Cover not available
Part of
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. 381–410

Chapter 13
Adjusting the design of directives to the activity environment

Imperatives in Finnish cooking club interaction

This chapter examines the design of directives in Finnish conversation in the specific institutional setting of cooking club meetings held in a youth club. During these meetings, children bake pastries and a teacher supervises them, organising activities and giving the children instructions and advice. This chapter focuses on the teacher’s verbal directives. More specifically, the analysis examines imperatively formatted directives, but also compares the activity environments in which imperatives and other directive formats are used, especially second-person declaratives. This choice of these different formats is discussed as well as the specific design features of the imperatively formatted turns, exploring how they are adjusted to the progress and temporality of the ongoing actions as well as to the emerging participation framework.

Keywords: imperative, second-person declarative, Finnish, instruction, participation, timing, embodied action, adult–child interaction, Conversation Analysis
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data
  • 3.Imperatives – managing recipient’s actions that are already under way
    • 3.1Indicating an immediate need for the nominated action
    • 3.2Elaborating on the imperative turn: Managing the temporality of the nominated action
  • 4.Declaratives – initiating new actions
    • 4.1Modal-verb declaratives: initiating a new project
    • 4.2Giving advice with modal-verb declaratives
    • 4.3Simple declaratives: A new step in the ongoing project
  • 5.The design of teacher’s directives – managing the temporal progress of the ongoing activities and the participation framework
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 18 August 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slsi.30.13rae
References
Antaki, Charles, and Alexandra Kent
2012 “Telling People What to Do (and, Sometimes, Why): Contingency, Entitlement and Explanation in Staff Requests to Adults with Intellectual Impairments.” Journal of Pragmatics 44: 876–889. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth
2014 “What Does Grammar Tell Us about Action? Special Issue on Approaches to Grammar for Interactional Linguistics”, ed. by Ritva Laury, Marja Etelämäki, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen. Pragmatics 24 (3): 623–647. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth, and Marja Etelämäki
2014 “On Divisions of Labor in Request and Offer Environments. In Requesting in Social Interaction. Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 115–144. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
2015 “Nominated Actions and Their Targeted agents in Finnish Conversational Directives.” Journal of Pragmatics 78: 7–24. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clayman, Steven, and John Heritage
2014 “Benefactors and Beneficiaries. Benefactive Status and Stance in the Management of Offers and Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction. Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 51–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Craven, Alexandra, and Jonathan Potter
2010 “Directives: Entitlement and Contingency in Action.” Discourse Studies 12 (4): 419–442. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Curl, Tracy, and Paul Drew
2008 “Contingency and Action: A Comparison of Two Forms of Requesting.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 41 (2): 129–53. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
De Stefani, Elwys, and Anne-Danièle Gazin
2014 “Instructional Sequences in Driving Lessons: Mobile Participants and the Temporal and Sequential Organization of Actions.” Journal of Pragmatics 65: 63–79. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Drew, Paul, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen
(ed) 2014a Requesting in Social Interaction. Studies in Language and Social Interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
2014b “Requesting – From Speech Act to Recruitment.” In Requesting in Social Interaction. Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 1–34. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Drew, Paul, and John Heritage
1992 “Analysing Talk at Work: An Introduction.” In Talk at Work, ed. by Paul Drew, and John Heritage, 3–65. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Enfield, Nick
2014 “Human Agency and the Infrastructure for Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction. Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 35–55. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Ervin-Tripp, Susan M.
1976 ““Is Sybil There?” The Structure of Some American English Directives.” Language in Society 5: 25–66. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, Charles
2000 “Action and Embodiment within Situated Human Interaction.” Journal of Pragmatics 32: 1489–1522. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 “Participation, Stance and Affect in the Organization of Activities.” Discourse & Society 18 (1): 53–73. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, Charles, and Marjorie Harness Goodwin
2004 “Participation.” In A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology, ed. by Alessandro Duranti, 222–244. Malden: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness
2006 “Participation, Affect and Trajectory in Family Directive/Response sequences.” Text and Talk 26: 513–541.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness, and Asta Cekaite
2013 “Calibration in Directive/Response Sequences in Family Interaction.” Journal of Pragmatics 46: 122–138. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014 “Orchestrating Directive Trajectories in Communicative Projects in Family Interaction.” In Requesting in Social Interaction. Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 185–214. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Hakulinen, Auli
1987 “Avoiding Person Reference in Finnish.” In The Pragmatic Perspective, ed. by Jef Verschueren, and Marcella Bertucelli-Papi, 141–153. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heinemann, Trine
2006.”’Will You or Can’t You?’: Displaying Entitlement in Interrogative Requests.” Journal of Pragmatics 38: 1081–1104. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Helasvuo, Marja-Liisa
2014.”Searching for Motivations for Grammatical Patternings.” Pragmatics 24 (3): 453–476. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Keisanen, Tiina, and Mirka Rauniomaa
2012 “The Organization of Participation and Contingency in Pre-beginnings of Requests Sequences.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 45 (4): 323–51. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kendon, Adam
1990 Conducting Interaction. Patterns of Behaviour in Focused Interactions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kent, Alexandra
2012 “Compliance, Resistance, and Incipient Compliance when Responding to Directives.” Discourse Studies 14 (6): 711–730. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Laitinen, Lea
2006 “Zero Person in Finnish. A Grammatical Resource for Construing Human Reference.” In Grammar from the Human Perspective, ed. by Marja-Liisa Helasvuo, and Lyle Campbell, 209–231. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lauranto, Yrjö
2014 Imperatiivi, käsky, direktiivi. Arkikeskustelun vaihtokauppakielioppia [Imperative, command, directive. Grammar of exchange in everyday conversation]. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen
2013 “Action Formation and Ascription.” In Handbook of Conversation Analysis, ed. by Tanya Stivers, and Jack Sidnell, 103–130. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lindström, Anna
2005 “Language as Social Action: A Study of How Senior Sitizens Request Assistance with Practical Tasks in the Swedish Home Help Service.” In Syntax and Lexis in Conversation: Studies on the Use of Linguistic Resources in Talk-in-interaction, ed. by Auli Hakulinen, and Margret Selting, 209–230. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lindwall, Oskar, Gustav Lymer, and Cristian Greiffenhagen
2015 “The Sequential Analysis of Instruction.” In The Handbook of Classroom Discourse and Interaction, ed. by Numa Markee, 142–157. Malden, MA: Wiley-BlackwellGoogle Scholar
Mondada, Lorenza
2009 “Emergent Focused Interactions in Public Places: A Systematic Analysis of the Multimodal Achievement of a Common Interactional Space.” Journal of Pragmatics 41: 1977–1997. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013 “Coordinating Mobile Action in Real Time: The Timely Organization of Directives in Video Game.” In Interaction and Mobility. Language and the Body in Motion, ed. by Pentti Haddington, Lorenza Mondada, and Maurice Nevile, 300–341. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014a “Requesting Immediate Action in the Surgical Operating Room: Time, Embodied Resources and Praxeological Embeddedness.” In Requesting in Social Interaction. Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 267–302. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
2014b “Instructions in the Operating Room: How the Surgeon Directs their Assistant’s Hands.” Discourse Studies 16 (2): 131–161. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Raevaara, Liisa
1989 “ No – vuoronalkuinen partikkeli [ No – turn-initial particle].” In Suomalaisen keskustelun keinoja I, ed. by Auli Hakulinen, 147–161. Kieli 4. Helsinki: Department of Finnish Language, University of Helsinki.Google Scholar
2011 “Accounts at Convenience Stores. Doing Dispreference and Small Talk.” Journal of Pragmatics 43: 556–571. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rossi, Giovanni
2012 “Bilateral and Unilateral Requests: The Use of Imperatives and Mi X? Interrogatives in Italian.” Discourse Processes 49: 426–458. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014 “When Do People Not Use Language to Make Requests?” In Requesting in Social Interaction, Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 303–334. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
2015 The Request System in Italian Interaction. Ph.D. dissertation, Radboud University Nijmegen.Google Scholar
Searle, John
1979 Expression and Meaning. Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sorjonen, Marja-Leena, Anu Rouhikoski, and Heini Lehtonen
(eds) 2015 Helsingissä puhuttavat suomet. Kielen indeksisyys ja sosiaaliset identiteetit [Finnishes spoken and spoken about in Helsinki. Indexicality of language and social identities]. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.Google Scholar
Sorjonen, Marja-Leena, and Liisa Raevaara
2014 “On the Grammatical Form of Requests at the Convenience Store: Requesting as Embodied Action.” In Requesting in Social Interaction. Studies in Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 243–268. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Stevanovic, Melisa, and Jan Svennevig
2015 “Epistemics and Deontics in Conversational Directives.” Journal of Pragmatics 78: 1–6. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zinken, Jörg, and Eva Ogiermann
2011 “How to Propose an Action as Objectively Necessary: the case of Polish Trzeba x ("One Needs to x").” Research on Language and Social Interaction 44 (3): 263–287. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013 “Responsibility and Action: Invariants and Diversity in Requests for Objects in British English and Polish Interaction.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 46 (3): 256–276. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wootton, Anthony
1997 Interaction and the Development of Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2005 “Interactional and Sequential Configurations Informing Request Format Selection in Children’s Speech.” In Syntax and Lexis in Conversation: Studies on the Use of Linguistic Resources in Talk-in-interaction, ed. by Auli Hakulinen, and Margret Selting, 185–208. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 8 other publications

