In this book, I demonstrate how people in conversation (and other forms of communicative practices) on-line construct working, and re-usable, systems of linguistic resources, through turn-taking and a method of turn construction (recycling with différance), which together structure material at hand - syllables and intonation units - like a language.

Moreover, I explore a number of properties of such systems, in particular their character of embedded and dynamic systems, solidly entrenched in space, time, and social relations.

Edition 2 includes an introduction by Per Linell, as well as minor changes suggested by Jan Anward’s close colleagues and approved by him.

Learning to talk science is an important aspect of learning to do science. Given that scientists' language frequently includes intentions and purposes in explanations of unobservable objects and events, teachers must interpret whether learners' use of such language reflects a scientific understanding or inaccurate anthropomorphism and teleology. In the present study, a framework consisting of three 'stances' (Dennett, 1987) - intentional, design and physical - is presented as a powerful tool for analysing students' language use. The aim was to investigate how the framework can be differentiated and used analytically for interpreting students' talk about a molecular process. Semi-structured group discussions and individual interviews about the molecular self-assembly process were conducted with engineering biology/chemistry (n=15) and biology/chemistry teacher students (n=6). Qualitative content analysis of transcripts showed that all three stances were employed by students. The analysis also identified subcategories for each stance, and revealed that intentional language with respect to molecular movement and assumptions about design requirements may be potentially problematic areas. Students' exclusion of physical stance explanations may indicate literal anthropomorphic interpretations. Implications for practice include providing teachers with a tool for scaffolding their use of metaphorical language and for supporting students' metacognitive development as scientific language users.

In this book, I demonstrate how people in conversation (and other forms of communicative practices) on-line construct working, and re-usable, systems of linguistic resources, through turn-taking and a method of turn construction (recycling with différance), which together structure material at hand - syllables and intonation units - like a language.

Moreover, I explore a number of properties of such systems, in particular their character of embedded and dynamic systems, solidly entrenched in space, time, and social relations.

In Swedish newspapers and journals an interview with or a feature article

about a person is normally accompanied by an infobox, where, among other items, there

is a headline named familj (family). Under this headline are mentioned not only partners,

children, and other relatives, but also pets, notably dogs and cats. Our contribution poses

the question to what extent this verbal (written) presentation of pets serves to construct

them as ‘family members’. Based on our findings – the fact that pets are frequently mentioned

in connection with family members, overlap between names of pets and names of

human family members, and close textual alignment of humans and pets, among other

things – we discuss whether these findings should be interpreted as a tendency towards

anthropomorphism with regard to pets, or, somewhat more radically, whether we are witnessing

a linguistic practice where cultural species boundaries are blurred.

Vad är egentligen språklig bildning? I den första artikeln av tre ställs ett antal frågor om dagens språkundervisning.

Vad är egentligen språklig bildning? I den andra artikeln ges en historisk bakgrund.

Vad är egentligen språklig bildning?  I den tredje artikeln presenteras ett blygsamt förslag.

In the present paper, speech and language intervention was investigated in order to explore the use and function of defusing practices. Defusing practices may be viewed as a special form of mitigation. In previous research, including studies on clinical interaction, mitigation has been described mainly as devices used in order to reduce the unwelcome effects of an utterance, or reduce the discomfort of bad news. Defusing practices, however, appear to serve somewhat different functions, which are examined here. Data comprises video and audio recordings of eight intervention sessions with children with language impairment (LI), and six intervention sessions with adults with aphasia, The analysis revealed the following kinds of defusing practices: circumscriptions/figurative language, diminutive words, words like ‘try’ or ‘test’, placing the problem outside of the patient, collective pronouns, diminishing the speech and language pathologist’s own competence, encouragement, and references to well-known phenomena. If speech and language therapists (SLPs) are made aware of the practice and function of defusing, they may make conscious use of these practices in order to reduce face-threatening situations in intervention

It is argued that a language, a langue in a modified Saussurean sense, is a regular outcome of conversation. Based on an analysis of a series of five Swedish telephone conversations, it is demonstrated through a turn-by-turn analysis of the first of these phone calls that an embedded and dynamic system of linguistic resources emerges in conversation and is stabilized in a tradition of conversations, and that the very methods which participants use to structure conversation - turn-taking, sequence organization, and repair - also structure conversation like a language.

In this article, I observe how a construction emerges, through a method of turn construction whichI call recycling with différance, in an informal conversation between four peers. Basing myself on a detailed analysis of the social impact of the turns at talk through which the construction emerges, I argue that a construction never substitutes for or absorbs a series of individual turns, but is a socially negotiated interim structuring of these turns. As such, it is potentially open to new modifications and new uses, which, however, also have to be socially negotiated.