Table Of ContentGeorgetown University Round Table
on Languages and Linguistics 1981
Analyzing Discourse
Text and Talk
Deborah Tannen
Editor
Georgetown University Round Table
on Languages and Linguistics 1981
Analyzing Discourse:
Text and Talk
Deborah Tannen
Editor
Georgetown University Press, Washington, D.C. 20057
Bibliographic Notice
Since this series has been variously and confusingly cited as:
Georgetown University Monographic Series on Languages and
Linguistics, Monograph Series on Languages and Linguistics,
Reports of the Annual Round Table Meetings on Linguistics and
Language Study, etc., beginning with the 1973 volume, the
title of the series was changed.
The new title of the series includes the year of a Round
Table and omits both the monograph number and the meeting
number, thus: Georgetown University Round Table on Lan-
guages and Linguistics 1981, with the regular abbreviation
GURT 1981. Full bibliographical references should show the
form:
Becker, Alton L. 1981. On Emerson on language. In:
Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Lin-
guistics 1981. Edited by Deborah Tannen. Washington,
D.C.: Georgetown University Press. 1-11.
Copyright © 1982 by Georgetown University.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Catalog Number: 58-31607
ISBN 0-87840-116-4
ISSN 0196-7207
CONTENTS
Welcoming Remarks
James E. Alatis
Dean, School of Languages and Linguistics vii
Introduction
Deborah Tannen
Chair, Georgetown University Round Table
on Languages and Linguistics 1981 ix
Alton L. Becker
On Emerson on language 1
Walter J. Ong, S.J.
Oral, remembering and narrative structures 12
Robin Tolmach Lakoff
Persuasive discourse and ordinary conversation,
with examples from advertising 25
Frederick Erickson
Money tree, lasagna bush, salt and pepper:
Social construction of topical cohesion in a
conversation among Italian-Americans 43
Emanuel A. Schegloff
Discourse as an interactional achievement:
Some uses of 'uh huh' and other things that
come between sentences 71
Malcolm Coulthard and David Brazil
The place of intonation in the description
of interaction 9H
in
iv / Contents
Roger W. Shuy
Topic as the unit of analysis in a
criminal law case 113
Catherine E. Snow and Beverly A. Goldfield
Building stories: The emergence of information
structures from conversation 127
Georgia M. Green
Competence for implicit text analysis:
Literary style discrimination in five-year-olds 142
Joseph E. Grimes
Topics within topics 164
Teun A. van Dijk
Episodes as units of discourse analysis 177
J. L. Morgan
Discourse theory and the independence of
sentence grammar 196
V. Melissa Holland and Janice C. Redish
Strategies for understanding forms and
other public documents 205
William Labov
Speech actions and reactions in personal narrative 219
Charles J. Fillmore
Ideal readers and real readers 248
William Bright
Literature: Written and oral 271
Sally McLendon
Meaning, rhetorical structure, and
discourse organization in myth 284
Joel Sherzer
The interplay of structure and function
in Kuna narrative, or: How to grab a snake
in the Darien 306
John J. Gumperz
The linguistic bases of communicative competence 323
Ron Scollon
The rhythmic integration of ordinary talk 335
Contents / v
Steven Feld and Bambi B. Schieffelin
Hard talk: A functional basis for
Kaluli discourse 350
Fred 'Doc' Bloodgood
The medicine and sideshow pitches 371
WELCOMING REMARKS
James E. Alatis
Dean, School of Languages and Linguistics
Georgetown University
Good evening. Welcome to Georgetown University, the School
of Languages and Linguistics, and to the 32nd Annual George-
town University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics.
In previous years, when I chaired the Round Table, I was
never at liberty to say just how great a program had been put
together. This year, however, since the Round Table is the
work of Deborah Tannen and her able assistant, Susan Dodge,
I may say, with all modesty, that the program is impressive in-
deed.
In looking over the program this year I was amazed to note
that the pre-conference sessions present as wide and interesting
a range of topics as the conference itself. This is a tribute to
Dr. Tannen's energy and enthusiasm, as well as a mark of the
widespread interest that the Georgetown University Round Table
program generates. I was particularly pleased to note today's
pre-conference session on oral proficiency testing (1) because
it marks the continuation of our joint efforts with the inter-
agency round table and further cooperation between govern-
ment and university, and (2) because oral proficiency testing
is a field of language activity which is of common interest to
professionals in the fields of foreign language, EFL, ESL, and
bilingual education.
The topic of the Georgetown University Round Table on Lan-
guages and Linguistics 1981—Discourse Analysis—is a very ex-
citing one, and appropriate to a coming of age in linguistics.
Now that the tide has turned, it is safe for me to say in public
that, when I was introduced to linguistics, it was billed as the
key to the ultimate understanding of literature and discourse.
I am, therefore, very pleased to welcome you to a conference
that will indeed further understanding in this area.
vii
viii / Welcoming Remarks
I was going to make a few more rousing remarks, but I
understand that I have been upstaged by one of the world's
last medicine and side show pitchmen, Mr. Fred Bloodgood.
That's a tough act to follow, so I will simply turn over the
microphone to Deborah Tannen, with my thanks and appreci-
ation for a job well done.
INTRODUCTION
The topic of the Georgetown University Round Table on Lan-
guages and Linguistics 1981 is 'Analyzing Discourse: Text and
Talk.' Perhaps a word is in order concerning the meaning and
use of the terms 'discourse', 'text', and 'talk'.
The subtitle, 'Text and Talk', can be understood to refer to
two separate modes of discourse: text as written prose, and
talk as spoken conversation. This is a common use of these
terms (for example, Cicourel 1975). But 'text' is often used
interchangeably with 'discourse'. Indeed, the term 'discourse'
is used in varied ways, to refer to anything 'beyond the sen-
tence'. The term appears in reference to studies of the struc-
ture of arguments underlying written prose (for example, van
Dijk in the present collection), and to analysis of pairs of hy-
pothetical sentences (for example, Bolinger 1979). However,
'discourse' is also used to refer to conversational interaction.
In fact, a book entitled An Introduction to Discourse Analysis,
written by a participant in this meeting (Coulthard 1977), is
concerned only with conversational interaction. Schegloff (this
volume) argues that rather than conversation being a sub-
variety of discourse, all forms of discourse are subvarieties of
conversation.
Discourse, as the term appears in the title, and as it is used
in the papers collected here, encompasses all these. It refers
to both text and talk, and these not as two separate genres to
be compared and contrasted, but rather as overlapping aspects
of a single entity. As the object of study, spoken discourse is
'text', much as words spoken in a speech are commonly referred
to as the text of the speech. In this sense, 'discourse' and
'text' are synonymous.
In a nonlinguistic discussion of what linguists know as the
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, Laing (1959) suggests that speakers of
English cannot conceive of mind and body as one, because their
language does not provide a word to express them so. The
best that English speakers can do is attempt to conceptualize
mindandbody, squishing them together but never really
IX
