Stance in Talk: A Conversation Analysis of Mandarin Final Particles (Pragmatics & Beyond New)

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Stance in Talk A conversation analysis of Mandarin ﬁnal particles

Pragmatics & Beyond New Series Editor Andreas H. Jucker University of Zurich, English Department Plattenstrasse 47, CH-8032 Zurich, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected]

Associate Editors Jacob L. Mey University of Southern Denmark

Herman Parret Belgian National Science Foundation, Universities of Louvain and Antwerp

Jef Verschueren Belgian National Science Foundation, University of Antwerp

Editorial Board Shoshana Blum-Kulka Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni University of Lyon 2

Jean Caron Université de Poitiers

Claudia de Lemos University of Campinas, Brazil

Robyn Carston University College London

Marina Sbisà University of Trieste

Bruce Fraser Boston University

Emanuel Schegloﬀ University of California at Los Angeles

Thorstein Fretheim University of Trondheim

Deborah Schiﬀrin Georgetown University

John Heritage University of California at Los Angeles

Paul O. Takahara Kansai Gaidai University

Susan Herring University of Texas at Arlington

Sandra Thompson University of California at Santa Barbara

Masako K. Hiraga St.Paul’s (Rikkyo) University

Teun A. Van Dijk Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona

David Holdcroft University of Leeds

Richard J. Watts University of Berne

Sachiko Ide Japan Women’s University

Volume 117 Stance in Talk: A conversation analysis of Mandarin ﬁnal particles by Ruey-Jiuan Regina Wu

Stance in Talk A conversation analysis of Mandarin ﬁnal particles

Ruey-Jiuan Regina Wu San Diego State University

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam/Philadelphia

8

TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wu, Ruey-Jiuan Regina Stance in talk : a conversation analysis of Mandarin ﬁnal particles / Ruey-Jiuan Regina Wu. p. cm. (Pragmatics & Beyond, New Series, issn 0922-842X ; v. 117) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Chinese language--Particles. 2. Conversation analysis. I. Title: Stance in talk: A conversation analysis of Mandarin ﬁnal particles. II. Title. III. Series. PL1237 W78 2003 495.1’16-dc22 isbn 90 272 5359 5 (Eur.) / 1 58811 453 8 (US) (Hb; alk. paper)

2003062593

© 2004 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microﬁlm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa

Contents

For Mom, Ruey-hua, Chien-chung, and especially for you, Dad

v

vi

Contents

Contents vii

Contents Transcription conventions Glossing conventions Acknowledgements

xi xiii xv

Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Overview 1 1.2 An interactional approach to stance: conversation analysis and interactional linguistics 3 1.2.1 Lexical choice 4 1.2.2 Syntactic design 8 1.2.3 Prosodic manifestation 11 1.2.4 Sequential positioning 14 1.3 Interactional studies in Mandarin Chinese 20 1.4 Organization of the book 22 Chapter 2 Preliminaries and methodology 2.1 Context of the problem 25 2.2 Methodology and data 34 2.2.1 Conversation analysis 34 2.2.2 The data 38 2.2.3 Transcription conventions 40 2.2.4 Target forms: Wnal a and Wnal ou in TCU-Wnal position 42 2.3 Summary 47 Chapter 3 Final ou 3.1 Overview 49 3.2 Unmarked ou 51 3.2.1 Making conWrmation or disconWrmation relevant next 53

25

49

viii Contents

3.2.2

3.3

3.4

Final ou and the “conWrmation-as-relevant-next” import 63 3.2.3 Registering a news receipt 70 3.2.4 ConWrmation requests or news receipts? 79 3.2.5 Summary of unmarked ou 82 Marked ou: “There is more here than meets the eye!” 82 3.3.1 In Wrst position 85 3.3.2 In responsive position 97 3.3.3 Summary of marked ou 112 Marked ou versus unmarked ou: summary and discussion 113 3.4.1 Functional distribution of marked ou and unmarked ou 113 3.4.2 Sequential position, prosody, and imports of Wnal ou 114 3.4.3 Final ou as a linguistic resource for registering an epistemic alert 120

Chapter 4 Final a 127 4.1 Introduction 127 4.2 A with a notably low pitch 129 4.2.1 A-formulated questions 129 4.2.1.1 ConWrmation requests and pre-disagreements 129 4.2.1.2 Final a and invoking a contrast 138 4.2.2 A-attached questions 152 4.2.2.1 Marking the matter addressed by the question as problematic 153 4.2.2.2 Marking the very launching of the question as problematic 164 4.2.2.3 Final a and marking “problematicity” 172 4.2.3 Summary of a with a notably low pitch 178 4.3 A with a Xat or slightly high pitch 179 4.3.1 Informing 180 4.3.2 Disagreeing 201 4.3.3 Dealing with problems related to sequential contingency 214 4.3.4 Final a and marking “counter-valence” 222 4.4 Summary of Chapter 4 224

Contents

Chapter 5 Conclusion

233

References

241

Name index

253

Subject index

255

ix

x

Contents

Contents

Transcription conventions The transcription conventions used in this book follow those developed by JeVerson (1984), with some modiWcations. Overlapping talk [ A left bracket indicates the point at which a current speaker’s utterance is overlapped by the talk of another, which appears on the next line attributed to another speaker. If there is more than one left bracket in an utterance, then the second indicates where a second overlaps begins. Both the utterance which is overlapped and the utterance which overlaps are indicated by this symbol. [[ In cases where confusion may arise due to high frequency of overlaps among conversational coparticipants, a double left bracket will be used to resolve the possible confusion. Silence (0.5) Numbers in parentheses indicate silence, represented in tenths of a second. (.) A dot in parentheses indicates a Amicropause.@ Code-switching %oh% A pair of percentage signs indicates that the talk between them is produced in languages other than Mandarin, such as English or Taiwanese. Various aspects of speech delivery :: Colons are used to indicate the prolongation or stretching of the sound just preceding them. The more colons, the longer the stretching. __ Underlining is used to indicate some form of stress or emphasis. __: Combinations of underlining and colons are used to indicate intonation contours. A hyphen after a word or part of a word indicates a cut-oV or a selfinterruption.

xi

xii Transcription conventions

.hhh < > =

↑ ↓ °°

Hearable aspiration is shown where it occurs in the talk by the letter “h” C the more h’s, the more aspiration. A left-facing arrow marks the onset where a stretch of talk is markedly rushed or compressed. A right-facing arrow marks the onset where a stretch of talk is markedly slowed or drawn out. Equal signs are used to mark that (1) there is no interval between adjacent utterances by diVerent speakers, the second being latched immediately to the Wrst; (2) diVerent parts of a single speaker’s utterance constitute a continuous Xow of speech although they have been carried over to another line, by transcript design, to accommodate an intervening interruption. An upward-pointing arrow marks rising shifts in intonation. A downward-pointing arrow marks falling shifts in intonation. Double degree signs indicate that the talk between them is quieter than the surrounding talk.

Other notation () When all or part of an utterance is in parentheses, this indicates uncertainty on the transcriber’s part. → An arrow sign of this type speciWes the target of focus in the transcription. => An arrow sign of this type speciWes the primary target of focus in cases where an arrow sign has already been deployed to direct readers’ attention to some turn structure in facilitating the interpretation of some overall sequential contexts. (( )) A double parentheses are used to mark transcriber’s descriptions of events, such as ((cough)), ((sniV)) and ((telephone rings)).

Transcription conventions xiii

Glossing conventions ASP BA BEI CRS CSC C N PRT PRV Q 3sg

aspectual marker the ba marker in the ba construction the bei marker in the bei construction currently relevant state (le) complex stative construction classiWer negator particle perfective (-le) question marker third person singular pronoun

xiv Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments This book started out as a Ph.D. dissertation at the University of California, Los Angeles. As this study stands at the intersection of conversation analysis, interactional linguistics and Chinese linguistics, I have included in this book a new chapter giving an overview of recent developments in these Welds, and have included discussions of several related recent studies which were either not available to me or had not come to my attention at the time when I Wnished my dissertation. Having completed this manuscript, I’d like to acknowledge with profound gratitude the many teachers, colleagues and friends who have inspired or supported me on this long journey. First, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Emanuel SchegloV and Sandra Thompson. It has been a great privilege to learn Wrst-hand from Emanuel SchegloV what doing conversation analysis is all about. I thank Manny for introducing me to conversation analysis, for sharing with me his insights, and for instilling in me the truth-Wnding spirit. As the old saying goes, AGive a man a Wsh, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to Wsh, and he eats for a lifetime.@ I would like to thank Manny for teaching me to Wsh. I am tremendously indebted and grateful to Sandra Thompson for her support and guidance during C and beyond C the dissertation stage. Sandy has shared with me her extensive knowledge of linguistics and Chinese linguistics, and has helped me communicate to audiences in both scholarly communities. I thank Sandy for reading several earlier versions of the current work, and for her invaluable comments and discussions. Her exemplary scholarship and mentorship will always remain with me as a great source of inspiration. My sincere thanks goes to Charles Goodwin for going out of his way to respond to my inquiries and for his very insightful comments and suggestions. A special word of thanks also to Marianne Celce-Murcia and John Heritage for their long-term support and encouragement. I also wish to acknowledge a debt to many friends and colleagues who have provided helpful input: Wayne Beach, Steven Clayman, Margaret Field, JeVrey Kaplan, Irene Koshik, Glen McClish, Deborah Poole, Betty Samraj, and Ruey-hua Wu. My special thanks to Tim McDaniel for his editorial support; he is the kind of friend that people only dream about.

xv

xvi Acknowledgements

This project was partially supported by a fellowship from UCLA and a micro-grant from the College of Arts and Letters at San Diego State University, for which I am grateful. I would also like to extend my gratitude to my colleagues C and many good friends C at the Department of Linguistics and Oriental Languages at San Diego State University for their support over the years, and to the participants in my data for generously sharing with me a slice of their lives. Of course, I am the person who is solely responsible for all remaining shortcomings. Finally, I wish to express my special thanks to my mother, sister, brother and especially my late father, who have been behind me at every step of the way, and to whom I owe more than words could express. Their love has made the completion of this book possible and meaningful. And it is to them that I gratefully dedicate this book.

Introduction

Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1

Overview

In everyday conversation, people engage in various kinds of activities: They ask and answer questions, they agree and disagree with each other, and they tell stories and provide feedback when listening to stories, for example. If we look at these activities closely, it soon becomes clear that parties to conversation do not merely accomplish these activities, but almost always accomplish them with a stance. For example, they may ask or answer questions with diVerent degrees of epistemic strength or with various kinds of implications, they may choose to issue a disagreement straightforwardly or in a mitigated fashion, they may agree with their interlocutors with or without asserting a higher epistemic status over their interlocutors, or they may report a piece of news while at the same time displaying diVerent degrees of commitment to its validity or tellability. It is by now well-recognized that language typically provides a repertoire of devices for conveying this wide array of stance in talk-in-interaction, and that, while the notion of stance and even knowledge of its existence elude many, most speakers of a language seem to have an intuitive sense of their use. Indeed, as previous conversation analytic research has shown (see, for example, Drew and Heritage 1992 for a review of this topic), a crucial feature of turn design, apart from the selection of the activity to be accomplished, concerns the selection of how an activity is to be realized. And in selecting among alternative ways of performing an activity, speakers can indicate, or can be heard to indicate, how they know about, are commenting on, or are taking an aVective or other position toward the person or matter being addressed. In other words, they can embody, or be heard to embody, their stance. Guided by the theoretical and methodological principles of conversation analysis (CA), this book takes as its central question how participants in Mandarin conversation employ, or otherwise exploit, linguistic resources to

1

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Final particles in Mandarin

display stance in the unfolding development of action and interaction, and, in particular, how this is accomplished through the use of two Mandarin Wnal particles, a and ou. I have selected Wnal particles as the key objects of my study in part because they are integral in conveying emotive and epistemic nuances on the part of the speaker, even though they do not have referential meanings. Also, this selection was motivated by a dual methodological goal: On the one hand, the research presented in this book seeks to demonstrate how a participant-oriented, action-based micro approach to data as informed by CA can help us gain analytic leverage in exploring the functions and meanings of these particles C an area which has long posed a challenge to Chinese linguists. On the other hand, in utilizing a CA-based framework applied to Mandarin Chinese, this study also seeks to contribute to conversation analytic research by revealing previously uninvestigated language-speciWc phenomena while at the same time showing how talk-in-interaction in a non-western language, i.e., Mandarin Chinese, can also display the same striking systematicity and orderliness as observed in many western languages. At a more global level, this study also builds on the Weld of “interactional linguistics,” which takes situated language use as the primary locus of investigation, and which seeks to explore the mutual bearing of various organizations of language, such as prosody, lexicon, and linguistic structures, and various organizations of interaction, such as turn construction, turn-taking, conversational repair practices, participation frameworks, and collaborative completions (e.g., Ochs, SchegloV and Thompson 1996; Couper-Kuhlen and Selting 1996; Selting and Couper-Kuhlen 2001; and Ford, Fox and Thompson 2002, inter alia). The present study, then, shares, and attempts to advocate, the view held by researchers in this Weld, that if we take seriously the claim that language is part of a broader range of systems which underlie the organization of social life and human conduct, then the study of language should be situated in the social/interactional matrix, and should incorporate attention to how language Wgures in the processes of meaning making and meaning negotiations in the evolving actions in talk-in-interaction. This view is clearly expressed in the following quote from SchegloV (1996c:5), where he calls for a consideration of re-framing the object of attention in linguistic analysis, especially stating that in the analysis of discourse: It is critical that the analysis of discourse incorporate attention not only to the propositional content and information distribution of discourse units, but also to the actions they are doing. Especially (but not exclusively) in conversation,

Introduction

talk is constructed and is attended by its recipients for the action or actions which it may be doing. Even if we consider only declarative-type utterances, because there is no limit to the utterables which can be informative and/or true, the informativeness or truth of an utterance is, by itself, no warrant or grounds for having uttered it C or for having uttered it at a particular juncture in an occasion. There is virtually always an issue (for the participants, and accordingly for professional analysts) of what is getting done by its production in some particular here-and-now.

The present study provides an empirically-grounded micro-analysis of two Wnal particles, a and ou, in Mandarin Chinese conversations. Since this study stands at the intersection of conversation analysis, interactional linguistics and Chinese linguistics, a brief overview of the current developments of these Welds is in order.

1.2

An interactional approach to stance: conversation analysis and interactional linguistics

For the purpose of the present study, “stance” is referred to as a speaker’s indication of how he or she knows about, is commenting on, or is taking an aVective or other position toward the person or matter being addressed.1 Although “stance” is not a term commonly used in CA literature, a growing body of research, done within CA or informed by it, has dealt with various aspects of stance, as it is deWned here. This body of work diverges from other studies of stance (e.g., Biber and Finegan 1988, 1989; Field 1997) whose main focus has been on the linguistic realization of stance, primarily through the identiWcation of linguistic stance markers. Unlike those studies, the body of work in which the current study is located focuses on how stance can be accomplished interactionally through the use of linguistic resources or other practices. Thus, a distinctive feature of this research is that while it shares an interest in trying to identify linguistic resources on which participants rely in embodying stance, it does not treat stance as the product of an individual’s performance accomplished through one-way linguistic mappings, i.e., mappings of certain linguistic forms onto the stance he or she wishes to put forward. Instead, like all other actions, stance is treated as an emergent product which is shaped by, and itself shapes, the unfolding development of interaction. And in this process, linguistic resources or other practices not only can play a

3

4

Final particles in Mandarin

constitutive role in contributing to making the sense of the stance visible; these resources or practices also can be used reXexively C reXexively embodying the sense of the stance commonly associated with their uses and thereby “maintaining or altering the sense of the activities and unfolding circumstances in which they occur” (Heritage 1984a:140). A rich ground for the investigation of such interactional accomplishments of stance is turn design, which, as Drew and Heritage (1992:32) have noted, involves the selection of both the activity to be performed in a turn at talk and the speciWc ways in which this activity is to be accomplished. In this section, I outline four major areas of turn design which have been foci of interactional studies of stance, and which bear most directly on the present study. These areas are: (a) lexical choice; (b) syntactic design; (c) prosodic manifestation; and (d) sequential positioning.2 In what follows, I will provide a selective survey of recent Wndings in each of these areas. In keeping with the emphasis on turn design in the present study, however, I will discuss Wndings drawn primarily from research relating stance to turn organization, especially that within the CA paradigm. To the extent that this body of work also contributes to our understanding of the relationship between situated linguistic practices and situated human conduct C such as, for example, the embodiment of stance, this work can also be seen as an extension of the growing body of research in the budding Weld of interactional linguistics.

1.2.1 Lexical choice The relevance of lexical choice to the embodiment of stance is well documented. In their extensive research into styles of stance in English, for example, Biber and Finegan (1988, 1989) identify twelve categories of adjectival, verbal and modal markers of stance. Using sophisticated statistical analyses, they demonstrate how the use of these stance markers can be strongly associated with various stance types in English. However, while Biber and Finegan focus only on the textual relationships between stance markers and styles of stance, a number of more recent studies have begun to pay closer attention to the interactive basis for the use of stance markers. He (1993), for instance, looks at modal choices by academic counselors and their student clients in academic counseling encounters and demonstrates how the counselors and students can employ modality of diVerent values to mark diVerent stances when performing diVerent institutional tasks. In a similar vein, Fox (2001)

Introduction

explores the situated uses of evidential marking C i.e., the linguistic encoding of the speaker’s source of knowledge for a statement (e.g., hear, see, must, seem, apparently, evidently) C in English conversation. By looking at diVerential evidential marking for the same statement on diVerent occasions, and by looking at speakers’ choices of the use or non-use of evidential marking in contexts where both are available, she argues that evidential marking is sensitive to the relationship between speaker and recipient, and that its use may embody the speaker’s stance as alternating between distancing him or herself from, or claiming a greater responsibility for, the statement being made. The relevance of lexical choice to the embodiment of stance is not limited to the use of stance markers, however. C. Goodwin (1986), for example, demonstrates how, through word selection of terms imparting a sense of violent conXict (e.g., takes his helmet oV and clunks it; screamed his damn engine) or from domains such as profanity (e.g., god damn iron bar; throw that son of a bitch down; rapped him a good one in the ass), the speaker can not only embody a recognizable male perspective on the event being recounted, but can also propose a particular alignment to that event. Fox (1987) and SchegloV (1996d) both oVer evidence that the use of a “locally initial” reference form (e.g., a name such as Keegan) in a “locally subsequent” sequential environment is one way of embodying a disaligning stance. The linkage between word selection and stance display has also been documented in a number of studies examining language and social interaction in institutional settings. For example, Whalen and Zimmerman (1990) demonstrate how the use of the lexical formulation “we have” in citizen calls to the police can Wgure in what the researchers call “practical epistemology” C namely, how one has come to know about this particular event on this occasion. They argue that in selecting “we have” in formulating troublesome occurrences to the police (e.g., we have an unconscious diabetic), the caller commonly embodies C and is heard to embody C the stance that the caller is representative of some establishment, doing what a person in this social position is expected C and entitled C to do. Bergmann (1992), as well, discusses the use of various lexical formulations in psychiatric intake interviews. In particular, he provides a sustained discussion of “litotes” C a rhetorical device which describes the matter being addressed through the negation of the opposite, rather than in a straightforward manner (e.g., I just got the information that you’re not doing so well, rather than I just got the information that you’re doing badly.) He concludes that the use of litotes in these psychiatric encounters can serve, among other things, to dis-

5

6

Final particles in Mandarin

play a stance of professional cautiousness and defensiveness on the part of a psychiatrist. Yet another productive line of research relating lexical choice to the embodiment of stance is a group of studies investigating various linguistic forms, such as “discourse markers” (e.g., SchiVrin 1987; Ford 1993; Jucker and Ziv 1998; Park 1997, 1998; Mori 1999), modal adverbs (e.g., Maynard 1993) and Wnal particles (e.g., Luke 1990; Cook 1992, 1997). Several scholars (e.g., SchiVrin 1987; Maynard 1993; Park 1997, 1998), for example, have pointed to the strong connection between the use of contrastive markers such as but and their equivalents in other languages and the display of a disaligning stance. Mori (1999) provides an extensive analysis of the use of a set of Japanese connective expressions (i.e., datte, dakara, kara, demo and kedo) in three distinct contexts: delivery of agreement, delivery of disagreement and pursuit of agreement. She demonstrates that the selection of one connective expression over another in these environments can embody a very diVerent evaluative stance; for example, while some connective expressions (e.g., datte and demo) are commonly associated with the speaker’s display of a strong assertive stance toward the matter being addressed, others (e.g., kara and kedo) serve to mitigate the disaYliative force and merely allude to an unstated partial disagreement. A number of studies have also explored how Wnal particles Wgure in the process of embodying stance. Cook (1992:519), for example, suggests that the main function of the Japanese Wnal particle ne is as an “aVect speciWer,” serving to index “aVective common ground” among the interlocutors. Luke’s (1990) work on Cantonese Wnal particles shows that the selection of these Wnal particles can be contingent on the speaker’s epistemic stance, and, in particular, on whether or not the speaker treats the event being discussed as newsworthy. In addition to the use of connective and Wnal particles, many studies have documented how the selection of one response token over another can be seen as embodying the speaker’s display of a particular stance toward the talk being responded to. Such a stance display may be related to that of continuing recipientship, or the lack thereof, on the part of the particle user. For example, in proposing the central usage of uh huh as “continuers,” SchegloV (1982:81) argues that the production of uh huh embodies not merely a claim of “I understand the state of the talk,” nor the understanding that an extended unit of talk by another is currently underway. Its use rather embodies the stance that the speaker of that extended unit “should continue talking, and in that

Introduction

continued talking should continue that extended unit.” JeVerson (1993) and Drummond and Hopper (1993) have also looked at the choice of response tokens and its implications for listener stance. Both studies oVer evidence that the use of uh huh generally exhibits projected continuing recipientship on the part of its producer, whereas yeah or yes commonly embodies an incipient move to assume speakership and/or to shift topic. Along similar lines, in his study based primarily on Australian English data, Gardner (2001) registers a strong association between the use of the response token mm and a move by its producer to launch a topic other than that which is otherwise in progress. He suggests that the use of mm C as compared to other tokens such as yeah and mm hm C displays low involvement in the current talk on the part of the speaker. Although response tokens can be used to embody stances related to recipientship as discussed above, recipientship is not the only stance that can be embodied through the use of response tokens. Many studies, for example, have documented the capability of response tokens to display epistemic stance. An important study in this regard is Heritage’s (1984b) study of the English oh. He points out that a major diVerence between the “change-of-state token” oh and other response tokens such as yes pertains to the knowledge state of its producer vis-à-vis the matter under discussion. To support this observation, he oVers evidence that while oh serves mainly to propose the talk to which it responds as informative to the particle speaker, response tokens such as yes avoid just such a treatment and are regularly associated with additional turn components that assert prior knowledge of just delivered information. In a subsequent study, Heritage (2002a) analyzes oh-prefaced responses to assessments in the contexts of agreements and disagreements. He argues that the baseline claim conveyed in an oh-prefaced agreement or disagreement is one of “epistemic independence,” and that such a claim of epistemic independence is often associated with C and reXexively embodies C a display of epistemic authority on the part of the oh speaker over his or her interlocutor. A similar connection between the use of response particles and epistemic stance has also been noted by Sorjonen (2001) in her work on Finnish response particles. She shows, for instance, that a salient feature of the Finnish particle niin is a display that its speaker has in some way prior access to what another has just said in a previous turn.

