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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)

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

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