[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-seo-504969-105":3,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":80,"doc-detail-504969-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"ok",{"site_id":7,"language":8,"slug":9,"title":10,"keywords":11,"description":12,"schema_data":13,"social_meta":73,"head_meta":75,"extra_data":77,"updated_unix":79},105,"en","genre-and-conversation","Genre and Conversation","","Conversations vary in genre along four orthogonal dimensions, distinguishing information sharing from decision making, firm commitments from brainstorming, factuality from make-believe, and cooperation from adversarial exchange. The study treats these genre distinctions as independently variable elements within conversation plans that organize speakers’ intentions. Rational pressure requires communicative intentions to cohere with the plan, giving interlocutors an extralinguistic interpretive resource. The approach generalizes pragmatic theories of implicature, common ground, and question-under-discussion to broader conversation types.",{"@graph":14,"@context":72},[15,34,55],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & Report",3,{"item":32,"name":10,"@type":21,"position":33},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/genre-and-conversation/504969/",4,{"url":32,"name":10,"@type":35,"image":36,"author":41,"headline":10,"publisher":44,"fileFormat":47,"inLanguage":8,"description":12,"dateModified":48,"datePublished":49,"encodingFormat":47,"isAccessibleForFree":50,"interactionStatistic":51},"DigitalDocument",{"url":37,"@type":38,"width":39,"height":40},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/genre-and-conversation/504969.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":42,"@type":43},"dbqoiu","Person",{"url":19,"name":45,"@type":46},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-19","2026-10-04",true,{"@type":52,"interactionType":53,"userInteractionCount":33},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":54},"ViewAction",{"@type":56,"mainEntity":57},"FAQPage",[58,64,68],{"name":59,"@type":60,"acceptedAnswer":61},"How many dimensions of variation are used to study conversation genres?","Question",{"text":62,"@type":63},"The analysis uses four orthogonal dimensions. They contrast information sharing vs. decision making, commitments vs. brainstorming, sticking to facts vs. make-believe, and cooperation vs. adversarial interaction.","Answer",{"name":65,"@type":60,"acceptedAnswer":66},"What do the authors argue genres are?",{"text":67,"@type":63},"Genre categories are understood as types of conversation plans: structures of intentions that speakers use to organize conversations and that constrain how utterances are chosen and interpreted.",{"name":69,"@type":60,"acceptedAnswer":70},"How does a conversation plan affect interpretation of speech acts?",{"text":71,"@type":63},"Speakers face rational pressure to align communicative intentions with the conversation plan. Interlocutors then use this plan-alignment pressure as an interpretive resource, favoring readings where intentions fit the plan’s structure.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":74,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":45,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":76,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":78,"site_id":7},504969,1792186655,{"code":4,"msg":81,"data":82},"success",[83,87,91,95,100,105,110,114,119,122,126],{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":84,"show_sort_weight":85,"slug":86},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":26,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":88,"show_sort_weight":89,"slug":90},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":33,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":92,"show_sort_weight":93,"slug":94},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":96,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":97,"show_sort_weight":98,"slug":99},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":101,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":102,"show_sort_weight":103,"slug":104},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":106,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":107,"show_sort_weight":108,"slug":109},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":111,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":29,"show_sort_weight":112,"slug":113},8,30,"research-report",{"id":115,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":116,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":118},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":117,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":120,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":121},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":123,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":124,"show_sort_weight":123,"slug":125},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":127,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":128,"show_sort_weight":96,"slug":129},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":81,"data":131},{"doc_id":78,"user_id":132,"nickname":42,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":111,"category_name":29,"doc_title":10,"doc_description":12,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":33,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":22,"is_downloadable":22,"audit_status":22,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":8,"site_id":7,"html_lang":8,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":12,"update_tm":144,"read_time":108},3985747862462,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_3d24733baf745e90a7e4bdd5f77d97b2","Noûs  \nORIGINAL ARTICLE   \nGenre and Conversation  \nElmar Unnsteinsson1, 2   Daniel W. Harris3  \n1 School of Philosophy, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland  2 Faculty of the Humanities, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland  3 Department of  \nPhilosophy, Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center, New York, USA Correspondence: Elmar Unnsteinsson ([elmar.unnsteinsson@ucd.ie](elmar.unnsteinsson@ucd.ie))  \nReceived: 28 February 2025  Revised: 10 October 2025  Accepted: 15 December 2025  \nABSTRACT  \nConversations can belong to different types, or genres. We consider four dimensions of variation as case studies: Some conversations are about sharing information, others about making decisions; some are about making firm commitments, others about brainstorming options; some are about sticking to the facts, others involve make-believe; some are highly cooperative, others adversarial. These are orthogonal dimensions of variation which explain why some kinds of speech acts are more felicitous and expected than others in particular conversations. But what are genres, how do they shape conversation, and why do they exist? We argue that genre categories can be understood as types of conversation plans, which are the structures of intentions that we use to organize conversations, and that each of our four genre distinctions corresponds to an independently variable kind of element within these plans. Speakers are under rational pressure to make their communicative intentions cohere with the conversation plan, which gives their interlocutors a powerful extralinguistic resource for interpreting their speech acts. We use this idea to show how several influential pragmatic theories, including Grice’s theory of conversational implicature, Stalnaker’s theory of common ground, and Roberts’ question-under-discussion model, can be generalized to account for more kinds of conversation.  \n1  Introduction  \nSuppose that Sandra says to Abe,“I love Italian cinema.” What is Sandra’s point? Without more information, it is hard to tell: as usual, the utterance gives only partial and defeasible evidence about which speech act she has performed. In particular, it would be helpful to know what kind of conversation Sandra and Abe are having. If they are just exchanging information about their preferences, Sandra’s utterance could be taken as an assertion, but if they are trying to decide what to do tonight, it is tempting to interpret her as making an indirect request or proposal. Similarly, it would help to know whether, at this stage of the conversation, Sandra and Abe are merely brainstorming—floating options about what to do—or trying to narrow down options they have already considered. Are they discussing their actual preferences, for that matter, or engaging in pretense? Finally, are they having  \nan antagonistic argument, in which case Sandra’s utterance might count as a defensive rebuke, or is their conversation a congenial and cooperative one, in which case it is a friendly observation or suggestion?  \nWhat is it for a conversation to belong to one of these categories—or, as we will put it, to one conversational genre, rather than another?1 How does a conversation’s genre shape how individual utterances are chosen, designed and understood? And why do conversational genres exist?  \nWe think that there are at least two good reasons to answer these questions. First, conversational genre is an inherently interesting and underexplored topic in the study of human communication. The genre of a conversation shapes the choices that speakers make within it, and also how they are interpreted, and we should  \n\n| 1 We could also have used the term “conversation type.” Ginzburg (2012) uses both terms for roughly the same phenomenon. Some sociolinguists (e.g., Hymes 1977) and literary theorists (e.g., Bakhtin 1986) have used “genre” to denote conventionalized genres, which we will discuss in Section 2. |\n| --- |\n| This is an open access article under the t","cbCaisH557jeba6I","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaisH557jeba6I","pdf",957487,16,"English","# Introduction\n## What is a conversation’s genre?\n## How genre shapes utterance choice and interpretation\n## Why conversational genres exist\n## Genre as types of conversation plans","[{\"question\":\"How many dimensions of variation are used to study conversation genres?\",\"answer\":\"The analysis uses four orthogonal dimensions. They contrast information sharing vs. decision making, commitments vs. brainstorming, sticking to facts vs. make-believe, and cooperation vs. adversarial interaction.\"},{\"question\":\"What do the authors argue genres are?\",\"answer\":\"Genre categories are understood as types of conversation plans: structures of intentions that speakers use to organize conversations and that constrain how utterances are chosen and interpreted.\"},{\"question\":\"How does a conversation plan affect interpretation of speech acts?\",\"answer\":\"Speakers face rational pressure to align communicative intentions with the conversation plan. Interlocutors then use this plan-alignment pressure as an interpretive resource, favoring readings where intentions fit the plan’s structure.\"}]","Genre and Conversation | PDF",1791081835]