samtalshlutverk

Samtalshlutverk is a term used in Swedish linguistics and discourse analysis to denote the functional role of an utterance within a conversation. The concept focuses on what a speaker accomplishes with an individual turn, how the utterance directs the course of interaction, and how it interacts with subsequent turns. The term combines samtal (conversation) with slutverk (function or end role) and is used to analyze how talk achieves social actions in everyday interaction.

In practice, samtalshlutverk covers a range of illocutionary acts and interactional moves, such as initiating topics, requesting information, giving information, offering or promising actions, signaling agreement or disagreement, repairing misunderstandings, and closing the conversation. Researchers often relate samtalshlutverk to broader theories of pragmatics and speech acts as well as to conversation analysis, which looks at the sequential organization of turns and adjacency pairs.

Studies employing samtalshlutverk typically involve transcript coding where each utterance is labeled with its functional category. This labeling helps describe how participants manage turn-taking, align goals, and negotiate social relations. The concept is not entirely standardized and terminology can vary between researchers or subfields, which means that comparisons across studies should be made with attention to the exact definitions used.

See also: speech act, pragmatics, discourse analysis, conversation analysis, adjacency pair, turn-taking.