Imperative Turns at Talk: The design of directives in action(30 Studies in Language and Social Interaction)

In middle-class Anglo-speaking circles imperatives are considered impolite forms that command another to do something; etiquette manuals recommend avoiding them. The papers in this collection de-construct such lay beliefs. Through the empirical examination of everyday and institutional interaction across a range of languages, they show that imperatives are routinely used for constructing turns that further sociality in interactional situations. Moreover, they show that for understanding the use of an imperatively formatted turn, its specific design (whether it contains, e.g., an overt subject, object, modal particles, or diminutives), and its sequential and temporal positioning in verbal and embodied activities are crucial. The fact that the same type of imperative turn is appropriate under the same circumstances across linguistically diverse cultures suggests that there are common aspects of imperative turn design and common pragmatic dimensions of situations warranting their use. The volume provides new insights into the resources and processes involved when social actors try to get another to do something.

Table of Contents:
1. Chapter 1. Imperative turns at talk: An introduction (by Sorjonen, Marja-Leena); 2. Part 1. Structure and use of imperative turns; 3. Chapter 2. A cline of visible commitment in the situated design of imperative turns: Evidence from German and Polish (by Zinken, Jorg); 4. Chapter 3. Precision timing and timed embeddedness of imperatives in embodied courses of action: Examples from French (by Mondada, Lorenza); 5. Chapter 4. Secondary and deviant uses of the imperative for requesting in Italian; 6. Chapter 5. Three imperative action formats in Danish talk-in-interaction: The case of imperative + modal particles bare and lige (by Heinemann, Trine); 7. Chapter 6. Requests for here-and-now actions in Russian conversation (by Bolden, Galina B.); 8. Part 2. Sequences with imperative turns; 9. Chapter 7. In the face of resistance: A Finnish practice for insisting on imperatively formatted directives (by Etelamaki, Marja); 10. Chapter 8. Imperatives and responsiveness in Finnish conversation (by Sorjonen, Marja-Leena); 11. Chapter 9. Negotiating deontic rights in second position: Young adult daughters' imperatively formatted responses to mothers' offers in Estonian (by Keevallik, Leelo); 12. Part 3. Sequences with imperative turns in asymmetric situations; 13. Chapter 10. Imperatives in Swedish medical consultations (by Lindstrom, Jan K.); 14. Chapter 11. Assigning roles and responsibilities: Finnish imperatively formatted directive actions in a mobile instructional setting (by Rauniomaa, Mirka); 15. Chapter 12. Managing compliance in violin instruction: The case of the Finnish clitic particles -pA and -pAs in imperatives and hortatives (by Stevanovic, Melisa); 16. Chapter 13. Adjusting the design of directives to the activity environment: Imperatives in Finnish cooking club interaction (by Raevaara, Liisa); 17. Chapter 14. Epilogue: Imperatives - The language of immediate action (by Auer, Peter); 18. Transcription conventions

Review :
Imperatives are one of the three major sentence types, together with interrogatives and declaratives. In this collection of articles, scholars in Interactional Linguistics and Conversation Analysis examine the use of imperative forms as turns-at-talk and social actions in naturally occurring interaction. The studies not only demonstrate an acute attention to linguistic form across a range of languages; they also reveal the subtle structures of social interaction in which imperative turns naturally find their home. This volume is essential reading for all scholars of interaction and grammar and the complex relationship between linguistic form and social action. This enjoyable book fully succeeds in its aim of explaining the emergence of grammar from the patterns and regularities within social interaction. This volume powerfully demonstrates how analyzing language in its primary habitat – social interaction – entails a fundamental reconsideration of even the most established categories of grammar. Deconstructing the notion according to which the use of imperatives is basically related to ‘commanding’ and ‘impoliteness’, the studies collected here document the wide range of actions that speakers accomplish by means of imperative constructions in real-life situations. Both original in its approach and profound in its implications, the volume as a whole advances our understanding of the workings of grammar in light of the temporal and multisemiotic unfolding of social interaction.