Elise Kärkkäinen, Epistemic stance in English
conversation: A description of its interactional functions, with a focus
on I think. (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 115). Amsterdam:
John Benjamins, 2003. Pp. ix, 207. Hb $102.00.
In this innovative study of epistemic stance marking in English
conversation, Elise Kärkkäinen attempts to cross-fertilize
discourse-functional linguistics with conversation analysis, and her
effort bears fruit. She moves deftly between quantitative and qualitative
methods, juxtaposing frequency tables with conversational transcripts, and
comes out with a bold thesis in hand: “Showing commitment to the
status of the information that one is providing, i.e. marking epistemic
stance … [is] an essentially interactive
activity” (p. 183).