This article reviews The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics 9781107118447.

This article presents an analysis of the structure and use of the Finnish independent infinitives. Although typological studies have shown that syntactically independent non-finite constructions are widespread in many languages, the understanding of their semantic and intersubjective motivation is still in its early stages. The current paper aims to enrich the understanding of independent non-finite constructions by closely looking at free-standing infinitive constructions in spoken and written Finnish: it combines theoretical concepts of Cognitive Grammar with the methodological tools of Interactional (...) Linguistics to explore the nature of independent infinitives as a resource for conceptualization and the intersubjective functions that it affords. The paper suggests that the fact that independent infinitives are grammatically ungrounded makes them useful in interactional and textual sequences involving affect display. As the indexical functions of infinitives can be explained from their own morphosyntactic and semantic characteristics, the paper makes the more general claim that there is no synchronic evidence that would support the assumption that such constructions ever evolved, via ellipsis, from finite constructions. Methodologically and theoretically, the paper advocates an approach that takes into account both the social and cognitive nature of language, and promotes the view that Cognitive Grammar offers a flexible, semantically rich starting point for the description of intersubjective meanings conveyed by grammar, when combined with the context-sensitive and microanalytical methodology of Interactional Linguistics. (shrink)

This article discusses a less-studied aspect of repair sequences in conversation, that is, their exit phases. It will be argued that while the most common way of exiting is a resumption of the main activity straight after requested repair, sometimes specific receipt objects are also needed. The focus of the article is on the use of these repair receipts. Two types of motivation for using them as exit devices are discussed: prolongation of the repair sequence and the repairers’ critical stance (...) toward the repair initiation. The article will also consider the use of different change-of-state tokens as repair receipts in Finnish conversation. It will be argued that a claim of now-understanding is the repair receipt proper, enabling sequence closure and resumption of the main activity, while news receipts target the newsworthiness of the information provided in the repair turn, enabling sequence expansion. (shrink)

When people argue they routinely challenge the opinions, views, and attitudes of one another, they seek to cast the other as the aggressor or party at fault, and otherwise exert social control. This article illustrates how members work to hamper challenges, evade control or avoid being negatively characterized by systematically blocking access to a turn in the third position and stopping their opponent’s agenda. Examining 100 hours of public disputes in varieties of English, I use membership categorization analysis and conversation (...) analysis to unpack resistance as part of the structural organization of disputes. I identify two methods of resisting an agenda: passively, whereby a responsive turn stalls the progressivity of the interaction, and actively, whereby a responsive turn disaligns to outrightly suspend the progressivity of the interaction. I discuss how resistance sequentially unfolds across sequential positions, and as an interactional phenomenon which solves the trouble of a challenge. Overall, this article contributes to social interaction research on resistance, public disputes and how social order is constituted in and through talk-in-interaction. (shrink)

The primary means for psychotherapy interaction is language. Since talk-in-interaction is accomplished and rendered interpretable by the systematic use of linguistic resources, this study focuses on one of the central issues in psychotherapy, namely agency, and the ways in which linguistic resources, person references in particular, are used for constructing different types of agency in psychotherapy interaction. The study investigates therapists' responses to turns where the client complains about a third party. It focuses on the way therapists' responses distribute experience (...) and agency between the therapist and the client by comparing responses formulated with the zero-person to responses formulated with a second person singular pronoun that refers to the client. The study thus approaches agency as situated, dynamic and interactional: an agent is a social unit whose elements are distributed in the therapist-client interaction. The data consist of 70 audio-recorded sessions of cognitive psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, and the method of analysis is conversation analysis and interactional linguistics. The main findings are that therapists use the zero-person for two types of responses: affiliating and empathetic responses that distribute the emotional experience between the client and the therapist, and responses that invite clients to interpret their own experiences, thereby distributing control and responsibility to the clients. In contrast, the second person references are used for re-constructing the client's past history. The conclusion is that therapists use the zero-person for both immediate emotional work and interpretative co-work on the client's experiences. The study suggests that therapists' use of the zero-person does not necessarily attribute “weak agency” to the client but instead might strengthen the clients' agency in the sense of control and responsibility in the long term. (shrink)

It is argued in this paper that a multimodal analysis of turn-taking, one of the core areas of conversation analytic research, is needed and has to integrate gaze as one of the most central resources for allocating turns, and that new technologies are available that can provide a solid and reliable empirical foundation for this analysis. On the basis of eye-tracking data of spontaneous conversations, it is shown that gaze is the most ubiquitous next-speaker-selection technique. It can function alone or (...) enhance other techniques. I also discuss the interrelationship between the strength for sequential projection and the choice of next-speaker-selection techniques by a current speaker. The appropriate consideration of gaze leads to a revision of the turn-taking model in that it reduces the domain of self-selection and expands that of the current-speaker-selects-next sub-rule. It also has consequences for the analysis of “simultaneous starts”. (shrink)