Barbara Fox | University of Colorado, Boulder (original) (raw)
Papers by Barbara Fox
Interactional Linguistics, 2021
The action of proposing has been studied from various perspectives in research on talk-in-interac... more The action of proposing has been studied from various perspectives in research on talk-in-interaction, both in mundane as well as in institutional talk. Aiming to exemplify Interactional Linguistics as a drawing together of insights from Linguistics and Conversation Analysis, we explore the grammar of proposals and the stances displayed by participants in making proposals in the context of joint activities, where a future or hypothetical activity is being put forth as something the speaker and recipient(s) might do together. Close examination of interactions among American English-speaking adults reveals four recurrent grammatical formats for issuing proposals:Let’s, Why don’t we, Modal Declaratives, and Modal Interrogatives. We argue that these four formats for doing proposing within a joint activity are used in socially distinct environments, contributing to a growing understanding of the fit between entrenched linguistic patterns and the social work they have evolved to do.
IPrA Papers in Pragmatics, 1990
Typological Studies in Language, 1996
This paper seeks to understand a particular utterance, from a conversation taped at a backyard pi... more This paper seeks to understand a particular utterance, from a conversation taped at a backyard picnic in Ohio, which contains an interesting use of anaphora. The utterance in question, given for now without its surrounding context, appears as (1) below: 2
Typological Studies in Language, 2004
... Curt doesn't get any explicit display of understanding a... more ... Curt doesn't get any explicit display of understanding about that guy at the body shop (lines 5 and 8); and at line 9, using a B-event statement, he asks Mike if he knows ... As in (11), here, the recipient's stand-alone no response constitutes a subsidiary action during the ...
Prosody in Interaction, 2010
This study explores a range of interrelated semiotic resources for constructing a “laughable,” wh... more This study explores a range of interrelated semiotic resources for constructing a “laughable,” which we define as one or more utterances proffered by a speaker and inviting recipient laughter or other laugh related displays. These semiotic resources, in and around the talk, include a range of phonetic practices we initially characterize as smiley voice, breath particles, small modulations of pitch and loudness, high pitch, audible breathing, and laryngealization, as well as visible bodily practices such as leaning, smiling, shoulder shaking and gaze aversion. We also find that particular activities are constructed as part of the laughable, including exaggerations and contrasts. The current report is thus an initial foray into an extraordinarily complex realm of social interaction.
Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 2013
Responding to Sacks et al.’s 1974 call for linguists to join in the study of resources for turn c... more Responding to Sacks et al.’s 1974 call for linguists to join in the study of resources for turn construction, the authors of this chapter long ago took on turn formulation as an issue which linguists must account for. In this chapter, we return to this aspect of CA’s charge to linguists, noting that CA continues to borrow the meta-language of linguistic unit types which are based in a tradition that does not address the practices of humans in real-time and contingent social action. We experiment in grounding accounts of turn construction in action rather than linguistic-category types, offering two detailed analyses of utterances that emerge in ordinary interaction, avoiding dependence on linguistic categories. In line with longstanding trends in CA, we experiment in moving further toward a descriptive meta-language for turn construction based in the particulars of moments of naturally occurring interaction, with attention to vocal and embodied conduct of the multiple copresent participants.
Frontiers in Communication, 2021
When customers bring a material item to a shop for repair, they must make the item and its troubl... more When customers bring a material item to a shop for repair, they must make the item and its troubles inspectable to the staff at the shop. This typically requires physical manipulation of the object by the customer. For their part, the staff person may then need to take the item into their own hands to further inspect it. A physical transfer of the object from customer to staff person may thus need to be accomplished. A practical problem that can arise in such transfers is this: who has the rights and responsibilities to touch and hold the object at any given time? In our data from a shoe repair shop, this practical problem is one of turn-taking of the participants’ hands, and the participants exhibit a clear normative orientation to “one person touches at a time”, with gaps and overlaps being common but brief. The parallels to verbal turn-taking are explored, as are the different affordances of each semiotic resource. The data are in American English.