7

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Final particles in Mandarin

In addition to epistemic stance, a clear aVective component in the use of some response tokens has been documented in a number of studies. For example, in exploring the use of the English no in response to negativelyframed utterances, JeVerson (1996, 2002) makes a distinction between aYliative and non-aYliative responses. She argues that in contrast to acknowledgment tokens which do not aYliate but merely indicate “I understand what you said,” aYliative responses such as no can be heard to display stances such as, “I feel the same way,” “I’d do the same thing,” and “I am with you.” A similar distinction is observed by Sorjonen (2001) in her Finnish data. She shows that a major axis relevant for the division of labor between the two particles she examines (i.e., niin and joo) is the aVective stance(s) they express: While niin commonly conveys a sense of “I agree with you; I see your point; I’m on your side,” the use of joo merely registers the factual character of the prior utterance and can, by implication, be understood as conveying a stance of disaYliation. Related to the notion of aVect and of special relevance to the present study is Heritage’s (1998) study of the English particle oh. In this study, he points to a particular kind of disaligning stance commonly associated with the practice of oh-prefacing. SpeciWcally, he shows how the English oh, when used as a preface to turns in response to questions, can serve to problematize and challenge the relevance, appropriateness or presuppositions of the question to which it responds. Heritage’s (1998, 2002a) Wndings regarding the practice of oh-prefacing in English conversation reXect an interesting parallel between the usage of oh-prefacing in English and that of the Wnal particle a in Mandarin Chinese: Both are used to mark the stance that the matter being addressed is “inapposite” in some way from the particle speaker’s point of view, and both assert the primacy of the speaker’s perspective. This function of Mandarin a will be discussed more fully in Chapter 4.

1.2.2 Syntactic design Although lexical choice is arguably one of the principle carriers of stance C and perhaps the most salient of the carriers C other sources of stance marking have also been discussed in the literature. In fact, that the embodiment of stance may also be accomplished through syntactic design has Wgured as a primary focus in a growing body of literature. A number of studies, for example, have pointed to a strong association between word order and the display of a speaker’s aVective stance. A clear illustration is Kim’s (1995) work

Introduction

on English WH-clefts and left dislocation. Through an in-depth sequential analysis of the use of these two constructions in English conversation, he suggests that one common usage of these two constructions is to embody the speaker’s counteractive stance toward the preceding talk. Similar observations have been noted in Ono and Suzuki’s (1992) discussion on the emotively motivated post-predicate constituents in Japanese, and in Guo’s (1999) work on right-dislocation in Mandarin Chinese: Both constructions are shown to serve the function of conveying the intensity of the speaker’s negative aVect. Another fruitful line of research in recent studies of stance and syntactic turn construction has dealt with question design. Many studies in this area have demonstrated how aspects of question design can have a strong and direct bearing on the stance being instantiated. For example, drawing on data from broadcast news interviews, Heritage (2002b) investigates the use of negatively-framed questions (e.g., won’t you have to consider threatening to vote against the government?) and that of negative tags (e.g., you’ll have to consider threatening to vote against the government, won’t you?) by interviewers. He oVers evidence that while negatively-framed questions are frequently produced as, and treated as, a vehicle for asserting a position or an opinion, negative tags are not. He argues, therefore, that these two types of questions embody diVerent degrees of assertiveness relative to the matter under discussion on the parts of interviewers. Koshik (2002) investigates another type of yes/no question, which she calls a “reversed polarity question” (RPQ). Unlike Heritage (2002b), the yes/ no questions she analyzes are aYrmatively-constructed (e.g., didja tell me that?). She shows that these aYrmative yes/no questions, when used by teachers in one-on-one writing conferences to show why a portion of student text is problematic, prefer “no” answers because they convey negative assertions (e.g., didja tell me that in eVect conveying the stance, “you didn’t tell me, in your text, what you just said orally, but you should have.”) She suggests that the negative stance instantiated through RPQs comes from a complex interplay of the design of the question, the actions which the questions are used to perform, and the displayed knowledge state or epistemic strength from which the questions are asked. While the studies by Heritage and Koshik both focus on yes/no questions, yes/no questions are by no means the only question type that can embody speaker stance. For example, in analyzing the questions that journalists ask of public Wgures in broadcast news interviews and press conferences, Clayman

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10

Final particles in Mandarin

and Heritage (2002) identify four facets of adversarialness manifest in journalists’ questions. They demonstrate that aspects of question design, such as the ways in which questions are prefaced, framed, and followed up on, all have a direct impact on the degree of adversarialness embodied in and through the use of these questions. In a related study, Clayman (1992) focuses attention on the design of question prefaces in television news interviews. He demonstrates how by shifting “footings” (GoVman 1981) C and attributing otherwise contentious claims or positions to a third party or an unnamed source (e.g., it’s said that his [President Reagan’s] programs are in trouble) C interviewers can avoid asserting such positions on their own behalf, and in eVect maintain a neutralistic stance in interaction with their guests. In a number of recent studies of news broadcasts, question design is further linked to issues such as “social epistemology” (Roth 2002) and social relationships of participants. These studies show how participants in news broadcasts, in and through their selection and non-selection of certain question types, can convey their stance with regard to who has direct or privileged access to the matter under discussion versus who is linked to the matter in a more attenuated fashion. For example, in his work on live news broadcasts, Raymond (2000) shows that reporters and anchors consistently diVer in their selections from a range of practices during the live coverage of unfolding events: While anchors overwhelmingly restrict themselves to initiating reportage about events through question-driven sequences of talk, reporters overwhelmingly launch reportage by initiating a telling. Raymond argues that the consistent selection of diVerent practices by reporters and anchors can be seen as an embodiment of the complementary stances that anchors and reporters take up toward their role-based identities: that is, relative to the anchors, reporters are cast as authorities who have superior knowledge of, and privileged access to, the events under coverage. Roth (2002) also explores how aspects of question design can instantiate interviewers’ and interviewees’ stances in relation to a social distribution of knowledge in broadcast news interviews. SpeciWcally, he demonstrates how such stances are embodied through the use of two types of questions: “direct questions” (e.g., Will you be marching tomorrow?) and “epistemic-framed questions” (e.g., Do you think he’s gonna endorse you?). He argues that while direct questions typically align interviewees as “subject-actors,” depicting their answers as involving correct or established facts, epistemic-framed questions typically align interviewees as “commentators,” depicting their answers as involving merely second-hand, or

Introduction

less than certain, knowledge of the matter in question. He concludes that these aspects of question design inXuence how parties in news interviews negotiate interviewees’ rights and obligations to “know about, comment on, and account for” newsworthy matters or events (Roth 2002:356). Across these studies, it has been established that syntactic design, such as word order or question design, provides a resource through which participants in talk-in-interaction can convey various stances. In addition, many of these studies (e.g., Clayman 1992; Raymond 2000; Roth 2002) have further demonstrated how such formal aspects of turn design, in addition to their capability to embody stance, can work reXexively to constitute it as well. These themes will resurface in our discussion of the two Mandarin Wnal particles a and ou, both of which can be used to construct questions, and both of which mark the questions so constructed with diVerent epistemic and aVective stances.

1.2.3 Prosodic manifestation Although the relationship between prosody and the display of stance has long been recognized, it is only recently that this relationship C and how it enters into situated conversation C has been subjected to rigorous empirical investigation. Drawing on the tradition of conversation analysis and the recentlyadvocated interactional approach to prosody (Couper-Kuhlen and Selting 1996), various scholars have begun to document, for example, how prosody may Wgure in a speaker’s stance display in the unfolding course of interaction, and how such prosodically-embodied stance may, in turn, be so oriented to by its recipient(s). In this body of literature, some studies have explored how prosody may embody the speaker’s knowledge state relative to the matter under discussion vis-à-vis his or her interlocutor(s). A clear illustration is Local’s (1996) work on the English particle oh, in which he Wnds, among other things, that freestanding oh-tokens commonly exhibit diVerent phonetic characteristics depending on whether the information to which they respond is initiated by the news-bearer or is elicited by the oh speaker. In the former, the particle oh is typically realized as a diphthong with falling pitch, whereas in the latter, the oh tokens are typically monophthongal. A second area of research on the ways in which prosody can serve as a resource for local displays of interactional stance has to do with the notion of

11

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Final particles in Mandarin

speaker incipiency. For example, Gardner (1997, 2001), in his work on response tokens, points to a particular diVerence between mm produced with a falling terminal contour and mm produced with a falling-rising contour: While the former serves mainly to claim agreement or understanding, the latter is used primarily to return the Xoor to the prior speaker. A similar observation is noted by Sorjonen (2001) in her investigation of the Finnish particle niin. She shows that the niin tokens which serve as continuers tend to be produced with a non-falling terminal contour, whereas those used to claim recognition are typically produced with a falling terminal contour or with two peaks. The main body of work investigating the relationship between prosody and stance, however, has focused on how prosody is related to the displaying of “aVect.”3 For example, in studying conversational news deliveries, Freese and Maynard (1998) show that participants almost always ascribe valence C or an evaluative stance C to the news being delivered, and that in this process, prosodic and lexical devices are frequently used in conjunction in achieving this end. Likewise, in a study investigating riddle-guessing activities in a British phone-in program, Couper-Kuhlen (1996) shows how the speciWc prosodic make-up of the hosts’ repetitions of their callers’ prior talk can be linked to various stance displays. SpeciWcally, she argues that when the program hosts use an absolute register matching, rather than a relative register matching, to repeat a caller’s talk C that is, when the hosts mimic not only the words but also the pitch of the caller C they are commonly heard to launch a veiled criticism of the caller or his or her manner of speaking. Similar observations about the linkage between prosody and aVect display are documented in a number of studies using German data. For example, by comparing two types of repair initiations that are similar in all aspects except for their prosody, Selting (1996) demonstrates that in contrast to their prosodically unmarked counterparts, repair initiations produced with a marked prosody are regularly interpreted as carrying with them an emotive overtone of “astonishment.” In the same vein, Günthner’s (1996) investigation of a group of “genuine” whyquestions and why-questions which are produced as a vehicle for reproach in her data reveals that the reproach-implicated why-questions are commonly produced with an array of prosodic features which are not present in the genuine why-questions. She suggests that these prosodic features, combined with other co-occurring syntactic and lexico-semantic cues, serve to direct the

Introduction

recipient’s attention to the negative stance that the questioner is taking up toward the matter at issue. In addition to the aVective stances embodied in syntactic constructions such as questions or repairs, many studies have documented how prosody can also be used in conjunction with nonlexicalized response tokens or emotional cries of various sorts to convey aVective stance. A series of studies by the Goodwins (e.g., M. Goodwin 1998; C. Goodwin 2000; M. Goodwin and C. Goodwin 2000; M. Goodwin, C. Goodwin and Yaeger-Dror 2002), for example, have shown that during children’s play, both AfricanAmerican and bilingual Spanish/English children are commonly observed to preface their opposing turns with “response cries” (GoVman 1978, 1981) (e.g., Ah, Ay, Eh, Oh, Uh, Oo) or cries of “OUT!” or “NO!”, and that in producing these cries, they also make use of pitch leaps, vowel lengthening and dramatic contours to vocally highlight their opposing stance. Similarly, Müller (1996) Wnds two types of acknowledgement tokens in his Italian radio data, one signaling aYliation and the other disaYliation, and he suggests that the prosodic compositions of these tokens C especially their intonational and rhythmic Wts to the prior talk C play a crucial role in determining whether a particular acknowledgement token is used to embody a stance of aYliation or disaYliation. The power of prosody to embody aVective stance has also been discussed in M. Goodwin and C. Goodwin’s (2000) work on the use of language by a man with aphasia, in which they show how by overlaying his limited repertoire of words with a range of diVerent intonation contours, this aphasic man, who can otherwise speak only four words Yes, No, And and Oh, is able to make visible a range of diVerentiated evaluative stances toward the events in progress. Taken together, the studies reviewed thus far reXect a recent endeavor to integrate prosodic research with sequential analyses of conversation. These studies not only demonstrate how prosody is pivotal in conveying or constituting stance, but, more importantly, also seek to empirically ground, in participants’ conduct, their observations about the relationship between stance and prosody. One consequence of undertaking such an interactional approach to prosody is that it can yield new results which at times are at variance with claims based on analysts’ intuitions. For example, as M. Goodwin and C. Goodwin’s (2000) detailed examination of the interactional behavior of an aphasic man informs us, despite commonsense intuitions to the contrary, an explicit emotion vocabulary is not necessary for powerful dis-

13

14

Final particles in Mandarin

plays of emotions; rather, through the integration of intonation, body behavior and timing, this aphasic man is able to make visible and Wnely place a range of stances he is taking toward the events in progress. Likewise, the studies by Gardner (2001) and Sorjonen (2001) demonstrate that it is only through detailed sequential and prosodic analyses of response tokens that this previously undiVerentiated class of expressions is found to exhibit a Wne-tuned division of labor in embodying stance. The insights and the body of Wndings oVered by the interactional approach to prosody discussed above have a special relevance for our investigations of the Mandarin Wnal particles a and ou. As will be seen in Chapters 3 and 4, although Wnal particles have been claimed to be inherently toneless, unstressed and lacking deWnite intonation contours (e.g., Chao 1968; Li and Thompson 1981), prosodic features are nonetheless found to be crucial to their intrinsic meanings and to the interactional stances they embody.

1.2.4 Sequential positioning In the previous sections, I discussed a new generation of studies which, in various ways, has brought our attention to the roles that diVerent facets of turn design, such as its lexical, syntactic or prosodic features, have in embodying a speaker’s stance. Important as these Wndings are, however, we should keep in mind that just like other actions, the displaying of a stance is an interactional phenomenon that is bound up in the organization of turns and sequences. Thus, what renders a particular stance visible on any given occasion is not the verbal construction of a turn alone, but rather its juxtaposition to the sequential location in which it is produced. This, in fact, is a premise which underlies most of the studies discussed earlier, and a theme which has been explicitly addressed in many of these studies (e.g., SchegloV 1982; Couper-Kuhlen 1996; Günthner 1996; Local 1996; Müller 1996; Freese and Maynard 1998; M. Goodwin 1998; Heritage 1998; C. Goodwin 2000; M. Goodwin and C. Goodwin 2000; Fox 2001; Gardner 2001; Sorjonen 2001; M. Goodwin, C. Goodwin and Yaeger-Dror 2002; Heritage 2002a, 2002b; Koshik 2002). For example, in proposing the central usage of uh huh as a “continuer,” SchegloV (1982, 1993) emphasizes that the status of uh huh as a continuer or as a signal of attention is contingent in part on its sequential placement; when uh huh is produced in other than the midst of another’s extended turn, as in response to a yes/no question or after talk

Introduction

that is intendedly complete, diVerent interactional stances, such as claiming an agreement or signaling a display of inattention, may present themselves. Similar observations about the impact of sequential positioning on response tokens have been noted in Gardner (2001) and Sorjonen (2001) as well. Both stress that the speciWc functions of the response tokens they examine are intimately tied to the sequential placements of the talk to which these tokens respond. Along similar lines, Koshik (2002) argues that there is no one-to-one correspondence between the design of a question and its interpretation as either a reversed polarity question or a “real” question. She suggests that such interpretations rest instead on the actions performed by the questions, their sequential positioning, and the knowledge states of the participants. Similarly, Fox (2001) claims that the selection from among alternative evidential markers can be responsive to the sequential location in which the evidential marker is produced. She supports this claim by demonstrating how the use of an overt evidential marker by a non-addressed recipient to voluntarily address an arguably delicate matter can be seen as motivated by the interactional contingencies associated with this particular sequential context. The importance of sequential positioning has also been noted in many of the prosodic studies discussed earlier. A number of scholars (e.g., Günthner 1996; Local 1996; Freese and Maynard 1998; M. Goodwin 1998; C. Goodwin 2000; M. Goodwin and C. Goodwin 2000; Gardner 2001; Sorjonen 2001; M. Goodwin, C. Goodwin and Yaeger-Dror 2002) have maintained that the prosodic parameters identiWed as relevant for their studies are intimately intertwined with other parameters such as lexis, syntax and sequential positioning. Local (1996), in particular, warns against assigning “meaning” directly to pitch contours without considering the sequential environments of their occurrences. This view is echoed by Freese and Maynard (1998:199) in their work on the prosodic features of news deliveries, in which they argue: [P]rosodic devices are highly multi-functional and achieve their signiWcance through an interaction with lexical, sequential and situational information. One can, therefore, never claim a deterministic relationship between prosody and meaning, but rather can only note the utility of particular prosodic structures when employed in particular sequential environments.

While the main concern about sequential positioning in the majority of the body of literature discussed above is its role in delimiting or making sense of the range of stances associated with particular kinds of turn designs, other studies take as their central theme the notion that the sequential placement of

15

16

Final particles in Mandarin

a linguistic practice is as much a part of its character as the other design features. One of these studies is SchegloV’s (1996a) work on repeats.4 Instead of treating all instances of repeats as the same class of interactional phenomena, SchegloV starts by laying out three types of sequential position that repeats can potentially occupy: (i) Repeats can occur in sequentially-initial position, serving, for example, to initiate a repair sequence; (ii) repeats can occur in sequentially-second position, serving, for example, as answers to questions; and (iii) repeats can occur in sequentially-third position, where they may be used to receive or register responses. Focusing on instances in which repeats are produced in a second or third position and also on instances in which repeats are produced by recipients of the Wrst saying to do agreement or conWrmation, SchegloV goes on to demonstrate that these repeats serve not only to conWrm the sense of the Wrst saying, but to conWrm as well that what is being conWrmed had previously been “alluded to” by the conWrming party C the repeat speaker C in the preceding talk. In choosing to agree with another by repeating what they have just said, then, the speaker in eVect embodies a diVerent epistemic stance than that which would otherwise be conveyed through other practices. Such a conWrmatory repeat embodies not only a stance of alignment, but also the speaker’s prior orientation and access to the matter under discussion. SchegloV argues that the practice of conWrming repeats plays a key role in the process of negotiating “who is agreeing with whom,” and its strategic use and non-use can additionally serve to convey a range of aVective stances C such as satisfaction, mockery, self-defense, and the like C toward the other and toward the matters being addressed in the talk. Another major work exploring the bearing of sequential position on the relationship between linguistic form and stance displays is Heritage and Raymond’s (2003) work on “the terms of agreement” C i.e., the management of rights and responsibilities regarding the matter of “who is agreeing with whom.” Focusing on sequences in which participants oVer evaluative assessments of states of aVairs, Heritage and Raymond argue that diVerential rights to assess referent states of aVairs are tacitly encoded in the sequential ordering of the assessments. SpeciWcally, oVering an assessment in Wrst position C as opposed to second position C commonly carries an implied claim that the speaker has primary epistemic rights to assess the matter being evaluated. As a result, persons oVering Wrst assessments may wish to cancel the implication that they are claiming epistemic authority in the matter under discussion; and conversely, persons who Wnd themselves producing responsive assessments

Introduction

may work to defeat the implication that they have only secondary access to the matter being assessed relative to the Wrst speaker. Heritage and Raymond demonstrate that in managing such a relationship between assessing rights and sequential position, participants can embody the relative primacy or subordination of their assessments to that of their co-participants through the formal design of their assessment turns C such as through the use of evidential markers, tag questions, negatively-framed questions, oh-prefacing, or a [conWrmation + agreement] turn format. Whether or not sequential positioning Wgures centrally in their discussions of the linguistic embodiment of stance, the majority of the studies discussed above nonetheless agree on the signiWcance of attending to sequential positioning as a resource for understanding the intricate relationship between the formal aspect of turn design and stance displays, though perhaps with some diVerences in their orientations to the phenomenon. In some studies (e.g., Local 1996; Freese and Maynard 1998; Koshik 2002), as discussed above, the signiWcance of sequential positioning lies in the fact that it can play a constitutive and deterministic role in giving meaning to certain linguistic practices and/or to the stances they embody. For example, a high pitch or a creaky voice in itself, as Freese and Maynard (1998) suggest, does not have any deterministic “meaning,” nor does it embody any speciWc stance, unless juxtaposed with other linguistic practices in situ. Other studies point to the work of sequential positioning as a resource for calibrating the sense of the stance indexed by certain linguistic practices. For example, in the series of studies investigating the practice of oh-prefacing discussed earlier, Heritage (1984b, 1998, 2002a) looks at the use of oh-prefacing in three distinctive sequential environments: (i) in response to turns in which information transmission Wgures centrally, (ii) in response to questions, and (iii) in response to assessments. Heritage argues that while oh-prefacing is used to make a generic “change-of-state” proposal in all three contexts, proposing that “its producer has undergone some kind of change in his or her locally current state of knowledge, information, orientation or awareness” (1984b:299), the speciWc sense of the stance conveyed through this practice is calibrated and particularized by reference to the context of its production. He suggests that in the latter two contexts, speakers exploit its “change-of-state” meaning to indicate that the question or the assessment responded to has occasioned a “marked shift of attention” on the part of the oh-speaker, which in turn suggests that the oh

