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Article published In: English Text Construction
Vol. 13:2 (2020) ► pp.132–157

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What dialog is absent from constructed dialog?

 | Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg
Published online: 10 December 2020
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https://doi.org/10.1075/etc.00038.ruh
Abstract
This paper is concerned with constructed dialog in conversational storytelling. Based on Clark, Herbert H. & Richard J. Gerrig. 1990. Quotations as demonstrations. Language 66(4): 764–805. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar demonstration theory, its focus is on what is absent from constructed dialog. To determine what is absent, a comparison is made between constructed dialog tokens and utterances in conversation. The inquiry uses both quantitative and qualitative methods. It is based on the Narrative Corpus (NC; Rühlemann, Cristophe and Matthew B. O’Donnell. 2012. Towards a corpus of conversational narrative. Construction and annotation of the Narrative Corpus. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 8 (2): 313–350. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), a corpus of conversational narratives extracted from the conversational component of the British National Corpus (BNC), and its systematic annotation of constructed dialog (that is, direct speech introduced by a quotative and free direct speech without any introducer). The quantitative comparison of verbalizations used in constructed dialog as opposed to verbalizations used in conversational utterances demonstrates that a particular utterance type is significantly missing from constructed dialog: the continuer utterance, whose basic function is to exhibit an understanding that a form of ‘telling’ by another speaker is going on. The qualitative analysis, based on a subset of storytellings from the NC that were re-analyzed acoustically and re-transcribed using Jeffersonian conventions based on the Audio BNC (Coleman, John, Ladan Baghai-Ravary, John Pybus & Sergio Grau. 2012. Audio BNC: The Audio Edition of the Spoken British National Corpus. Phonetics Laboratory, University of Oxford. <[URL]> (7 October 2020).), reveals a stark mismatch between the commonness of tellings in talk-in-interaction and their uncommonness in constructed dialog. The absence of continuers from constructed dialog is discussed against the backdrop of indexicality. I argue that continuers share the key properties of indexicals – semantic vacuity and an existential relationship with the ‘thing’ indicated – and can therefore be seen as indexicals themselves. As indexicals, intrinsically connected to the speech situation of their utterance, continuers cannot be included in constructed dialog, which typically occurs in a different speech situation with different interactional parameters. Finally, I offer initial thoughts on the underrepresentation of telling sequences in constructed dialog.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data and methods
  • 3.Results
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
References (76)
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