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The present paper focuses on the question ofwhat people talk about when they are not engaged in 'business talk'. In phatic communication, with no first order aim, interactants are ander the constant strain offinding discourse topics, because silence would at least be impolite or embarassing. Solving this problem largely depends on the socio-pragmatic competence ofthe Speakers. It is argued that the choice of topics äs well äs topic linkage can be explained against the background of situational frames, which, like all frames, are representations of common sense knowledge containing hierarchically organized elements that can be determined by experimental methods. The explanation of topic selection and topic linkage rests on the assumption that these elements can become discourse topics in a certain order depending on the nature of the interactantsy (intended) relationship.1 Topic The term 'topic' is not used in this context with reference to a syntactic phenomenon, but rather äs it is used in everyday language, for example, when people summarize conversations. In this sense topic is understood äs a discourse structuring element. Among linguists there seem to be at least two distinct views of what a discourse topic is. McLaughlin (1984: 45 ff) distinguishes between 'referent approaches'
Multilingua - Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication – de Gruyter
Published: Jan 1, 1987
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