More specifically, look at the conversation analytic literature that considers the notion of 'dispreference' - I'm currently using the framework to look at the same thing in online talk. Some good references are the following two texts, which each have nice sections on preference and includes hedges and hesitations and palliatives and the like: Heritage, J.C. (1984). Garfinkel and ethnomethodology. Levinson, S.C. (1983). Pragmatics. Also, these two articles give more specific information on what your student is probably looking at: Pomerantz, A.M. (1984). Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: Some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shapes. In J.M. Atkinson and J.C. Heritage (Eds.) Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis Sacks, H. (1987). On the preference for agreement and contiguity in sequences in conversation. In G. Button and J.R.E. Lee (Eds.) Talk and social organization (pp. 54-69). By the way, feel free to have your student get in touch if he has any questions. Joshua Joshua Raclaw - PhD student Department of Linguistics University of Colorado at Boulder http://ucsu.colorado.edu/~raclaw/ Quoting Mark Warschauer <markw@uci.edu>: * Try Conversation Analysis. (Though for one criticism of CA's * approach on this, see http://linguistlist.org/issues/14/14-2635.html). * Mark * * * >Hello, * > * >I have a student interested in theories that explain the use of * >hesitations, hedges and the like. He has encountered them in his * >transcriptions and become interested in how to analyze them. * > * >What literature should I point him to? I don't know this area at all. * > * >Thank you. * > * >Bonnie * > * >Bonnie A. Nardi * >School of Information and Computer Sciences * >University of California, Irvine * >Irvine, CA 92697-3425 * >(949) 824-6534 * >www.artifex.org/~bonnie/ * * * -- * Mark Warschauer * Associate Professor, Dept. of Education and Dept. of Informatics * University of California, Irvine * tel: (949) 824-2526, fax: (949) 824-2965 * markw@uci.edu; http://www.gse.uci.edu/faculty/markw * _______________________________________________ * The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list * is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org * Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: * http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org * * Join the Association of Internet Researchers: * http://www.aoir.org/ *