Why do these people’s opinions matter?’ Positioning known referents as unnameable others

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5965254
AutoresClare Jackson (0000-0002-2023-458X)
Año2013
Volumen15
Número3
Páginas299-317
Fecha de publicación2013-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaDiscourse Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1461-4456 • E-ISSN: 1461-7080
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1461445613480587
OpenAlexW2323771230
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas11
Referencias citadas25

The way we refer to third parties in talk is one means through which relationships between speaker, recipients and referents are made relevant. A range of referring expressions is available and any number of expressions might correctly refer to a referent. One guide to selection is the preference for achieving recognition and the default practice is, where possible, to use a name. This conversation analytic article describes a practice that does not fit the default pattern. In this practice, speakers select a broad social category (typically gendered, e.g. guy, woman, but not always, e.g. people) when a recognitional form could (and perhaps, ought to) have been used. Despite the designed selection of a categorical form, the referent(s) remains recognitional. For example, in one extract, a mother in conversation with her teenage daughter refers to a collective made up of her former husband and his girlfriend as ‘these people’. The daughter has no difficulty working out who ‘these people’ are and recognizes it as a reference to her father and stepmother. I show that this designedly categorical formulation often contributes to hostile action by distancing the referent(s) from parties to the interaction - making the referent(s) unnameable and not connected to the speaker and recipient. The role of demonstrative pronouns - this, that, these - are discussed in relation to constructing social distance between speakers, recipients and referents

Categorical variable · Cognitive psychology · Conversation · Conversation analysis · Deixis · Demonstrative · Honorific · Linguistics · Pronoun · Referent · Social distance · Communication · Computer Science · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Psychology · Social Psychology