prag.9.4.03kleSearch in Google Scholar
Ochs, Elinor, Ruth Smith & Carolyn Taylor. 1989. Detective stories at dinnertime: Problem-solving through co-narration. Cultural Dynamics 2(2). 238–257.10.4324/9780429496288-4Search in Google Scholar
Raymond, Geoffrey & John Heritage. 2006. The epistemics of social relations: Owning grandchildren. Language in Society 35. 677–705.10.1017/S0047404506060325Search in Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey. 1984. On doing ‘being ordinary’. In J. Maxwell Atkinson & John Heritage (eds.), Structures of social action, 413–429. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511665868.024Search in Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey. 1992. Lectures on conversation, vol. 2. Oxford: Blackwell.Search in Google Scholar
Schiffrin, Deborah. 1990. Narrative as self-portrait: Sociolinguistic constructions of identity. Language in Society 25. 167–203.10.1017/S0047404500020601Search in Google Scholar
Sidnell, Jack. 2006. Coordinating gesture, talk, and gaze in re-enactments. Research on Language and Social Interaction 39. 377–409.10.1207/s15327973rlsi3904_2Search in Google Scholar
Stivers, Tanya. 2008. Stance, alignment, and affiliation during storytelling: When nodding is a token of affiliation. Research on Language and Social Interaction 41(1). 31–57.10.1080/08351810701691123Search in Google Scholar
Stivers, Tanya, Lorenza Mondada & Jakob Steensig. 2011. Knowledge, morality and affiliation in social interaction. In Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada & Jakob Steensig (eds.), The morality of knowledge in interaction, 3–24. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511921674.002Search in Google Scholar
©2015 by De Gruyter Mouton
