(Non)referentiality in Conversation
John Benjamins Publishing Co
Published on 1. August 2024
Book
Hardback
209 pages
978-90-272-1462-1 (ISBN)
Description
Although there is a large literature on referentiality, going back to at least the nineteenth and early twentieth century, much of this early work is based on constructed data and most of it is on English. The chapters in this volume contribute to a growing body of work that examines referentiality through naturalistic data in context. Taking an interactional approach to (non)referentiality, contributors to this volume ask how participants talk in real time about persons and things as individuals or as categories, and what distinguishes 'referential' from 'nonreferential', 'specific' from 'nonspecific', and 'generic' from 'nongeneric'. Crucially, we ask whether these distinctions even matter to participants in conversation, and if they do, what the evidence for that would be. Contributors investigate these issues using data from conversational interaction in a variety of social contexts - including between close friends and family to more casual acquaintances, in service encounters, and between adults and children - and in a range of languages: English, Finnish, French, Indonesian, Japanese and Mandarin. Collectively, the chapters develop insights showing that reference is often fluid, dynamic, and indeterminate, that referential indeterminacy is typically unproblematic for participants, that shifts in referentiality tend to be tied to specific social goals, and that reference and referentiality emerge dialogically and interactionally.
Reviews / Votes
This collection stands as a vital contribution to the study of reference and interaction and invites scholars from adjacent fields to reconsider the basic assumptions that underlie their models of meaning and use. In its empirical depth and cross-linguistic breadth, the volume is poised to serve as a reference for future work on referentiality in language. -- Sofiana Lindemann, Transilvania University of Brasov, in Language and Dialogue 15:3 (2025).More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Amsterdam
Netherlands
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Weight
530 gr
ISBN-13
978-90-272-1462-1 (9789027214621)
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Schweitzer Classification