“Odd structures” in English as a lingua franca discourse

Abstract

This paper proposes a bidirectional analytic approach to what will be defined and referred to as ‘odd structures’. We consider a structure ‘odd’, if it either (a) violates the structural dimension, i.e. saliently and conventionally expected sequences, or (b) puts forward contradictory information and breaks the topical or situational frame of a conversation, or (c) fulfills both these criteria at the same time. We have two main reasons to analyze odd structures (OS). First, we argue that we need a combination of top-down and bottom-up analysis of discourse segments to systematically dismantle discourse-internal dynamics and principles underlying intercultural interaction. Second, relying on the original Gricean speaker-centered approach, we seek a more thorough understanding of speaker’s behavior that results in the production of an odd structure. Our goal is to identify pattern-like consistencies in these structures, and with a special focus on how they are dealt with by speakers, so to see which OS-types do actually cause a breakdown in conversation and which ones do not.