Spoken Language Pragmatics: Analysis of Form-function Relations

This collection of eight articles examines aspects of the form and function in spontaneous spoken language. Contributors use as examples everyday conversation, football commentaries, interviews, consultations, task-based conversations, radio-play productions and intercultural conversations to show how speakers position themselves according to their relation to their discourse, work through different tasks, mark time and space, and move between different voices, personal situations and education levels. Specific topics include demonstrative and personal pronouns in formal and informal conversations, grammatical past time references, the structure and function of wenn clauses and their role in problem solving, the relationship between deixis and modality, modal particles and emotion, speech rate and emotion working with time pressure in English and German football commentary, multiple voices and artistic reformulation in "directing-conversations," and tandem conversation about word meaning in intercultural positioning. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)