The Topos of Time as an Argumentative Resource in Conflict Talk

Abstract

Employing a conversation-analytical approach, this paper describes the form-function relations of the topos of time as an argumentative resource. Linguistically grounded this micro-analysis primarily focuses on the interactivity and processuality of talk-in-interaction as well as on the functional assignment of topoi-uses to rhetorical procedures. The paper provides a ’short phenomenology of numbers’ in conflict talk between mothers and their adolescent daughters. I will argue that the use of numbers on the conversational surface points to a specific conceptualization of time. In their concrete and local realization of the topos of time these numbers lay bare everyday conceptualizations of time. This way time as a category becomes visible on the conversational surface. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0701165