“What's it called?” - Conventionalization, glossing practices, and linguistic (in)determinacy

► Conventionalization in language is a dynamic process. ► Participants ask and answer metalinguistic questions to reduce semantic indeterminacies. ► Through metalinguistic discourse participants create and confirm language conventions. ► Verbal continuities are validated and renewed in concrete episodes of communication. ► Semantic indeterminacies are creative, not 'repairables'.