On the Place of Linguistic Resources in the Organization of Talk-in-Interaction: Grammar as Action in Prompting a Speaker to Elaborate

Abstract

Specific parts of grammatical structure can be employed by speakers to accomplish specifiable actions in talk-in-interaction. In this article, I describe the interactional use of "parts of speech" ordinarily used by individual speakers to connect elements within single turn-constructional units. The items employed for these held-in-com- mon grammatical practices can also be deployed as stand-alone contributions that by their very incompleteness prompt a prior speaker to add another increment to their turn. As such, this constitutes a recipient-administered practice for expanding a turn at talk. I show that this usage constitutes another (previously undescribed) form of other-initiated repair that is designed to prompt a prior speaker to add a type-specific element found missing from an otherwise completed turn. In conversation, turn-taking organization includes practices for con- structing and allocating opportunities to speak, whereas sequence organi- zation encompasses practices for ordering actions—carried out through speaking—as sequences of actions. Action sequences in conversation are