Directive-giving and grammatical forms
Mitigation devices in a medical laboratory setting
Angela Chan | The University of Hong Kong
Wei Zhang | City University of Hong Kong
Olga Zayts | Hong Kong Hospital Authority
This paper investigates the use of grammatical forms in directive sequences by drawing on daily interactions between colleagues in a medical laboratory in Hong Kong. From a conversation analytic perspective, we focus on how directives in Cantonese are commonly formulated and how the force of a directive is mitigated. Our analysis shows that (1) the imperative seems to be the most frequently used syntactic form for giving directives and there is no apparent hierarchical (‘power’) differentiation, (2) the imperative-formulated directives are frequently mitigated by the use of a range of linguistic forms as well as interactional resources.
Keywords: Cantonese, workplace interaction, Directives, grammar and interaction, mitigation devices
Published online: 28 January 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/cld.6.2.02cha
https://doi.org/10.1075/cld.6.2.02cha
Cited by
Cited by 4 other publications
Chan, Angela
Du-Babcock, Bertha & Angela Chi Kuen Chan
Lim, Ni-Eng
Ren, Wei
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