Typological studies in language, Apr 6, 1994
Page 1. Typological Studies in Language 27 Form and Functnon edited by Barbara A. Fox and Paul). ... more Page 1. Typological Studies in Language 27 Form and Functnon edited by Barbara A. Fox and Paul). Hopper John Benjamins Publishing Company Page 2. VOICE FORM AND FUNCTION Edited by BARBARA FOX University ...
Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 2015
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Jan 31, 2023
Studies in Language, 2017
In this study we explore patterns of same-turn self-repair within the word, across ten typologica... more In this study we explore patterns of same-turn self-repair within the word, across ten typologically and areally diverse languages. We find universal processes emerging through language-specific resources, namely: recycling is used to delay a next item due, while replacement is used to replace an inappropriate item. For example, most of our languages with prefixes or proclitics recycle those elements to delay production of the root/host, while languages with suffixes tend not to recycle just suffixes without their roots/hosts, since that would not serve to delay the production of the root/host; rather, the whole word is recycled. Replacement of affixes and clitics is rare, regardless of position. We provide several possible explanations for these facts, all based on the nature of replacement.
Frontiers in Communication, 2021
This paper investigates the body’s role in grammar in argument sequences. Drawing from a database... more This paper investigates the body’s role in grammar in argument sequences. Drawing from a database of public disputes on language use, we document the work of the palm-up gesture in action formation. Using conversation analysis and interactional linguistics, we show how this gesture is an interactional resource that indexes a particular epistemic stance—namely to cast the proposition being advanced as obvious. In this report, we focus on instances in which participants reach what we refer to as an ‘impasse’, at which point the palm up gesture becomes a resource for reasserting and pursuing a prior position, now laminated with an embodied claim of ‘obviousness’ that is grounded in the sequentiality of the interaction. As we show, the palm up gesture appears with and in response to a variety of syntactic and grammatical structures, and moreover can also function with no accompanying verbal utterance at all. This empirical observation challenges the assumption that a focus on grammar-in...
Discourse Studies, 2014
In early work within Conversation Analysis, utterances within a request sequence which inquire re... more In early work within Conversation Analysis, utterances within a request sequence which inquire regarding some of the preconditions of granting the request (such as having the item or having the ability to perform the action) are analyzed as pre-requests. Levinson, in an extended discussion of the organization of pre-requests and request sequences, treats utterances such as ‘do you have X?’, ‘can I have X?’ or ‘can you X for me?’ as inquiring about preconditions that could prevent the recipient from granting the request. By checking on preconditions, the requester works to avoid producing a request which will be declined, which is a dispreferred action. In other words, pre-requests, like other pre-sequences, function to project that another action will be produced if a favorable response is given; if not, that projected action may not be produced. In this view, then, they work to maintain the preference organization. This study uses requesting in service encounters to re-examine the ...
Interaction and Grammar
... Sandra A. Thompson an added degree of pressure on the turn-taking system (Sacks ... and that ... more ... Sandra A. Thompson an added degree of pressure on the turn-taking system (Sacks ... and that conversationalists orient to in produ-cing and recognizing turn-completion points. We offer evidence for interactionally validated units in conversational discourse, and we demonstrate ...
Research on Language & Social Interaction, 2010
... For languages in general, an appropriate term is that used in the functional linguistics lite... more ... For languages in general, an appropriate term is that used in the functional linguistics literature, question-word question. Correspondence should be sent to Sandra A. Thompson ... 14 Lisa: [( ) hehehe 15 Molly: .hhh How "far up the canyon are you.¼ 16 Felicia: ¼Ten miles. ...
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Jan 31, 2023
In this chapter we share some of what we find valuable about the study of grammar as sets of prac... more In this chapter we share some of what we find valuable about the study of grammar as sets of practices adapted to social interaction. Clearly, we are not able to cover all the fascinating and fruitful research that has appeared in this area in recent years, but we hope, through ...
