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Papers by Rasmus Persson

Research on Language and Social Interaction, 2020

This article examines three practices in responses to polar questions in French: prefacing a pola... more This article examines three practices in responses to polar questions in French: prefacing a polar response token (e.g., oui ["yes"] or non ["no"]) with the particle ah (e.g., ah oui), prefacing with the particle ben (e.g., ben oui), and producing more than one token (e.g., oui=oui). The analysis suggests that such responses serve to take issue with the question; specifically, respondents display the answer to be obvious or redundant, challenge the questioner's unknowing stance, or disalign with the further action implications of the question while still providing a polar answer. Comparisons are made with other practices for exerting agency in responses and with resources described for other languages. The resources available in French help participants differentiate in which way the respondent takes issue with the question, notwithstanding significant local particularization by reference to the specific question and its context. Data are in French, with English translation. Question-answer pairs are an essential locus of microlevel social organization, constituting a pervasive and fundamental sequence-organizational format that underpins a vast range of social activities. The respondent in a question-answer sequence is constrained to acting within a tightly organized normative structure involving projections and expectations as well as consequences that will follow any departure from what is expected. This is particularly clear for polar questions, where (in many languages) respondents are normatively expected to produce an item from a very limited set of polar response tokens. Conversation-analytic research is beginning to map the resources that respondents have for exerting social-interactional agency and asserting their own agenda or perspective. One method for departing from the constraints of a polar question is to provide a response that is not type-conforming, i.e., one that does not involve some form of a polar response token such as yes/no in English, or oui/non in French, and thus does not follow the normative response requirements imposed through particular question types (G. Raymond, 2003). With nonconforming responses, respondents can thus, e.g., answer the question while adjusting the terms, answer the question while correcting its presuppositions, or evade the question altogether. Nonconforming responses are a vital resource for embodying agency and carry with them their own implications of inferences that questioners can (and do) draw upon receipt of such responses. However, previous work has also shown that even type-conforming responses can be used in such a way as to allow the respondent a more agentive role in the emerging sequence and activity. This article examines three such practices, and I argue that respondents deploy them to take a stance toward a question while answering it by prefacing CONTACT Rasmus Persson

Language in Society, 2020

This study contributes to the body of cross-linguistic research on repetition, repair, and action... more This study contributes to the body of cross-linguistic research on repetition, repair, and action-formation more generally. Using conversation-analytic and interactional-linguistic methods to analyse both position and composition in the formation of actions accomplished by other-repetitions in French, the study underscores the interplay between linguistic design, sequential organisation , and territories of knowledge and accountability in interaction. The actions conveyed by other-repetitions, and the responses made relevant, are affected by both (i) the design of the repetition turn itself-involving various features of prosody (e.g. intonation contour type and pitch span), grammar, and lexis-and (ii) the sequential location of the repetition, including the particulars of the talk that gets repeated and the relevancies set up by that previous talk. The study concludes with a discussion of its significance for research on action-formation as well as for research on the pragmatics of intonation. (Repair-initiation, surprise, acceptability, registering, intonation, epistemics, agency)

Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 2018

The question of whether and how intonation patterns bear meanings is an old one, usually evaluate... more The question of whether and how intonation patterns bear meanings is an old one, usually evaluated with reference to imagined or elicited speech. This study takes an interactional linguistic approach instead, examining intonation and meaning in naturally occurring interaction. The pattern considered here is a French intonation contour involving a salient initial accent and a low primary accent. This intonation pattern could be analysed as the so-called accent d'insistance, which is often said to have pragmatic meanings such as intensification and contrastive focus. This article analyses the uses of this contour in repeats. When used in repeats of an interlocutor's speech, the contour indicates unproblematic receipt of the repeated talk, making a confirming response optional, and contrasts with a final rise pattern used in repeats that initiate repair and request confirmation. However, in two other types of repetitions (self-repetition of a previously made assessment, and modified self-repetition for correction purposes), there is indeed interactional evidence supporting the argument that the contour helps convey the pragmatic meanings intensification and contrastive focus, respectively. It is argued that all of these meanings are achieved through the interplay of semiotic resources of several kinds (prosodic, verbal and sequential properties of talk), and that the contour itself has no inherent, context-independent meaning. The empirical findings presented suggest that the autonomy of intonation in the achievement of meaning has been overemphasised.

