摘要：Everyday spoken language has a long tradition of being seen as the poor relation
of the written language. The use of certain terminologies in corpus linguistic
studies of conversational grammar reveals that this tradition is continuing.
This paper argues that an alternative view is possible, a view which recognises
the inherent value of conversation, which lies in the adaptedness of conversational
language to constraints set by the conversational ‘situation type’ (Halliday
1978). The use of I goes is examined as a case in point. The form is investigated
in terms of its distribution across registers, its morphosyntax, and the
discourse and situational factors that bear on its use. The discourse and situational
factors are discussed on the basis of a detailed analysis of a sample of 90
occurrences of I goes in the context of 100 words each. It is shown that I goes
acts both as a multi-turn quotative, that is, as a reporting clause in presentations
of extended stretches of anterior conversation with frequent occurrences of
speaker change, and as a speech-economic device freeing processing resources
that the narrator can bring to bear on the achievement of the underlying purpose
of storytelling, namely to indicate ‘the point’ of the narrative (Labov
1972). In this perspective, I argue, I goes can be seen as a skilled adaptation to
two constraints set by the conversational situation: the fundamental scarcity of
time and its relational goal-orientation. In the concluding section, I argue that a
situation-based approach may foster a tradition of acknowledging the value of
conversational language as adapted language, an acknowledgment which is
needed particularly in EFL teaching, where the status of Standard English as
the unrivalled model for teaching both writing and speech is preventing important
corpus linguistic insights from trickling into EFL classrooms. Finally, I also
stress the usefulness of relating corpus linguistic findings to theories derived
from non-corpus linguistic research.
