R Clift
Biographic Data
| ID | 28327 |
|---|---|
| NAME | R Clift |
| GIVEN NAMES | R |
| FAMILY NAME | Clift |
| SIGNATURE | CLIFT R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Essex |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5956-0438 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 215 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1998 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Grammar in time: Pragmatic contingency and non-restrictive which
In this paper, we draw upon dimensions of syntax, prosody and pragmatics to address a lacuna in current understandings of the non-restrictive (‘appositive’/‘supplementary’) relative which -clause. Contrary to its portrayal in descriptive grammars, naturally occurring data shows that this clause is commonly produced after a main clause has come to prosodic completion, that is, as a grammatical increment. Its usage therefore raises the interactiona…
Embodiment in Dissent: The Eye Roll as an Interactional Practice
This article investigates a recognizable embodied practice for displaying dissent: the “eye roll,” whereby the eyes are rolled up or sideways in their sockets as a response to something said or done. On a corpus of videoed interaction, it shows that: (a) the eye roll may be only the most salient—visible—element of a constellation of practices embodying dissent; and (b) it can be quite specific in its selection of recipients and can be used to pur…
Reference without anaphora: On Agency Through Grammar
In this article, we investigate a puzzle for standard accounts of reference in natural language processing, psycholinguistics and pragmatics: occasions where, following an initial reference (e.g.,the ice), a subsequent reference is achieved using the same noun phrase (i.e.,the ice), as opposed to an anaphoric form (i.e.,it). We argue that such non-anaphoric reference can be understood as motivated by a central principle: the expression of agency …
Turning the Tables: Objecting to Conduct in Conflict Talk
This article is a Conversation Analytic study of occasions where a speaker formulates what a recipient is doing as something objectionable, thereby delivering an accusation, e.g., “Why you shouting” or “I dunno why you’re being so aggressive.” We call these lexical formulations of what someone has just done conduct formulations. These are: (a) responsive to an ongoing imputation of misconduct or misdemeanor, and (b) produced in response to an upg…
Stability and visibility in embodiment: The 'Palm Up' in interaction
Actions in practice: On details in collections
Several of the contributions to the Lynch et al. Special issue make the claim that conversation-analytic research into epistemics is ‘routinely crafted at the expense of actual, produced and constitutive detail, and what that detail may show us’. Here, we seek to address the inappositeness of this critique by tracing precisely how it is that recognizable actions emerge from distinct practices of interaction. We begin by reviewing some of the foun…
Don't make me laugh: Responsive laughter in (dis)affiliation
Visible Deflation: Embodiment and Emotion in Interaction
This article identifies one embodied practice for implementing a recognizable action in interaction: what is here called “visible deflation.” This practice appears to embody a negative stance in response to a prior turn: one that is recognizable, and glossable, as “exasperation” in response to a prior turn. A number of instances of the practice captured in family interactions reveal how bodily resources are mobilized and organized with respect to…
Who Knew: A View from Linguistics
Identifying action: Laughter in non-humorous reported speech
Inshallah: Religious invocations in Arabic topic transition
The phraseinshallah'God willing' is well known, even to non-Arabic speakers, as a mitigator of any statement regarding the future, or hopes for the future. Here we use the methods of conversation analysis (CA) to examine a less salient but nonetheless pervasive and compelling interactional usage: in topic-transition sequences. We use a corpus of Levantine (predominantly Syrian) Arabic talk-in-interaction to pay detailed attention to the sequentia…
Unfinished turns in French conversation: Projectability, syntax and action
Indexing stance: Reported speech as an interactional evidential 1
The notion of linguistic stance as a non‐grammaticalized form of evidentiality is here explored through an investigation of reported speech in English interaction. Reported speech is found to be one of a variety of resources with which speakers lay claim to epistemic priority vis‐à‐vis recipients. Such resources are not identifiable as stance markers independently of the sequential contexts in which they appear; sequential position is shown to be…
Meaning in Interaction: The Case of actually
One aspect of the relationship between meaning and interaction is explored here by taking the English particle actually , which is characterized by flexibility of syntactic position, and investigating its use in a range of interactional contexts. Syntactic alternatives in the form of clause-initial or clause-final placement are found to be selected by reference to interactional exigencies. The temporally situated, contingent accomplishment of utt…
