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8 - Action Ascription and Deonticity in Everyday Advice-Giving Sequences

from Part II - Practices of Action Ascription

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2022

By
Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen  and
Sandra A. Thompson
Edited by
Arnulf Deppermann  and
Michael Haugh
Arnulf Deppermann
Affiliation:
Universität Mannheim, Germany
Michael Haugh
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
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Summary

This chapter addresses action ascription in everyday advice-giving sequences, with a focus on those sequences in which advice has not been solicited as such. We argue that for action ascription in both second and third positions, the design (‘composition’) and the sequential location (‘position’) of the prior turn are crucial. Advice-giving typically emerges in the environment of a complaint or troubles-telling; in second position, the recipient must then decide whether or not it warrants advice. In third position, the recipient of a piece of advice must decide how exactly it was meant: as a binding prescription or injunction, or as a mild suggestion for a possible way forward? This is relevant for the advice-recipient in deciding how to deal with the advice: whether to accept or reject/resist it, or to join the other in brainstorming about how to remedy the situation. Relatively strong deontic formats position advice-givers as experts who know best what their interlocutor ‘needs’, and tend to be resisted; weaker formats call on the recipient not so much to accept or reject the advice given as to acknowledge or agree that the action in question would be a possible course of action with beneficial effects.

Keywords

advicetroubles-tellingaction ascriptiondeontic stanceagency
Type
Chapter
Information
Action Ascription in Interaction , pp. 183 - 207
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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