17

18

Final particles in Mandarin

speaker is experiencing diYculties with the relevance, appropriateness or presuppositions of the question or the assessment. The importance of attending to sequential positioning in analyzing Mandarin Wnal particles in general, and in analyzing Wnal a and Wnal ou in particular, is not only an underlying premise of the present study, but also a running theme throughout most of this book. This theme is reXected most prominently in Chapters 3 and 4, in which two seemingly diVerent usages of Wnal ou (i.e., in Wrst and in responsive position) and two seemingly diVerent stances associated with the use of Wnal a (i.e., as reinforcing or reducing the forcefulness of an utterance) are both shown to be the products of a calibration of the basic indexical meanings of the two Wnal particles vis-à-vis the sequential contexts of their uses. That is to say, in both cases, sequential positioning plays an integral part in calibrating the sense and character of the stance indexed through the use of these two Wnal particles. In sum, the preceding review has investigated various developments in the recent study of the embodiment of stance in interactional contexts, with the goal of demonstrating that one central resource through which stance can be embodied is through the selection of turn design. Four major dimensions of turn design which have been foci of recent interactional studies of stance have been outlined and discussed in order to provide the reader with the appropriate context in which to interpret the present investigation. These areas are: (a) lexical choice; (b) syntactic design; (c) prosodic manifestation; and (d) sequential positioning. While these four dimensions are by no means the only aspects of turn design which may have a bearing on stance displays, they are nonetheless those which bear most directly on the present study as discussed above. At this juncture, it may be helpful to brieXy summarize the characteristics which unify the studies discussed up until now. Although the studies reviewed above diVer greatly in their analytic foci and in the prominence they give to the notion of “stance,” these studies, taken as a whole, share the following analytic perspectives: 1. Rather than treating the notion of “taking up a stance” as an undiVerentiated class of interactional phenomenon, and claiming, for example, that in using structure X, the speaker is “taking up a stance” toward matter Y, these studies seek to specify what kind of stance (e.g., problematizing the relevance of a question, highlighting an opposing stance, or alluding to the speaker’s

Introduction

prior orientation to the matter being addressed) is involved in the use of such a turn design, and by what interactional contingencies the stance has come to have the character it does. 2. These studies do not treat stance as a grammatical relation between linguistic elements and context, nor as an internal mental state of an individual, but rather as an action accomplished within speciWc sequential positions in interaction (cf. Besnier 1990; M. Goodwin and C. Goodwin 2000). Accordingly, the relevant unit for its analysis is “not the individual, or the semantic system of a language, but instead the sequential organization of action” (M. Goodwin and C. Goodwin 2000:33). 3. Like all other actions, then, the displaying of a stance is both “contextsensitive” and “context-renewing” (Heritage 1984a:242); it is constantly shaped by, and itself shapes, the unfolding development of interaction. In this process, linguistic resources or other practices can not only contribute to making the sense of the stance visible, but can also be used reXexively to embody or otherwise calibrate the sense of the stance commonly associated with their uses. 4. Like all other human actions, the displaying of a stance commonly requires the simultaneous deployment of a multiplicity of linguistic (and non-linguistic) resources, such as the lexical, syntactic, prosodic and sequential aspects of a turn design. Against the backdrop of this interactional approach to stance, the present study seeks to explore how the two Mandarin Wnal particles a and ou can be used in conjunction with other aspects of turn design to embody various stances in interaction. In addition, this study also seeks to explore how such interactional uses of these two Wnal particles can in turn shed light on our understanding of their meanings and properties. However, that much having been said, since this study is also among the very Wrst to explore the application of CA methodology to Mandarin Chinese data, we will turn now to a brief overview of recent developments in interactional research on Mandarin Chinese to portray the position of the present investigation within Chinese linguistics.

19

20

Final particles in Mandarin

1.3

Interactional studies in Mandarin Chinese

While conversation analysis and interactional linguistics have been demonstrated to be useful tools for uncovering the systematic organization of talkin-interaction, and how language Wgures in that process, the inXuence of these two Welds on Chinese linguistics has just begun to emerge. In this section, I will provide a brief overview of three recent threads of Chinese interactional studies published since the mid 1990s,5 and discuss how they stand in relation to conversation analysis and interactional linguistics. The Wrst thread of this research is represented by a body of work which seeks to address issues arising from, or related to, interactions among Mandarin speakers. The topics covered in this area of investigation include ambiguity (e.g., Ma 1996; Chang 1999), interruption (Ulijn and Li 1995), “luck talk” (Fong 2000), politeness (e.g., Chang 2001; Hong 2002), and sequential organization (Zhu, Li and Qian 2000). Although the topics addressed by this group of researchers overlap to a certain extent with those taken up in CA studies, this work diverges fundamentally from CA studies in that it seeks to approach these topics based not on naturally occurring conversation, but rather on Weld notes, role plays, survey results, or analysts’ intuitions. In contrast to this work, the second thread of research, which does use naturally occurring conversation as its data, and which often acknowledges ties to CA and interactional linguistics, focuses not on interaction per se, but rather on the linguistic aspects of interaction. Some such studies investigate the interactional use of linguistic forms or constructions, such as adverbial clauses (e.g., Y. Wang 1999, 2002), demonstratives (e.g., S. Huang 1999; Tao 1999), grammatical structures (e.g., Tao and Thompson 1994; Tao 1996), numeral-classiWers (e.g., W. Li 2000), reported speech (e.g., Kuo 2001), response tokens (e.g., Clancy, Thompson, Suzuki and Tao 1996), temporal reference (Wu 2002) and word order (e.g., Tai and Hu 1991; Guo 1999), whereas others analyze the use of interactional practices, such as conversational repairs (Chui 1996; Tao, Fox and de Garcia 1999), “opposition markers” (Kuo 1992) and overlaps (Biq 1998). While this body of research has uncovered interesting and robust relationships between the linguistic or interactional practices and their distributions in conversation, this scholarship is discourse-functional linguistic6 in orientation; and there is in general less attention given in this literature to the interactional work accomplished by the use of these practices.

Introduction

Of particular relevance to the present study is the third thread of research, which seeks to account for recurrent features or patterns of communication in conversation. Hopper and Chen (1996) and Sun (2002), for example, both investigate telephone conversation openings in Mandarin Chinese. While Hopper and Chen examine the sequential organization of these openings, Sun focuses on “identiWcation sequences”7 and demonstrates how “invited guessing” (ni zhidao wo shi shei ma ‘do you know who this is?’) can be used as a strategy and resource for indexing and strengthening interpersonal relationships. Despite their diVerences in analytic focus, both studies take an ethnographic approach to data,8 and seek, Wrst and foremost, to identify cultural speciWcities in the domains examined.9 Besides the ethnographic approach, other approaches have been adopted in recent studies exploring the recurrence of forms and structures in Chinese conversation. For example, Shie (1991) follows the contextualization framework proposed in SchiVrin (1987) in his comprehensive study of Mandarin Wnal particles. Y. Huang (1994) examines Mandarin anaphora from the neoGricean pragmatic perspective. I. Li (1999) takes a discourse-pragmatic approach to her analysis of Wnal particles in Taiwanese, while Chu (2002) adopts “relevance theory” (Sperber and Wilson 1986) in his investigation of the Mandarin Wnal particle a. To date, there are very few studies of Chinese conversation that have taken a CA approach. One notable exception in this regard is the inspiring work by Luke (1990), who demonstrates how conversation-analytic work can be brought to bear on Chinese C and in this case, Cantonese C data. His study focuses on three Cantonese Wnal particles, la, lo and wo, which he argues are “essentially indexical” but “do not have meanings given in advance” (Luke ibid.:265). He demonstrates how it is through an in-depth analysis of the sequential and activity contexts of the occurrences of these particles that a clearer picture of how Wnal particles “contribute to the assignment of meanings to utterances in context” (Luke ibid.:268) can start to emerge. Although the number is still relatively small, some scholars, such as Zhang (1998), He (2001) and myself (Wu 1997a), have also begun to apply CA methodology to Mandarin data. In my 1997 study, the focus is on the use of two discourse particles a and ei in two sequentially related contexts: (i) situations involving parties who are trying to make themselves focal where they have otherwise been playing a marginal role, and (ii) situations involving others trying to incorporate a previously not actively participating party. In

21

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Final particles in Mandarin

this study, I demonstrate how these particles can be used in concert with body behavior in such contexts in the service of managing or transforming participation frameworks. In quite a divergent vein, Zhang (1998) presents an extensive study of the organization of repair in Mandarin conversation. Her Wndings not only attest to the sequential organization of repair, as observed in previous CA studies of English conversations (e.g., SchegloV 1979, 1992b, 1997b), but also reveal language-speciWc constraints on the ways in which repairs are implemented in Mandarin. In an educational context, both He (2001) and Chen and He (2001) have extended the application of CA methodology to Mandarin classroom data. While He focuses on communicative patterns observed in these classrooms, Chen and He explore the discourse-pragmatic functions of one speciWc tag question (dui bu dui) by investigating its sequential positions in classroom interactions. The present study positions itself among this last group of pioneering CA studies of Mandarin Chinese. While this study shares an analytic interest with the second strand of research discussed above in uncovering functional motivations for recurrent patterns of situated language use, it further seeks to understand such motivations not merely through the distribution of particular linguistic features, but rather through the actions and stances they accomplish in the evolving course of interaction, as evidenced by participants’ conduct. Such a shift of analytic perspective introduced by CA on what it is that constitutes “evidence” is consequential for our analysis of the two Mandarin Wnal particles, and is, in fact, what distinguishes the present study from most of the other recent investigations into Wnal particles reviewed above (e.g., Shie 1991; I. Li 1999; Chu 2002). We will return to this point in the next chapter.

1.4

Organization of the book

This chapter has introduced the objectives of the present study, and provided a brief overview of the current developments of the relevant Welds of study in which the present study is situated. The remainder of this book is organized in the following way. Chapter 2 introduces the phenomenon under investigation, discusses the analytic and methodological framework for this study, and

Introduction

as well provides a brief overview of the data analyzed in this study and its transcription procedures. The two subsequent chapters provide a detailed examination of the interactional uses of the two Wnal particles under investigation: Chapter 3 focuses on the use of Wnal ou, and Chapter 4 discusses the use of Wnal a. The Wnal chapter summarizes the Wndings presented in the main chapters and discusses the implications of this study.

Notes 1. I am indebted to Charles Goodwin for his input on this deWnition. 2. It should be noted that another major aspect of turn design which has a direct bearing on stance displays but which is not covered in this book is participants’ nonverbal conduct, such as laughter, facial expression, gestures, body orientation and the like. Nonverbal conduct has been excluded from the present study primarily because it does not seem to have the same order of relevance to the meanings and functions of the two Mandarin Wnal particles under investigation as do the other four aspects of turn design identiWed here. There is, however, a growing body of work investigating the relationship between nonverbal conduct and stance displays. See, for example, C. Goodwin 1981, 2000; Ford, Fox and Thompson 1996; Wu 1997a; M. Goodwin 1998; M. Goodwin and C. Goodwin 2000; Clayman 2002; M. Goodwin, C. Goodwin and Yaeger-Dror 2002; Hayashi, Mori and Takagi 2002; and Hayashi 2003, inter alia. 3. For a review of research investigating the relationship between language and aVect from a cross-linguistic, ethnographic perspective, see, for example, Ochs and SchieVelin 1989 and Besnier 1990. 4. See also SchegloV 1987b and 1997a for a discussion of the other functions of repeats. 5. See Biq, Tai and Thompson 1996 for a review of functional linguistic studies of Chinese from the 1970s to the early 1990s, and Biq 2000 for a review of more recent studies in discourse-and-grammar. 6. See Cumming and Ono 1997 and Ford, Fox and Thompson 2002:4B7 for a review of discourse-functional linguistics. 7. See SchegloV 1986 for a discussion of canonical American telephone openings, and SchegloV 2002 for a discussion of issues related to cross-cultural research on telephone conversation. 8. See SchiVrin 1994 for a discussion of distinctions between the ethnography of communication and conversation analysis. 9.

While the arguments in these two studies are generally convincing, a few comments on the results reported in Hopper and Chen (1996) regarding the use of the two Mandarin Wnal particles a and ou, which are the primary foci of this study, are in order. Hopper and Chen argue that when the Wnal particles a and ou are attached to a name (e.g., Chen Chia-

23

24

Final Particles in Mandarin

Hui A?) in telephone openings, they are used as “greeting tokens,” greeting “a well-known other but also express[ing] some uncertainty about the identiWcation” (Hopper and Chen ibid.:299). However, as I will suggest in this study, although a and ou can be attached to a non-interrogative statement and thereby transform that statement into a conWrmation question, they themselves do not serve as “greeting tokens.” The import of greeting that Hopper and Chen claim to be associated with the use of a and ou, I would argue, comes more from the fact that these two Wnal particles are attached to the name of a potential call-recipient, in a sequential position in which mutual identiWcations and recognitions are highly relevant. In other words, the import comes not from the Wnal particles per se, but rather as a product of an interplay of the utterances to which the Wnal particles are attached and the sequential positioning of these utterances. The Wnal particles a and ou, in and of themselves, are used only to display the speaker’s less than full certainty about the matter being addressed.

Preliminaries and methodology

Chapter 2

Preliminaries and methodology

In order to place the present study in its proper context, a discussion of some of the theoretical and methodological issues which arise in the study of Wnal particles is presented in this chapter. SpeciWcally, this chapter gives a brief description of the features of Wnal particles, discusses previous studies and related methodological issues and problems, and provides an overview of the theoretical and methodological framework of this study. In addition, a description of the database analyzed and the transcription procedures utilized is provided.

2.1

Context of the problem

The phenomena chosen for investigation in this study C what I term “Wnal particles”1 C have been variously labeled as zhu ci ‘helping words,’ yuqi ci ‘mood words’ (Lü and Zhu 1953; L. Wang 1955), “sentence-Wnal particles” (Li and Thompson 1981), “utterance particles” (Luke 1990), “modal particles” (Chappell 1991), “interactional particles” (Maynard 1993), and “aVective particles” (Hsu 1996), among others. As most of these terms suggest, these particles are essentially discourse-dependent: They do not have a denotative or referential meaning, but are mainly used, among other things, to convey emotive and/or epistemic nuances on the part of a speaker within a particular discourse context. These particles play an important role in interactions among speakers of Mandarin Chinese. First, they are massively recurrent in ordinary conversation,2 especially in contexts which are highly emotionally-loaded. Consider, for example, the following excerpt from a multi-party conversation among a group of friends, in which they are discussing the ticket prices of two airlines:3

25

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Final Particles in Mandarin

(1) (CS Party 057A) 1C:

keshi huahang gen changrong dou shi bijiao gui de ((to X)) but (airlines) with (airlines) both be relatively expensive PRT ‘But both China Airlines and EVA Airlines are more expensive.’

2

(0.5)

3X:→

jushuo huahang hen pianyi a I-heard (airlines) very cheap PRT ‘I heard that China Airlines is very cheap A.’

4

(.)

5C:

[ (tamen geng) pianyi. they more cheap [‘(They are) cheap(er).’

6W:→

[ bu hui ba. huahang hai shi hen gui a N ASP PRT (airlines) still be very expensive PRT [‘Not likely BA. China Airlines is still very expensive A.’

7X:→

jushuo xianzai yijing bijiao pianyi le a I-heard now already relatively cheap CRS PRT ‘I heard (it) has already become cheaper now A.’

8

(1.5)

9X:

[keshi yao renshou shengming-renshou shengming de weixian but need bear life bear life PRT danger [‘But (you) need to tolerate the risk of life.’

10W:→ [ keneng yao liu bai duo ba. (Y) dancheng (Y) ((to L)) probably need six hundred more PRT one-way [‘(It’ll) probably cost more than six hundred BA. (Y) one way (Y)’ 11L:→ wo yao mai- laihui de a. I want buy round-trip PRT PRT ‘I want to buy- a round-trip ticket A.’ 12W:

ou PRT ‘Oh.’

Preliminaries and methodology

13L:→

laihui bijiao pianyi a. round-trip relatively cheap PRT ‘Round-trip (tickets) are cheaper A.’

14

(1.0)

15H:

a? ni yao mai laihui. PRTyou want buy round-trip ‘A? You’ll buy a round-trip (ticket)?’

16L:→

dui a. na %eventually% ni hai shi hui yong dao a. right PRT that eventually you still be ASP use RES PRT ‘(That’s) right A. You’ll still %eventually% need that A.’

17H:→ danshi ta na ge bu shi hui %expire% ma. but it that C N be ASP expire Q ‘But isn’t it true that it will %expire% MA?’ 18H:

shuo ji ge- duojiu mei yong jiu [hui %expire%.= say several C how-long N use then ASP expire ‘(If you) don’t use (it) in a few- for some time, [(it’)ll then %expire%.’=

19X:→

[dui a. right PRT [‘(That’s) right A.’=

20L:→ =[dui a. right PRT =[‘(That’s) right A.’ 21X:→ =[rong ni hai zai zheli ma, dui bu dui. ((to R)) (name) you still at here PRT right N right =[‘Rong, you will still be here MA, right?’ 22R:→ dui a. hhh right PRT (laugh) ‘(That’s) right A. hhh’ 23X:→ dui a. suoyi ni hai hui huilai a. right PRT so you still ASP return PRT ‘(That’s) right A. So you’ll still come back A.’ 24L:→ dui a. right PRT ‘(That’s) right A.’

((to L))

27

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Final Particles in Mandarin

Without going into much detail,4 suYce it to note that there is a total of 17 instances of Wnal particles in this 27-second disagreement sequence. Mandarin Wnal particles have also been claimed to serve various types of important semantic and pragmatic functions (see, for example, Chao 1968; Alleton 1981; Li and Thompson 1981; Chu 1984, 2002; King 1986; Chappell 1991; Shi and Zhang 1995). From a conversation-analytic perspective, one of the most important functions these Wnal particles have is that they provide a valuable resource which conversational coparticipants may use (along with other resources) in their attempt to build in grounding for intersubjectivity5 in talk-in-interaction. More speciWcally, like other organizational features of ordinary conversation, the selection and use of a Wnal particle at any given moment routinely embodies participants’ analysis of, and orientation to, one another’s conduct, expectations, understanding, stance, and so forth. In fact, a cursory examination of the present corpus interestingly reveals that parties to conversation undertake to repair their use of Wnal particles, just as they repair other utterances: They add, delete or otherwise replace a Wnal particle in the unfolding development of action and interaction in order to calibrate or revise the stance they wish to put forward. Excerpts (2)B(4) illustrate this. Excerpt (2), taken from the same conversation as excerpt (1), begins with host W’s calling attention to the Sesame-oil Chicken dish C a highly nutritious dish traditionally only served in the wintertime: (2) (CS Party authentic 034)

1W:

2

[((reaching his arm to lift up the lid of the pot where the chicken is)) ou, zhe ge- zhe (ge)/(shi) mayou ji. PRT this C this C be sesame-oil chicken ‘Oh, this- this is “Sesame-oil Chicken.”’ [((L returning to his seat)) (0.7)

3L:→

shei yao jinbu= who need supplement-nutrition ‘Who needs to supplement food with extra nutrition?’=

4L:=>

=shei yao bu a) who need supplement-nutrition PRT =‘Who needs to supplement A)’

Preliminaries and methodology

5L:

6W:

[((looking at W, smiling)) [ni yao bu you need supplement-nutrition [‘You need to supplement?’ [dajia dou yao bu. ((smile voice)) everybody all need supplement-nutrition [‘Everybody needs to supplement.’

Note here that immediately after L launches an inquiry in line 3 (shei yao jinbu ‘who needs to supplement food with extra nutrition’), he moves (in line 4) to redo C and repair C this inquiry by suYxing it with a Wnal a. While in excerpt (2) the speaker subsequently adds a Wnal particle to an arguably same utterance, the repair undertaken by the speaker in excerpt (3) diVers in that he deletes a previously-used Wnal particle in a subsequent turn: (3) (T-career 007) 1L:

suoyi ni- (.) hai shi zai ni nabian gongzuo. so you stil be be you there work ‘So you- (.) still work in (the area) where you live?’

2U:

dui dui. dui right right right ‘Right. Right. Right.’

3L:→

ou::. weishenme a) PRT why PRT ‘Oh::. How come A)’

4U:

huh? huh ‘Huh?’

5L:=>

weishenme. why ‘How come?’

6U:

uh: fanzheng: (.) qu yi jia xiao gongsi: (.) ye: bu cuo. uh anyway go one C small company also N wrong ‘Uh: Anyway: (.) Working for a small company: (.) is also: not bad.’

In this excerpt, we can note that while speaker L’s initial inquiry in line 3 (weishenme a ‘how come A’) is suYxed with a Wnal a, his subsequent

29

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Final Particles in Mandarin

reproduction of this question (in line 5), in response to the interlocutor’s production of huh, leaves out this Wnal particle. As these two excerpts will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 4,6 I will not greatly elaborate these instances here, except to note that the use and nonuse of Wnal a as exempliWed in excerpts (2) and (3) are closely tied to the speakers’ moment-by-moment analysis of the interactional contingencies arising in the unfolding activities they are engaged in, as well as to the kind of stance they wish to embody in their conduct of interaction vis-à-vis these contingencies. Such an embodiment of stance can be reXected not only through the addition or deletion of a Wnal particle, but also through its replacement. Consider, for example, excerpt (4) below. As this excerpt begins, there are two concurrent ongoing “conversational clusters” (Egbert 1993, 1997a) in lines 1B6, where one group of participants (i.e., L and W) are discussing how to teach one particular course while the other group of participants (i.e., C and R) are clarifying the location of a university where L is going to teach soon. (4) (CS Party 310A) 1R:

dui a. zhongshan cai zai gaoxiong. L: keshi- yuanli nime- kao guo ma right PRT (school) justbe (city) but theory you test ASP Q ‘(That’s) right. It’s Zhongshan ‘But- were you- ever tested on (University) that is in Kaohsiung.’ the theory?’