Betz, Emma, Carmen Taleghani-Nikazm & Peter Golato
2020. Chapter 1. Mobilizing others. In Mobilizing Others [Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 33], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth, Marja Etelämäki & Marja-Leena Sorjonen
2021. Directive turn design and intersubjectivity. In Intersubjectivity in Action [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 326], ► pp. 61 ff. DOI logo
Ehmer, Oliver & Geert Brône
2021. Instructing embodied knowledge: multimodal approaches to interactive practices for knowledge constitution. Linguistics Vanguard 7:s4 DOI logo
Golato, Peter
2020. Chapter 4. Recruitments in French. In Mobilizing Others [Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 33], ► pp. 83 ff. DOI logo
Lindholm, Camilla, Jenny Paananen, Melisa Stevanovic, Elina Weiste & Taina Valkeapää
2024. Requests for concrete actions in interaction. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) 34:2 ► pp. 190 ff. DOI logo
Rauniomaa, Mirka, Tiina Keisanen & Pauliina Siitonen
2021. Shared understandings of the human–nature relationship in encounters with small wildlife. In Intersubjectivity in Action [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 326], ► pp. 201 ff. DOI logo
Stevanovic, Melisa & Arniika Kuusisto
2019. Teacher Directives in Children’s Musical Instrument Instruction: Activity Context, Student Cooperation, and Institutional Priority. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 63:7 ► pp. 1022 ff. DOI logo
Taleghani-Nikazm, Carmen, Veronika Drake, Andrea Golato & Emma Betz
2020. Chapter 3. Mobilizing for the next relevant action. In Mobilizing Others [Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 33], ► pp. 47 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 12 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.