CONTENTS
PREFACE   ......................................................9
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS   ......................................10
1. ON CONVERSATIONAL LANGUAGE..........................11
1.1 Introduction: Aims, Methods and Analysed Material .............11
1.2 Spoken Discourse Compared with Written Discourse   ............11
1.2.1 Functionalist Pragmatics in the Prague School..............13
1.3 Semantic Indeterminacy in Authentic Conversation   .............14
1.4 Meaning in Interaction   ......................................15
1.5 Principles Governing Conversational Behaviour   ................17
2. FORM AND MEANING IN CONVERSATION    ..................19
2.1 Indistinct Form and Implicit Meaning   .........................19
2.2 Language Functions in Spoken Discourse   ......................20
2.3 Conversation as Context-Embedded Interaction   ................20
2.4 Delimiting the Basic Unit of Spoken Discourse..................21
3. MEANING IN CONVERSATION REVISITED...................24
3.1 Types of Meaning in Spoken Discourse   ........................24
3.2 The Notion of Semantic Indeterminacy   ........................26
3.3 Speaker Attitude and Speaker Commitment   ....................27
3.4 Pragmatic and Semantic Indeterminacy........................28
4. INDIRECTNESS AND IMPLICITNESS  .........................30
4.1 Indirect Speech Acts as a Linguistic Problem....................30
4.2 Declarative Questions   .......................................32
4.3 Socio-Cultural Aspects of Indirectness and Implicitness  ..........34
4.4 Implications Conveyed by Intonation ..........................35
4.5 Emotiveness versus Informativeness ...........................36
4.6 Question Phrases   ...........................................38
4.7 Criteria for the Evaluation of Indirectness  ......................40
4.8 Semantic and Pragmatic Aspects of Indirectness   ................41
4.9 Indirectness as an Expression of Locutionary Subjectivity   ........48
5. IMPERSONALITY   ...........................................49
5.1 Impersonality as an Expression of Semantic Indeterminacy    ......49
5.2 Pragmatic Categories of Involvement and Detachment ...........49
5.3 Involvement v. Detachment in Different Conversation Genres .....50
5.4 Semantic and Pragmatic Aspects of Impersonality in Spoken Discourse  .....................................................56
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On Expressing Meaning in English Conversation
6. ATTENUATION   .............................................58
6.1 Hedging as Weakening the Illocutionary Force ..................58
6.2 Classification of Attenuation Markers ..........................59
6.3 Types of Attenuation in Discourse.............................64
7. ACCENTUATION............................................66
7.1 Attenuation-Accentuation Dichotomy in Spoken Discourse.......66
7.2 Strengthening the Illocutionary Force   .........................68
7.3 Criteria for Classification of Accentuation Markers   ..............69
7.4 Accentuation as an Expression of Mutuality   ....................71
7.5 Frequency of Accentuation Markers   ...........................72
7.6 Variety of Functions of Accentuation Markers   ..................72
8. VAGUENESS   ................................................74
8.1 Non-Observance of Grices Category of Manner   ................74
8.2 Vagueness as Speaker s Intention   ..............................75
8.3 Telephone Conversation as a Conversation Genre   ...............76
8.4 Pragmatic and Semantic Aspects of Vagueness   ..................77
8.4.1 Referential Uses of Vagueness............................77
8.4.2 Affective Uses of Vagueness..............................78
8.5 Semantic Aspects of Vagueness   ...............................80
8.6 Speech Act Types and Vagueness  ..............................81
8.7 Vagueness as a Discourse Tactic    ..............................82
9. MEANING POTENTIAL IN CONVERSATION  ..................83
9.1 Discourse Grammar    ........................................83
9.2 Degree of Indirectness: Comparing Genres  .....................83
9.3 Semantic Indeterminacy and Modality.........................84
10. CORPUS LINGUISTICS AND PROBABILISTIC GRAMMAR   .... 85
10.1 Computational Linguistics and its Methods of Research .........85
10.2 Representativeness of Text Selection    .........................86
10.4 Grammaticalness and Grammatical Acceptability   ..............88
CONCLUSION   ................................................90
WORKS CITED................................................92
CZECH SUMMARY  ............................................98
APPENDIX   ..................................................100
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