In the field of interactional dialectology researchers use theories and methods from Conversation Analysis and interactional linguistics to explore different kinds of dialectal data. A dialectal utterance (as well as a standard language utterance) is seen not only as a realization of an abstract linguistic system, but as situated in a specific interactional context in which it fulfills a pragmatic, interactional function. A central research question within the field of interactional dialectology is to investigate why a certain dialect feature is used at a certain moment in a conversation, and which consequence this might have for the following turns-at-talk. This methodological approach has, inter alia, a potential to explain intra-individual speech variation within a dialect interview or another recording of dialect speakers. Another central task within the field is to describe the traditional dialect interview regarded as a communicative activity where the interviewer plays an important role, rather than some kind of neutral, objective documentation of a dialect language system.
The primary aims of this article are to discuss conditions for the analysis of dialectal materials from an interactional perspective and present my own research in this field. My research can be described as a synthesis of Conversation Analysis, interactional linguistics, construction grammar and dialectology.
This paper deals with a type of syntactic constructions where a right dislocated negation inte ‘not’ follows directly after a syntactic-pragmatic complete clause (or other syntactic unit) which in itself has a negative polarity. On the surface this type of utterance is double negated, but functionally it has (still) a negative polarity. The primary data consists of old dialect recordings (interviews) from northeastern Götaland in Sweden. Theoretically and methodologically, the study belongs to the field of interactional dialectology, which I regard as a subdiscipline of interactional linguistics.
The prosodic analysis shows that an inte in a dislocated syntactic position normally is non-prominent and intonationally integrated in the segment that precedes it. The syntactic analysis shows that inte is almost exclusively attached to either negated main clauses or “elliptical” constructions, but not to subordinate clauses. The pragmatic, interactional analysis shows that inte-utterances often occur not only in a TCU- and turn-final position, but also in a final position in larger communicative projects/discourse units (stories etc.). Among the inte-utterance’s typical functions are to contrast, explain or clarify something previous said.