Interactional linguistics (IL) is an interdisciplinary approach to
grammar
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...
and
interaction
Interaction is action that occurs between two or more objects, with broad use in philosophy and the sciences. It may refer to:
Science
* Interaction hypothesis, a theory of second language acquisition
* Interaction (statistics)
* Interactions o ...
in the field of
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
, that applies the methodology of
Conversation Analysis
Conversation analysis (CA) is an approach to the study of social interaction, embracing both verbal and non-verbal conduct, in situations of everyday life. CA originated as a sociological method, but has since spread to other fields. CA began with ...
to the study of linguistic structures, including
syntax
In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency) ...
,
phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
,
phonology
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
,
morphology
Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to:
Disciplines
* Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts
* Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...
,
semantics
Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy
Philosophy (f ...
,
pragmatics
In linguistics and related fields, pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the int ...
, and so on. Interactional linguistics is based on the principle that linguistic structures and uses are formed through interaction and it aims at helping understanding how languages are shaped through interaction. The approach focuses on temporality, activity implication and embodiment in interaction.
[ Interactional linguistics asks research questions such as "How are linguistic patterns shaped by interaction?" and "How do linguistic patterns themselves shape interaction?".]
History
Interactional linguistics is partly a development within conversation analysis
Conversation analysis (CA) is an approach to the study of social interaction, embracing both verbal and non-verbal conduct, in situations of everyday life. CA originated as a sociological method, but has since spread to other fields. CA began with ...
focusing on linguistic research questions, partly a development of Emergent grammar or West Coast functional grammar. The two approaches can be seen as effectively merged into interactional linguistics, but also with interactional sociolinguistics Interactional sociolinguistics is a subdiscipline of linguistics that uses discourse analysis to study how language users create meaning via social interaction.Deborah Tannen, Tannen, Deborah (2006). Language and culture. In R.W. Fasold and J. Conno ...
.
Conversation analysis
While conversation analysis did indeed study language since its beginning, it grew out of sociology
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...
and often dealt with sociological research questions and topics. However, over time linguists adopted the ideas and methods from conversation analysis for linguistic research questions, and thereby framed conversation analytic insights as a new understanding of linguistic structure in opposition to other linguistic theories. Separating the linguistic focus was first done with the term ''Interactional Linguistics'' introduced in the title of the 2000 conference ''Interactional Linguistics: Euro-conference on the Linguistic Organisation of Conversational Activities'' and in the 2001 book ''Studies in Interactional Linguistics'' by Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen
Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen (born 1943) is an American linguist and distinguished professor (emeritus) from the University of Helsinki.
Couper-Kuhlen is regarded as an important figure in the development of interactional linguistics and the study of ...
and Margret Selting Margret may refer to -
*1410 Margret, an asteroid
*, a Norwegian steamship in service 1994-06/18
*Margret Holmes Bates (1844-1927), American author
*Margret Grebowicz, Polish philosopher, author, and professor
*Ann-Margret, Swedish-American actress, ...
. They mark a development that most clearly took place in the 90s through the publication of various edited volumes - most importantly the book ''Interaction and Grammar'' edited by Elinor Ochs
Elinor Ochs is an American linguistic anthropologist, and Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at University of California, Los Angeles. Ochs has conducted fieldwork in Madagascar, Italy, Samoa and the United States of America on communication ...
, Emanuel Schegloff
Emanuel Abraham Schegloff (born 1937 in New York) is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of California at Los Angeles. Along with his collaborators Harvey Sacks and Gail Jefferson, Schegloff is regarded as the creator of the f ...
and Sandra Thompson.
While there is no agreed-upon delineation between the two, interactional linguistics is characterized by looking at linguistic structures and employing linguistic terminology for its description of what interactants orient to (and not only looking at e.g. gesture
A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication or non-vocal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages, either in place of, or in conjunction with, speech. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, or ot ...
