Publications

Publication details [#5432]

Keenan, Elinor Ochs, Bambi B. Schieffelin and Martha L. Platt. 1978. Questions of immediate concern. In Goody, Esther N., ed. Questions and politeness: Strategies in social interaction. Cambridge University Press. pp. 44–55.

Publication type

Article in book

Publication language

English

Keywords

adult-child conversation | conversational strategy | interrogative1

Annotation

The authors observe that caretakers talking to children often structure their speech in such a way that a message is conveyed over the space of several utterances rather than by one single utterance. The prominence of interrogative constructions in adult speech to children is linked to this strategy. The reasons for this use of interrogatives are investigated.

Reprints

Ochs, Elinor and Bambi B. Schieffelin. 1983. In Ochs, Elinor and Bambi B. Schieffelin, eds. Acquiring conversational competence. Routledge and Kegan Paul. pp. 114–126.