Читать книгу Pragmatik der Veränderung - Группа авторов - Страница 10

Zum Begriff sprachlichen Helfens und seinen Implikationen für Veränderung

Ina Pick & Claudio Scarvaglieri

Abstract: This article develops a concept of helping in and through language and analyzes transcripts of helping conversations from a linguistic perspective. We understand helping in and through language as taking on (parts of) actions in the pursuit of a common goal. Such helping in and through language transpires as a communicative pre-structuring of alternatives of thinking and/or acting. Such a pre-structuring can be performed in weak (formulating or activating of knowledge), intermediate (evaluating alternatives) or strong (explicit weighting of alternatives) ways. Our analyses show that in general the ‘action complex’ of helping in and through language can be performed within different institutional constellations. However, depending on the overarching institutional constellation in which the action complex is embedded, we find varying degrees of pre-structuring alternatives (from weak to strong) as well as differences regarding the pre-structuring of alternatives of thinking versus alternatives of acting in relation to the different settings. We consider helping in and through language endemically geared towards change. Based on our analyzes, change is discussed here in two dimensions: first, change relates to the result of the action process in practice supported by the helping (inter-)actions. Second, change relates to a mental process that is initiated by helping in and through language in the person seeking help. This process is initiated before change becomes evident in practice on the action level.

Keywords: Helping in and through language; communicative action; discourse analysis; change as process; change as outcome