2:

(1.0)

3

4C:

zai jiayi. at (city) ‘In Jiayi.’

5

6C:→

(.) W: women you zuo guo a. we have do ASP PRT ‘We did have the experience.’ (.)

W: jiu san ge %project% justthree C project ‘Only three %projects%.’ [↑hao pianpi ei. very isolated PRT [‘↑How isolated EI!’

W: [chong nong a. again do PRT [‘(We) redid (them).’

Preliminaries and methodology

7

*(0.8)

8L:

huh huh ‘Huh?’

9C:

hh[hh (laugh) ‘hh[hh’

10L:

((* to* L turns his eye gaze toward C. C then puts her hand over her mouth and leans away from L.))

[shenme what [‘What?’

11C:→ zhongcheng hao pianpi ou= (school) very isolated PRT ‘How isolated Zhongcheng (University) is OU!’= 12C:

=pangbian dou mei you- meiyou shenme dongxi. * beside all N have N have what thing =‘There is not- nothing nearby.’

At the possible completion of the clarifying sequence of the location of the university, speaker C articulates a negative assessment of this university and suYxes this assessment with a Wnal particle, ei (line 6). Although this assessment is not launched to directly address L, who is engaged in another conversation at the moment, L nonetheless stops the conversation in progress by directing his gaze toward C, and produces a repair initiator, huh (line 8). Upon receiving L’s eye gaze and repair initiation, C puts her right hand over her mouth and leans in another direction, laughing embarrassedly. After L produces another repair initiation, shenme ‘what’ (in line 10), C reproduces her earlier assessment, with some modiWcations (line 11), one of these including the use of another Wnal particle therein (i.e., ou). Without further explication of what has been accomplished by the replacement of the Wnal particles here, it is suYcient, for the moment, to note that C’s self-repair on the Wnal particle has an important bearing on what she perceives will be conveyed and accomplished through these two Wnal particles, as well as on her analysis of which form she is to use as a result of whom that utterance is designed to address.

31

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Final Particles in Mandarin

Despite their pervasive presence and the important interactional and indexical functions they seem to perform in natural, mundane conversation in Mandarin Chinese, our knowledge about the meanings and usages of these Wnal particles is, at best, fragmentary at present. In part, this is because, as noted earlier, Wnal particles do not have referential meanings but are only indexical in nature. Such an elusive quality of Wnal particles, as several linguists (e.g., Li and Thompson 1981; Luke 1990) have registered, makes it a diYcult, if not impossible, task to provide a general characterization of their meanings and usages. Over the years, various approaches have been adopted in tackling this issue, with varying degrees of success. Traditional treatment of Mandarin Wnal particles, for example, has focused mainly on the analysis of sentences in isolation, or on the analysis of hypothetical conversational situations or written texts (e.g., Chao 1968; Alleton 1981; Zhu 1982; Li and Thompson 1981; Shi and Zhang 1995). However, given that Wnal particles are most frequently used in spontaneous conversations,7 isolating Wnal particles from their actual contexts of use fails to reveal the types of activities they are a part of and the kinds of actions they are used to accomplish. While some of these studies have yielded Wndings that are intuitively appealing or even quite accurate, their observations must be supplemented by detailed examination of the particles’ actual occurrence in order to obtain a more complete picture of the functions and usages of these Wnal particles in naturally occurring conversation. With a growing awareness of the importance of extrasentential factors on the use of Wnal particles, a number of Chinese linguists have started to base their analyses of Wnal particles on authentic conversational data. And yet, much scholarship in this area, although taking empirical data as its object of study, does not always ground its analyses in the empirical conduct of participants. A common approach taken by this body of work is to present the distribution of the Wnal particles under investigation, and then, perhaps, go a step further to make generalizations about their core functions and usages based on those distributions. While such an approach is a necessary Wrst step in advancing our understanding of Wnal particles, problems may arise depending on how this distributional information is brought to bear on the claims or generalizations made by researchers. One common problem has to do with a lack of empirical support for such generalizations; that is, there is a lack of evidence that the core meaning proposed for a given Wnal particle based on its distribution is indeed what the

Preliminaries and methodology

participants have understood it to be, rather than simply being an analytic imposition on the part of the researcher. In the contemporary literature on Wnal particles, for example, a common approach is to Wrst present a segment of data, and then to follow it with the researcher’s claim of what he or she thinks the particle speaker is intending to do in using that particle C without, however, grounding that claim in the conduct of the participants. One danger of such an “interpretivist” approach is that the validity of such claims is completely subject to the researcher’s native competence or intuitions, and what has been claimed by these researchers may not square with what has indeed been understood and experienced by the participants. Another common problem is what can be termed a compounding issue. That is, even though there seems to be a connection between the distribution of a Wnal particle and the core functions it is proposed to have, it is not clear whether that usage comes solely from the particle, the sequential environments of its occurrences, or an interaction of both. In criticizing I. Li’s (1999) proposal of the core property of the Taiwanese Wnal particle a as marking “information activation,” for example, Chu (2002:24) argues: [M]ost utterances, with or without the particle, seem to serve the function of activating information equally well, in the sense that the speaker is indicating to the addressees that the particular piece of information contained in the utterance is being used for the purpose of communication within the contextY In fact, the mere act of bringing up any information serves the function of activating that piece of information.

However, despite the fact that Chu’s (2002) work on the Mandarin Wnal particle a is one of the most comprehensive studies to date in this area, his proposal that Wnal a serves mainly to mark “speaker involvement” is not itself immune to this compounding problem, for in so far as a speaker chooses to produce an utterance about, or a response to, a particular matter, he or she can be seen as indicating his or her involvement in that matter. The claim that Wnal particle a serves the main function of indicating “speaker involvement” thus does not fully explain why a speaker chooses the practice of a-suYxing when, in fact, there is always a wide array of possible ways in which speaker involvement can be displayed as well as a wide variety of utterances which could be argued to carry “speaker involvement” but do not end in Wnal a. To avoid these analytic problems, a cogent account of Wnal particles therefore not only requires compelling exempliWcations in the display of data which demonstrate that the participants in the data have indeed used and

33

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Final Particles in Mandarin

understood the Wnal particles as proposed by the researcher; such an account also requires evidence that builds from the particles’ “eventful nonoccurrence” in analytically comparable sequences (cf. SchegloV 1996a:192B199) C that is, evidence which shows that there are indeed systematic diVerences in action or stance being accomplished through the use and non-use of a given Wnal particle. While many researchers have undertaken to demonstrate such a contrast in their investigations of Wnal particles (e.g., Lee-Wong 1998; I. Li 1999; Chu 2002), a predominant approach used by these researchers is to suppose how the meanings of the excerpts would be changed if the Wnal particles had not been used. Such an approach unfortunately suVers from the same problem as the “interpretivist” approach discussed earlier, in that the claims made by the researchers are not empirically warranted, which renders the validity of these claims questionable. In view of this problem, it is thus essential for a proper account to empirically demonstrate, rather than to suppose or claim, the diVerences between the deployment and non-deployment of Wnal particles C through juxtaposition of analytically comparable excerpts from naturally occurring data and through exploration of the interpretative or analytic grounds for the use and non-use of these particles as manifested in the participants’ conduct. Since much of what has been discussed in this section about that which should ideally enter into an empirical account of Wnal particles is compatible with, and informed by, conversation analysis, which is central to the work presented in this book, let us turn now to a brief overview of conversation analysis.

2.2

Methodology and data

2.2.1 Conversation analysis Conversation analysis (CA) C the major theoretical and methodological framework of this study C is a Weld of research that originated in the 1960s through collaboration between Harvey Sacks, Emanuel SchegloV and Gail JeVerson. A central tenet of CA is the view that conversation C as a primordial site, and the basic form, of social interaction C is structurally organized; it is “a describable domain of interactional activity exhibiting stable, orderly properties that are the speciWc and analyzable achievements of speakers and hearers” (Zimmerman 1988:407). The primary goal of CA, then, has been to uncover

Preliminaries and methodology

and describe the organizational features of ordinary conversation and other talk-in-interaction which provide interactants the resources for building in a routine grounding for intersubjectivity. Although CA methodology cannot be adequately covered in the space available here, it may be useful to brieXy outline a few key features that diVerentiate CA from other approaches which otherwise also employ and/or examine conversational data,8 and that have important bearings on the present study.9 The Wrst feature has to do with its theoretical premise that talk should be treated not only as a syntactic code, nor as a tool of description, but rather as a mode of action embedded within human interaction. More speciWcally, the production of talk as a mode of action is “doubly contextual” (Heritage 1984a:242): It is “context-shaped” in that its production and interactional import cannot be adequately understood without reference to the context in which it occurs C including, especially, the local conWguration of the preceding actions. On the other hand, each interactional contribution, including the production of talk and its eventful absence, is “context-renewing” because it has the capacity for creating and providing a new context for subsequent action. When viewed from this perspective, then, the production of talk as a mode of action is not merely contextually-licensed (cf. speech act theory); it in fact stands in a reXexive relationship to the context in which it participates. CA’s views of talk as a mode of action and the reXexive character of talk are consequential for its analytic orientation. For one thing, if talk constitutes action, then it follows that, for each spate of talk, there is almost always an issue of what is being accomplished by its production in this particular hereand-now (cf. SchegloV 1996c) C or, to put it another way, “why that now” (SchegloV and Sacks 1973:299). And insofar as this is an issue for parties to talk-in-interaction, it becomes a task of analysis for professional analysts. From a conversation-analytic perspective, one key aspect which underlies this issue of “why that now” is “recipient design” C that is, “[the] multitude of respects in which the talk by a party in a conversation is constructed or designed in ways which display an orientation and sensitivity to the particular other(s) who are the co-participants” (Sacks, SchegloV and JeVerson 1974:727). In the organization of their action, participants ordinarily take into consideration these contingencies as they demonstrate in their next moves what sense they make of a prior speaker’s action. Accordingly, to get at the participants’ “then-relevant” sense of these contingencies, the immediately

35

36

Final Particles in Mandarin

subsequent moves by the participants commonly become analytic loci for conversation analysts. In fact, from its inception, one of the most distinctive features of CA has been its stringent reliance on the observable conduct of participants as its central resource for developing analyses. One upshot of this feature is that no order of detail in interaction can be dismissed, a priori, as irrelevant; and conversely, no analytic distinctions or social characterizations of participants (e.g., age, class, gender, etc.) C however relevant they are to particular disciplines C should assume a Wrst-order relevance in analyzing actual talk-ininteraction. This is not to say that CA takes the position that such analytic distinctions or social characterizations have absolutely no bearing on participants’ conduct on any given occasion, only that any claims made along those lines should be empirically grounded and warranted. A fundamental criterion of conversation analytic work thus is to warrant that the characterizations and interpretations of particular aspects of an interactional occasion are grounded not only in aspects which are “demonstrably relevant” to the participants, but also in those which have “determinate consequences” for that occasion (SchegloV 1991). As SchegloV (1992a:196) points out: Not all aspects of setting or of capacity in which persons are acting are consequential for all aspects of what they say or do. That two interactants are relevantly doctors talking in a medical setting, and about medical matters, is not necessarily consequential for the way in which they deploy hand gestures which occur in the course of their talk or the way in which they refer to a prospective fourth for their golWng outing on Wednesday. So, even if one can show that, of the descriptions of the settings and persons which could be invoked, some particular ones are relevant to the participants in the interaction, it remains to be shown that they are procedurally consequential for the particular aspect of the talk or other conduct which is the focus of analysis C that is, that there is a consequential tie (again, for the participants) between the setting and interactional identities so understood and a particular facet of their conduct.

These analytic orientations of CA are clearly spelled out in SchegloV (1996a), in which he outlines three distinctive elements which should ideally enter into an empirically grounded account of action: 1. First, the account requires a formulation of what action or actions are being accomplished, with compelling exempliWcations in displays of data and analysis, including ways of “testing” the claim via confrontation of problematic instances and apparent “deviant cases,” if possible.

Preliminaries and methodology

2. Second, there must be a grounding of this formulation in the “reality” of the participantsYThis requires some demonstration that the interlocutors in the data being examined have understood the utterances (or other conduct) in question to be possibly doing the proposed action(s) or that they are oriented to that possibility C a demonstration ordinarily grounded in the interlocutors’ subsequent talk or conduct. 3. A third element of a proper account of an action is an explication and analysis of what it is about the observed talk or other conduct or the practices embodied in it, which makes the enactment of that talk/conduct possibly an instance of the proposed action, and makes it analyzable by the coparticipants as an instance of that action, that is, why or how that practice can yield that action. It is not enough to show that some utterance was understood by its recipient to implement a particular actionYIn order to provide analytically the grounds for the possibility of such an understanding, an account must be oVered of what about the production of that talk/conduct provided for its recognizability as such an action; that is, what were the methodical, or procedural, or “practice-d” grounds of its production. Once explicated and established, this serves as part of the account of the utterance/action, whether or not it was so understood by its recipient on any particular occasion. (ibid.:172B173, emphasis original).

These three elements provide the points of reference for the present study and will be addressed in the discussion of the two target Wnal particles in Chapters 3 and 4. In the past two decades, CA has been demonstrated to be a useful tool for uncovering the systematic organizations of ordinary conversation and other talk-in-interaction, accumulating penetrating accounts in such areas as turn organization (e.g., Sacks, SchegloV and JeVerson 1974; SchegloV 1996b, 2000a, 2001), repair organization (e.g., SchegloV, JeVerson and Sacks 1977; SchegloV 1979, 1987a, 1992b, 1997a, 1997b, 2000b; JeVerson 1987), preference organization (e.g., Sacks 1987 [1973]; Pomerantz 1984), assessment organization (e.g., Pomerantz 1984; C. Goodwin and M. Goodwin 1987, 1992), storytelling organization (e.g., Sacks 1974; JeVerson 1978; C. Goodwin 1984, 1986; SchegloV 1992a), sequence organization (e.g., SchegloV 1990, 1995, to appear) and, more recently, the interface between grammar and interaction (e.g., Fox 1987; Ford 1993; Heritage and Roth 1995; Ochs, SchegloV and Thompson 1996; Clift 2001; Selting and Couper-Kuhlen 2001; Ford, Fox and Thompson 2002). These studies provide a body of Wndings which attest to general tendencies of recurrent features of talk-in-interaction, and which will serve as points of departure for the present investigation.

37

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Final Particles in Mandarin

Although, until recently, conversation analytic research has based its claims primarily on English materials, and hence has been criticized as being biased toward interactional patterns speciWc to Western cultures (cf. Duranti 1988), there has been a growing interest, especially in the last 10 years or so, in conducting CA research in languages other than English. This expanding body of research includes, inter alia, studies of Finnish (e.g., Sorjonen 1996, 1997, 2001, 2002), German (e.g., Egbert 1993, 1996, 1997a, 1997b), Japanese (e.g., Hayashi 1999, 2001, 2003; Hayashi, Mori and Takagi 2002; Mori 1999; Tanaka 1999), Korean (e.g., Kim 1999a, 1999b, 2001; Park 1997, 1998, 1999, 2002) and Swedish (e.g., Lindström 1994, 1997). In the area of Chinese, while the potential of CA to oVer new perspectives on both old and new issues in Chinese linguistics has been repeatedly stressed in a few recent survey studies (e.g., Biq, Tai and Thompson 1996; Biq 2000), there have been very few investigations to date that have followed a strictly-CA approach, as discussed in Chapter 1. This is an area where research is very much needed and the work presented in this book is part of a larger eVort to Wll this gap.

2.2.2 The data The core corpus for the present study consists of seven telephone conversations and four video-taped multi-party, face-to-face conversations among family members, friends, or acquaintances, collected and transcribed by myself. It totals approximately twelve hours of interaction. There are altogether 28 diVerent speakers, 18 women and 10 men, all native speakers of Mandarin Chinese. The ages of these speakers range from mid-twenties to late sixties. Most of them have received at least a high-school education. Following are brief descriptions of these conversations, each given a designation to reXect the nature or the theme of the conversation: T-Dancer: a telephone conversation between two Taiwanese female acquaintances. Both participants, X and D,10 are graduate students, in their late twenties. X is a dance major and D a history major. The topics of this conversation center around a few friends they both know of, X’s description of her past training experience at school and her comments on a career in dance in general. Data collected in the US. T-Number: a brief telephone conversation between two Taiwanese female friends. The purpose of this phone call is for one of the participants, Hua, to obtain the telephone number of a friend from the other participant in this

Preliminaries and methodology

conversation. Hua is a graduate student, in her late twenties. Data collected in the US. T-Stock Lady: a very brief telephone conversation between a woman in her early sixties and her stock broker, about whether a previous buy order she requested over the phone has gone through. Data collected in Taiwan. T-Telnet: a brief telephone conversation between a man in his late sixties and his son, in his mid-twenties. Data collected in Taiwan. T-Copyright: a telephone conversation between two Taiwanese male friends, Lin and Tai, in their early thirties. Lin has just received his Ph.D. degree and Tai is planning to Wle his thesis two days after this phone conversation. Lin is returning an earlier call by Tai, who had called Lin at Lin’s girlfriend’s house to inquire about the procedures for Wling a thesis. Data collected in the US. T-Career: a telephone conversation between two Taiwanese male friends, Lin and Un, in their early thirties. They used to be college classmates while in Taiwan. Un has just established his own company in the United States and Lin has just obtained his Ph.D. and will be moving back to Taiwan soon. The conversation is mainly about their careers/future careers and some relevant topics. Data collected in the US. T-OYcemate: a telephone conversation between two Taiwanese male friends, Lin and Wu, in their early thirties. They studied in the same university in Taiwan and are now working under the same supervisor in the United States. The conversation centers around another oYcemate of theirs and some academic issues. Data collected in the US. Three Friends: a video-taped face-to-face conversation among three Taiwanese friends, Dai, Chi and Shu. Chi and Shu are boyfriend/girlfriend, living together. All of them are graduate students at the same university. Chi is the president of the Chinese Student Association of the school. The conversation centers around their past experiences and recent lives. Data collected in the US. CS Party: a video-taped face-to-face conversation among a group of friends, Wve men (Lin, Wu, Tsai, Xu and Han) and two women (Christel and Rong). Except for Christel, who is visiting the US on vacation, all the other participants are graduate students. The Wve male participants, all of whom graduated from the same university in Taiwan, are studying in the same department (Computer Science) now. Lin and Rong are boyfriend/girlfriend. Participants’ ages range from early twenties to early thirties. This gathering is

39

40

Final Particles in Mandarin

assembled as a farewell party for Lin, who has just graduated and will return to Taiwan soon. Conversation topics vary. Data collected in the US. Café: a video-taped face-to-face conversation among four female college friends in their late twenties. Three of the participants (Ling, Yin and May) are teachers. This gathering is assembled when Ling and her husband (who is not present on this occasion) are bringing their students on a graduation trip to a southern city in Taiwan, where the other participants live. Ling and Yin have had occasional contact with each other since graduation. The other two participants, Rong and May, have neither seen Ling nor contacted her for about seven years before this gathering. Data collected in Taiwan. Tea Time: a video-taped face-to-face conversation among six female friends C Hui and Li, in their forties, Wen, Feng, Su, in their early thirties, and Rong, in her late twenties. Feng, Li, Hui and Su are teaching at a senior high school. Wen and Rong, their former colleagues, are studying in the United States and are on a short vacation home when this conversation is recorded. Two of the participants do not stay for the entire gathering: Li arrives thirty minutes late and Feng leaves after lunch. Data collected in Taiwan. As is apparent from the description, all of the speakers in the core corpus are from Taiwan. To make the results of this study generalizable to more than one speech community, the corpus is supplemented with approximately four hours of video-taped face-to-face conversations which took place among native speakers of Mandarin Chinese from Mainland China.11 While it is beyond the scope of the present study to provide a detailed description of the diVerences in usage of the two Wnal particles, a and ou, in Mainland China and Taiwan,12,13 some of the diVerences will be noted in Chapters 3 and 4, where relevant. Table 1 provides a summary of the database analyzed in this study.

2.2.3 Transcription conventions The data analyzed in this study were transcribed using the pinyin system of romanization without tone marks.14 Although utterances were transcribed according to their standard Mandarin pronunciations, phonetic variations of the utterances, such as vowel lengthening and aspiration, were also noted in the transcriptions and were transcribed according to the transcription conventions developed by JeVerson (1984), with slight modiWcations.15

Preliminaries and methodology

Table 1. Summary of the database

Primary Database T-Dancer T-Number T-Stock Lady T-Telnet T-Copyright T-Career T-Officemate Three Friends CS Party Café Tea Time

Type

Date

Length

Participants

telephone telephone telephone telephone telephone telephone telephone video-taped face-to-face video-taped face-to-face video-taped face-to-face video-taped face-to-face

10/31/92 10/92 12/96 12/96 8/29/96 8/24/96 8/22/96

20’38" 1’30" 0’21" 2’47" 38’32" 23’52" 36’14"

2 women 2 women 2 women 2 men 2 men 2 men 2 men

4/1/95

1 hr 8’

2 women and1 man

8/24/96

approx. 3 hrs

2 women and 5 men

12/26/96

approx. 2 hrs

4 women

1/2/97

approx. 4 hrs approx. 12 hrs

6 women 28 (different) speakers: 18 women and 10 men

Subtotal

Other Data video-taped face-to-face

Total

6/96-8/96 approx. 4 hrs

approx. 16 hrs

9 (different) speakers: 4 women and 5 men 37 (different) speakers: 22 women and 15 men

Each transcribed Mandarin utterance normally has two lines of English below it. In the line immediately below the Mandarin utterance, I have glossed each Mandarin element with its literal English equivalent. In the second line, I oVer a translation of the whole utterance into idiomatic English, attempting to preserve the “Xavor” of the Mandarin utterance if possible. In cases where there are overlaps between speakers’ utterances, I have aligned the Mandarin originals as well as the English translations; the result of this is that the English translations may not always appear directly below their word-by-word glosses, as in the following excerpt:

41

42

Final Particles in Mandarin

(5) (CS Party A081B; video 52’20”) [((looking at C and sustaining mutual gazes with her)) bu shenme- %bi ke% a [(Y.) cram what (Taiwanese food) PRT => ‘They teach (people) how to make %bi ke% A[(Y)’

1R: →

2C:→ =>

[ou PRT [‘Oh.’

