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This study analyses argumentation -the negotiation of opinions in interaction- in multi-party conversations, more specifically in study group sessions involving Chilean university students. In particular, the study focuses on the ways in which the participants end argumentative sequences which were initiated with an explicit expression of disagreement. In the article, a classification of the different kinds of resolutions is presented, which distinguishes between who (protagonist, antagonist or a third party) ends the sequence and how it is ended: explicitly, implicitly or through a suspension of the argumentative sequence. By means of an exhaustive analysis of the data at hand, the study intends to answer two basic questions. First, if interpersonal disagreement does in fact, as is maintained by previous research, constitute a problem which needs to be resolved, this will be clear from the ways in which the participants orient themselves towards the disagreement and try to resolve it. Second, based on the same premises, the participants would then need to collaborate to resolve the disagreement in order to bring the argumentative sequence to a close and go back to elaborating the task at hand, an objective which presumably is given a special priority in the studied context, where the primary aim of the conversation -- that of bringing the study group session to a fruitful ending -- can be assumed to condition the strategies used in resolving the argumentative sequences. The results indicate that disagreements in the studied event, rather than being treated as problematic, are used by the participants as a means of reaching a successful solution to the task given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the functions and use of a particular kind of discourse marker frequently found in spontaneous talk-in-interaction in Spanish: the generalizing appendices introduced by the conjunction o ('or'), such as o algo ('or something'), o lo que sea ('or whatever'), o por ahí ('or something like that'). In the study we describe how in peninsular Spanish four specialized functions have developed from a common semantic base: indicate alternatives to the interlocutor. The functions in questions are analyzed as being used for purposes of speech management as well as for negotiating intersubjectivity and face, among others. Starting from a detailed analysis of spontaneous conversations, the study presents criteria for identifying these appendices as well as a discussion of the different means to which the generalizing appendices introduced by o are put in specific situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]