The construction of meaning and understanding in conversation realized in meta-enunciative procedures

Abstract

Whenever a conversation takes place, people necessarily deal with a theme, in other words, they talk about something or someone. That is the reason why conversation is seen as a theme-centered interaction. Each participant of a talk, in order to manifest his thoughts, and therefore contribute to the unfolding of the topic in discussion, is supposed to elaborate an utterance in such a way that it is completely understood by his interlocutors, that is, they need to be able to apprehend the meaning of what was said. The social interaction by the means of conversation would not happen without the possibility of understanding. That is why the speaker, while explaining the meaning, builds the comprehension for his interlocutors. In this perspective, build up meaning is to build up comprehension, considering that the speaker, implicitly or explicitly determined by the listener, inscribes the conditions for comprehensibility in his utterance. The construction of meaning is a process which involves any verbal or nonverbal expression intrinsic to conversational unfolding. Nevertheless, as a result of a wider research project which investigates meaning and understanding in conversation, this paper is only concerned with the interactive work of this construction, realized in meta-enunciative procedures, that is, in expressions in which the speakers comment and evaluate, in short, in which they shape their own statements.