Types of conversation repairs

In the last post on conversation repairs , we mentioned that there are 4 possible ways to resolve them. Here's an explanation and examp...

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Conversation Repairs

When we have to correct ourselves (or others) while speaking, we make a conversation repair . Repairs can be initiated and resolved by the s...

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Hesitation Particles, hmm...

What is a hesitation particle? Sometimes known as filled pauses , they often precede a dispreferred response in a conversation. Instead of...

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Preferred responses

There are 2 kinds of possible responses to speech acts: preferred and dispreferred . Preferred responses are those that are culturally exp...

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Politeness in conversation

One useful property of indirect speech is that it can convey politeness . Consider these two statements: A: "Can you please shut the w...

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More fun with speaking indirectly

The previous post on indirect speech acts illustrated that one is allowed to violate the Gricean maxims to get your point across. Here ar...

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Indirect speech acts and violating the maxims

Indirect speech acts are used all the time, they have basically become second nature to us. Here's an example: A: Has the boss arrived...

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Conversation tips and general conversation rules

Conversation requires that listeners trust speakers to follow certain conventions. To make conversation efficient, both speakers and listen...

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Conversations and turn taking

Even casual conversation is organized by a set of rules, although we probably don't realize it because we pay more attention to the cont...

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Speech acts and conversation

The topic of speech acts and conversation is an often overlooked aspect of linguistics. People use language as a tool to do things, such a...

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Informal abbreviations

There are plenty of informal abbreviations, or shortenings of words out there. We don't really think about these that much in everyday ...

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