Irony in conversation
This article proposes the adoption of Goffman's concept of “framing” to characterize irony across its forms; the suggestion that this framing is achieved by a shift of footing reveals links between verbal irony and other forms of talk. Examination of irony in conversation shows how the shift of footing allows for detachment, enabling the ironist to make evaluations in response to perceived transgressions with reference to common assumptions. It i…
Lexical misunderstandings and prototype theory
Meaning in Interaction: The Case of actually
One aspect of the relationship between meaning and interaction is explored here by taking the English particle actually , which is characterized by flexibility of syntactic position, and investigating its use in a range of interactional contexts. Syntactic alternatives in the form of clause-initial or clause-final placement are found to be selected by reference to interactional exigencies. The temporally situated, contingent accomplishment of utt…
Irony in conversation
This article proposes the adoption of Goffman's concept of “framing” to characterize irony across its forms; the suggestion that this framing is achieved by a shift of footing reveals links between verbal irony and other forms of talk. Examination of irony in conversation shows how the shift of footing allows for detachment, enabling the ironist to make evaluations in response to perceived transgressions with reference to common assumptions. It i…
Actions in practice: On details in collections
Several of the contributions to the Lynch et al. Special issue make the claim that conversation-analytic research into epistemics is ‘routinely crafted at the expense of actual, produced and constitutive detail, and what that detail may show us’. Here, we seek to address the inappositeness of this critique by tracing precisely how it is that recognizable actions emerge from distinct practices of interaction. We begin by reviewing some of the foun…
Don't make me laugh: Responsive laughter in (dis)affiliation
Unfinished turns in French conversation: Projectability, syntax and action
Identifying action: Laughter in non-humorous reported speech
Stability and visibility in embodiment: The 'Palm Up' in interaction
Inshallah: Religious invocations in Arabic topic transition
The phraseinshallah'God willing' is well known, even to non-Arabic speakers, as a mitigator of any statement regarding the future, or hopes for the future. Here we use the methods of conversation analysis (CA) to examine a less salient but nonetheless pervasive and compelling interactional usage: in topic-transition sequences. We use a corpus of Levantine (predominantly Syrian) Arabic talk-in-interaction to pay detailed attention to the sequentia…
Reference without anaphora: On Agency Through Grammar
In this article, we investigate a puzzle for standard accounts of reference in natural language processing, psycholinguistics and pragmatics: occasions where, following an initial reference (e.g.,the ice), a subsequent reference is achieved using the same noun phrase (i.e.,the ice), as opposed to an anaphoric form (i.e.,it). We argue that such non-anaphoric reference can be understood as motivated by a central principle: the expression of agency …
Turning the Tables: Objecting to Conduct in Conflict Talk
This article is a Conversation Analytic study of occasions where a speaker formulates what a recipient is doing as something objectionable, thereby delivering an accusation, e.g., “Why you shouting” or “I dunno why you’re being so aggressive.” We call these lexical formulations of what someone has just done conduct formulations. These are: (a) responsive to an ongoing imputation of misconduct or misdemeanor, and (b) produced in response to an upg…
Who Knew: A View from Linguistics
Visible Deflation: Embodiment and Emotion in Interaction
This article identifies one embodied practice for implementing a recognizable action in interaction: what is here called “visible deflation.” This practice appears to embody a negative stance in response to a prior turn: one that is recognizable, and glossable, as “exasperation” in response to a prior turn. A number of instances of the practice captured in family interactions reveal how bodily resources are mobilized and organized with respect to…
Lexical misunderstandings and prototype theory
Irony in conversation
This article proposes the adoption of Goffman's concept of “framing” to characterize irony across its forms; the suggestion that this framing is achieved by a shift of footing reveals links between verbal irony and other forms of talk. Examination of irony in conversation shows how the shift of footing allows for detachment, enabling the ironist to make evaluations in response to perceived transgressions with reference to common assumptions. It i…
Meaning in Interaction: The Case of actually
