CONVERSATIONAL COMPETENCE AS 'CONSTRUALISTIC' ACTIVITY
Rob Philburn
Pages: 1-8
Published: 25 Sep 2018
Views: 1,634
Downloads: 232
Abstract: This paper builds on the previously advanced notion of the 'conversational construal', that is, the degree to which persons overlap with or differentiate from each other based on their conversational contributions. Specifically, the paper explores the notion of how mobilising different aspects of one's conversational construal over the course of talk with others can be regarded as a key 'conversational competence'. Moreover, this competence is argued to underpin cultural manifestations of ordinary, naturally occurring conversation, making the conversational construal a culturally sensitive phenomenon. To illustrate this idea, the paper draws on two lingua-cultures (England and Germany), which have been shown to display quite differing conversational orientations as participants in talk go about doing sociable interaction. The paper seeks not only to illustrate the links between these two ideas for the study on conversational interaction generally, but also to show how cultural variation in conversational style, and potential points of cross-cultural misunderstanding, might be better understood, made sense of, and appreciated.
Keywords: conversational construal, conversational competence, cross-cultural communication, german-english conversational styles
Cite this article: Rob Philburn. CONVERSATIONAL COMPETENCE AS 'CONSTRUALISTIC' ACTIVITY. Journal of International Scientific Publications: Language, Individual & Society 12, 1-8 (2018). https://www.scientific-publications.net/en/article/1001761/
Back to the contents of the volume
© 2025 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This permission does not cover any third party copyrighted material which may appear in the work requested.
Disclaimer: The Publisher and/or the editor(s) are not responsible for the statements, opinions, and data contained in any published works. These are solely the views of the individual author(s) and contributor(s). The Publisher and/or the editor(s) disclaim any liability for injury to individuals or property arising from the ideas, methods, instructions, or products mentioned in the content.