As also exempliWed in (5), non-vocal actions are noted above the Mandarin originals when they appear pertinent to the analysis. In addition, Wnal particles are included in the English translations, in capitals, when (and only when) they are the principal subjects of discussion at the moment. Various aspects of interaction, such as overlapping talk, silence and other speciWcs, are noted in the lines of the original Mandarin utterances and their English translations. However, because of the diVerences between English and Mandarin, such as diVerences in word order, the speciWcs about the speaker’s delivery of the turn in the English translations are not exact, and the original Mandarin utterances should always be consulted when reading the transcriptions.

2.2.4 Target forms: Wnal a and Wnal ou in TCU-Wnal position Although Mandarin Chinese has a wide array of Wnal particles serving various types of functions, as discussed in Section 2.1, it should be noted that not all Wnal particles are equal in terms of the locations they are eligible to occupy. Chao (1968), for example, has categorized Wnal particles into three types: those which occur after phrases only (e.g., the particle lie; (6)), those which occur only as sentence particles (e.g., the particle ma; (7)), and those which occur in either function (e.g., the particle a; (8), (9)), as illustrated below: (6)16 (Chao 1968:796) Daqiu lie, xiaqi lie, shenme de, ta yangyang dou hui. play-ball PRT, play-chess PRT, what PRT 3sg everything all can ‘Playing ball LIE, playing chess LIE, and so forth, he can do all of them.’

Preliminaries and methodology

(7) (Chao 1968:796) Ni zhidao ma you know Q ‘Do you know MA?’ (8) (Chao 1968:796) Yaoshi zou a, mei panfei. if go PRT N money ‘If (I) go A, (I’ll) have no money to travel.’ (9) (Chao 1968:796) Mei panfei ye dei zou a N money also have-to go PRT ‘Even without travel money, (you) still have to go A.’

While Chao’s observation of the existence of such a distinction between Wnal particles is intuitively appealing, in view of the commonly-registered diYculty in deWning the notion of “sentence” in structural terms (e.g., Jespersen 1924:308; Li and Thompson 1981; Tao 1996:16B17), and in keeping with the analytic orientation of the present study, I would propose a diVerent classiWcation of Wnal particles, based not on their location by reference to the morphosyntactic units in traditional grammar (i.e., “sentence” or “phrase”), but rather on their location within a turn C i.e., whether or not they occur in TCU (turn constructional unit) Wnal position. Simply put, “turn constructional units” are deWned in the CA literature as units which “can constitute possibly complete turns; on their possible completion, transition to a next speaker becomes relevant (although not necessarily accomplished)” (SchegloV 1996b:55; cf., also, Sacks, SchegloV and JeVerson 1974; Ford and Thompson 1996). Based on this deWnition, it is observed that Mandarin Wnal particles, although overwhelmingly appearing at the end of an intonation unit (Tao 1996), do not always occur at the end of a TCU. The key objects of this study C Wnal ou and Wnal a C are among those which commonly occur in both TCU-Wnal and non-TCU-Wnal positions. This is illustrated in the following excerpts, all drawn from the present corpus: Excerpts (10) and (11) demonstrate the use of Wnal ou and Wnal a respectively in nonTCU-Wnal position, while excerpts (12)B(14) demonstrate the use of Wnal ou and Wnal a respectively in TCU-Wnal position.

43

44

Final Particles in Mandarin

In non-TCU-Wnal position (10) (T-Dancer) ((D is reporting what a dancer had told her about the consequence of the dance training.)) 1D:

meixin jiu shuo- ta jiu gen women shuo= (name) then say 3sg then with we say ‘Meixin then said- She then told us’=

2D:

=ni buyao kan tiaowu hen piaoliang. you N see dance very pretty =‘“Don’t you (just) think that dancing is very pretty.”’

3X:

uh PRT ‘Uh.’

4D:→

shijishang ou (0.3) actually PRT ‘“Actually OU, (0.3)”’

5D:

jiu biancheng zoulu deshihou jiu hen nankan then become walk when then very ugly ‘“it turns out that when (dancers) walk, (they) walk in a very ugly way.”’

(11) (T-oYcemate 213) ((L is telling one colleague about how he had responded to their supervisor’s inquiry about whether or not another colleague of theirs had contributed much to a joint project.)) 1L:

wo shi shuo:: tch! shuo you la, I just say say have PRT ‘I said:: tch! said, “Yes.”’

2L:→

ta bangmang %install% a, 3sg help install PRT ‘“She helped %install% (the computers) A,”’

3L:→

%set up% naxie dongxi aset up those stuV PRT ‘“%set up% that stuV A-”’

4L:→

ta shi- ta shi zuo yixie shiqing zhe yangzi a. 3sg be 3sg be do some thing this manner PRT ‘“She has- she did do some work A.”’

Preliminaries and methodology

5L:

.hhhh pt!

danshi %george-% tch! but (supervisor) ‘.hhhh pt! But %George% tch!’

6L:

ta bing bu shi:: name: %care% naxie shiqing, ni zhidao ma. 3sg actually N be that care those thing you know Q ‘he doesn’t really: %care% that: much about those things, you know?’

In TCU-Wnal position (12) (WQ 1b) ((Prior to this excerpt, speaker M, who is from Mainland China, has just informed speaker F, who is from Taiwan, that it is diYcult to cultivate rice in the northeast area of Mainland China.)) 1F:

suoyi dongbei bijiao qiong ou. = so northeast relatively poor PRT ‘So the Northeast is relatively poor?’=

2F:

=[(zhe yangzi ma) this manner Q =[‘(Is that so?)’

3M:→

=[↑dongbei bu qiong ou↑↓ northeast N poor PRT =[‘↑The Northeast is not poor OU↑↓.’

4F:

bu qiong [ma? N poor Q ‘(It’s) not [poor?’

(13) (CS Party ordinary 273a ) ((X is engaged in a word search for the name of a school.)) 1X:

na ge jiao shenme- na ge jiao shenme that C call what that C call what ‘What’s it called- What’s it called?’

2L:

banqiao na ge shi bu shi. (place) that C be N be ‘The one in Banqiao, right?’

3

(0.5)

45

46

Final Particles in Mandarin

4L:→

guangren ou (school) PRT ‘Guangren OU?’

5X:

guangren a (dui.) (school) PRT right ‘Guangren. (Right.)’

(14) (CS Party A094A) ((T is reporting on his itinerary for an upcoming trip when X joins in with a piece of information about their mutual supervisor in line 1.)) 1X:→

na ge libai laoban bu zai a. that C week boss N at PRT ‘The boss won’t be here that week A.’

2

(.)

3T:→

na ge libai laoban bu zai a) that C week boss N at PRT ‘The boss won’t be here that week A)’

4X:→

dui a.= right PRT ‘(That’s) right A.’=

To narrow the scope of analysis, the present study focuses mainly on ou and a17 in TCU-Wnal position. Final ou and Wnal a were chosen as the objects of inquiry because they are among the most frequently used in the present database. In addition, the decision to focus on the use of these two Wnal particles in TCU-Wnal position was motivated by the fact that TCU-Wnal position, as noted earlier, is a sequentially speciWable place at which speaker change may relevantly occur; hence against this position, the particle-suYxed utterances, and the use of the Wnal particles in them, can be analyzed with respect to the coparticipant’s action that follows, or with respect to its possible eventful nonoccurrence. Given, however, this delimitation of the scope of investigation, the present study makes no claims as to whether or not Wnal ou and Wnal a in non-TCUWnal position convey the same indexical meanings or perform similar interactional functions as they do in TCU-Wnal position; a fuller investigation of this topic must await future research.

Preliminaries and methodology

2.3

Summary

This chapter has laid out the theoretical assumptions and orientations of this research, has given an overview of the database and of the transcription conventions, and has presented a new classiWcation system of Wnal particles by which the scope of the present investigation is delimited. Having addressed these theoretical and methodological preliminaries, we can now turn to the analysis of two target Wnal particles. Let us begin with Wnal ou.

Notes 1. It should be noted, however, that the term “particles” is occasionally used as a term of convenience as a substitute for the term “Wnal particles” in the present study. 2. For example, Tao (1996:52) reported that, of a total of 1284 intonation units which he had coded from three Mandarin conversations, 232 intonation units (18%) contained a Wnal particle. In addition, an informal count revealed that a Wnal particle is found, on the average, every 1.5 seconds in natural, mundane conversation in Cantonese, a dialect of the Chinese language (Luke 1990:11). In a similar count of Wnal particles in an informal Mandarin conversation, Chappell (1991:40) found that these Wnal particles occurred about every 6 seconds. 3. All of the Wnal particles in this segment have been boldfaced; an arrow is also used to alert readers to the occurrence of a Wnal particle in that speciWc line. See Section 2.2.3 and the transcription and glossing conventions provided at the beginning of this book for a more detailed explanation of the methods used in transcribing the data. 4. This excerpt will be examined in greater detail in Chapter 4 (excerpt (41)). 5. For a more detailed discussion of the related issues of “intersubjectivity,” see SchegloV 1992b. 6. See, respectively, excerpts (18) and (26) in Chapter 4. 7. The relatively infrequent occurrence of Wnal particles in written discourse has been noted in Li and Thompson 1981 and Luke 1990. 8. As this review should make clear, it is not the case that any study which uses authentic conversation as its data, or which has the goal of describing conversational uses of language, is an example of conversation analysis. The term “conversation analysis” as used here, which has sometimes been referred to as “ethnomethodological conversation analysis,” refers speciWcally to a distinctive Weld of study commonly associated with such scholars as Sacks, SchegloV, JeVerson, and others. 9. For a more complete overview, see Levinson 1983: Chapter 6; Atkinson and Heritage 1984; Heritage 1984a; C. Goodwin and Heritage 1990; Pomerantz and Fehr 1997; and SchegloV, Koshik, Jacoby and Olsher 2002, inter alia.

47

48

Final Particles in Mandarin

10. For the protection of the participants’ privacy, their names and/or initials as well as references to other people, schools, companies, etc. made in the conversations, have all been changed. 11. These conversations were collected by Qing Wang in the US and Mainland China in the summer of 1996. I thank Sandra Thompson for allowing me access to this data set. 12. Mandarin is a lingua franca in which there is wide variation in usage due to the inXuence of various dialects. For discussions of some general regional diVerences between Mandarin spoken in Mainland China and Taiwan, see, for example, Kubler 1979. 13. In a study of Taiwanese Wnal particles, I. Li’s (1999) Wndings of the functions of the Taiwanese Wnal particles a and ou parallel to a certain extent those observed to be performed by the Mandarin a and ou in the present corpus. It may be an interesting topic for future research to explore the dialectical diVerences/similarities in the use of Wnal particles in this region. 14. A small portion of the data in which the participants code-switch to Taiwanese is transcribed using the Church system, with some modiWcations (see, e.g., Cheng and Cheng 1977; I. Li 1999:1). I thank Ruey-hua Wu for her consultation on parts of the transcription. 15. A list of transcription conventions and glossing conventions employed in the transcript excerpts is provided at the beginning of this book. 16. For the purpose of consistency, the transcription as well as the glossing conventions used by Chao (1968) have been changed to those of the present study. 17. Although spelled as “a” in this study, the a particle, as Chao (1968: 803) has noted, has a number of morphophonemic alternations. This study will treat “a” and these morphophonemic alternations, such as “ia,” as the same particle.

Final ou

Chapter 3

Final ou

Chao (1968) and Li and Thompson (1981) are the only works to date that provide relatively extensive discussions of Wnal ou. Chao (ibid.) assigns two meanings to ou: (i) warning reminder, and (ii) exclamation. Li and Thompson (1981:311) characterizes ou as a “friendly warning,” which shows “concern and caring on the part of the speaker.” As we will see, while a sense of “warning” and a connotation of “friendliness” clearly Wgure in some occurrences of ou in the present corpus, these characterizations do not seem to provide a complete picture of the overall meaning and functions of this Wnal particle. Building on a previous study (Wu 1997b), I will demonstrate in this chapter that the use of Wnal ou is associated more generally with the speaker’s attempt to register an epistemic alert.1 That is, it is used either to alert the recipient to scrutinize the talk2 for that which merits special attention with respect to its epistemic status, or to display that the speaker him or herself has just undergone such a process and has just come to a newly epistemically-transformed state.3 In what follows, I will Wrst describe two types of prosodically diVerent ou particles found in the present corpus C what I will term “marked ou” and “unmarked ou.” I will then examine these two types of ou particles in Sections 3.2 and 3.3 respectively. A comparison of their functions with respect to newsmarking as well as a concluding summary will be provided in Section 3.4.

3.1

Overview

Traditionally, Wnal particles in Mandarin are diVerentiated from interjections based mainly on their prosodic and morphosyntactic diVerences. That is, although both are inherently toneless, they are diVerent from each other in two major aspects. First, while Wnal particles are unstressed, interjections are usually stressed and have deWnite intonational patterns associated with them. Second, while Wnal particles are bound, being enclitic to the preceding

49

50

Final Particles in Mandarin

morphosyntactic units, interjections are always free (Chao 1968; Li and Thompson 1981). While the discussion of Wnal particles in the literature would seem to imply that all Wnal particles are unstressed, there are, in fact, two types of phonetically distinctive ou in the present corpus; while one of them, namely unmarked ou, is produced with a Xat, low pitch, and exhibits prosodic characteristics closer to what has been described for Wnal particles in the literature, the other C marked ou C does not. In fact, these marked tokens, although prosodically bound to the immediately preceding utterances, are themselves produced with intonation contours otherwise claimed to be associated with interjections only. That is, they are produced either with a markedly high pitch, or with some kind of dynamic pitch movement, such as a rising or a falling-rising pitch contour. What is additionally noteworthy about marked ou is that it is not only prosodically “marked”; it is also “marked” in the sense that its use appears to be more restricted than its unmarked counterpart. This can be attested by the fact that the occurrences of marked tokens are far outnumbered by the unmarked tokens in the present corpus: As Table 2 demonstrates, out of a total of 205 instances of ou located in a randomly selected subset of the present corpus, 164 instances are unmarked ou and 41 instances are marked ou.4 A simple calculation reveals that the number of unmarked ou particles is four times that of marked ou. Table 2. Frequency of marked ou and unmarked ou

T-Dancer T-Number T-Stock Lady T-Telnet Tea Time Three Friends CS Party Café Total

Length of data coded

Marked ou

Unmarked ou

20’38" 1’30" 0’21" 2’47" approx. 1 hr. 40' 1 hr. 8' approx. 1 hr. 30' 1 hr. 30' approx. 6 hrs 13'

1 0 1 1 14 1 15 8 41

16 1 0 3 70 15 39 20 164

However, as Table 2 also demonstrates, despite its lower frequency, the occurrence of marked ou is clearly not an isolated linguistic phenomenon. In

Final ou

fact, as will be demonstrated later in this chapter, the distinctive intonational pattern exhibited by marked ou is interactionally relevant: It regularly invokes additional interactional imports otherwise not present in the use of unmarked ou. These interactional meanings will be further explicated in Section 3.3 of this chapter. However, Wrst let us turn to a discussion of unmarked ou.

3.2

Unmarked ou

In the present corpus, unmarked ou is regularly associated with sequences in which information management Wgures centrally. And, with only a few exceptions,5 unmarked ou occurs overwhelmingly in responsive position C most commonly, in response to prior turns at talk containing information previously unnoticed by, or unknown or newsworthy to, the recipient. This is illustrated in excerpt (1) below, drawn from a multi-party conversation among a group of friends. In this excerpt, the coparticipants are inquiring about L’s baseball-playing history. As we can note, the ou-suYxed utterance (line 10) is produced in response to L’s informing in line 9, which contains information the ou-speaker R C L’s girlfriend C later asserts to have had little knowledge of (line 13). (1) (CS Party A184A) 1W:

ni yiqian you da guo- liansai ma. you before have play ASP league Q ‘Have you played in- the baseball league?’

2W:

quanguo liansai. national league ‘The National League.’

3L:

you::. have ‘(I) did::.’

4W:

wow::. hh (exclamation) (laugh) ‘Wow::. hhh’

51

52

Final Particles in Mandarin

5H:

[a nimen houlai- (.) [[you ying taiwan [[[diyiming ma PRT you later have win Taiwan champion Q [‘And did you later- (.) [[win the Taiwan [[[championship?’

6R:

[shenme shihou. what time [‘When?’

7L:

[[huh? huh [[‘Huh?’

8R:

9L:

[[[shenme shihou. what time [[[‘When?’ xiao shihou a. little time PRT ‘When I was a kid.’

10R:→ ni da guo ou. you play ASP PRT ‘You played (ball in the league) OU?/!’ 11L:

dui a. dui a. right PRT right PRT ‘(That’s) right. (That’s) right.’

12T:

%li m chai ou% you N know PRT ‘%You didn’t know?%’

13R:

[(wo zhidao ta you.) lishi hai bu zhidao I know 3sg have history still N know [‘(I know he had,) (but I) didn’t know about the history yet.’

What we can additionally note in the use of the ou-suYxed utterance in this excerpt is that the traditional characterization of ou as a friendly warning does not seem to be tenable here. Consider: As a friendly warning, it should provide the relevance of a recipient’s alignment C such as a registering of receipt of the warning, or a display of appreciation for it; or a recipient’s misalignment C such as a denying of the relevance or validity of the state of aVairs being warned against. Clearly, none of these sequentially relevant next actions for a warning are taken by the recipient, nor are their non-occurrences treated as “missing” by the ou speaker or other coparticipants in the conversation.

Final ou

Instead, we can note that, in response to the ou-suYxed utterance, the recipient produces two conWrmation tokens (dui a dui a ‘(that’s) right, (that’s) right’; line 11), thereby registering his orientation to this utterance as a request or an invitation for conWrmation. Additionally, we can note that one of the coparticipants, T, subsequently (line 12) formulates his understanding of this ou-suYxed utterance (and probably of the prior inquiry in line 6 as well) as a display of speaker R’s lack of knowledge about this particular detail in L’s baseball playing history C an understanding which is subsequently conWrmed (line 13). As I will demonstrate in the following discussion, these two properties C conWrmation-eliciting and news-indexing C are by no means unique to this particular ou-suYxed utterance. They are, rather, generic features of the use of unmarked ou, although these two properties are not exhibited concurrently in all instances. In the next section, I will examine cases in which the use of unmarked ou is mainly associated with its conWrmation-eliciting property.

3.2.1 Making conWrmation or disconWrmation relevant next “ConWrming” as a distinctive type of activity has long been recognized in the literature (e.g., Labov 1972; Labov and Fanshel 1977; Pomerantz 1980; SchegloV 1996a; Sorjonen 1997, 2001). What distinguishes “conWrming” from other types of activities, such as “aYrming” or “agreeing,” pertains mainly to the knowledge status of coparticipants toward what is at issue. Namely, by requesting conWrmation, the “requesting party” proposes that although he or she has had some grasp of the information inquired about, the recipient is the one who has the epistemic authority over its validity or adequacy. On the other hand, the recipient, in doing a conWrmation/disconWrmation, not only conWrms or disconWrms the oVered candidate understandings but also retrospectively ratiWes his or her knowledge of the prevalence of the state of aVairs in question. ConWrming and disconWrming are by no means solely accomplished through the use of Wnal particles such as ou in Mandarin. Like other languages, Mandarin also has a variety of devices which can be deployed to request (or provide) conWrmation. For example, “tag questions,” a speciWc type of question which is constructed by adding a short A-not-A question form of

53

54

Final Particles in Mandarin

certain verbs (e.g., shi bu shi) to a statement, have been claimed to serve such a function: (2)6 (Li and Thompson 1981:546) ta zai geng tian, shi bu shi 3sg ASP plow Weld be N be ‘He is plowing the Weld, right?’

Additionally, producing a statement with a rising intonation, as in (3), or suYxing it with a Wnal particle, as in (4), has been claimed to be means by which conWrmation questions can be constructed. (3) (Li and Thompson 1981:314) ni lai? you come ‘Are you coming?’ (4) (Li and Thompson 1981:314) ni lai a? you come PRT ‘Are you coming A?’

Whereas in the literature (Chao 1968; Li and Thompson 1981; Tao 1996) only Wnal a has been noted as the Wnal particle which can be suYxed to utterances eliciting conWrmation, Wnal ou is observed to exhibit a similar function in the present corpus. Frequently, ou is found suYxed to a candidate understanding which the current speaker has formulated from a prior turn’s talk, whether it is to clarify or help clarify otherwise problematic talk, or to display a newlytransformed understanding of a state of aVairs which the speaker has just come to have. Excerpt (5) provides an instance of the former, in which the ou-suYxed utterance is used to address an understanding problem the speaker is having with talk in a prior turn. This excerpt is taken from a telephone conversation recorded in the US. In lines 1B2, L is making an assertion that one of their friends, Xiao Han, is not likely to quit his current job in the US and take a job in Taiwan because he has not had an interview with that company and does not know about the salary they may oVer him.

Final ou

(5) (T-oYcemate) 1L:

a jiranqian dou bu zhidao, PRT now-that money all N know ‘(And) now that (he) doesn’t know how much money (they will oVer),’

2L:

na xiaohan ye bu hui- zhe yang maoran jiu guoqu le a. then(person) also N ASP this way hasty then go-there CRS PRT ‘then Xiao Han is not likely to- to go take the job this hastily.’

3W:

ta keyi xianzai zou a. hhhh 3sg can now leave PRT (laugh) ‘He can leave now. hhhh’

4L:→

hui taiwan ou. return Taiwan PRT ‘Go back to Taiwan OU?’

