Types and functions of pseudo-dialogues

P. 189–215.

Mustajoki A., Sherstinova T., Tuomarla U. S.

In pure dialogues, the speakers address their words to recipients who concentrate
on listening, while in pseudo-dialogues the recipients are not able to listen, or prefer
not to listen. The speaker may be fully aware of the recipient’s mental absence.
The aim of the chapter is to study how pseudo-dialogues are used in everyday
communication. We differentiate four main categories of pseudo-dialogues based
on the role of the recipient: a human recipient who is present in the situation but
whose role in the interaction is secondary; a physically remote human recipient; a
non-human recipient (a dog, a computer, etc.); a speaker who speaks to himself/
herself (no other recipients than oneself). In most cases, the manner of speaking in
pseudo-dialogues largely resembles that of pure dialogues. Examples of the usage
of pseudo-dialogues are taken from the St. Petersburg One Day of Speech Corpus.

Keywords: диалог, dialogue, повседневная речь, everyday speech

In book

Dialogue Studies. Volume 31. From Pragmatics to Dialogue

Vol. 31: From Pragmatics to Dialogue. , John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2018.