Cover not available

In:Imperative Turns at Talk: The design of directives in action
Edited by Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Liisa Raevaara and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen
[Studies in Language and Social Interaction 30] 2017
► pp. 381–410

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

Chapter 13
Adjusting the design of directives to the activity environment

Imperatives in Finnish cooking club interaction

 | University of Helsinki | Institute for the Languages of Finland
Published online: 18 August 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/slsi.30.13rae
Abstract
This chapter examines the design of directives in Finnish conversation in the specific institutional setting of cooking club meetings held in a youth club. During these meetings, children bake pastries and a teacher supervises them, organising activities and giving the children instructions and advice. This chapter focuses on the teacher’s verbal directives. More specifically, the analysis examines imperatively formatted directives, but also compares the activity environments in which imperatives and other directive formats are used, especially second-person declaratives. This choice of these different formats is discussed as well as the specific design features of the imperatively formatted turns, exploring how they are adjusted to the progress and temporality of the ongoing actions as well as to the emerging participation framework.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data
  • 3.Imperatives – managing recipient’s actions that are already under way
    • 3.1Indicating an immediate need for the nominated action
    • 3.2Elaborating on the imperative turn: Managing the temporality of the nominated action
  • 4.Declaratives – initiating new actions
    • 4.1Modal-verb declaratives: initiating a new project
    • 4.2Giving advice with modal-verb declaratives
    • 4.3Simple declaratives: A new step in the ongoing project
  • 5.The design of teacher’s directives – managing the temporal progress of the ongoing activities and the participation framework
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (48)
References
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: 876–889. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth. 2014. “What Does Grammar Tell Us about Action? Special Issue on Approaches to Grammar for Interactional Linguistics”, ed. by Ritva Laury, Marja Etelämäki, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen. Pragmatics 24 (3): 623–647. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth, and Marja Etelämäki. 2014. “On Divisions of Labor in Request and Offer Environments. In Requesting in Social Interaction. Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 115–144. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. “Nominated Actions and Their Targeted agents in Finnish Conversational Directives.” Journal of Pragmatics 78: 7–24. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clayman, Steven, and John Heritage. 2014. “Benefactors and Beneficiaries. Benefactive Status and Stance in the Management of Offers and Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction. Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 51–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google 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. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Curl, Tracy, and Paul Drew. 2008. “Contingency and Action: A Comparison of Two Forms of Requesting.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 41 (2): 129–53. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Stefani, Elwys, and Anne-Danièle Gazin. 2014. “Instructional Sequences in Driving Lessons: Mobile Participants and the Temporal and Sequential Organization of Actions.” Journal of Pragmatics 65: 63–79. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drew, Paul, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen (ed). 2014a. Requesting in Social Interaction. Studies in Language and Social Interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014b. “Requesting – From Speech Act to Recruitment.” In Requesting in Social Interaction. Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 1–34. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drew, Paul, and John Heritage. 1992. “Analysing Talk at Work: An Introduction.” In Talk at Work, ed. by Paul Drew, and John Heritage, 3–65. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Enfield, Nick. 2014. “Human Agency and the Infrastructure for Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction. Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 35–55. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ervin-Tripp, Susan M. 1976. ““Is Sybil There?” The Structure of Some American English Directives.” Language in Society 5: 25–66. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goodwin, Charles. 2000. “Action and Embodiment within Situated Human Interaction.” Journal of Pragmatics 32: 1489–1522. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. “Participation, Stance and Affect in the Organization of Activities.” Discourse & Society 18 (1): 53–73. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goodwin, Charles, and Marjorie Harness Goodwin. 2004. “Participation.” In A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology, ed. by Alessandro Duranti, 222–244. Malden: Blackwell.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: 513–541.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness, and Asta Cekaite. 2013. “Calibration in Directive/Response Sequences in Family Interaction.” Journal of Pragmatics 46: 122–138. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. “Orchestrating Directive Trajectories in Communicative Projects in Family Interaction.” In Requesting in Social Interaction. Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 185–214. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hakulinen, Auli. 1987. “Avoiding Person Reference in Finnish.” In The Pragmatic Perspective, ed. by Jef Verschueren, and Marcella Bertucelli-Papi, 141–153. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 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: 1081–1104. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Keisanen, Tiina, and Mirka Rauniomaa. 2012. “The Organization of Participation and Contingency in Pre-beginnings of Requests Sequences.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 45 (4): 323–51. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kendon, Adam. 1990. Conducting Interaction. Patterns of Behaviour in Focused Interactions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kent, Alexandra. 2012. “Compliance, Resistance, and Incipient Compliance when Responding to Directives.” Discourse Studies 14 (6): 711–730. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Laitinen, Lea. 2006. “Zero Person in Finnish. A Grammatical Resource for Construing Human Reference.” In Grammar from the Human Perspective, ed. by Marja-Liisa Helasvuo, and Lyle Campbell, 209–231. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lauranto, Yrjö. 2014. Imperatiivi, käsky, direktiivi. Arkikeskustelun vaihtokauppakielioppia [Imperative, command, directive. Grammar of exchange in everyday conversation]. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen. 2013. “Action Formation and Ascription.” In Handbook of Conversation Analysis, ed. by Tanya Stivers, and Jack Sidnell, 103–130. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lindström, Anna. 2005. “Language as Social Action: A Study of How Senior Sitizens Request Assistance with Practical Tasks in the Swedish Home Help Service.” In Syntax and Lexis in Conversation: Studies on the Use of Linguistic Resources in Talk-in-interaction, ed. by Auli Hakulinen, and Margret Selting, 209–230. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lindwall, Oskar, Gustav Lymer, and Cristian Greiffenhagen. 2015. “The Sequential Analysis of Instruction.” In The Handbook of Classroom Discourse and Interaction, ed. by Numa Markee, 142–157. Malden, MA: Wiley-BlackwellGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mondada, Lorenza. 2009. “Emergent Focused Interactions in Public Places: A Systematic Analysis of the Multimodal Achievement of a Common Interactional Space.” Journal of Pragmatics 41: 1977–1997. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. “Coordinating Mobile Action in Real Time: The Timely Organization of Directives in Video Game.” In Interaction and Mobility. Language and the Body in Motion, ed. by Pentti Haddington, Lorenza Mondada, and Maurice Nevile, 300–341. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014a. “Requesting Immediate Action in the Surgical Operating Room: Time, Embodied Resources and Praxeological Embeddedness.” In Requesting in Social Interaction. Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 267–302. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014b. “Instructions in the Operating Room: How the Surgeon Directs their Assistant’s Hands.” Discourse Studies 16 (2): 131–161. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Raevaara, Liisa. 1989. “ No – vuoronalkuinen partikkeli [ No – turn-initial particle].” In Suomalaisen keskustelun keinoja I, ed. by Auli Hakulinen, 147–161. Kieli 4. Helsinki: Department of Finnish Language, University of Helsinki.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. “Accounts at Convenience Stores. Doing Dispreference and Small Talk.” Journal of Pragmatics 43: 556–571. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rossi, Giovanni. 2012. “Bilateral and Unilateral Requests: The Use of Imperatives and Mi X? Interrogatives in Italian.” Discourse Processes 49: 426–458. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. “When Do People Not Use Language to Make Requests?” In Requesting in Social Interaction, Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 303–334. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. The Request System in Italian Interaction. Ph.D. dissertation, Radboud University Nijmegen.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Searle, John. 1979. Expression and Meaning. Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sorjonen, Marja-Leena, Anu Rouhikoski, and Heini Lehtonen (eds). 2015. Helsingissä puhuttavat suomet. Kielen indeksisyys ja sosiaaliset identiteetit [Finnishes spoken and spoken about in Helsinki. Indexicality of language and social identities]. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sorjonen, Marja-Leena, and Liisa Raevaara. 2014. “On the Grammatical Form of Requests at the Convenience Store: Requesting as Embodied Action.” In Requesting in Social Interaction. Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 243–268. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stevanovic, Melisa, and Jan Svennevig. 2015. “Epistemics and Deontics in Conversational Directives.” Journal of Pragmatics 78: 1–6. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zinken, Jörg, and Eva Ogiermann. 2011. “How to Propose an Action as Objectively Necessary: the case of Polish Trzeba x ("One Needs to x").” Research on Language and Social Interaction 44 (3): 263–287. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. “Responsibility and Action: Invariants and Diversity in Requests for Objects in British English and Polish Interaction.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 46 (3): 256–276. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wootton, Anthony. 1997. Interaction and the Development of Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2005. “Interactional and Sequential Configurations Informing Request Format Selection in Children’s Speech.” In Syntax and Lexis in Conversation: Studies on the Use of Linguistic Resources in Talk-in-interaction, ed. by Auli Hakulinen, and Margret Selting, 185–208. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (9)