Interactional Linguistics, 2021
The action of proposing has been studied from various perspectives in research on talk-in-interac... more The action of proposing has been studied from various perspectives in research on talk-in-interaction, both in mundane as well as in institutional talk. Aiming to exemplify Interactional Linguistics as a drawing together of insights from Linguistics and Conversation Analysis, we explore the grammar of proposals and the stances displayed by participants in making proposals in the context of joint activities, where a future or hypothetical activity is being put forth as something the speaker and recipient(s) might do together. Close examination of interactions among American English-speaking adults reveals four recurrent grammatical formats for issuing proposals:Let’s, Why don’t we, Modal Declaratives, and Modal Interrogatives. We argue that these four formats for doing proposing within a joint activity are used in socially distinct environments, contributing to a growing understanding of the fit between entrenched linguistic patterns and the social work they have evolved to do.
IPrA Papers in Pragmatics, 1990
Typological Studies in Language, 1996
This paper seeks to understand a particular utterance, from a conversation taped at a backyard pi... more This paper seeks to understand a particular utterance, from a conversation taped at a backyard picnic in Ohio, which contains an interesting use of anaphora. The utterance in question, given for now without its surrounding context, appears as (1) below: 2
Typological Studies in Language, 2004
... Curt doesn't get any explicit display of understanding a... more ... Curt doesn't get any explicit display of understanding about that guy at the body shop (lines 5 and 8); and at line 9, using a B-event statement, he asks Mike if he knows ... As in (11), here, the recipient's stand-alone no response constitutes a subsidiary action during the ...
Prosody in Interaction, 2010
This study explores a range of interrelated semiotic resources for constructing a “laughable,” wh... more This study explores a range of interrelated semiotic resources for constructing a “laughable,” which we define as one or more utterances proffered by a speaker and inviting recipient laughter or other laugh related displays. These semiotic resources, in and around the talk, include a range of phonetic practices we initially characterize as smiley voice, breath particles, small modulations of pitch and loudness, high pitch, audible breathing, and laryngealization, as well as visible bodily practices such as leaning, smiling, shoulder shaking and gaze aversion. We also find that particular activities are constructed as part of the laughable, including exaggerations and contrasts. The current report is thus an initial foray into an extraordinarily complex realm of social interaction.
Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 2013
Responding to Sacks et al.’s 1974 call for linguists to join in the study of resources for turn c... more Responding to Sacks et al.’s 1974 call for linguists to join in the study of resources for turn construction, the authors of this chapter long ago took on turn formulation as an issue which linguists must account for. In this chapter, we return to this aspect of CA’s charge to linguists, noting that CA continues to borrow the meta-language of linguistic unit types which are based in a tradition that does not address the practices of humans in real-time and contingent social action. We experiment in grounding accounts of turn construction in action rather than linguistic-category types, offering two detailed analyses of utterances that emerge in ordinary interaction, avoiding dependence on linguistic categories. In line with longstanding trends in CA, we experiment in moving further toward a descriptive meta-language for turn construction based in the particulars of moments of naturally occurring interaction, with attention to vocal and embodied conduct of the multiple copresent participants.
Frontiers in Communication, 2021
When customers bring a material item to a shop for repair, they must make the item and its troubl... more When customers bring a material item to a shop for repair, they must make the item and its troubles inspectable to the staff at the shop. This typically requires physical manipulation of the object by the customer. For their part, the staff person may then need to take the item into their own hands to further inspect it. A physical transfer of the object from customer to staff person may thus need to be accomplished. A practical problem that can arise in such transfers is this: who has the rights and responsibilities to touch and hold the object at any given time? In our data from a shoe repair shop, this practical problem is one of turn-taking of the participants’ hands, and the participants exhibit a clear normative orientation to “one person touches at a time”, with gaps and overlaps being common but brief. The parallels to verbal turn-taking are explored, as are the different affordances of each semiotic resource. The data are in American English.
