Kodieren und Auswerten von Kategorien in der Interaktionalen Linguistik

This paper addresses the interplay of qualitative, interpretive practices and quantitative methods in Interactional Linguistics. This linguistic approach uses data from corpora containing spoken interactions. The analysis of the corpus data comprises steps known from the work with written corpora as well as steps that are specific to the analysis of spoken data. One central process, which is interpretive, but also precedes the interpretation of the final results, is the coding of instances of a phenomenon. Coding in Interactional Linguistics includes classical categories from linguistics, for example syntactic ones, as well as categories that are specific to approaches investigating spoken interactions, for example prosodic or pragmatic categories. The paper first introduces available corpora, typical research questions and methods in Interactional Linguistics. Then, two examples from the author’s own research on verbal pseudo-coordination in German (Sie können sich nicht hinstellen und sagen: »Das geht nicht.« – ›You cannot stand up and say: »That is not okay.«‹) are given to show which interpretive challenges the coding and quantification prosodic and pragmatic categories offer. Finally, the usefulness of the concept hermeneutics for the interpretive processes that the article describes will be discussed.