My research focuses on spoken and embodied interaction in both ordinary and institutional settings: for this purpose, I use the theory and method of Conversation Analysis (CA). In CA the machineries that organize talk-in-interaction are analyzed empirically, producing action-based accounts of what participants observably do. I am particularly interested in the use of pragmatic particles - small words such as 'oh', 'well', 'right' or 'look' - in spontaneous conversations taking place in regional Italian and in the Italo-Romance variety spoken in central-northern Veneto ('Trevigiano' or 'Trevixàn' [trevi'zaŋ]). Pragmatic particles (also known as 'discourse markers' or 'segnali discorsivi', in Italian) are a very heterogeneous set of linguistic objects belonging to different word classes such as verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, and interjections. My research aims at describing what participants do by resorting to these tiny words in everyday talk. 

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• Endearment and address terms in family life

  2017. Franco Pauletto, Karin Aronsson, Giorgia Galeano. Journal of Pragmatics 109, 82-94

  Article

  The focus of this study is on the use of endearment terms and affective resources (including other address terms, as well as nonverbal calibration) in requests sequences in inter-generational interaction, expanding prior work on requests as social action. This study documents verbal and embodied practices in dinnertime talk (30 hours of video) deployed by both parents and children in order to get things done. The analyses show ways in which endearment terms were recurrently deployed in request sequences, marking both trouble and social intimacy. Moreover, the data show that endearment terms were exclusively deployed by the parents, but not by their children. The adults and children drew on different repertoires of affective resources: the children deployed an array of nonverbal and nonvocal means to display their affective stances. In addition, the parents resorted to endearment terms, nicknames, and diminutives, as lexical devices invoking intimate bonds in a context where social solidarity might be at stake. Finally, while children’s requests target an immediate action concerning food and food-related activities rooted in the here and now of the interaction, parental requests can be often analyzed as redressive actions, prompted by the child’s (troublesome) behavior.

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• Be’ in posizione iniziale dei turni di parola

  2016. Franco Pauletto. Vox Romanica 75

  Article

  A partir de datos observados en conversaciones espontáneas, este artículo ofrece una descripción de algunos usos en la interacción del marcador del discurso italiano be’, una palabra que las gramáticas descriptivas del italiano definen como interjección. La perspectiva que este trabajo adopta es la de la lingüística interaccional, cuyos métodos y planteamiento scientíficos derivan del análisis de la conversación. Después de una breve introducción a la investigación existente en el ámbito pragmático-funcional, en el artículo se analizarán los turnos de palabra introducidos por be’, tanto en posición de respuesta como en otras. El análisisllevado a cabo nos permite caracterizar el marcador discursivo be’ como un recurso utilizado por el hablante tanto para la gestión de las acciones, como de las secuencias y de los tópicos conversacionales.

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• Pointing backward and forward

  2016. Franco Pauletto, Camilla Bardel. Language, Interaction and Acquisition 7 (1), 89-116

  Article

  In this study, we analyze the kind of actions L1 and L2 speakers of Italian perform by prefacing their responsive turns with the discourse marker be’. As a baseline, the article begins with an analysis of how native speakers of Italian use be’. We then carry out a quantitative and a qualitative analysis of the use of be’ in a number of L2 learners at different proficiency levels from three data sets of different types of interactions between students and native speakers of Italian. In the qualitative analysis, we adopt a conversation analytic perspective. The results suggest that both native speakers and L2 speakers, at an intermediate to an advanced level, perform a variety of social actions by be’-prefacing their responsive turns.  

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• ‘Dai, da’ na mano!’ Tra il dire e il chiedere

  2015. Franco Pauletto, Marilena Fatigante. Rivista di Psicolinguistica Applicata XV (1), 89-103

  Article

  This paper analyzes the use of the Italian discourse marker ‘dai’ (English idiomatic translation : “come on”) in directive sequences between parents and children collected during family mealtime interactions. The work shows how this pragmatic device inhabits sequential contexts in which the recipient is not oriented toward the course of action to which the request refers, that is, when participants do not share the participatory framework and when resistance can be anticipated from the recipient. The paper shows the extent to which the ‘dai’ marker works as a modulator of affect (from encouragement to critique) and, at the same time, how it can open a negotiation space between parents and children as regards the management of individual responsibilities. The paper finally considers the findings in light of practices of socialization, and proposes that the marker supports a cultural preference, common in middle-class families in Western contexts, toward acknowledging the child as an agent and willful individual even in contexts in which he/she is asked to comply.

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• Embodied responses in a guessing game

  2020. Silvia Kunitz, Franco Pauletto. Bulletin suisse de linguistique appliquée (111)

  Article

  Questo studio analitico-conversazionale esplora il modo in cui tre gruppi di studenti liceali di spagnolo come lingua straniera svolgono un compito chiamato "sciarada". In particolare, il presente contributo esamina come i partecipanti portano progressivamente a termine il compito attraverso l'uso di varie risorse semiotiche. Nella sciarada, ogni gruppo di studenti riceve un mazzo di cartoncini, ciascuno con una frase in spagnolo. Gli studenti, a turno, scelgono un cartoncino e ne mimano la frase, in modo da farla indovinare ai compagni. La ricerca qui presentata si concentra su come i partecipanti rispondono alle soluzioni proposte e, più in generale, all'interpretazione del compito adottata dai compagni. In particolare, l'analisi mostra come l'accettazione e il rifiuto delle ipotesi dei partecipanti e delle loro interpretazioni si realizzano con diverse configurazioni di risorse linguistiche, prosodiche e gestuali, configurazioni distribuite lungo un continuum di intensità emotiva. Questa ricerca contribuisce allo studio dell'insegnamento basato sui compiti (task-based instruction ) nel campo dell'analisi della conversazione applicata all'insegnamento delle lingue seconde attraverso l'analisi del ruolo delle emozioni esibite dai partecipanti nella realizzazione di compiti intesi come attività (tasks-as-activities ).