Revue Française de Linguistique Appliquée, 2017

Cet article offre un état des lieux de la recherche portant sur les liens entre la prosodie et l’... more Cet article offre un état des lieux de la recherche portant sur les liens entre la prosodie et l’organisation de l’interaction sociale. Nous faisons un survol des principaux travaux sur le formatage prosodique et phonétique et sa pertinence procédurale pour l’interaction, selon trois axes : la gestion de la parole, l’organisation séquentielle, et la construction des actions. Dans chaque cas, nous offrons également des analyses illustratives de données en français.

This article takes stock of the current state of research on the connections between prosody and the organisation of social interaction. An overview is given of central studies of prosodic and phonetic design and its procedural relevance for interaction, along three lines of inquiry: the management of turns, sequence organisation, and action formation. For each of these issues, illustrative analyses based on French data are also presented.

Research on Language and Social Interaction, 2017

This article reports on the use of syntactically incomplete utterances in talk-in-interaction as ... more This article reports on the use of syntactically incomplete utterances in talk-in-interaction as a resource for doing two sorts of inquiries: seeking information and initiating repair. The element inquired about is made relevant next, and typically given by the addressee, in the form of a completion fitted to the incomplete utterance. Using a vernacular term, the practice could be referred to as "asking a fill-in-the-blank question," where syntactic structure is distributed across question and answer. It is shown how transition relevance places can be set up in the absence of syntactic completion and how fill-in-the-blank questions thereby differ from other types of collaborative productions. The particular import and usefulness of incomplete utterances is demonstrated relative to other resources. The phenomenon shows that syntactic completion and turn completion need not coincide and illustrates how questions can constrain the form of answers through projection. Data are in French with English translation.

Research on Language and Social Interaction, 2016

A speaker who issues a confirming turn starting with particles like yes, oui, ja, and so on, may ... more A speaker who issues a confirming turn starting with particles like yes, oui, ja, and so on, may mean to extend it and provide further material. This study shows that French and German speakers employ the same phonetic contrast to indicate the nature of that turn continuation. In spite of the typological difference between the German use of glottalization and the French use of linking phenomena for word boundaries involving word-initial vowels, speakers of both languages exploit this contrast systematically in their design of multiunit turns. Initial confirmations are joined directly to subsequent vowel-fronted turn components when speakers respond with an internally cohesive multiunit confirming turn. The components are separated by glottalization when responses involve multiple actions or departures from a trajectory projected by the turn-initial confirmation. This is further evidence that sound patterns shape interaction and are not solely determined by language-specific phonologies. Data are in French and German with English translation.

Discourse Studies, 2015

This article examines the prosody and sequential organisation of repeats in French talk-ininterac... more This article examines the prosody and sequential organisation of repeats in French talk-ininteraction. Repeats in French are used for initiating repair, as well as for registering receipt. I show for two sequential contexts – after first pair parts and after second pair parts – that the action import of the repeat depends on its prosodic design; prosody allows participants to differentiate between repair-initiating (i.e. questioning) and receipt-registering repeats. While questioning repeats make a response conditionally relevant, registering repeats do not – however, they do not preclude a response either. Registering repeats are sometimes responded to with confirmation tokens, and sometimes not; when produced, such responses are a contingent possibility rather than an expectable second pair part. In the selection and design of confirmation tokens, participants distinguish between solicited and volunteered confirmations. The article relates these findings to prior research on repetition and sequence organisation in French and also in English, Russian and Finnish.

Language in Society, 2015

This article considers a practice in French talk-in-interaction, formally characterized as other-... more This article considers a practice in French talk-in-interaction, formally characterized as other-repeats prefaced by the change-of-state particle 'ah'. The target practice accomplishes a claim of receipt, while at the same time indexing as somehow inadequate a previous turn by the receipt speaker. Evidence drawn upon includes: (i) the sequential locations of the examined phenomenon; (ii) ensuing developments of the sequence, wherein the indexed inadequacy is more explicitly acknowledged; and (iii) the discriminability of the focal practice with respect to alternative practices. Two phonetically distinguished variants of the practice, and their respective sequential projections (‘problematizing’ topicalization or ‘accepting’ closure), are discussed. This article contributes to the study of how intersubjectivity is managed and administered by participants, and to research on the management of accountability for producing ‘adequate’ turns and actions. Finally, it addresses ongoing discussions concerning the analysis of multiple actions (first- and second-order) conveyed simultaneously in single turns.

