An implicature for um
Signaling Relative Expertise
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5966548 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Patricia G Lange (0000-0003-3110-8949, University of Southern California, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 191-204 |
| Publication date | 2008-04-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Discourse Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1461-4456 • E-ISSN: 1461-7080 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1461445607087008 |
| OpenAlex | W2023354585 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 15 |
Many scholars characterize um as an involuntary emission that is devoid of meaning. Other scholars classify um as a non-linguistic signal that conveys certain messages or resolves a conversational problem, such as determining next speaker. Um is often assumed to signal `powerless language' because it displays speaker uncertainty. Yet an examination of real-time, written conversation in two online communities shows that participants sometimes use an um to mark an obvious flaw in prior talk. In the examples below, um may be used to mark talk as flawed on the basis of information that is available (although not necessarily known) to both parties. When um becomes associated with marking obvious flaws in prior talk, interlocutors may trade on this meaning and deploy an um to display for themselves a higher position of relative expertise, vis-à-vis their interlocutors, within local micro-social hierarchies of knowledge
Conversation · Conversation analysis · Implicature · Linguistics · Pragmatics · Communication · Computer Science · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology
He-said-she-said
Speaking
Using uh and um in spontaneous speaking
Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments
Logic and Conversation
Beyond Agnosticism
Sharing the communicative burden
The Constitution of Expert-Novice in Scientific Discourse
Politeness
Hesitation Phenomena in Spontaneous English Speech
The Preference for Self-Correction in the Organization of Repair in Conversation
Linguistic Power and Persuasion
The Evaluative Consequences of Hedges, Hesitations, and Intensifies Powerful and Powerless Speech Styles
| Highly cited | No |
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