Content-question words in Gija conversations - 2024 - Caroline de Dear

This study uses conversation analytic methods to examine how content-question words are used to perform three essential social practices: other-initiations of repair, information requests, and word-searches. It uses 3 hours of data to document and describe language use among elderly speakers of Gija, an endangered Australian Aboriginal language from Warmun, Western Australia. The study investigates how grammatical gender is used flexibly in a language ecology that also features Kriol. Findings show how content-question words organise a range of interactional units, and how gender agreement connects turn-components across potentially long stretches of talk.