Journal of Pragmatics, 2013

This paper contributes to the study of the interactional functions of so-called formulations, whi... more This paper contributes to the study of the interactional functions of so-called formulations, while at the same time proposing an account for variability in phonetic design with reference to the observable interactional and sequential structure of talk. Two types of formulations are identified: final rise formulations and rise–fall formulations. The two categories differ in terms of intonational form as well as next-turn treatment and sequential location. While final rise formulations are used to solicit elaborate confirmations, rise–fall confirmations are responded to with mere confirmation. The two types of formulations can be described as projecting expansion relevance and closing relevance, respectively. The categorization is empirically warranted by means of participant orientation in both typical and deviant cases, demonstrating the robustness of the phenomena. The paper argues that linguistic design is inextricably linked to interactional functions, and that the former cannot be fully understood without consideration of the latter.

Books by Rasmus Persson

This dissertation deals with conversational practices through which interactants manage issues of... more This dissertation deals with conversational practices through which interactants manage issues of intersubjectivity, i.e. mutual understanding for all practical purposes. Intersubjectivity is understood in a procedural sense, and as built into the infrastructure of interaction, where each next action embodies aspects of how the previous action was understood. This understanding can be inspected by others, and amended where deemed appropriate. Largely, mutual understanding is thus taken for granted and tacitly assumed. However, at times interactants do pay overt attention to managing understandings, and this thesis focuses on three such cases.

The analyses are couched in the framework of conversation analysis (CA), which aims to uncover how participants produce recognizable social actions by means of generic but flexible conversational practices. These practices draw on linguistic resources and other conduct, as well as the sequential position in which the practice is located. The approach taken in this thesis is also characterized by its attention to phonetic detail (including prosodic, articulatory and phonatory aspects of talk) as a resource for action.

Each of the three empirical chapters deals with a particular phenomenon involved in managing intersubjectivity in French talk-in-interaction. The first is concerned with formulations, a way of drawing out the gist of what the interlocutor has just said. These may be used to solicit either mere or elaborate confirmations. The second investigates ahprefaced other-repeats, which acknowledge receipt and claim a renewed understanding, while indexing a previous action as inadequate. The third concentrates on mere otherrepeats, and demonstrates that they may either indicate a breakdown in intersubjectivity, or display uptake and thus maintained intersubjectivity. One of the main findings is that phonetic design is pivotal in specifying the action conveyed by the practices examined, and thus constitutes an integral part of the practices. The results show that the phonetic design of a turn at talk does not straightforwardly map to intersubjective meaning, but is inextricably linked to action and sequential organization.

Book chapters by Rasmus Persson

Multimodal interaktionsanalys, 2020

Conference Presentations by Rasmus Persson

As part of a larger investigation into practices for managing intersubjectivity in French talk-in... more As part of a larger investigation into practices for managing intersubjectivity in French talk-in-interaction, this paper reports on the use of "ah"-prefaced repeats. The focal construction is thus composed of the particle "ah" followed by a partial or full repeat of the other’s previous turn. The paper claims that this construction is used as a resource for indexing one’s own sequentially (rather than serially) previous turn as problematic. The analysis draws on several types of evidence to substantiate this claim, including sequential location of deployment (i.e., preceding actions), co-occurring actions in the same turn as the focal construction, co-participant treatment, and discriminability from alternative actions in comparable sequential environments. It is also shown that participants draw on phonetic resources (in particular intonation and articulatory settings) to design the receipt turn as topicalising or closure-implicative, either making sequence expansion relevant or not.

Given that the French particle "ah" in many respects is akin to English "oh", including its potential to claim a change of state in the speaker’s informedness or awareness, it is not surprising to find that "ah"-prefaced repeats can be used as receipts. In fact, the focal construction is overwhelmingly used as such, and specifically in two particular sequential environments: (1) The focal construction is employed as a receipt of third position repairs (Schegloff 1992), i.e. in fourth position, in order to acknowledge the third position repair. The speaker of the receipt thus does uptake of the repair while at the same time aligning with the stance, embodied in the third position repair, that the turn in second position and the understanding displayed therein were somehow problematic. (2) The focal construction is employed as a receipt (in third position) of a responsive action (in second position) that resists the relevance of, or the presuppositions embodied in, the initiating action (in first position). Such resistance may involve, for instance, claiming previous knowledge of something presented by a co-participant as news. In such a case, the teller of the assumed news employs the receipt to do uptake of the turn that claims to correct the epistemic presuppositions, and thus aligns with the portrayal of the news telling as inadequate.

