Cover not available

Article published In: Approaches to grammar for interactional linguistics
[Pragmatics 23:3] 2013
► pp. 545–564

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF

Imperatives and commitments in Romanian academic meeting interactions

Open Access logo
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 1 September 2013
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.23.3.08vel
Romanian imperatives may include different constructions that do not necessarily entail an imperative verb, such as the subjunctive and the indicative mood, interjections or elliptical formats. This study focuses on the ‘bare’ imperative turns-at-talk by applying the methodology of conversation analysis on a corpus consisting of naturally occurring academic meeting interactions. It shows how the imperative expresses actions that display no contingency or difficulty in managing them due to the existence of mainly prior explicit commitments (suggestions, proposals, agreements, previous allocated tasks) that entitle the speakers to use the imperative form in order to direct their recipients. Moreover, it shows how the turn including an imperative verb may also represent a simultaneous commitment, more explicitly an offer that accounts for the lack of contingencies and makes relevant the use of the imperative form within the context of Romanian academic meeting interactions.
References (41)
Aikhenvald, Alexandra (2010) Imperatives and Commands. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Antaki, Charles, and Alexandra Kent (2012) Telling people what to do (and, sometimes, why): Contingency, entitlement and explanation in staff requests to adults with intellectual impairments. Journal of Pragmatics 44.6–7: 876-889.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Asmuß, Birte, and Sae Oshima (2012) Negotiation of entitlement in proposal sequences. Discourse Studies 14.1: 67-86. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Asmuß, Birte, and Jan Svennevig (2009) Meeting talk – an introduction. Journal of Business Communication 461: 3-22. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bax, Ingrid Pufahl (1986) How to assign work in an office: A comparison of spoken and written directives in American english. Journal of Pragmatics 10.6: 673-692. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boden, Deirdre (1994) The Business of Talk: Organizations in Action. Cambridge: Polity Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Craven, Alexandra, and Jonathan Potter (2010) Directives: Entitlement and contingency in action. Discourse Studies 12.4: 419-442.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Curl, Traci (2006) Offers of assistance: Constraints on syntactic design. Journal of Pragmatics 38.8: 1257-1280.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Curl, Traci, and Paul Drew (2008) Contingency and action: A comparison of two forms of requesting. Research on language and social interaction 41.2: 129-153.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Curl, Traci, John Local, and Gareth Walker (2006) Repetition and the prosody–pragmatics interface. Journal of Pragmatics 38.10: 1721-1751. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Djordjilovic, Olga (2012) Displaying and developing team identity in workplace meetings - a multimodal perspective. Discourse Studies 14.1: 111-127. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drew, Paul (2005) Conversation analysis. In K. Fitch, and R. Sanders (eds.), Handbook of language and social interaction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 71-102.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drew, Paul, and John Heritage (1992) Talk at work. Interaction in institutional settings. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ervin-Tripp, Susan (1976) Is Sybil there? The structure of some American English directives. Language in Society 5.11: 25-66.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gheorghe, Mihaela, and Adina Velea (2012) Control Acts In Romanian. In Stanca Măda, and Răzvan Săftoiu (eds.), Professional Communication across Languages and Cultures. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 135-167. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness (2006) Participation, affect, and trajectory in family directive/response sequences. Text and Talk 26.4-5: 513-541.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Guţu-Romalo, Valeria (2008) The Grammar of Romanian Language (in Romanian). Bucureşti: Editura Academiei Române.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heinemann, Trine (2006) 'Will you or can't you?': Displaying entitlement in interrogative requests. Journal of Pragmatics 38.7: 1081-1104.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heritage, John, and Steven Clayman (2010) Talk in Action: Interactions, Identities, and Institutions. Oxford: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail (2004) Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. In G. Lerner (ed.), Conversation Analysis: Studies From the First Generation.Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 13-31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Keisanen, Tiina, and Rauniomaa, Mirka (2012) The organization of participation and contingency in prebeginnings of request sequences. Research on Language & Social Interaction 45.4: 323-351. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kent, Alexandra (2012) Responding to parental directives - What can children do when a parent tells them what to do? In M. Theobold, and S. Danby (eds.), Disputes in Everyday Life: Social and Moral Orders of Children and Young People. New York: American Sociological Association’s Studies of Children and Youth and Emerald Books. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lee, S.-H. (2011) Managing non-granting of customers’ requests in commercial service encounters. Research on Language & Social Interaction 441: 109-134. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lindström, Anna (2005) Language as social action: A study of how senior citizens request assistance with practical tasks in the Swedish home help service. In A. Hakulinen, and M. Selting (eds.), Syntax and lexis in conversation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 209-233. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maiden, Martin (2006) On Romanian imperatives. Philologica Jassyensia II.1: 47-59.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Măda, Stanca (2009) Communication in Romanian professional environment (in Romanian). Braşov: Editura Universităţii Transilvania din Braşov.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ogiermann, Eva, and Joerg Zinken (2011) How to propose an action as objectively necessary: The case of polish trzeba x (''one needs to x''). Research on Language & Social Interaction 44.3: 263-287. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pană Dindelegan, Gabriela (Forthcoming) Romanian Grammar: A linguistic introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pearson, Bethyl (1989) ‘Role-ing out control’ at church business meetings: Directing and disagreeing. Language Sciences 111: 289–304. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pîrvulescu, Mihaela, and Yves Roberge (2000) The syntax and morphology of Romanian imperatives. In V. Motapanyane (ed.), Comparative studies in Romanian syntax. Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp. 295-313.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A (2007) Sequence organization in interaction: A primer in conversation analysis. (Vol. 11). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sidnell, Jack (2010) Conversation Analysis. An introduction. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stevanovic, Melisa, and Anssi Peräkylä (2012) Deontic authority in interaction: The right to announce, propose, and decide. Research on Language & Social Interaction 45.3: 297-321.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stivers, Tanya (2004) ''No no no'' and other types of multiple sayings in social interaction. Human Communication Research 30.2: 260-293. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Svennevig, Jan (2012a) The agenda as resource for topic introduction in workplace meetings. Discourse Studies 14.1: 53-66.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2012b) Interaction in workplace meetings. Discourse Studies 14.11: 3-10. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vasilescu, Andra (Forthcoming) Clause types. In Gabriela Pană Dindelegan (ed.), Romanian Grammar: A linguistic introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Vine, Bernadette (2004) Getting things done at work: The discourse of power in workplace interaction. (Vol. 1241). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2009) Directives at work: Exploring the contextual complexity of workplace directives. Journal of Pragmatics 41.7: 1395-1405.  BoPGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Xrakovskij, Viktor S (2001) Typology of imperative constructions. München: Lincom Europa.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zafiu, Rodica (Forthcoming) Mood, tense and aspect. In Gabriela Pană Dindelegan (ed.), Romanian Grammar: A linguistic introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Van Olmen, Daniël & Simone Heinold
2017. Imperatives and directive strategies from a functional-typological perspective. In Imperatives and Directive Strategies [Studies in Language Companion Series, 184], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 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.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue