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TOPIC INTRODUCTION IN ENGLISH CONVERSATION
Author(s) -
Geluykens Ronald
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
transactions of the philological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.333
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1467-968X
pISSN - 0079-1636
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-968x.1993.tb01068.x
Subject(s) - conversation , linguistics , element (criminal law) , dimension (graph theory) , context (archaeology) , computer science , process (computing) , sociology , history , political science , philosophy , mathematics , archaeology , pure mathematics , law , operating system
This paper deals with information flow in English conversation, more particularly with the question of how new discourse topics are introduced. Topics are defined as information which has a low degree of Recoverability (i.e. the extent to which an element is derivable from the previous discourse record) and which has Persistence (i.e. the recurrence of the element, directly or indirectly, in the subsequent discourse context). It is argued that topic introduction is a three‐stage interactional process depending on the active collaboration of speaker and hearer(s). In other words, conversational topics are not just ‘introduced’ but are ‘negotiated’ interactionally through the turn‐taking system. Several topic‐introducing strategies are discussed, all of which share this collaborative dimension. Data employed are from the Survey of English Usage.