419590064

The concept of action / N. J. Enfield, University of Sydney, Jack Sidnell, University of Toronto

Enfield, N. J.,i1966- [Verfasser] ; Sidnell, Jack,i1969- [Verfasser]

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2017

Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University Press

1 Online-Ressource (xxi, 222 pages)

New departures in anthropology

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 29 Sep 2017)

978-1-139-02592-8 ; 978-0-521-89528-6 ; 978-0-521-71965-0

LB 26000 LB 39000

 

Handlung  Interaktion  Kulturtheorie 

 

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When people do things with words, how do we know what they are doing? Many scholars have assumed a category of things called actions: 'requests', 'proposals', 'complaints', 'excuses'. The idea is both convenient and intuitive, but as this book argues, it is a spurious concept of action. In interaction, a person's primary task is to decide how to respond, not to label what someone just did. The labeling of actions is a meta-level process, appropriate only when we wish to draw attention to others' behaviors in order to quiz, sanction, praise, blame, or otherwise hold them to account. This book develops a new account of action grounded in certain fundamental ideas about the nature of human sociality: that social conduct is naturally interpreted as purposeful; that human behavior is shaped under a tyranny of social accountability; and that language is our central resource for social action and reaction.