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Imperative Turns at Talk: The design of directives in action
Edited by Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Liisa Raevaara and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen
[Studies in Language and Social Interaction 30] 2017
► pp. 325–355

Chapter 11
Assigning roles and responsibilities

Finnish imperatively formatted directive actions in a mobile instructional setting

The study examines turns-at-talk with which a participant directs another in a mobile instructional setting, i.e., directive actions produced by an instructor to a student during a driving session. The data comprise video recordings from voluntary training for car drivers who have a valid license but little practical experience. The study focuses on the instructor’s directive actions that are formatted as second-person imperatives. In contrast with other turn formats that promote an activity as a joint one, second-person imperatives define what the recipient is individually responsible for. Such directive actions either reinstate and make explicit roles and responsibilities that have not yet been followed through to an adequate degree, or set up certain roles and responsibilities for the participants based on their positions in space and their access to instrumentation relevant for the activity. In this way, imperatively formatted directives address the participants’ expectations about how the activity should appropriately unfold – expectations that are constantly being constructed through and reflected in the formatting of single actions.
Keywords: car driving, conversation analysis, directive, division-of-labor formulation, imperative, instruction, mobility, role, social interaction, spatial position
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data and setting
  • 3.Overview of directive turn formats in the data
  • 4.From hortatives to imperatives: Reissuing directives and reinforcing the instructional situation
  • 5.Imperatives and (implied) division of labor: Taking care of immediate practicalities and moving away from the instructional situation
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Author queries
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 18 August 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slsi.30.11rau
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