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Mobilizing Others: Grammar and lexis within larger activities
Edited by Carmen Taleghani-Nikazm, Emma Betz and Peter Golato
[Studies in Language and Social Interaction 33] 2020
► pp. 83–114

Chapter 4
Recruitments in French

Declarative statements and accompanying actions which result in offers of assistance

| Texas State University

This chapter analyzes first-person singular declarative statements and their accompanying actions in French cooking shows. These ‘what I’m doing’ action combinations (Frick 2017) include lexical verbs having to do with object seizing/manipulation and ambulatory movement in either the futur proche (the French periphrastic future) or the simple present tense. The discussion shows that these turns mobilize others. Specifically, they result in the recruitment (Kendrick and Drew 2016) of coparticipants to assist the speaker in some way. The discussion focuses on the interplay between grammatical form, embodiment, setting, and interactional achievement. It shows that ‘what I’m doing’ action combinations not only mobilize the hosts of the show, but may also mobilize non-addressable third parties such as camera operators.

Keywords: French, first person declarative, request, embodiment, cooking show, announcement, mobilizing others, action combinations, recruitment, larger courses of action
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Review of research on requests and recruitments
  • Data and methods
  • Declarative statements which result in recruitments: Verb in the simple present with a reference to the coparticipant and/or to a location or an object near the coparticipant
  • Declarative statements which result in recruitments: Verb in the periphrastic future with a reference to the coparticipant and/or to a location or an object near the coparticipant
  • Declarative statements which result in recruitments: Verb in the periphrastic future without a reference to the coparticipant and/or to a location or an object near the coparticipant
  • Declarative statements which do not result in recruitments: Verbs in the periphrastic future with reference to objects and with the adverb juste ‘just’
  • Declarative statements which do not result in recruitments: Verbs in the periphrastic future with reference to the coparticipant and/or to an object, and without reference to a location
  • Summary and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 13 May 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slsi.33.04gol
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