5W:

dui a. right PRT ‘(That’s) right.’

6L:

keshi hui taiwan ni hai shi yaobut return Taiwan you still be need ‘But (if you) go back to Taiwan, you (will) still need to-’

7L:

chongxin zhao gongzuo a. again look-for job PRT ‘look for a job again.’

Note that W’s counter assertion in line 3 is ambiguous on several fronts.7 It can be understood, for example, as an assertion that this friend can quit his current job, or that he can leave for some (unspeciWed) place. Of these several possible readings, L oVers hui Taiwan ‘leaving for Taiwan’ as his candidate understanding of what W had meant to convey and suYxes it with ou (line 4). This ou-suYxed understanding check gets conWrmation as its response in the subsequent turn (line 5). Excerpt (6) provides another instance in which ou is suYxed to a candidate understanding of what the current speaker thinks the prior speaker may have intended. Here, following an earlier discussion of a private school which extends its education from kindergarten to high school, X initiates a story (line 1) about how two of their mutual friends (who are not present at

55

56

Final Particles in Mandarin

this occasion) have been classmates since kindergarten because they went to a school of a similar type. (6) (CS Party ordinary 273a ) 1X:

haiyou nimen kan guolong gen na ge- (.) mingjie (tamen shi-) also you see (person) with that C (person) they be ‘Also, you see Guolong and that uh- (.) Mingjie. (They are-)’

2W:

henhenhen (laugh) ‘henhenhen’

3X:

yi beizi dou zai yiqi. one life all at together ‘together all their lives.’

4

(0.8)

5X:

na ge jiao shenme-na ge jiao shenme that C call what that C cal what ‘What’s it called- What’s it called?’

6L:

banqiao na ge shi bu shi. (place) that C be N be ‘The one in Banqiao, right?’

7

(0.5)

8L:→

guangren ou (school) PRT ‘Guangren OU?’

9X:

guangren a (dui.) (school) PRT right ‘Guangren. (Right.)’

10T:

(shenme) guangren? what (school) ‘(What is) Guangren?’

11X:

tamen liang guangren youzhiyuan they two (school) kindergarten ‘They both (were together) at Guangren Kindergarten.’

12

((story follows))

Final ou

As X prepares to proceed to tell the story after proVering the story preface (lines 1, 3), he exhibits diYculty in a word search of some kind (line 5). In response to the diYculty which X displays, and in the face of the ambiguity of what exactly X is searching for, L Wrst oVers a candidate referencing of the school in question by reference to its location (Banqiao) and formulates it in the form of a conWrmation question (line 6).8 Having received no uptake (line 7), L then makes a second contribution by oVering the name of the school and suYxes it with ou. This ou-suYxed oVering is subsequently conWrmed by its recipient (line 9). In the above two excerpts, the conWrmation sequences initiated by the ousuYxed utterances are both part of larger ongoing activities (i.e., challenging/ countering in (5); story-telling in (6)), which are momentarily suspended in the face of potential trouble (i.e., an understanding diYculty in (5); a word search in (6)). That is, the ou-suYxed utterances are employed to oVer a candidate resolution of the trouble at hand, which, if veriWed, will make relevant the continuation of the pending larger activities. However, seeking conWrmation (or disconWrmation) for a given state of aVairs through an ou-suYxed utterance need not be a contingent part of a larger pending activity. It can be the main action which is being accomplished. Excerpt (7) provides such an instance. Earlier in this excerpt (line 2), C proposes diYculty in recognizing a reference (to a segment of a Chinese TV show) mentioned in another coparticipant’s just-prior talk. This repair initiation is addressed by the other coparticipants through the provision of the name of the associated TV show (Meigui-Zhi-Ye; lines 5, 6), in response to which C claims a now-informed status, Wrst by an ou-initiated repeat of the repair (line 7) and then by a free-standing ou (line 10).9 The targeted ousuYxed understanding check (line 12), which contains an alternative (and a more popular) name of the TV segment at issue (Guihua-Lianpian) is launched after this repair sequence comes to a possible completion point. (7) (CS Party regular b 176) 2C:

lingyi-chuanqi? (name of a TV segment) ‘Lingyi-Chuanqi?’

3L:

[jiu shi na ge a just be that C PRT [‘Just that (TV program.)’

57

58

Final Particles in Mandarin

4W:

[(YY)

5R:

mei[gui:: (part of the name of the variety show) ‘Mei[gui::’

6T:

[meigui-zhi-ye.= (name of the variety show) [‘Meigui-Zhi-Ye.’=

7C:

=[[↑ ou, meigui-zhi-ye:.= PRT (name of the variety show) =[[‘↑Oh, Meigui-Zhi-Ye:.’=

8L:

=[[<meigui-zhi-ye a> (name of the variety show) PRT =[[‘<Meigui-Zhi-Ye.>’

9L:

=dui a= right PRT =‘(That’s) right.’=

10C:

=ou::. PRT =‘Oh::.’

11

(.)

12C:→ guihua-lianpian ou. (alternative name of the TV segment) PRT ‘Guihua-Lianpian OU?’ 13L:

dui dui [dui dui dui. right right right right right ‘Right. Right. [Right. Right. Right.’

14C:

[↑ou:::: PRT [‘↑Oh::.’

Whereas the ou-suYxed utterance in line 12 is built in the form of a candidate understanding, as are the ones in (5) and (6), it is diVerent in that this utterance is produced after the speaker proposes to have come to a resolution of the trouble, namely, a recognition of the referenced TV program (line 7)

Final ou

and, by implication, the associated segment as well. What the ou-suYxed utterance is meant to accomplish here, then, is not so much establishing a common ground for the continuation of a larger activity as “double-checking” the accuracy of the grasp of the state of aVairs which the speaker now displays. A similar use of an ou-suYxed utterance is observed in excerpt (8). Prior to this segment, L has reported on how her brother, in trying to reduce her anxiety about driving his car, once told her that, even if she were hit by somebody, it would not be devastating because she would then “gain a great fortune.” This assertion is contested by W in line 1. (8)

(Tea Time sony tape2 side a 256)

1W:

ruguo ta meiyou baoxian (ni) jiu wan le. if 3sg N insurance you then die CRS ‘If he/she had no insurance, (you’d) really be in trouble.’

2F:

hen [ma PRT PRT ‘(That’s) ri[ght.’

3L:

4L:→

[you la.= have PRT [‘(He) does/did.’= =ou, ni shuo duifang [ou. PRT you say the-other-party PRT =Oh, you mean the other party [OU?’

5W:

[dui[[fang the-other-party [‘The other [[party.’

6F:

7L:

[[hen a PRT PRT [[‘Yeah.’ ou:::. PRT ‘Oh::.’

Whereas W’s use of the third person singular reference (ta ‘he/she’) in line 1 refers to the party responsible for the accident in the hypothetical scenario, L

59

60

Final Particles in Mandarin

appears to have understood it to refer to her brother when she begins her turn in line 3 with a disagreement (you la ‘(he) does/did’). However, she immediately (line 4) revises her understanding by producing a “realizing” ou (cf. Heritage 1984b) followed by an ou-suYxed understanding check (ni shuo duifang ou ‘you mean the other party OU?’). This ou-suYxed utterance is thus similar to the one in (7) in that they are both produced after the speakers propose to have undergone a transformation of information with respect to a state of aVairs previously opaque to them; both are also built with speakers’ newly-transformed understandings of that state of aVairs, and are oVered for recipients’ veriWcation.10 Despite the diVerent sequential contexts and positions in which the ousuYxed utterances in the above excerpts occur, it is noticeable that they all get conWrmation as the response.11 This common feature suggests that the recipients seem to orient to the ou-suYxed utterances as requests or invitations for conWrmation, or more speciWcally, as inquiries which make conWrmation (or disconWrmation) relevant next.12 And such an orientation by the recipients, as we can also note, is ratiWed by the ou speakers through their subsequent moves: They either proceed to produce the pending next action and, by implication, treat the recipient’s conWrmatory response as adequate to, and suYcient for, their earlier inquiries. Or, as in (7) and (8), they receive the conWrmation with a “success marker” C a free-standing ou C which, by proposing a change in the speaker’s local state of information as a result of the response, reaYrms the status of the ou-suYxed utterance as one which is meant to request a conWrmation (or disconWrmation). However, recipients of an ou-suYxed utterance, for various interactional motivations, may not always align with its sequential implication by providing a conWrmation (or disconWrmation). And it is in these cases that the use of an ou-suYxed utterance to solicit a conWrmation (or disconWrmation) of an oVered understanding can be reinforced. Excerpt (9) is a case in point. This excerpt is taken from the end of a multiparty conversation recorded at a dinner table. Here, coparticipants H and T are co-constructing a mock complaint about how their rigorous eVorts to swim earlier that afternoon turned out to be in vain, now that they have consumed such a big meal. This sequence is brought to a possible completion with T’s remark that “(it’s) of no use at all” (line 7).

Final ou

(9) (CS Party a181b) 1T:

hui jia jiu chi ge [[ban si. return home then eat C half dead ‘(After) returning home, (we) then stuV ourselves [like mad.’

2H:

[[jiu chi de geng duo= then eat CSC even more [‘Then eat even more.’=

3H:

=[hhhh (laugh) =[‘hhhh’

4

=[((people laugh))

5T:

=[jia qilai jiu shi quanbu de. add up then be all PRT =‘(What we’ve consumed) is equal to all (that we’ve exhausted in swimming.)’

6

((people laugh))

7T:

yidian yong dou meiyou. a-little use all N ‘(It’s) of no use at all.’

8

(1.0)

9L:→

ou, ni youyong shi yao jianfei de ou. PRT you swim be want lose-weight PRT PRT ‘Oh, (the reason) you swim is because you want to lose weight OU?’

10C:

hhhhhh (laugh) ‘hhhh’

11L:

shi ma. haishi zai yundong. be Q or ASP exercise ‘Is (that) so? Or were (you just) exercising?’

12

((tape interrupted for a second))

13C:

tamen dou shi wei tamen dudu zhaoxiang. they all be for their tummy consider ‘They’ve all been swimming for the sake of their tummies.’

61

62

Final Particles in Mandarin

Whereas T does not explicate what “of no use” speciWcally refers to in his remark, L, who had not joined them to go swimming, shows his understanding of it as an allusion to losing weight and formulates that as his understanding in the form of an ou-suYxed utterance in the next turn (line 9). Note Wrst that, unlike the other ou-suYxed utterances examined so far, this ou-suYxed understanding is not met with recipient conWrmation but is responded to with laugh tokens by a non-addressed party (line 10). Note additionally that, in the face of this equivocal response, what L does next C instead of receiving the response with ou (cf. (7), (8)) C is to launch two subsequent conWrmation questions (line 11), which eventually “succeed” (albeit still responded to by the non-addressed coparticipant). These further pursuits of response by L to his original inquiry underscore that this ousuYxed utterance is not oVered merely as his displayed understanding of the matter at issue, but as one that invites minimally a conWrmation or disconWrmation as its response. Excerpt (10), from a telephone conversation, oVers another example. Immediately preceding this excerpt, L has just given an update on one of their mutual friends, who has recently been oVered a job by a company in the US. In lines 1B2, L seeks to obtain more information about this company from U, who has been working in the same Weld as this friend and has shown recognition of the name of this company in the immediately preceding exchange. (10) (T-Career 101) 1L:

na shi yi ge hen hao de gongsi ma.
2L:→

3

(0.2)

4L:

shi zhe yangzi ma. be this manner Q ‘Is (this) so?’

5

(0.5)

Final ou

6U:

bu zhidao ei. N know PRT ‘(I) don’t know.’

7U:

%kants% xianzai shi bijiao bairen de gongsi a. (company) now be relatively Caucasian PRT company PRT ‘%Kants% is now a company which has more Caucasians.’

As in (9), the ou-suYxed utterance here (line 2) does not receive an immediate response from its recipient. And again, in the face of a delay in response, the speaker pursues it with another conWrmation question (line 4), which retrospectively marks the prior ou-suYxed utterance as sequentially implicating C and indeed requiring C a conWrmation or disconWrmation as its response. What we have seen in this section, then, is a speciWc undertaking that ousuYxed utterances can serve to implement, namely, soliciting recipient conWrmation (or disconWrmation). While it is clear from the preceding discussion that an ou-suYxed utterance is regularly intended and understood as sequentially implicating a conWrmation or disconWrmation from its recipient, it still remains unclear what exactly in an ou-suYxed utterance contributes to such a usage and hearing. In the next section, I will present evidence which lends itself to the proposal that Wnal ou seems to Wgure centrally in invoking the “conWrmation-as-relevant-next” sequential import.

3.2.2 Final ou and the “conWrmation-as-relevant-next” import It is worth noting that, in the corpus, ou is invariably suYxed to utterances which are syntactically and prosodically constructed as non-interrogatives. The excerpts that we have examined so far are no exception. In excerpts (5)B(10), the utterances to which ou attaches are all declaratives produced with a low, Xat intonation, which, without the addition of Wnal ou, would have been heard as speakers’ conWdent assertion of their understanding of a given state of aVairs. This diVerence can be illustrated by the following excerpt, which contains a candidate understanding without an ou-suYxing. Here, in response to coparticipant H’s inquiry about a bump on her face, W, who had had an accident, Wrst provides an explanation in a technical way (zhe zhong- qiangli zhuangji zhihou, wode zhifang- (.) pao dao wode zuzhi li ‘After the violent collision, my body fat was pressed into my tissues,’ lines 1B2). She then continues (lines 5B6, 8) with a comparison her doctor gave her between the

63

64

Final Particles in Mandarin

swelling and bruises usually gotten if one is hit by something, and the appearance of this bump after the car accident. (11) (Tea time sony tape2 a167) 1W:

zhe zhong- qiangli zhuangji zhihou, yi gthis kind violent hit after one ‘This type- After the violent collision, a-’

2W:

wode zhifang- (.) pao dao wode zuzhi li. my fat run to my tissue inside ‘my body fat- (.) was pressed into my tissues.’

3W:

women (zhe dou you) zhifang. we here all have fat ‘We all have fat (here).’

4F:

[hen. PRT [‘Um.’

5W:

[ta shuo jiusuan nide datui ruguo %long tioh ochhen u bo.% 3sg say even your thigh if hit reach bruise have N [‘He said even if your thigh %were hit, it’d have bruises, right?%’

6W:

%ochhen (Y) tengteng.%= bruise swelling ‘%Bruises (Y) and swelling.%’=

7H:

=mm= PRT =‘Mm.’=

8W:1→ =wo xianzai jiu shi na ge %tengteng% [hai meiyou xiao. I now just be that C swelling yet N reduce =‘Now (what I have) is like %the swelling.% [Not reduced yet.’ 9H:2=>

10H:3→ hai meiyou hao. yet N good ‘Not recovered yet.’

[ou, hai meiyou hao. PRT yet N good [‘Oh, not recovered yet.’

Final ou

11W:

yao zai::: ban nian ma. need further half year PRT ‘(It) will take another:: half year.’

Notice Wrst that, when W’s report reaches a possible completion point (wo xianzai jiu shi na ge %tenteng% ‘Now (what I have) is like the swelling,’ line 8), H immediately proposes (arrow 2) to have undergone some kind of change in her current knowledge/information state (through the production of a turninitial ou) and follows it with a candidate understanding of the import of W’s report (hai meiyou hao ‘not recovered yet’); this (ou-prefaced) candidate understanding turns out to be produced in overlap with W’s own explication of the upshot of her story (hai meiyou xiao ‘not reduced yet’ at arrow 1). Notice further that, after this overlap is resolved, what H does next is reproduce an identical repeat of the just-proVered candidate understanding C now in the clear (arrow 3). Given that the practice of giving an identical repeat of one’s own prior talk has been claimed to serve the function of registering “what is being said now is the same thing that was being said before” (SchegloV 1996a:200), H’s selection of a repeat instead of an ou receipt (cf. (7), (8)), as well as the manner in which the repeat is delivered, both underscore that she has independently and conWdently reached this understanding (cf. Heritage 1984b). Such conWdence is clearly reXected in, and may account for, her non-deployment of an ousuYxing to either of her candidate understandings, for the use of Wnal ou, as we have discussed in the previous section, would have indexed an attempt on the part of the speaker to seek recipients’ endorsement. Excerpt (12) provides a similar instance. Here L is trying to identify one of their mutual friends in college, whose name she cannot think of at the moment. In line 1, she Wrst attempts to identify this person by reference to this friend’s then-boyfriend, A-Liang. When such an attempt appears less than successful, as indicated by recipient Y’s display of puzzlement (shei gen aliang chuqu ‘Who went abroad with A-Liang’; line 4), she provides another piece of information, namely that the boyfriend was a math major (line 5). To this, Y then proposes a recognition of the identity of this friend, although she herself is initially only able to provide a partial referencing of this person (arrow 1).13 (12) (Café regular side b405) 1L:

na ge- (0.5) gen aliang chuqu de hhh nei ge that C with (nickname) go-out PRT (laugh) that C ‘That uh- (0.5) the one who went abroad with A-Liang. hhh’

65

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Final Particles in Mandarin

2

(2.0)

3L:

[(Y) na ge that C [‘The one (Y)’

4Y:

[shei gen aliang chuqu who with (nickname) go-out [‘Who went abroad with A-Liang?’

5L:

jia gei shuxue xi de na yi ge marry to math department PRT that one C ‘The one who was married to the one from the math department.’

6

(.)

7L:

[(..)

8Y:1=> [↑ou::: chenchen shenme PRT (last name) (last name) what [‘↑Oh:: Chen- Chen something.’ 9

(0.2)

10M:

[chen-xiaoru a (full name) PRT [‘Chen Xiaoru.’

11Y:2→ [women ban na ge chen-[xiaoru we class that C (full name) [‘Our class’s Chen- [Xiaoru.’ 12L:3→

[xiaoru [la. (Wrst name) PRT [‘(It’s) Xiaor[[u.’

13Y:4→

14M:

[hen PRT [[‘Yeah.’ xiaoru (Wrst name) ‘Xiaoru.’

Final ou

Note that Y’s subsequent provision of a full referencing of this person (arrow 2), which is produced in overlap with other coparticipants’ utterances (including speaker L’s at arrow 3), is not suYxed with ou. Note further that, after the overlap retrieval, Y immediately proceeds (arrow 4) to conWrm speaker L’s provision of the personal reference, as though to declare that she (Y) is in fact the authoritative party on this issue. Similar to (11), then, this post-overlap move by Y is in perfect accord with her earlier avoidance of ou suYxing the displayed understanding (arrow 2), in that they all indicate her certainty about the adequacy and accuracy of her grasp of the matter at hand. Contrasting excerpts (11) and (12) with (7), we Wnd that whereas in all of these excerpts, a party who was previously ignorant of a state of aVairs undertakes to claim a realization of it by proVering a candidate understanding, these displayed candidate understandings are formulated diVerently and are thus built with diVerent sequential implications. When suYxed with Wnal ou (e.g., (7)), the oVered candidate understanding is intended and understood as a request for a conWrmation (or disconWrmation) from its recipient. Without the ou-suYxing (e.g., (11), (12)), both the speaker and the recipient display an orientation to the proVered understanding as one which is conWdently asserted and for which no subsequent conWrmation is required.14 However, as noted earlier, the act of requesting a conWrmation not only invokes the speaker’s less than full conWdence in his or her grasp of a state of aVairs; the Xip side of the coin is that it also embodies the speaker’s having had some grasp of that state of aVairs, however conWdent he or she feels about it. It appears that Wnal ou can not only accomplish the former epistemic work (i.e., embodiment of the speaker’s less than full conWdence in his or her candidate understanding of a matter), as discussed above, it can also accomplish the latter (i.e., that the speaker does have a grasp of the matter in question) . This is evidenced by the contrast between the following two excerpts, both containing other-initiated repair sequences. Excerpt (13) provides a slightly expanded version of excerpt (7); here, following L’s informing about his habit of watching a segment of a Chinese TV show (Lingyi-Chuanqi), coparticipant C initiates a repair on the name of the segment (line 2). In excerpt (14), R produces two repair initiators (in lines 3 and 5 respectively ) in response to coparticipant Y’s pursuit of the intended use of the conversation being recorded (line 1). Note that whereas both excerpts contain a repair initiator (arrow 2) in the form of a partial repeat of

67

68

Final Particles in Mandarin

the trouble source turn (arrow 1), the one in (14) is suYxed with ou and the one in (13) is not. (13) (CS Party regular b 176) 1L:1→

hh women mei ge libai dou zai kan lingyi-chuanqi. (laugh) we every C week all ASP watch (segment of a variety show) ‘hhhh We’ve been watching “Lingyi-Chuanqi” every week.’

2C:2=> lingyi-chuanqi? (segment of a variety show) ‘Lingyi-Chuanqi?’ 3L:3→ [jiu shi na ge a just be that C PRT [‘Just that (TV program.)’ 4W:

[(YY)

5R:3→ mei[gui:: (part of the name of the variety show) ‘Mei[gui::’ 6T:3→

7C:

[meigui-zhi-ye.= (name of the variety show) [‘Meigui-Zhi-Ye.’= =↑ ou, meigui-zhi-ye:. PRT (name of the variety show) =‘↑Oh, Meigui-Zhi-Ye:.’

(14) (Café) 1Y:

zhe shenme ziliao. this what data ‘What data is this?’

2

(.)

3R:

huh? huh ‘Huh?’

4Y:1→ na shi shenme ziliao. that be what data ‘What data is that?’

Final ou

5R:2=> shenme ziliao ou. what data PRT ‘What data OU?’ 6Y:3→ hen. PRT ‘Yeah.’ 7R:

jiushi- women jiushi ba ta yi ge zi yi ge zi xie xialai. that-is we that-is BA it one C word one C word write down ‘That is just- We’ll just transcribe word by word.’

