On the place of linguistic resources in the organization of talk-in-interaction: A co-investigation of English and Japanese grammatical practices

This report presents a method for examining grammar as a participants' resource for conduct in interaction. By situating the analysis of grammar in the interactional context of turn-construction and action sequence organization we are able to establish a technical basis for comparing elements of grammatical organization across languages and cultures. By focusing on the co-construction of single turn-constructional units, we are able to describe participants' treatment of sentences-in-progress in terms of a sequentially informed syntax. Through the co-investigation of languages with dissimilar grammatical practices we are able to isolate and describe the use of language-specific structures as constitutive elements of turn-construction.