Apart from these two typical sequential environments, a small number of occurrences are found in other contexts, and these provide diverse evidence both of the flexibility of the resource and of its strategic usage in locations where speakers work to index their own previous move as somehow problematic or inadequate.

Across the collection of "ah"-prefaced repeats, actions conveyed by subsequent TCUs in the same turn are highly consistent with the work that this paper claims that the focal construction accomplishes. For example, participants may continue a turn, after an "ah"-prefaced repeat, with an apology or an account for producing the problematic turn.

The discriminability of the focal construction from other classes of receipts, such as other "ah"-prefaced receipt tokens and non-prefaced repeats, is demonstrated by examination of cases where participants do uptake but specifically do NOT index their own previous move as problematic, e.g. in uptake of unproblematic answers to questions, in uptake of embedded correction (Jefferson 1987), and in cases where corrected speakers work to minimise some inadequacy of their turn suggested by the interlocutor. "Ah"-prefaced repeats are relevantly NOT used in such sequential contexts.

This paper also demonstrates that speakers and recipients use the phonetic design of the focal construction to differentiate between (a) "ah"-prefaced repeats that convey fully accomplished acceptance of what is being receipted, and (b) ones that topicalise the receipted talk and make further sequence expansion relevant. While the latter are characterised by tighter articulatory settings and relatively wide rise or rise-fall pitch movements associated with syllables carrying final accentuation, the former exhibit laxer articulatory settings (going as far as syllable deletion), especially near the end of the TCU, and typically an accentuation early in the TCU followed by a stretch of falling pitch with falling or virtually flat pitch during the final syllable. In acceptance-implicative cases (a), no further sequence expansion is projected by the receipt, and if produced anyway, such talk treats the correction or repair as something established which does not require further interactional work. However, in topicalising cases (b), the display of uptake does not in itself entail acceptance, which is deferred, and the receipt may be responded to with further reconciliatory information (Robinson 2009), or the sequence may be continued with talk that in other ways deals with trouble accepting the talk being repeated or with the (problematic) consequences of the revised understanding for the activity underway. These receipts may thus themselves be sequence-initiating.

The study contributes to several strands of conversation analytic research. First, it contributes to work on repair, understanding and intersubjectivity, by describing the precise mechanisms of one practice employed in the collaborative work participants do to re-establish intersubjectivity in talk-in-interaction. Second, it illuminates participants’ methods for managing accountability for trouble in talk-in-interaction, demonstrating that participants systematically employ practices of talking, based on linguistic and phonetic resources, for closely attending to, and negotiating, issues such as having produced a problematic, or on the contrary a “good enough”, conversational action. This suggests that such concerns are socially significant. There are indications that denying having produced an inadequate turn, and claiming to have produced a “good enough” turn, may amount to holding the repair-initiating participant accountable for initiating repair where it was uncalled for, and where one could have let it pass -- in vernacular terms, “quibbling”. Third, this paper adds to the growing body of research documenting how the phonetic design of turns at talk is inextricably linked to sequence and social action. In particular, it shows that participants employ both prosodic and non-prosodic features in the design of turns at talk in order to form and recognise social actions.

This paper reports some results from a larger study on phonetic variability as an interactional r... more This paper reports some results from a larger study on phonetic variability as an interactional resource in French, and describes two similar but distinct practices. One of these is employed to do soliciting of a mere confirmation, and the other accomplishes the double-barrelled action of soliciting a confirmation followed by an elaboration. This elaboration may take the form of an account for or a detailing of what is being confirmed. Both practices involve doing a so-called formulation, where one speaker draws out the gist or the upshot of another’s talk, to be ratified by the latter. The two practices are formally distinguished by means of prosody. Somewhat simplified, the pitch contour of solicitations of mere confirmations can be described as a rise-fall. The peak of this contour occurs during the syllable preceding the one which carries the final accent of the TCU. The alternative contour is a final rise, the peak occurring during the syllable with final accentuation. Participants are shown to orient to these two types of first actions as establishing different conditional relevancies for the response turn. While highlighting the importance of prosody as a resource for interaction, this study contributes to several strands of conversation analytic research (in addition to studies on French intonation), e.g. studies on formulations and on account solicitations. For instance, our description of the practice for seeking elaborations, such as accounts, relates to recent work which suggests that explicit account solicitations are dispreferred, and that participants in the first instance use more covert practices. Solicitation of a confirmation of the accountable matter, serving as a “vehicle action”, would be an example of such a practice.