The discursive construction of categories. Categorisation as a dynamic and co-operative process

In this paper, I provide an account of categorisation intended as an action that participants carry out in conversation. As opposed to cognitive theories, which are mainly interested in how language structure can be explained with reference to the human conceptual system, discourse-based theories ar...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Language sciences (Oxford) 2020-09, Vol.81, p.101233, Article 101233
Main Author: Goria, Eugenio
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Categorisation
Conversation
Italian
Italian language
Spoken language
Theoretical linguistics
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Summary:In this paper, I provide an account of categorisation intended as an action that participants carry out in conversation. As opposed to cognitive theories, which are mainly interested in how language structure can be explained with reference to the human conceptual system, discourse-based theories are interested in studying how linguistic resources are used to create categories on a locally relevant basis. Based on recent contributions within the latter framework, I provide in this article a preliminary overview of a corpus study on spoken Italian (Goria and Mauri, 2018) and I illustrate different types of structurally unrelated constructions that are recruited by the participants to perform categorisation in spontaneously occurring interactions. •Outline of a discourse-based approach to categorisation.•In-depth analysis of categorisation in contemporary spoken Italian.•Distinction between grammatical(ised) and discursive strategies for categorisation.•Focus on lists.
ISSN:0388-0001
1873-5746
DOI:10.1016/j.langsci.2019.06.003