Notice that these two types of repeat-formatted repair initiators (arrow 2), like the majority of cases in the corpus, are treated diVerently by the recipients (arrow 3): The question-intoned repeat in (13) is addressed by recipients’ provision of related information about the referent (i.e., the name of the associated TV show), thereby embodying an analysis of it as a recognition or understanding problem. On the other hand, the ou-suYxed repeat in (14) gets a conWrmation (hen ‘yeah’; line 6) as its response, which suggests that it is understood as an understanding check. Therefore, although in both cases the speakers initiate repair on the preceding talk through a partial repeat, a “bare” repeat with a question intonation is heard as the speaker’s non-comprehension of the repeated element; with an ou-suYxing, however, the repeated element is not treated as what the speaker proposes to not comprehend, but as what he or she proposed as his or her candidate understanding/hearing of the trouble source turn. On the basis of these two sorts of evidence, namely, candidate understandings and repeat-formatted repair initiators with or without an ousuYxing, it becomes clear that what Wnal ou indexes is a speaker’s commitment to having come to some grasp of a state of aVairs, while at the same time displaying an epistemic reservation about it. And as I shall suggest, it is the invocation of this kind of epistemic stance through the use of Wnal ou that makes conWrmation or disconWrmation a relevant next action. In the next section, we will turn to another use of unmarked ou C i.e., registering a news receipt C which appears to exhibit a similar stance of expressing an epistemic reservation about the speaker’s newly-acquired information.

69

70

Final Particles in Mandarin

3.2.3 Registering a news receipt In the previous section, we have examined cases in which ou is suYxed to a candidate understanding which the speaker has formulated from another’s earlier talk. As we have also seen, such ou-suYxed utterances regularly serve as understanding checks, which are heard as sequentially implicating a conWrmation (or disconWrmation) by the recipient in the next turn. In the cases that we have seen so far, seeking a conWrmation (or disconWrmation) of a candidate understanding seems to be the primary15 task that the speakers intend to accomplish through an ou-suYxed utterance; however, there is a substantial number of cases in which it is evident that the ou-suYxed utterances are not employed merely to request conWrmation; they also display a stance of surprise on the part of the speakers toward that which they have just come to understand. Frequently, such a display of surprise is associated with the fact that prior turns at talk contained information previously unknown, unexpected, and therefore newsworthy to the recipient. In some cases, the “newsworthy” status of the prior talk is subsequently overtly registered by the ou speaker C commonly through an acknowledgment that he or she was previously uninformed or misinformed about the matter at hand. This can be illustrated by the following two excerpts, both taken from the same multi-party conversation among a group of friends. In excerpt (15), R is talking about cram schools in Taiwan which teach prospective emigrants how to make popular Taiwanese foods sold at night markets. In (16), the talk has turned to a big purchase of vitamin supplements made by coparticipant T C a topic which had already been brought up earlier in this conversation. (15) (CS Party A081B; video 52’20”)

1R:

2C:

[((looking at C and sustaining mutual gazes with her in lines 1B3)) bu shenme- %bi ke% a [(Y.) cram what (food) PRT ‘They teach (people) how to make %bi ke% [(Y)’ [ou ou ou ↑zhende PRT PRT PRT really [‘Oh, oh, oh. ↑Really.’

Final ou

3R:

you buxiban= have cram-school ‘There are cram schools.’=

4X:

=ou. PRT =‘Oh.’

5T:

6R:

[((R turning gaze toward T)) hh zhen::de (a). (laugh) really PRT ‘hhh Really::!’ ((nods, smiling))

[((R turning gaze back to C)) 7C:1→ *you buxiban ou. have cram-school PRT ‘There are cram schools OU?’ 8R:2→ ((nods, smiling)) 9C:3→ wo shi bu xiaode.* ((* to * smile voice)) I be N know ‘(That) I didn’t know.’ (16) (CS Party ordinary 1A-394; video 33') 1W:

a hhh ni shangci mai wu hhh guan PRT(laugh) you last-time buy Wve (laugh) bottle ‘Then hhh last time you bought Wve hhh bottles.’

2W:

ni zheci you mai ershiwu guan.hhhh you this-time again buy twenty-Wve bottle (laugh) ‘This time you bought another twenty-Wve bottles. hhh’

3T:

[wo [[zheci mai ershi I this-time buy twenty [‘I [[bought twenty this time.’

71

72

Final Particles in Mandarin

4C:

5L:

[er- [[ershi guan. twenty bottle [‘Twen- [[twenty bottles.’ [((looking at T)) [[keshi nabut then [[‘But then-’

6X:

ou:::. PRT ‘Oh::.’

7W:

[hhhhh (laugh) [‘hhhh’

8L:1→

[((T turning gaze at L)) [ershi guan ou twenty bottle PRT [‘Twenty bottles OU?’

9T:2→ ((nods)) 10L:3→ wo yiwei ni mai ershi kuai. wo ganggang- (.) mei ting qingchu. I thought you buy twenty dollar I just-now N hear clear ‘I thought you bought twenty dollars. I didn’t hear it clearly earlier.’

In each case, we can note that while the ou-suYxed utterance (arrow 1), like those observed in Section 3.2.1, is subsequently conWrmed by its recipient (arrow 2), its use here clearly involves more than a straightforward conWrmation request. The fact that, following the recipient conWrmation, the ou speaker moves (arrow 3) to claim a prior uninformed (i.e., (15)) or misinformed (i.e., (16)) status about the matter at hand suggests that the production of the ou-suYxed utterance in each case is not merely repair-implicated; it also serves to mark the matter being addressed as news for the ou speaker. In other cases, it is the recipients’/coparticipants’ orientation to ou-suYxed utterances that gives support to the claim that the deployment of an ousuYxed utterance may embody the speaker’s treatment of the matter being responded to as newsworthy. This, as may be recalled, was shown in the earlier examined excerpt (1): In that excerpt about L’s baseball-playing history, we noted that the ou-suYxed utterance is taken (correctly) by one coparticipant as the ou speaker’s display of a prior lack of knowledge about this particular

Final ou

matter. A similar phenomenon can be observed in excerpt (17) below, where a group of college friends are updating one another on changes in their lives. (17) (Café R037a) 1L:

women xianzai bu tong xiao. wo xianzai zai gaozhong a we now N same school I now at senior-high PRT ‘We are not at the same school now. I (teach) at a senior high now.’

2

(.)

3M:=>

ou, ni pao dao gaozhong qu le [ou. PRT you run to senior-high go CRS PRT ‘Oh, you’ve transferred to a senior high [OU?’

4L:

[qisu gaozhong. (school) senior-high [‘Qisu Senior High.’

5L:

[(Y) cai qu yi nian eryi la. only go one year only PRT [‘(..) only transferred there a year ago.’

6Y:=>

[ni bu xiaode ou. [[wo meiyou gaosu ni ma. you N know PRT I N tell you Q [‘You didn’t know OU?/! [[Didn’t I tell you?’

7M:→

[[wo bu zhidao (a). I N know PRT [[‘I had no idea.’

Here, in response to L’s informing in line 1, M initiates an ou-suYxed utterance (line 3).16 This ou-suYxed utterance, like that in (1), is understood as the speaker’s display of a prior lack of access to the matter at hand. This understanding is not only formulated explicitly (ni bu xiaode ou ‘You didn’t know OU’; line 6) by coparticipant Y in a turn following the conWrmation; that formulated understanding is also subsequently conWrmed by the speaker of the ou-suYxed utterance (wo bu zhidao (a) ‘I had no idea’; line 7). It is worth noting that, in proVering her understanding of the import of M’s prior ou-suYxed utterance, Y herself deploys the practice of ou-suYxing (line 6). In addition, this ou-suYxed candidate understanding is followed by a negatively-formulated question (wo mei gaosu ni ma ‘didn’t I tell you?’), delivered with a tone of puzzlement and a shade of challenge. What these

73

74

Final Particles in Mandarin

observations suggest, then, is that M’s displayed lack of information about this mutual friend’s job change C adumbrated by her use of an unmarked ou (line 3) C is something that Y did not expect and hence marks with an ou (line 6). This excerpt therefore nicely illustrates how conversational coparticipants may orient themselves to the “newsmarking” function of unmarked ou, and how they themselves may use this particle as a “newsmark” (JeVerson 1981; Heritage 1984b) when prior speakers’ newsmarking stances are unexpected or problematic to them. In still other cases, the “newsworthy” quality of prior talk is implicated in speakers’ aVect displays after their oVered understandings have been conWrmed or disconWrmed. Excerpts (18) and (19) provide two such instances. In (18), three graduate students (W, F, and R) from diVerent universities in the US are talking about how many units they need to take in order to be full-time students. After W and F have learned from each other that both of their minimal requirements are nine units, W directs an inquiry about this issue to R in line 1. In (19), the coparticipants are inquiring about which course coparticipant L, who had just obtained his Ph.D., will be teaching for his Wrst job at a university. In both excerpts, after the inquiries are addressed and clariWed, one of the coparticipants initiates an ou-suYxed understanding check (arrow 1) on the just-clariWed matter, which is subsequently conWrmed by its recipient (arrow 2). (18) (Tea Time s2B277a) 1W:

ei ni ye shi ma. hou? ((to R)) PRT you also be PRT PRT ‘Hey, you too (need to take nine units), right?’

2F:

[dui a. right PRT [‘(That’s) right.’

3R:

[wo shier. I twelve [‘I (need) twelve (units.)’

4W:1=> yao shier ge ou. need twelve C PRT ‘(You) need twelve units OU?’

Final ou

5F:1=> nimen zhishao yao xiu shier ou you at-least need take-class twelve PRT ‘You need to take at least twelve units OU?’ 6R:2→ dui a. right PRT ‘(That’s) right.’ 7F:3→ hang::. (exclamation) ‘Hang::.’ (19) (CS Party 304) 1W:

ta yao shang %assembly%.= ((to H, in the kitchen)) 3sg (L) ASP teach (course) ‘He’ll teach %Assembly.%’=

2T:

=%assembly%. (course) =‘%Assembly.%’

3W:

hhhhhh (laugh) ‘hhhhh’

4X:1=> ni yao shang %assembly% ou you ASP teach (course) PRT ‘You’ll teach %Assembly% OU?’ 5L:2→

°(dui.)°

right ‘(°Right.°)’ 6X:3→ aiyou. hen nan ou↑ (exclamation) very diYcult PRT ‘Aiyou. (It’s) very diYcult.’

Note here that, following the recipients’ provision of the conWrmation, the speakers do not propose a change of state of information through an ou receipt, but rather display a stance of surprise toward the reconWrmed state of aVairs in each case through an aVect marker (arrow 3: hang in (18); aiyou in (19)).17 Just as an ou receipt in the third position of such conWrmation sequences can retrospectively mark the prior ou-suYxed utterance as a request for conWrmation or disconWrmation and nothing more than a request for

75

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Final Particles in Mandarin

conWrmation or disconWrmation (e.g., (7), (8)), so too do the aVect markers deployed here appear to index that the previous ou-suYxed inquiries are surprise-implicated. Indeed, a closer look at these two excerpts shows that the speakers’ displayed surprise can be understood with reference to a sense of unexpectedness regarding what they have just been informed of. In (18), such unexpectedness comes from an otherwise held assumption that R should have the same course requirements as W and F C an assumption which is clearly encoded into the design of W’s question (line 1) and the response F provides on behalf of R (line 2). In (19), the fact that L has been assigned to teach this speciWc course is more than expected because, as reXected in X’s debrieWng following his aVect display (line 6), it may be too challenging for a novice teacher. Therefore, what we Wnd in excerpts (15)B(19) is that, despite the similarities which these ou-suYxed utterances share with those discussed in Section 3.2.1 in terms of their design and the response they receive (i.e., a conWrmation), they appear to be deployed to quite diVerent eVect: As evidenced by the speakers’ and/or the coparticipants’ subsequent reactions, the use of these ou-suYxed utterances involves not only an attempt to seek ratiWcation of the proVered understandings; it also involves a stance display C a display that the matter being addressed is newsworthy to the ou speaker. However, just as an ou-suYxed utterance can be intended and taken as a straightforward conWrmation request, with no speciWc aVect display involved, so too, can it be produced and heard as a straightforward aVect display, for which no subsequent conWrmation is necessary. Consider, for example, excerpts (20) and (21) below. In (20), the ousuYxed utterance (arrow 1) is found in a turn which occurs in the third position of a question-answer-receipt sequence (lines 3B5) initiated in response to coparticipant T’s informing about a plane ticket he had just purchased (lines 1B2). In (21), the ou-suYxed utterance (arrow 1) is used in response to a question-elicited informing regarding how long it will still take R to obtain her doctoral degree. (20) (CS Party A23A) 1T:

wo zhi wen le diyi jia. kI only ask PFV the-Wrst C ‘I only asked one (travel agency) b-’

Final ou

2T:

juede pianyi wo jiu yijing mai le. feel cheap I then already buy PFV/CRS ‘(I) thought (the ticket was) cheap, (so I) already bought (it).’

3L:

duoshao qian. how-much money ‘How much?’

4T:

wu bai bashi wu. Wve hundred eighty Wve ‘Five hundred eighty-Wve.’

5L:1=> wow, name pianyi ou. (exclamation) that cheap PRT ‘Wow, that cheap OU?/!’ 6L:2→

na yi jia. which one C ‘Which one?’

7T:

gujiang. (local travel agency) ‘Gujiang.’

(21) (Tea time: sony tape2 side b 096) 1L:

dagai hai yao duojiu. probably still need how-long ‘How long will it still probably take (you to obtain your Ph.D.)?’

2

(0.5)

3R:

yi liang nian ba. one two year PRT ‘Probably one to two years.’

4L:1=> ↑hai yao yi liang nian ou. still need one two year PRT ‘↑(It’ll) still take one to two years OU?/!’ 5R:

[hhhhhhhhhh (laugh) [‘hhhhhhhhhhhh’

77

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Final Particles in Mandarin

6L:2→

[↑zeme nian name jiu ne.= how-come study that long-time PRT [‘↑How come (you’ve been) studying so long?/!’=

7F:

=hhhhh (laugh) =‘hhhhh’

Notice that both of the ou-suYxed utterances here are highly aVectivelyloaded and assessment-laden: The one in (20) contains an upgraded assessment (i.e., upgraded from pianyi ‘cheap’ in line 2 to name pianyi ‘that cheap’ in line 5) and is itself prefaced with a “response cry” (GoVman 1981), i.e., an exclamation wow; the one in (21) is produced with a higher pitch (marked by “↑” in the transcript) with the assessment descriptor hai ‘still’ stressed. The aVect displayed in and through the prosodic features and lexical selection of these ou-suYxed utterances clearly underscores the speakers’ treatment of the information just delivered as newsworthy. Yet, unlike the other cases in this section, the two ou-suYxed utterances here receive no conWrmation (or disconWrmation) as responses: They are either oriented to by the recipient as not response-relevant, as in (20), where no vocal or non-vocal response is provided, or met with laughter (line 5, (21)), which seems deployed to show the recipient’s understanding of, and alignment with, the aVective stance built into the ou-suYxed utterance. In addition, in contrast with excerpts (9) and (10), the non-occurrence of a conWrmation (or disconWrmation) in these two excerpts is not treated as sequentially eventful, nor does it engender another round of pursuit of response. Instead, the speakers’ subsequent moves to launch another question (arrow 2) without awaiting provision of a response by the recipients18 suggest that these two ou-suYxed utterances are produced straightforwardly as aVect displays. Despite the diVerence in the way they are responded to, what holds across the ou-suYxed utterances in excerpts (15)B(21) is their association with a speaker’s stance display. This display shows that the upshot of the immediately preceding sequence of talk C which may or may not19 be (re)formulated in the ou-suYxed utterance C constitutes news for the speaker of the ousuYxed utterance. As we have also seen, such a “news-receipt” implication can not only be subsequently registered by its speaker and/or conversational coparticipants (e.g., (15), (16), (17)); it can also be invoked through a speaker’s

Final ou

subsequent aVect display (e.g., (18), (19)) as well as through the design of ousuYxed utterances (e.g., (20), (21)).

3.2.4 ConWrmation requests or news receipts? In the previous two sections, I have shown that making a conWrmation (or disconWrmation) relevant next and registering a news receipt are two functions commonly performed by ou-suYxed utterances. However, it is important to note that the mere occurrence of a Wnal ou does not in itself signal whether the utterance to which it attaches implicates a conWrmation request, a news receipt, or both. Although frequently how an ou-suYxed utterance should be understood can be made clear through contextual resources, there are occasions when potential ambiguity arises and the issue of which of the readings is to be made of the ou-suYxed utterance becomes an object of negotiation in the course of interaction. This is illustrated by the following excerpt. In lines 1B3, X is Wnishing up his report that food stands selling very common Taiwanese desserts at night markets can be sold at a surprisingly high price. (22)(CS Party a079b) 1X:

xiang na ge shenme- %ba goan% a, shenme na zhong- (.) like that C what (food) PRT what that C ‘Like what’s-that- %ba goan%, or stuV like tha- (.)’

2X:

jushuo na ge yi ge tan- (.) I-heard that C one C stand ‘I heard that (just) a stand (selling) that kind of food- (.)’

3X:

lian na ge- peifang shenme de, mai wu-bai-wan. include that C seasonings what PRT sell Wve-million ‘including that uh- menu or what, is worth Wve million (NT) dollars.’

4

(.)

5L:=>

↑hhhang? wu-bai-wan ou (exclamation) Wve-million PRT ‘↑hhang? Five million (NT) dollars OU?/!’

6

(0.2)

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Final Particles in Mandarin

7X:→

[yi ge tanwei zhe yang. one C stand this manner [‘Just a stand like this.’

8L:→

[%ou: god% PRT god [‘%Oh: God.%’

9C:

hou, zhende. (exclamation) really ‘Hou, really.’

Here, after a slight delay (line 4) following X’s report, L launches a turn (in line 5), which contains two turn-constructional units (Sacks, SchegloV, and JeVerson 1974) C a stance marker delivered with a high pitch (i.e., hang) and an ousuYxed (partial) repeat. Notice Wrst that this turn is followed by a silence (line 6). Notice also that X and L begin a turn simultaneously following the silence (i.e., in lines 7 and 8 respectively). What is of particular interest here is that the silence with its sequential positioning, namely, in a turn following an ou-suYxed utterance, seems to embody a diVerence in X’s and L’s initial interpretations of the ou-suYxed utterance. On the one hand, by not immediately providing a conWrmation (or disconWrmation), X shows himself to have heard the ou-suYxed utterance as a straightforward aVect display. On the other, by doing nothing other than waiting, L seems to display an orientation to the ou-suYxed utterance as sequentially implicating a conWrmation (or disconWrmation) which is yet to be provided. Despite the diVerence in how the ou-suYxed utterance was understood initially, the two participants appear to align with the other party’s previous interpretation in their subsequent moves. In line 7, X proceeds to reconWrm the substance of his prior report while L is launching a newsmark (line 8) C this time a straightforward aVect display. A return to excerpt (9), reproduced below, provides us with another example. (9) (CS Party a181b) 5T:

=[jia qilai jiu shi quanbu de. add up then be all PRT =‘(What we’ve consumed) is equal to all (that we’ve exhausted in swimming).’

Final ou

6

((people laugh))

7T:

yidian yong dou meiyou. a:little use all N ‘(It’s) of no use at all.’

8

(1.0)

9L:→

ou, ni youyong shi yao jianfei de ou. PRT you swim be want lose-weight PRT PRT ‘Oh, (the reason) you swim is because you want to lose weight OU?’

10C:

hhhhhh (laugh) ‘hhhh’

11L:

shi ma. haishi zai yundong. be Q or ASP exercise ‘Is (that) so? Or were (you just) exercising?’

12

((tape interrupted for a second))

13C:

tamen dou shi wei tamen dudu zhaoxiang. they all be for their tummy consider ‘They’ve all been swimming for the sake of their tummies.’

In this instance, as in (22), a discrepancy between the speaker’s and the recipient’s analysis of the ou-suYxed utterance (line 9) is made evident through the subsequent moves of the participants: On the one hand, the lack of a response by the intended recipient, T, and the deployment of a stance marker (i.e., laugh tokens in line 10) by coparticipant C display a potentially similar orientation to L’s ou-suYxed understanding, namely, an orientation to it as an aVect display. On the other hand, L’s subsequent attempts to pursue a response (line 11) retrospectively mark the status of this ou-suYxed understanding as an inquiry which requires minimally a conWrmation or disconWrmation as its response. Thus, whereas in (22) the speaker of the ou-suYxed utterance proceeds to align with the recipient’s initial interpretation of it, in (9) the speaker moves to “get straight” an otherwise problematic hearing of his ou-suYxed utterance. As these two excerpts demonstrate, although an ou-suYxed utterance may serve as a conWrmation request or an aVect display, Wnal ou in itself does not disambiguate one reading from another. Rather, which of the two read-

81

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Final Particles in Mandarin

ings is to be foregrounded in the local sequential context can sometimes be a matter of further negotiation among coparticipants in conversation.

3.2.5 Summary of unmarked ou In this section, we have looked at unmarked ou in its prototypical position, namely, attached to an utterance that is produced in responsive position. As we have seen, utterances suYxed with unmarked ou convey very diVerent import from that conveyed by utterances without ou-suYxing; and these ousuYxed utterances generally perform two functions: soliciting recipient conWrmation (or disconWrmation), and registering a news receipt. That is, they may be used to clarify what another has just said or intended in a preceding turn (or turns), or their uses may indicate that the prior talk by another contains information previously unknown, unexpected, and hence newsworthy to the ou speakers. These two functions, as we have also noted, are not mutually exclusive and may, on occasion, appear equivocal to the parties in a conversation, for both functions share the similarity of adumbrating an epistemic reservation on the part of the speaker toward what he or she has just come to understand, and both are marked by the use of unmarked ou.

3.3

Marked ou: “There is more here than meets the eye!”

