Textual relations as procedures for action ascription in interaction

Abstract

In this paper, we study the role of textual relations (such as argument, preparation, and comment) in action ascription, that is, in the process through which interlocutors use different verbal and non-verbal resources to project and recognize actions, such as asking for information, inviting, threatening, congratulating, criticizing, etc. The literature on the subject acknowledges the central role of verbal language in this process of action ascription. However, little attention has been paid to the role that textual relations can play in this process. Articulating theoretical contributions from Conversational Pragmatics and ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis, we study the role of textual relations in the action ascription in two presidential election debates. The analysis showed that these relations, by expanding the turn, result in sentences that would otherwise be identified as assertions, requests for information, and advice to be recognized, instead, as challenges (provocations), criticisms, accusations, threats, promises, etc.