One aspect of the relationship between meaning and interaction is explored here by taking the English particle actually , which is characterized by flexibility of syntactic position, and investigating its use in a range of interactional contexts. Syntactic alternatives in the form of clause-initial or clause-final placement are found to be selected by reference to interactional exigencies. The temporally situated, contingent accomplishment of utt…
Indexing stance: Reported speech as an interactional evidential 1
The notion of linguistic stance as a non‐grammaticalized form of evidentiality is here explored through an investigation of reported speech in English interaction. Reported speech is found to be one of a variety of resources with which speakers lay claim to epistemic priority vis‐à‐vis recipients. Such resources are not identifiable as stance markers independently of the sequential contexts in which they appear; sequential position is shown to be…
Unfinished turns in French conversation: Projectability, syntax and action
Inshallah: Religious invocations in Arabic topic transition
The phraseinshallah'God willing' is well known, even to non-Arabic speakers, as a mitigator of any statement regarding the future, or hopes for the future. Here we use the methods of conversation analysis (CA) to examine a less salient but nonetheless pervasive and compelling interactional usage: in topic-transition sequences. We use a corpus of Levantine (predominantly Syrian) Arabic talk-in-interaction to pay detailed attention to the sequentia…
Who Knew: A View from Linguistics
Identifying action: Laughter in non-humorous reported speech
Visible Deflation: Embodiment and Emotion in Interaction
This article identifies one embodied practice for implementing a recognizable action in interaction: what is here called “visible deflation.” This practice appears to embody a negative stance in response to a prior turn: one that is recognizable, and glossable, as “exasperation” in response to a prior turn. A number of instances of the practice captured in family interactions reveal how bodily resources are mobilized and organized with respect to…
Don't make me laugh: Responsive laughter in (dis)affiliation
Actions in practice: On details in collections
Several of the contributions to the Lynch et al. Special issue make the claim that conversation-analytic research into epistemics is ‘routinely crafted at the expense of actual, produced and constitutive detail, and what that detail may show us’. Here, we seek to address the inappositeness of this critique by tracing precisely how it is that recognizable actions emerge from distinct practices of interaction. We begin by reviewing some of the foun…
Turning the Tables: Objecting to Conduct in Conflict Talk
This article is a Conversation Analytic study of occasions where a speaker formulates what a recipient is doing as something objectionable, thereby delivering an accusation, e.g., “Why you shouting” or “I dunno why you’re being so aggressive.” We call these lexical formulations of what someone has just done conduct formulations. These are: (a) responsive to an ongoing imputation of misconduct or misdemeanor, and (b) produced in response to an upg…
Stability and visibility in embodiment: The 'Palm Up' in interaction
Embodiment in Dissent: The Eye Roll as an Interactional Practice
This article investigates a recognizable embodied practice for displaying dissent: the “eye roll,” whereby the eyes are rolled up or sideways in their sockets as a response to something said or done. On a corpus of videoed interaction, it shows that: (a) the eye roll may be only the most salient—visible—element of a constellation of practices embodying dissent; and (b) it can be quite specific in its selection of recipients and can be used to pur…
Reference without anaphora: On Agency Through Grammar
In this article, we investigate a puzzle for standard accounts of reference in natural language processing, psycholinguistics and pragmatics: occasions where, following an initial reference (e.g.,the ice), a subsequent reference is achieved using the same noun phrase (i.e.,the ice), as opposed to an anaphoric form (i.e.,it). We argue that such non-anaphoric reference can be understood as motivated by a central principle: the expression of agency …
Grammar in time: Pragmatic contingency and non-restrictive which
In this paper, we draw upon dimensions of syntax, prosody and pragmatics to address a lacuna in current understandings of the non-restrictive (‘appositive’/‘supplementary’) relative which -clause. Contrary to its portrayal in descriptive grammars, naturally occurring data shows that this clause is commonly produced after a main clause has come to prosodic completion, that is, as a grammatical increment. Its usage therefore raises the interactiona…
Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies (15 works) · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition (13 works) · Linguistics (13 works) · Psychology (13 works) · Philosophy (12 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies (9 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Conversation (7 works) · Conversation analysis (7 works)