Action Ascription in Interaction

Bringing together a team of global experts, this is the first volume to focus on the ways in which meanings are ascribed to actions in social interaction. It builds on the research traditions of Conversation Analysis and Pragmatics, and highlights the role of interactional, social, linguistic, multimodal, and epistemic factors in the formation and ascription of action-meanings. It shows how inference and intention ascription are displayed and drawn upon by participants in social interaction. Each chapter reveals practices, processes, and uses of action ascription, based on the analysis of audio and video recordings from nine different languages. Action ascription is conceptualised in this volume as not merely a cognitive process, but a social action in its own right that is used for managing interactional concerns and guiding the subsequent course of social interaction. It will be essential reading for academic researchers and advanced students interested in the relationship between language, behaviour and social interaction.

Arnulf Deppermann is Professor of German Linguistics, Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, Germany. He studies language use in multimodal interaction, and his research interests focus on grammar, semantics and understanding in interaction, action formation and ascription, interactional histories, and the coordination of language and body. He is founding editor of the open access journal Gesprächsforschung and associate editor of the Journal of Pragmatics.

Michael Haugh is Professor of Linguistics, School of Languages and Cultures, University of Queensland, Australia. His research interests centre on the role of language in social interaction, (im)politeness, teasing, and speaker meaning. He is an elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities, was co-editor in chief of the Journal of Pragmatics from 2015-2020, and is currently co-editor of the Cambridge Elements in Pragmatics series.