In:Enabling Human Conduct: Studies of talk-in-interaction in honor of Emanuel A. Schegloff
Edited by Geoffrey Raymond, Gene H. Lerner and John Heritage
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 273] 2017
► pp. 315–325
What a difference forty years make
The view from linguistics
Published online: 24 May 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.273.16cou
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.273.16cou
In great part thanks to Manny Schegloff’s contributions, CA has brought with it a fresh new way of thinking about language. Three roughly chronological stages can be identified in Schegloff’s linguistic development: (1) casual observation about small-scale linguistic phenomena, including silence, timing of sounds, syllables and words, non-lexical tokens, reference and deixis; (2) serious engagement with large-scale linguistic phenomena, including sentences, questions, speech acts, coherence, and prosody; (3) full-blown linguistic theorizing about, e.g., the natural habitat of language and grammars as positionally sensitive objects. The conclusion is that Manny Schegloff has contributed, if unwittingly, to a ‘new-age’, interactional revolution in linguistic thinking.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.The beginning stage: Casual observation about small-scale linguistic phenomena
- 2.1Silence
- 2.2Timing in sounds, syllables, and words
- 2.3Non-lexical tokens
- 2.4Reference and deixis
- 3.The middle stage: Serious engagement with large-scale linguistic phenomena
- 3.1Sentences
- 3.2Questions
- 3.3Speech acts
- 3.4Coherence
- 3.5Prosody
- 4.The latest stage: Full-blown linguistic theorizing
- 4.1Language in its natural habitat
- 4.2Positionally sensitive grammars
- 5.Conclusion
Acknowledgement Notes References
References (17)
Sacks, Harvey. 1984. “Notes on Methodology.” In Structures of Social Action. Studies in Conversation Analysis, ed. by J. Maxwell Atkinson and John Heritage, 21–27. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sacks, Harvey, and Emanuel A. Schegloff. 1979. “Two Preferences in the Organization of Reference to Persons in Conversation and their Interaction.” In Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology, ed. by George Psathas, 15–21. New York: Irvington.
Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson. 1974. “A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation.” Language 50: 696–735.
Schegloff, Emanuel A. 1968. “Sequencing in Conversational Openings.” American Anthropologist 70: 1075–1095.
. 1972. “Notes on a Conversational Practice: Formulating Place.” In Studies in Social Interaction, ed. by David Sudnow, 75–129. New York: The Free Press.
. 1979. “The Relevance of Repair to Syntax-for Conversation.” In Discourse Syntax. Syntax and Semantics, Volume 12, ed. by Talmy Givón, 261–286. New York: Academic.
. 1982. “Discourse as an Interactional Achievement: Some Uses of ‘uh huh’ and Other Things that Come Between Sentences.” In Analyzing Discourse: Text and Talk, ed. by Deborah Tannen, 71–93. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
. 1984. “On Some Questions and Ambiguities in Conversations.” In Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, ed. by J. Maxwell Atkinson and John Heritage, 28–52. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
. 1990. “On the Organization of Sequences as a Source of ‘Coherence’ in Talk-in-Interaction.” In Conversational Coherence and its Development, ed. by Bruce Dorval, 51–77. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
. 1996a. “Some Practices for Referring to Persons in Talk-in-Interaction: A Partial Sketch of a Systematics.” In Studies in Anaphora, ed. by Barbara Fox, 437–485. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
. 1996b. “Confirming Allusions: Toward an Empirical Account of Action.” American Journal of Sociology 102 (1): 161–216.
. 1996c. “Turn Organization: One Intersection of Grammar and Interaction.” In Interaction and Grammar, ed. by Elinor Ochs, Emanuel A. Schegloff, and Sandra A. Thompson, 52–133. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
. 1998. “Reflections on Studying Prosody in Talk-in-Interaction.” Language and Speech 41 (3–4): 235–263.
Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
Guangrong, Wan
2025. Review of Yao & Li (2023): 《互动视角下的汉语口语语法研究》. Chinese Language and Discourse. An International and Interdisciplinary Journal 16:2 ► pp. 383 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 28 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.