Presequences & Indirection – Applying Speech Act Theory to Ordinary Conversation (1988)

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Schegloff, E. A. (1988). Presequences and indirection: Applying speech act theory to ordinary conversation. Journal of pragmatics, 12(1), 55-62.

This paper contrasts the analysis provided by speech act theory for utterances of the form “Do you know + [embedded WH-question]” with the analysis demonstrably arrived at by participants in actual ordinary conversations. The analyses are found to diverge with respect both to the sets of alternative interpretations accorded the utterances and the priorities attributed to them. This result is related to the disattention in speech act theory to the temporal and sequential properties of talk-in-interaction.