| Could You Be More Specific? Examples as Crucial Arguments in Discourse on "Others" (2004) | |||||||||||||
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| In everyday conversations, we frequently "give an example". Yet this is seldom accompanied by any reflection on what is going on when we do so. This report tries to contribute such a reflection. It shows how examples may be marked and used in a particular discourse: oral discourse on "others ". The empirical material is a transcribed focus group interview with a group of Swedish students, engaged in discussing a recent trip to Warsaw. Examples may be looked upon as relatively specific. They are sometimes marked in explicit ways ("for example", "for instance"), sometimes in implicit ways ("like this..."; "look at...", "take..."). Their functions are numerous. They may specify or objectify an argument, as well as mobilise associations, display attitudes, or indicate "types" of persons or items. Some examples are "virtual"; they exemplify what could happen, or what never happened. Typically, examples confirm, challenge or in other ways elaborate an argument. | |||||||||||||
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