5 Scripts and Story Grammars

Behaviour in general, and activities such as story-telling, relating anecdotes and cracking jokes, tends to pattern in highly regular ways. There are `typical' (if not highly conventionalised) ways of starting social activities, continuing them, involving interlocutors, and finishing.

1. Try to formulate `recipes' for the following activities:
   1. Restaurant visit.
   2. Disco visit.
   3. Church service.
   4. Meeting an acquaintance on the street.
   5. Asking a stranger the time.
   6. Writing a business letter.
   7. Writing a thankyou letter after your birthday.
   8. Writing a term paper.
   9. Writing a `Hausordnung'.
2. Look for definitions of (and publications on) concepts such as those mentioned above, including the notions of `script' and `story grammar'.