Introduction

This chapter will analyse the prosodic devices used in everyday moralizing. The focus will be on reproach activities in ‘why’ - formats, as encountered in a data collection of informal talk (dinner conversations in the family, breakfast interactions, coffee chats, telephone calls between friends) and media conversation (talk-shows on TV and radio phone-ins). An analysis of my data reveals that a great number of reproaches in German are packaged in warum- or wieso- (‘why’ -) formats. This applies to reproaches which are produced in situ, that is, in the ongoing communication:

1. (1) warum lä:sch se au immer rei:.

2. why do you always let her in

well as to those which appear as reconstructions of past reproaches:

1. (2) ich hab der Katharina jetzt auch gesagt warum steht das ni:cht im and so I told Katharina why isn't it in the

2. Kulturanzeiger.

3. Kulturanzeiger

Even self-reproaches may be constructed with ‘why’ -formats:

1. (3) ich hab mir da Vorwurfe gemacht. warum hab ich ihr das gesacht.

2. I reproached myself, why did I tell her about it

This chapter, however, will concentrate primarily on in situ reproaches constructed in ongoing interaction.

‘Why’ -constructions are of great interest for linguistic analysis because they can represent ‘real’ questions asking for a reason:

1. (4) warum magst du Stuttgart nich?

2. why don't you like Stuttgart?

as well as reproaches focussing on another's misdeeds and demanding a ‘remedial reply’:

1. (5) warum zum Teufel fra:gsch se dann net direkt

2. why the hell don't you ask her directly then

The analytic questions then are: how do participants differentiate between a ‘why’ -question and a ‘why’ -reproach?