Situation 1: |
charge/rebuttal | A: |
The vacuum cleaner was your responsibility. |
B: |
I fixed it yesterday. |
Situation 2: |
request/compliance |
A: | May I use the vacuum cleaner now? |
B: | I fixed it yesterday. |
Comment: |
Conversation analysis promotes a sequential reading of the functional value of particular utterances. B's turn in situation 1 counts as a "rebuttal" because it follows a turn which is heard as a "charge" (rather than that interpretation being conditional upon certain logical properties of individual utterances - as is argued within conventional speech act theory). Support for such a conclusion can be found in the following observation: the speech act value of the very same utterance changes, when it is inserted into a different type of sequence (see situation 2).
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