earticle

영어

This paper explores synthetic conversational style that the members of a Korean family adopt in spontaneous conversations. Expanding the notion of synthesis in diverse disciplines by incorporating that of conversational style (e.g., Tannen, 1981), it proposes the concept of synthetic conversational style applicable to units larger than a proposition such as a conversation in pursuit for comparable logicality. Subsequently, it identifies and explores five forms of such style that emerge and are practiced in spontaneous family discourse. The synthetic conversationalists in the data adopt mutual revelations, personal topics and stories, constructed dialogues, analogies, and co‐narration and formulaic expressions (cf. Tannen, 1989). The style leads them to unite the elements in an unfolding conversation with relevant extra‐textual information (e.g., their own personal experience, a prior contribution of their interlocutors or co-narrators, etc.), focusing on their inter-relationship or associations rather than their intra-relationship, as analytic conversational style leads them to. In so doing, they as a family demonstrate shared orientation to logicality as a synthetic form of conversational style that is negotiated and practiced in their interactions.