). It goes against earlier approaches where research was focused on investigating written language. With the improvement of technology, linguists have started to focus on spoken language as well due to its functions in intonation and transcription system. Starting to investigate spoken language on its own is the start of interactional linguistics’ development. Afterward, function-directed linguists were working on relations between discourse function and linguistic form. Though the functional linguistic study was not all about conversational interaction, it was really helpful for the language study which saw linguistic form as being useful on the situated occasion of use. The next step which made interactional linguistics develop was the important work on conversation analysis. Some sociologists were saying the study of everyday language was the essence of social order; some other kinds of discourse were said to be understood as habituations of the fundamental conversational order. The term talk-in-interaction was created as an inclusive term for all of naturally speech exchange.
Emergent grammar and West Coast functional grammar
Emergent grammar was proposed by Paul Hopper
Paul J. Hopper is an American linguist of British birth. In 1973, he proposed the glottalic theory regarding the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European consonant inventory, in parallel with the Georgian linguist Tamaz Gamkrelidze and the Russi ...
and postulates that rules of grammar come about as language is spoken and used. This is contrary to the ''a priori grammar postulate'', the idea that grammar rules exist in the mind before the production of utterances. Compared to the principles of generative grammar
Generative grammar, or generativism , is a linguistic theory that regards linguistics as the study of a hypothesised innate grammatical structure. It is a biological or biologistic modification of earlier structuralist theories of linguistic ...
and the concept of Universal Grammar
Universal grammar (UG), in modern linguistics, is the theory of the genetic component of the language faculty, usually credited to Noam Chomsky. The basic postulate of UG is that there are innate constraints on what the grammar of a possible hum ...
, interactional linguistics asserts that grammar emerges from social interaction. Whereas Universal Grammar claims that features of grammar are innate, emergent grammar and other interactional theories claim that the human language faculty has no innate grammar and that features of grammar are learned through experience and social interaction.
Different approaches
Interactional linguistics has developed in linguistic discourse analysis
Discourse analysis (DA), or discourse studies, is an approach to the analysis of written, vocal, or sign language use, or any significant semiotic event.
The objects of discourse Analysis ( discourse, writing, conversation, communicative event ...
and conversation analysis
Conversation analysis (CA) is an approach to the study of social interaction, embracing both verbal and non-verbal conduct, in situations of everyday life. CA originated as a sociological method, but has since spread to other fields. CA began with ...
, and is used to investigate the relationship between grammatical structure and real-time interaction and language use. Further, the topic of normativity in a discourse or a social norm
Social norms are shared standards of acceptance, acceptable behavior by groups. Social norms can both be informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society, as well as be codified into wikt:rule, rules and laws. Social normat ...
both contribute to how a conversation functions. There is a common ground that both parties in a conversation use in order to determine how to both continue a conversation and what sort of social syntax to use. For example, if two workers were speaking together, the interaction between them would be different, more informal, compared to how a worker and their boss might interact in a more formal manner.
Scholars in interactional linguistics draw from functional linguistics, conversation analysis, and linguistic anthropology
Linguistic anthropology is the Interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary study of how language influences social life. It is a branch of anthropology that originated from the endeavor to document endangered languages and has grown over the past cen ...
in order to describe "the way in which language figures in everyday interaction and cognition" and Interactional Linguistics may be considered an usage-based approach to language. Studies in interactional linguistics view linguistic forms, including syntactic and prosodic structures, as greatly affected by interactions among participants in speech, signing, or other language use. The field contrasts with dominant approaches to linguistics during the twentieth century, which tended to focus either on the form of language per se, or on theories of individual language user's linguistic competence
In linguistics, linguistic competence is the system of unconscious knowledge that one knows when they know a language. It is distinguished from linguistic performance, which includes all other factors that allow one to use one's language in practi ...
. Various scholars have or are attempting to write grammar books from an interactional linguistic perspective, for languages such as Alto Perené and Danish
Danish may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark
People
* A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark
* Culture of Denmark
* Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...
(Se
''Samtalegrammatik.dk''
.
References
Further reading
*
*
*
*{{cite book, last=Hopper , first=Paul , year=2011 , chapter=Emergent Grammar and Temporality in Interactional Linguistics , editor1=P. Auer , editor2=S. Pfänder , title=Constructions , pages=22–44 , location=Berlin , publisher=De Gruyter
Interactional Linguistics (John Benjamins journal)
Discourse analysis
Grammar frameworks
Grammar
Syntax
Phonology
Emergence