Cited by nine other publications

Gubina, Alexandra
2025. Structurally ‘incomplete’ social action formats in the grammar of talk-in-interaction?. In Grammar in Action [Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 37], ► pp. 116 ff. DOI logo
Lindholm, Camilla, Jenny Paananen, Melisa Stevanovic, Elina Weiste & Taina Valkeapää
2024. Requests for concrete actions in interaction. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) 34:2 ► pp. 190 ff. DOI logo
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth, Marja Etelämäki & Marja-Leena Sorjonen
2021. Directive turn design and intersubjectivity. In Intersubjectivity in Action [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 326], ► pp. 61 ff. DOI logo
Ehmer, Oliver & Geert Brône
2021. Instructing embodied knowledge: multimodal approaches to interactive practices for knowledge constitution. Linguistics Vanguard 7:s4 DOI logo
Rauniomaa, Mirka, Tiina Keisanen & Pauliina Siitonen
2021. Shared understandings of the human–nature relationship in encounters with small wildlife. In Intersubjectivity in Action [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 326], ► pp. 201 ff. DOI logo
Betz, Emma, Carmen Taleghani-Nikazm & Peter Golato
2020. Mobilizing others. In Mobilizing others [Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 33], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Golato, Peter
2020. Recruitments in French. In Mobilizing others [Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 33], ► pp. 83 ff. DOI logo
Taleghani-Nikazm, Carmen, Veronika Drake, Andrea Golato & Emma Betz
2020. Mobilizing for the next relevant action. In Mobilizing others [Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 33], ► pp. 47 ff. DOI logo
Stevanovic, Melisa & Arniika Kuusisto
2019. Teacher Directives in Children’s Musical Instrument Instruction: Activity Context, Student Cooperation, and Institutional Priority. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 63:7 ► pp. 1022 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 december 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