I thought it was very interesting. Conversational formats for taking a stance

Abstract The paper views the epistemic phrase I thought together with the associated utterance as constituting a conversational format used for taking an evaluative, epistemic or affective stance, or for indexing a change in the speaker's epistemic state. The paper presents evidence for the high degree of formulaicity and routinization of the utterances involving I thought , and thus for the existence of linguistic and conversational formats involving this phrase. Relatedly, it shows that these formats are overwhelmingly used in the service of taking a stance in everyday conversation. Thus, I thought may be followed by a rather explicit evaluative or epistemic stance, yielding formats like [I thought] +[it/that] + [was] + [(intensifier)] + [evaluative item] or [I thought] + [(epistemic adverb)] + [X] + [was] . The phrase may also be followed by an affective stance, as in the format [I thought] + [interjection/exclamation] + [stanced utterance/telling] . Finally, the utterance as a whole may display a change in the speaker's epistemic state of the form [I thought] + [past predication] . The paper concludes by looking at two video examples of one stance format, to highlight the importance of embodied production for establishing a negative or a positive polarity for an originally ambivalent stance.