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The concept of preference in conversation analysis1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Jack Bilmes
Jack Bilmes
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Hawaii, Manoa
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Abstract

Preference is treated as a single concept in conversation analysis, but it has in fact developed into an assemblage of loosely related concepts. It has also been construed in a variety of mutually incompatible, and sometimes meth-odologically questionable, ways. This is due, at least in part, to a confusion between preference in its everyday usage and preference as a technical notion. This paper attempts to present a clear and unitary concept of preference and investigate the properties of that concept, differentiate related concepts (including conversational implicature), and reveal common confusions. (Conversation analysis, preference, methodology, implicature)

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Articles
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Language in Society , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , June 1988, pp. 161 - 181
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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