User:JennyRosen/Tannen, Deborah (2007) Talking voices. Repetition, Dialogue, and Imagery in Conversational Discourse. 2nd ed.

In her book Deborah Tannen discusses how repetition, dialogue and imagery is used both in conversational as well as written discourse. Tannen positions her research in the field of discourse analysis, arguing that this should not be seen as one theoretical school but at interdisciplinary. Discourse analysis doesn’t refer to method but rather describes the object of study – language beyond the sentence (5). However, from the research used by Tannen in her text, her approach to discourse analysis is mainly from a linguistic point of view. In her introduction to the second edition of the book, Tannen put forward the concept of intertextuality, a concept that she didn’t explicitly use in the original text, but which meaning she strived to communicate. Intertextuality brings light upon the fact that meaning in language results from a complex of relationships linking items within a discourse and linking current to prior instances of language (9). As the need and use of repetition is one of the main focuses in Tannen’s text, the concept of intertextuality could bring further insights into the phenomena. Michael Bakthin is usually presented as one of the scholars who initially presented the ideas writes “When we select words in the process of constructing an utterance, we by no means always takes them from the system of language in their neutral, dictionary form. We usually take them from other utterances, and mainly from utterances that are kindred to ours in genre, in theme, composition, or style” (cited in Tannen 11). Tannen also uses the ideas of Gregory Bateson who argues that things are made “real” only by their internal relations and the relations with other things and with the speaker (10).

According to Tannen, her aim with the text is to answer the question of how language works to create meaning and interpersonal relationships (15). She does this mainly by looking into the phenomena of repetition and imagery in discourse. Arguing against the separation of reported speech as different from direct dialogue, she claims that whenever a speaker frames an utterance as dialogue, the discourse thus framed is first and foremost the speaker’s creation (21). A person cannot “report” speech due to the fact that first the speech that appears as reported was never uttered by anyone else in that form and second when an utterance is presented in dialogue it exist primarily as an element of the reporting context although its meaning resonates with association with its reported context (104-105). Therefore, the so called reported speech should rather be seen as constructed dialogue (111) since it is just as creative as the creation of dialogue in fiction and drama. It is through storytelling that humans organize, understand the world and feel connected to each other and in telling stories you give voice to the speech of people who are portrayed as taking part in events (106).

Repetition, dialogue and imagery works to created involvement in discourse which is the basis for all linguistic understanding. Gumperz writes that: “Once involved in a conversation, both speaker and hearer must actively respond what transpires by signaling involvement, either directly through words or indirectly through gestures or similar nonverbal signals” (25). Participation in conversation is not a question of passive understanding since a person cannot understand meaning without a broad grasp of conversational coherence (in other words where an utterance came from and how it is likely to develop) (26). One cannot understand the full meaning of an utterance without considering its relation to other utterances – both synchronically, in its discourse environment, and diachronically, in prior text (101). In cross cultural communication, where speakers do not share the same speaking styles, misjudgments and misunderstandings can easily occur. Moreover, conversation should not be understood in terms of listener and speaker but as a joint production in which the persons participating is doing both, since language is always dialogic (27).

Several involvement strategies can be identified and working primarily on sound (32): 1)	Rhythm 2)	Patterns based on repetition and variation of phonemes, morphemes, words, collocations of words and longer sequences of discourse 3)	Style figures of speech

Other involvement strategies works primarily on meaning (32): 1)	indirectness 2)	ellipsis 3)	tropes 4)	dialogue 5)	imagery and detail 6)	narrative

Communication can take place because the dialogue, details and images conjured by ones person’s speech inspire others to create sounds and scenes in their minds. Images combined with dialogue creates scenes and dialogue combined with repetition creates rhythm and so dialogue is liminal between repetition and images (42). Therefore, scenes and music as well as emotion associated with them are the dynamics by which linguistic strategies create meaning and involvement in discourse (47).

Repetition is essential in creating discourse and it functions both in for the speaker to produce language in a more efficient way and avoiding silence but also to in terms of comprehension as discourse becomes less dense and with increased redundancy (58-59). Moreover, repetition helps to make clear the speakers attitude and how it contributes to the meaning of the discourse. Besides creating meaning in conversation, repetition also functions on the interactional level by accomplishing social goals or managing to create and keep the conversation going, linking not only the parts of discourses to one another but also the individual speakers to the discourse and to each other (61). To sum up repetition can be said to (61). -	accomplish a conversation -	show one’s response to another’s utterance -	show acceptance of others’ utterances, their participation and them -	give evidence of one’s own participation

However, the main purpose of repetition is a fundamental drive among humans to learn (by repeating and imitating what others do) (98). Repetition thus occurs across discourses and across time as well as within a discourse (64).

If we agree on the idea of intertextuality, the boundary between direct and indirect discourse becomes fuzzy, since even all forms of discourse are in one way quoting others (103). The meaning of words and the combinations into which a person can put them are given to him/her by previous speakers, traces of whose voices and contexts cling inevitably to them (103). Also listening and understanding can be understood as dialogic since it requires active interpretation (103).

As pointed out earlier images are essential to communication as it is through the creation of a shared world of images that ideas are communicated and understanding is achieved (134). Creating images, speakers use details in order to convey his/her message. By invoking details – specific concrete, familiar – it becomes possible for an individual to recall and to recreate a scene in which people are in relation to each other and to objects in the world. Therefore, the individual imagination is a key to interpersonal involvement, and interpersonal involvement is a key to understanding language (160).