Genre and Conversation

Datos Bibliográficos

ID21364064
AutoresElmar Unnsteinsson (0000-0001-5333-1784, School of Philosophy University College Dublin Dublin Ireland, autor de correspondencia), Daniel W Harris (0000-0002-4764-3703, Department of Philosophy Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center New York USA)
Año2026
Fecha de publicación2026-01-26
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaNoûs (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0029-4624 • E-ISSN: 1468-0068
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/nous.70035
OpenAlexW7125832758
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas70

Conversations can belong to different types, or genres . We consider four dimensions of variation as case studies: Some conversations are about sharing information, others about making decisions; some are about making firm commitments, others about brainstorming options; some are about sticking to the facts, others involve make‐believe; some are highly cooperative, others adversarial. These are orthogonal dimensions of variation which explain why some kinds of speech acts are more felicitous and expected than others in particular conversations. But what are genres, how do they shape conversation, and why do they exist? We argue that genre categories can be understood as types of conversation plans, which are the structures of intentions that we use to organize conversations, and that each of our four genre distinctions corresponds to an independently variable kind of element within these plans. Speakers are under rational pressure to make their communicative intentions cohere with the conversation plan, which gives their interlocutors a powerful extralinguistic resource for interpreting their speech acts. We use this idea to show how several influential pragmatic theories, including Grice's theory of conversational implicature, Stalnaker's theory of common ground, and Roberts' question‐under‐discussion model, can be generalized to account for more kinds of conversation

Brainstorming · Conversation · Conversation analysis · Element (criminal law) · Preference · Variation (astronomy) · Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation