The phonetics of sequence organization

This thesis investigates the interrelationship of phonetic structure and sequence organization in talk-in-interaction. It integrates the methodology of Conversation Analysis and impressionistic and instrumental phonetics to show how activities in a conversation are managed and oriented to by the participants. The study examines the phonetic characteristics of repetition in other-initiated repair sequences. Phonetic analysis of the repairs contradicts both published accounts of the phonetic correlates of clear speech, and descriptions of the phonetics of repetitions; instead, the combination of sequential and phonetic analysis reveals that speakers manipulate clusters of phonetic parameters to negotiate who is `at fault' for a conversational breakdown. This work highlights the indispensable role of the phonetic level of organization in the collaborative resolution of problematic sequences of talk. It supports a growing body of work showing that attention to phonetic detail is as important as attention to sequential organization in understanding the orderliness in everyday talk-in-interaction.

Autorentext

Dr Walker's work is grounded in an interest in discovering order in everyday language. Her research combines the methods of Conversation Analysis with more traditional means of linguistic analysis, showing how principled variation in syntactic or phonetic structure is used to achieve different interactional outcomes.