Typological studies in language, Apr 6, 1994
Page 1. Typological Studies in Language 27 Form and Functnon edited by Barbara A. Fox and Paul). ... more Page 1. Typological Studies in Language 27 Form and Functnon edited by Barbara A. Fox and Paul). Hopper John Benjamins Publishing Company Page 2. VOICE FORM AND FUNCTION Edited by BARBARA FOX University ...
Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 2015
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Jan 31, 2023
Studies in Language, 2017
In this study we explore patterns of same-turn self-repair within the word, across ten typologica... more In this study we explore patterns of same-turn self-repair within the word, across ten typologically and areally diverse languages. We find universal processes emerging through language-specific resources, namely: recycling is used to delay a next item due, while replacement is used to replace an inappropriate item. For example, most of our languages with prefixes or proclitics recycle those elements to delay production of the root/host, while languages with suffixes tend not to recycle just suffixes without their roots/hosts, since that would not serve to delay the production of the root/host; rather, the whole word is recycled. Replacement of affixes and clitics is rare, regardless of position. We provide several possible explanations for these facts, all based on the nature of replacement.
Frontiers in Communication, 2021
This paper investigates the body’s role in grammar in argument sequences. Drawing from a database... more This paper investigates the body’s role in grammar in argument sequences. Drawing from a database of public disputes on language use, we document the work of the palm-up gesture in action formation. Using conversation analysis and interactional linguistics, we show how this gesture is an interactional resource that indexes a particular epistemic stance—namely to cast the proposition being advanced as obvious. In this report, we focus on instances in which participants reach what we refer to as an ‘impasse’, at which point the palm up gesture becomes a resource for reasserting and pursuing a prior position, now laminated with an embodied claim of ‘obviousness’ that is grounded in the sequentiality of the interaction. As we show, the palm up gesture appears with and in response to a variety of syntactic and grammatical structures, and moreover can also function with no accompanying verbal utterance at all. This empirical observation challenges the assumption that a focus on grammar-in...
Discourse Studies, 2014
In early work within Conversation Analysis, utterances within a request sequence which inquire re... more In early work within Conversation Analysis, utterances within a request sequence which inquire regarding some of the preconditions of granting the request (such as having the item or having the ability to perform the action) are analyzed as pre-requests. Levinson, in an extended discussion of the organization of pre-requests and request sequences, treats utterances such as ‘do you have X?’, ‘can I have X?’ or ‘can you X for me?’ as inquiring about preconditions that could prevent the recipient from granting the request. By checking on preconditions, the requester works to avoid producing a request which will be declined, which is a dispreferred action. In other words, pre-requests, like other pre-sequences, function to project that another action will be produced if a favorable response is given; if not, that projected action may not be produced. In this view, then, they work to maintain the preference organization. This study uses requesting in service encounters to re-examine the ...
Interaction and Grammar
... Sandra A. Thompson an added degree of pressure on the turn-taking system (Sacks ... and that ... more ... Sandra A. Thompson an added degree of pressure on the turn-taking system (Sacks ... and that conversationalists orient to in produ-cing and recognizing turn-completion points. We offer evidence for interactionally validated units in conversational discourse, and we demonstrate ...
Research on Language & Social Interaction, 2010
... For languages in general, an appropriate term is that used in the functional linguistics lite... more ... For languages in general, an appropriate term is that used in the functional linguistics literature, question-word question. Correspondence should be sent to Sandra A. Thompson ... 14 Lisa: [( ) hehehe 15 Molly: .hhh How "far up the canyon are you.¼ 16 Felicia: ¼Ten miles. ...
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Jan 31, 2023
In this chapter we share some of what we find valuable about the study of grammar as sets of prac... more In this chapter we share some of what we find valuable about the study of grammar as sets of practices adapted to social interaction. Clearly, we are not able to cover all the fascinating and fruitful research that has appeared in this area in recent years, but we hope, through ...