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Conversational coherence: The role of well

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

Deborah Schiffrin
Deborah Schiffrin*
Affiliation:
Georgetown University
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Abstract

Conversational coherence is a coöperative enterprise in which speaker and hearer jointly negotiate (a) a focus of attention—a referent—and (b) a response which further selects what aspect(s) of that referent will be attended to. Because not all potential referents can be attended to simultaneously, discourse markers like well help speakers locate themselves and their utterances in the on-going construction of discourse. Analysis of everyday talk shows that well anchors a speaker in a system of conversational exchange when the options which a prior referent has opened for upcoming coherence are not fully met. Thus well is sensitive to the information structure of questions, answers, the underlying conditions of requests, and various participation shifts in talk.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 61 , Issue 3 , September 1985, pp. 640 - 667
Copyright
Copyright © 1985 by Linguistic Society of America

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Footnotes

*

I thank William Labov for comments on earlier versions of this paper. I have also been greatly aided by criticisms from Gail Jefferson, although in several cases I have chosen not to follow her advice. Whatever errors still remain are mine alone.

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