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• “Che cos’è? Va e de”? Domande, risposte e commutazione di codice in due classi svedesi di italiano L2/LS

  2020. Caroline Carlén, Franco Pauletto. Moderna Språk 114 (1), 1-25

  Article

  This conversation-analytic study investigates the use of code switching (henceforth CS) in three Italian L2 classrooms in Sweden. Specifically, when and why do teachers code switch in their questions? Is the language choice pedagogically motivated? Does the teachers’ language choice have an influence over the students’ language choice in their answers? The data were collected from three beginner-level Italian lessons in two Swedish High Schools. Transcripts of questions in which CS occurred were analyzed using a conversation analytic approach with a focus on sequentiality in relation to the organization of turn allocation, to understand when and why the CS occurs in both questions and answers. In our data teachers use CS when posing questions to the class in two major occasions, namely when the question is followed by a significant silence but also when no discernible silence follows a question. Furthermore, regardless of the language used by the teacher, the students answer in Italian when the questions are task-based, and in Swedish when the questions are off-task.

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• Il fattore sorpresa nell’utilizzo del libro di testo

  2018. Franco Pauletto, Paolo Torresan. Paese che vai, manuale che trovi, 101-123

  Chapter

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• Paese che vai, manuale che trovi

  2018. Entela Tabaku Sörman, Paolo Torresan, Franco Pauletto.

  Book (ed)

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• Un genere a sé. L'interazione verbale nei videocorsi dei manuali di italiano LS/L2

  2021. Franco Pauletto. Italiano LinguaDue 13 (1), 194-221

  Article

  This article applies a conversational approach to the analysis of the video courses from four L2/FL Italian textbooks currently on the market in order to explore their interactional characteristics. The qualitative analysis shows that these teaching materials share many traits with the so-called parlato filmico (virtual absence of all the phenomena characterizing spontaneous conversations, syntactically complete utterances etc.). In addition, some problematic aspects concerning the temporality and sequentiality of actions have been identified which make these interactions qualitatively different from natural ones. In general, comprehensibility seems to be privileged at the expense of plausibility in the production of these sit-coms. The results of this study show that these interactions are only partially similar to spontaneous ones, and thus not entirely suitable for educational use aimed at supporting the development of the learners’ interactional competence.

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• Ascolto attivo in una discussione orale nella classe di italiano LS

  2020. Franco Pauletto, Silvia Kunitz. La competenza discorsiva e interazionale, 249-278

  Chapter

  Questo studio pilota adotta la metodologia dell’Analisi della Conversazione per esplorare il tipo e la funzione dei segnali di risposta usati da studenti svedesi di italiano LS impegnati in un’attività didattica in classe. L’interesse nei confronti di queste risorse linguistiche risiede nel fatto che esse sono una delle componenti centrali di ciò che definiamo competenza interazionale, ovvero l’abilità da parte del parlante di produrre attraverso i propri turni delle azioni socialmente riconoscibili, che rispondano in modo adeguato e in tempo reale a quelle prodotte dai copartecipanti all’interazione 

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• L’analisi della conversazione per valutare l’autenticità dei materiali audio per l’insegnamento dell’italiano L2

  2020. Franco Pauletto. EuroAmerican Journal of Applied Linguistics and Languages 7 (2), 28-50

  Article

  This case study, inspired by the principles of conversation analysis, examines two recorded conversations from a manual for teaching Italian as a second language. It analyzes certain salient characteristics of these conversations based on what we know about spontaneous speech from conversation analysis studies (Schegloff, 2007). The detailed analysis of the conversations highlights their problematic nature, especially with regard to the sequentiality of actions, which results in the frequent absence of coordination between conversation shifts. Other phenomena typical of spontaneous verbal interaction, such as overlaps and reparations, are often absent. In essence, these are conversations that are not suitable for instructional approaches that encourage learners to reflect on the details of spoken interaction. The article proposes an analysis model of these audio scripts that takes into consideration the close relationship between language, the sequential structure of speech, and social interaction.

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• “Eh ciò, Sergio el xe stà anca sfortunà” – Il segnale discorsivo ciò in dialetto trevigiano e nell’italiano regionale parlato in provincia di Treviso: una rassegna di alcuni suoi usi nel parlato in interazione

  2021. Franco Pauletto, Biagio Ursi. Cuadernos de Filología Italiana 28, 153-183

  Article

  This conversation analytic study describes the uses of ciò ([ʧɔ]) in talk-in-interaction. This discourse marker is documented as a linguistic resource in several Venetan Italo-Romance varieties still widely spoken in the Veneto region, and it is also frequently used in the regional Italian spoken in that area. The data come from informal telephone calls and from family dinner conversations in both Italian and Trevigiano ([trevi’zaŋ]), which is a dialect spoken in the Treviso area. Preliminary results show that ciò (derived from the imperative form of the Venetan verb ciór / tór / tòr ([ʧor] / [tor] / [tɔr], ‘to take’)) is mainly mobilized as turn preface, often preceded by other particles. However, ciò is also found within the turn and, in a limited number of cases, in turn-final position. From a sequential point of view, in our data ciò occurs almost exclusively in responsive turns. This study shows that a conversation analytic approach yields a much more comprehensive understanding not only of specific structures of spoken languages but also of the complex relations existing between different linguistic varieties in Italy. 

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Show all publications by Franco Pauletto at Stockholm University