Thus far in this chapter, we have focused on the use of unmarked ou. In this section, we turn to another type of prosodically diVerent ou C namely, marked ou. Let me begin by noting that while marked ou is similar to a large number of unmarked tokens in the present corpus in exhibiting an intrinsic “newsmarking” property C i.e., marking the information at issue as newsworthy C marked ou does not adumbrate an epistemically weakened stance on the part of the speaker. Consider, for example, the use of marked ou in excerpt (23) below, which is taken from a multi-party conversation among a group of friends, recorded in the US. Immediately preceding this excerpt, C, a female visitor to the US, has reported that H and W have shown her around and have always taken her along with them whenever they went on a trip. This excerpt begins with L’s

Final ou

inquiry about whether they also took her with them on an extended trip to Las Vegas. (23) (CS Party 190) 1L:

ei, shangci canPRT last-time ‘Hey, last time-’

2L:

nimen qu lasiweijiasi you hhh rang ta qu?= ((to W)) you go (place) have (laugh) let 3sg go ‘(did you) let her hhh follow you (when) you guys went to Las Vegas?’=

3C:

=you. hhhh have (laugh) =‘(They) did. hhh’

4L:

you ma. have Q ‘(You) did?’

5?:

.hhhhh (inbreath) ‘.hhhhh’

6W:

na yi ci. h[hh[[hhhhhh which one C (laugh) ‘When? h[hh[[h’

7C:

8L:

((to W))

[hh[[hhhh (laugh) [‘hh[[hhh’ [[qu san tian ban de nago three day half PRT that [[‘Three and a half days-’

9L:

san tian duo de (na yi ci) three day more PRT that one C ‘When (you) went for more than three days.’

10C:

san tian duo de na yi ci? three day more PRT that one C ‘More than three days?’

83

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Final Particles in Mandarin

11C:→

↑meiyou ou↑[:: N PRT ‘↑No:: OU↑[:::.’

12L:

[meiyou (le:) ((in a playful tone)) N ASP [‘No.’

13C:

[hou↑20::::: ni meiyou dai wo qu. (exclamation) you N take I go [‘Hoh↑:::: You didn’t take me there.’

14H:

[you ma. (0.2) wo conglai meiyou qu guo name jiu. have Q I never N go ASP that long-time [‘Did (we/I)? (0.2) I’ve never been there that long.’

15

(.)

16

((people laugh))

17C:

qu name jiu deshihou jiu bu dai wo qu. go that long-time when then N take I go ‘When (you) went for that long, (you) just didn’t take me.’

Without going into great detail about this sequence,21 I would like to register two points relevant to our discussion of marked ou. First, the marked ou in this excerpt (at the arrow) is produced in a turn following a clariWcation sequence (lines 6–9) which conveys information contrastive with what the ou speaker, C, has previously asserted (line 3) (i.e., that there is at least one trip which C is uninformed of and was not invited to); and hence, this marked ou, like the unmarked tokens examined in Section 3.2.3, seems produced to register the “unexpected” and “newsworthy” character of the prior turn’s talk. Second, while the production of this marked ou is closely associated with the speaker’s receipt of a piece of information previously unknown to her, registering a news receipt does not seem to be the only action accomplished here. Considering, Wrst, the ou speaker’s subsequent moves – proVering negative observations (ni meiyou dai wo qu ‘You didn’t take me there’; qu name jiu deshihou jiu bu dai wo qu ‘When (you) went for that long, (you) just didn’t take me’; lines 13, 17) – which is common practice for the accomplishment of complaining (SchegloV 1988), and considering, second, the recipient’s subsequent responses (you ma? wo conglai meiyou qu guo name jiu ‘Did (we/I)? I’ve never been there that long’; line 14), which are hearably a denial of the

Final ou

“accusable,” it is clear that marking a news receipt through a marked ou here appears to be done in the service of lodging a complaint. As I will demonstrate below, this process of accomplishing additional interactional work through newsmarking is not limited to excerpt (23), but is a regular feature of marked ou. More speciWcally, I will demonstrate that the use of marked ou – whether in Wrst position (Section 3.3.1) or in responsive position (Section 3.3.2) in a sequence C regularly invokes an “emphatic” reading of the “newsmarking” property: It is either to emphasize the “extraordinary” character of a state of aVairs, or to alert the recipient to some additional – and commonly negatively-valenced – interactional work that the speaker is attempting to accomplish in the local conversational environment.

3.3.1 In Wrst position Unlike unmarked ou, whose occurrences are highly restricted to responsive position in a sequence, marked ou is commonly located in both responsive position and Wrst position. When produced in Wrst position, marked ou regularly occurs as part of a turn in which informing, reporting, or story-telling is underway. In these cases, marked ou is frequently attached to an utterance which either serves as the punchline of a story, or conveys information crucial for grasping what is to be projected as the punchline. This can be illustrated in excerpt (24), in which speaker W is talking about a car accident she recently had. (24) (Tea Time sony 2A-214) 1W:

hao haoxiao de shi wo hai mei jiang wan. zai zhe ge shihou (.) very funny PRT thing I yet N say Wnish at this C time (One more) funny thing. I’m not Wnished yet. At this time (.)’

2W:

wo dou dai taiyang yanjing ma, I all wear sun glasses PRT ‘I normally wore sunglasses,’

3W:

yinwei w- yanjing- shizai- shou bu liao because eye really bear N able ‘because my- eyes- really- can’t tolerate.’

4W:→

<wo dou- wo you dai taiyang yanjing ou↑ I all I have wear sun glasses PRT ‘
85

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Final Particles in Mandarin

5W:

danshi wo chehuo zhuang wan yihou ne, (.) but I car-accident hit Wnish after PRT ‘But after the collision, (.)’

6W:

yinwei wo yaobecause I need ‘because I needed to-’

7W:

j- jingcha lai le a, police come CRS/PFV PRT ‘The po- the police came,’

8W:

na jiu jiao wo chulai yixia a, then then ask I go-out a-while PRT ‘and then (they) asked me to get out (of the car) for a while,’

9W:

kan neng bu neng zoulu a, see can N can walk PRT ‘and checked to see if (I ) could walk,’

10W:

shenme de a hou. what PRT PRT PRT ‘and things like that, you know.’

11

(0.5)

12W:

chulai zhihou, wo shuo- yangguang hao qiang ou.22 go-out after I say sunshine very strong PRT ‘And after (I) got out (of the car), I said- “The sunshine is really strong!”’

13W:

wo cai ↑a wode taiyang yanjing wode taiyang yanjing↓ I then PRT my sun glasses my sun glasses ‘I was then like, “↑(Where’re) my sunglasses? (Where’re) my sunglasses?↓”’

14W:

jieguo wode tainyang yanjing- (.) result my sun glasses ‘And then my sunglasses- (.)’

15W:

hao hao de houn. (.) good good PRT PRT ‘were- (.) perfectly, (.)’

16W:→ zhe de hen hao ou↑ fold CSC very good PRT ‘were folded perfectly OU↑’

Final ou

17F:

[hhh (laugh) [‘hhh’

18W:

[zai wode houzuo. at my back-seat [‘on the back seat.’

19L:

h[hh(laugh) ‘h[hh’

20W:

[keshi wo shi dai zhe de. wo shi dai zhebut I be wear ASP PRT I be wear ASP [‘But I was wearing (the glasses). I was wearing-’

21W:

22S:

piu hhhh (sound mimicking sunglasses being thrown to the back seat) (laugh) ‘piu! hhhhh’

23S?:

[(…)

24W

[piu guoqu hai mei guanxi. hai zhe de hao hao de. (sound) over yet N matter still fold CSC good good PRT [‘“Piu” is not the point. (The thing is they) were also folded perfectly.’

25W:

26W:

yinwei wo taiyang yanjing- gang bei- gang qu tiao guo. because I sun glassess just BEI just go adjust ASP ‘Because my sunglasses- had just- just been adjusted.’

27W:

suoyi wo taiyang yanjing hen jin. so I sun glasses very tight ‘So my sunglasses were very tight.’

As we can see, there are two tokens of marked ou in this excerpt C one in line 4 and the other in line 16. The Wrst one is attached to speaker W’s claim that

87

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Final Particles in Mandarin

she was wearing sunglasses when this accident happened C a piece of information which, it transpires, is in fact an “interpretative key” (SchegloV 1992a:202) to the recognition of the punchline being projected; and the second marked ou is attached to the punchline itself C that after the accident, the sunglasses were found “perfectly folded” on the back seat. In each case, the marked ou is attached to a signiWcant component of the story and in eVect pulls from the course of story-telling the key focal information that is essential for proper understanding of the story in progress and hence merits special attention. However, while marked ou is commonly attached to the punchline of a story and to the information leading up to that punchline, not every story’s punchline or its related information has a marked ou attached to it. In fact, marked ou in the present corpus is observed to Wgure primarily in stories of a particular kind, that is, stories which delineate events taken by the story-tellers as unusual, extraordinary, or unbelievable against some background. Looking again at (24), we can see that this is exactly what W’s story is about C or, more precisely, how she portrays it to be, in part through the use of marked ou. As noted earlier, one of the two tokens of marked ou that W deploys is attached to the punchline of the story C namely, the fact that her sunglasses were well-folded after the collision. Notice that while this particular event in itself is worth registering and may well constitute a “tellable,” implicating thereby the tremendous force generated by the collision, this appears not to be the tellable that W intends to register through the use of the marked ou here, as can be seen in her explicit rejection of S’s proVered understanding (i.e., piu guoqu hai mei guanxi. hai zhe de hao hao de ‘“Piu” is not the point. (The thing is they) were also folded perfectly’; line 24).23 Instead, what this marked ou is registering, as is apparent from W’s subsequent elaboration (lines 25B27), is a marked sense of unusualness whose very understanding requires the juxtaposition of the reported circumstance of the sunglasses after the collision (i.e., perfectly-folded) with another event C i.e., their recent adjustment. That is, while it is surprising enough to Wnd the sunglasses perfectly-folded on the back seat after the collision, the fact that this was accomplished under the circumstance that the sunglasses had just been adjusted and were, by implication, particularly diYcult to bend (lines 26B27) is not only newsworthy, but is indeed “unthinkable,” as W puts it (line 25). And I suggest that it is just this kind of heightened sense of news-

Final ou

worthiness obtained from “staging” an event against some background that appears to be what is conveyed and marked by the use of marked ou. Excerpt (25) provides a similar instance of the use of marked ou to register a heightened sense of newsworthiness C this time, the “out-of-the-ordinary” character of the event being described. Where this excerpt begins, one of the coparticipants (X) in this multi-party conversation has just made a remark that it now requires a lot of capital to run such chain stores as “7-Eleven” in Taiwan. This remark apparently triggers coparticipant H’s sudden recall of a piece of related information, which he then oVers to tell, in the form of a preannouncement (line 1). While this pre-announcement is met with a dispreferred and blocking response (line 2) C a recipient preemptive telling of what the pre-announcement is meant to project C H goes ahead with the projected informing nonetheless and suYxes it with a marked ou (line 3).24 (25) (CS Party A114b) 1H:

tongyi tamen xianzai dou kui le ji nian ni zhidao ma. (company) they now all loss PFV Q year you know Q ‘Y’know how many years Tongyi25 has suVered a loss in business so far?’

2C:

si:: nian hai wu nian. four year or Wve year ‘Four:: or Wve years.’

3H:→

si nian hai wu nian [ou↑ four year or Wve year PRT ‘Four or Wve years [OU↑.’

4C:

[dui a right PRT [‘(That’s) right.’

5H:

tamen zaojiu yijing suan zhun shuo= they long-ago already calculate accurate say ‘They had already estimated’=

6H:

=yi kaishi yiding hui kui.= one start deWnitely ASP loss =‘that (they’d) deWnitely suVer loss at the beginning,’=

7L:

=°uh uh uh °. PRT PRT PRT =‘°Uh uh uh.°’

89

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Final Particles in Mandarin

8H:

ranhou- zhihou cai- (.) kaishi zhuan. then after only start proWt ‘and that- (only) afterwards (.) (can they) start to make money.’

9C:

(dui a mm) right PRT PRT ‘((That’s) right. Mm.)’

10H:

ta- bu:: it N ‘It- didn’t::/doesn’t::’

11C:

[yinwei tabecause it [‘Because it-’

12H:

[pingchang ren zeme keneng kui de qi = ordinary people how possible loss CSC able [‘How can ordinary people possibly aVord’=

13H:

=lianxu si wu nian= continuous four Wve year =‘(such a kind of) continuous four or Wve years’=

14H:

=si wu nian bei ta zijinfour Wve year BEI it capital =‘four or Wve years of losses from a capital of-’

15H:

ji yi zhe yang kui a several ten-million this manner loss PRT ‘several tens of millions of dollars like this?/!’

Here, as with (24), the production of the marked ou can be seen as designed to register the “extraordinary” character of the event being reported in the ousuYxed turn (i.e., that the company in question has suVered losses in business for a few consecutive years, line 3). And again, as with (24), the “extraordinary” character of the event can only be appropriately appreciated when juxtaposed to other background that the ou speaker subsequently provides (i.e., that this kind of loss is something that this company has already foreseen, lines 5, 6, 8). That is, what is being marked as “extraordinary” by H’s marked ou here C as evidenced by his subsequent explication (lines 12B15) C is not merely the fact that the company in question has already suVered several years of losses in business. It has rather to do with the fact that this company is

Final ou

willing to, and also able to, aVord losses of this kind (presumably in anticipation of bigger returns in subsequent years) C something which H claims to be far beyond the capacity of “ordinary people.” A similar use of marked ou is apparent in excerpt (26). This excerpt is taken from a multi-party conversation among a group of old college friends. At this point in the talk, speaker Y is reporting and commenting on a child of a mutual friend (neither this friend nor the child is present on this occasion): (26)(Café S560a; R606a) 1Y:→

a- a na ge xiaohai- (hen-) piaoliang ou↑:: PRT PRT that C kid very beautiful PRT ‘And- and that kid- is (very-) pretty OU↑:::.’

2Y:

a dou bu xiang tamen liang ge. PRTall N like they two C ‘And/but (she) is not like the two of them at all.’

3R:

hhhh (laugh) ‘hhhhhh’

4M:

hhhh bao cuo le. hahahaha (laugh) hold wrong CRS (laugh) ‘hhhh (They) brought back (the) wrong (baby). hahaha’

Here, the fact that this child is very pretty is depicted as something which is not only newsworthy but is indeed out of the ordinary, as indicated by the use of marked ou. And, again, the “out-of-the-ordinary” character of the event in question does not rest entirely on the event itself, but turns on the juxtaposition of a related situation C that this child was born of parents who have very plain looks (line 2). While in (24)B(26) the newsworthiness of an event registered by marked ou is portrayed against some situational background subsequently invoked by the ou speaker, newsworthiness of this kind may also be portrayed against implicit cultural values or assumptions, as in excerpt (27) below. In this excerpt, W is recounting a culture shock experience she had when studying in the US:

91

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Final Particles in Mandarin

(27) (Tea Time s079b) 1W:

yedanershisi-hao chi wan fan zhihou, Christmas twenty-fourth eat Wnish meal after ‘Christmas- On the twenty-fourth, after Wnishing the dinner,’

2W:

ta jiu gen- yao gen ta nanpengyou fei dao- (.) xiaweiyi qu. 3sg then with want with 3sg boyfriend Xy to (place) go ‘she then with- was going to Xy to- (.) Hawaii with her boyfriend.’

3W:→

chi wan- mashang jiu yao zou le ou↑ eat Wnish immediately then ASP leave CRS PRT ‘Right after (she) Wnished the meal- then (she) was gonna leave OU↑.’

4

(.)

5W:

wo jiu shuo- ou zhende ou. I then say PRT really PRT ‘I then said- “Oh, really?”’

6W:

na nide- fufumu bu hui zemeyang. then your (father) parents N ASP react ‘“Then won’t your- fa- parents react?”’

7W:

ta jingyade kan zhe wo 3sg surprisingly look ASP I ‘She was staring at me, surprised,’

8W:

fu(mu) zeme hui shuo zemeyang ne. parents how-come ASP say react PRT ‘(and was like), “Why should (my) parents react?”’

9

(.)

10W:

hen jingyade kan zhe wo, wen wo- (.) %why% very surprisingly look ASP I ask I why ‘She stared at me, looking very surprised, and asked me, “%Why%?”’

11W:

(wo shuo) ou. I say PRT ‘(I then said,) “Oh.”’

12

(.)

Final ou

13W:

wo jiu shuo,
14H:

bu yi[yang N same ‘(it’s) diVere[nt.’

15L:

[jiazhiguan bu tong la. value-view N same PRT [‘the (cultural) values are diVerent.’

Here, W attaches a marked ou to a piece of information in the story C the incident in which her American friend left immediately after a family dinner on Christmas Eve (line 3). Note that while this kind of behavior is tolerable and could even be considered as “normal” in this American family, as suggested by this friend’s reported reaction to W’s query (lines 7B8, 10), this is something which W takes C and the interlocutors understand C as highly unusual according to Chinese cultural values (lines 13B15). As (27) also demonstrates, the background to which a focal event is meant to be juxtaposed does not need to be invoked by the ou speaker; it can also be collaboratively constructed by the ou speaker and his or her interlocutors. In fact, it is observed in the present corpus that the contrasting background may sometimes become so self-evident that it is the interlocutor (alone) who subsequently invokes it. Excerpt (28) is a case in point. This excerpt is taken from a larger story-telling sequence, in which L is describing her mother-inlaw C an allegedly uneducated and superstitious housewife living in a suburban area. At this point, L is reporting on how her mother-in-law has always indulged herself in all kinds of news reports in order to gain inspiration for choosing lottery numbers: (28) (Café S364a; R392a) 1L:

wo popo zui xihuan kan na ge dianshi jiemu shi shenme, I mother-in-law most like watch that C TV program be what ‘Guess what my mother-in-law’s favorite TV programs are?’

2L:

shi xinwen be news ‘(It)’s the news.’

93

94

Final Particles in Mandarin

3L:

ta dou kan ta zhengtian cong tou dao wei de xinwen jiemu 3sg whole-day from head to tail PRT news program 3sg all watch ‘She watches all the news reports the whole day.’

4L:

guoyu de taiyu de.= Mandarin PRT Taiwanese PRT ‘Mandarin, Taiwanese.’=

5L:

=[zhiyao xinwen jiemu ta (dou kan) as-long-as news program 3sg all watch =[‘As long as it’s TV news, she’ll (watch it.)’

6Y:

=[kejiahua hhh Hakka (a Chinese dialect) (laugh) =[‘Hakka. hhhh’

7L:

tch! yinwei ta dou yao kan shuo= because 3sg all want watch say ‘tch! Because she always needs to watch’=

8L:

=you mei you- you shenme linggan. have N have have what inspiration =‘to see whether- (she) can get inspiration (for picking lottery numbers.)’

9R:

hhhh (laugh) ‘hhhhh’

10M:

hahaha (laugh) ‘hahaha’

11L:

°(wo

juede hao haoxiao).° I feel very funny ‘°(I think (it’s) so funny.)°’

12L:→ ei, ta dong de hen duo shi ou↑::. PRT 3sg understand CSC very much thing PRT ‘Hey, she knows a lot of things OU↑::.’ 13L:

ta shi na zhong guojia da shi, 3sg be that kind country big event ‘She’s like, whatever has happened in the country’

Final ou

14L:

na zhong shehui- da shi ta dou [zhidao. that C society big event 3sg all know ‘and the society- she [knows (it) all.’

15M:

16L:

[ta dou you kan a. hh 3sg all have watch PRT(laugh) [‘(‘cause) she has watched all (the news reports.) hh’ hen haoxiao. very funny ‘Very funny.’

Here, L’s ou-attached assertion (line 12) of her mother-in-law’s wide range of knowledge is produced after the previous telling sequence is brought to a conclusion. While L’s deployment of marked ou suggests that she is treating the asserted event (i.e., that her mother-in-law “knows a lot of things”) as not only newsworthy but also extraordinary, it is recipient M who subsequently re-invokes (line 15) the ground that makes the import explicit, the import being that L’s mother-in-law’s knowledgeability is in fact an incidental consequence of some absurd behavior (i.e., drawing inspiration for picking lottery numbers from TV news). This interpretation of L’s ou-suYxed utterance C that it is alluding to the ironic nature of the reported event C subsequently appears to be veriWed by L, through the proVering of an aligning summary assessment (hen haoxiao ‘very funny’; line 16). Of course, like other conversational practices, suYxing of marked ou is a practice that can be exploited. That is, it can be used to reXexively embody, or otherwise intensify, the claim that the matter being described is of heightened news value C something that deserves special attention in the “here and now” C even though no contrasting background is presented. While this emphatic usage of marked ou is also apparent in everyday conversation, its sense and the motivation for its use are particularly visible in the contexts of TV commercials or review programs, whose institutional goals are to maximize just this kind of viewer attention. Consider, for example, the following segments excerpted from a Mandarin TV program, “Super Gourmet Mission” (Chaoji Meishi Renwu). This program, as its name suggests, aims to introduce to its audience the best (Chinese) restaurants and their chefs’ recommendations. The segments excerpted here concern a restaurant in Hong Kong, Tianleyuan, which (reportedly) has long been known for a particular Chinese dish C baozaifan:

95

96

Final Particles in Mandarin

(29) (Super Gourmet Mission; 35:34) tianleyuan zai jiulong diqu ne, shi mai baozaifan de laozihao. (restaurant) at (place) area PRT be sell (dish) PRT old-brand ‘Tianleyuan (restaurant) has long been known for “baozaifan” in the Kowloon area.’ hen duo xianggang ren de diyi wan baozaifan na= very many (place) person PRT Wrst bowl (dish) PRT ‘Very many Hong Kong people’= = jiu shi zai zheli chi de ou↑ just be at here eat PRT PRT =‘had their Wrst bowl of “baozaifan” right here OU↑.’ (30) (Super Gourmet Mission; 36:35) zhe tianleyuan de baozaifan ne you hen duo kouwei keyi xuanze this (restaurant) PRT (dish) PRT have very many Xavor can choose ‘Tianleyuan (restaurant) oVers many varieties of “baozaifan” to choose from.’ chule huaji kouwei zhiwai ne, in-addition tender-chicken Xavor in-addition PRT ‘In addition to the tender-chicken (“baozaifan”),’ women yiding yao lai chi chi kan zheli feichang shou huanying de= we deWnitely need come eat eat see here extremely bear popular PRT ‘we should deWnitely try the extremely popular’= =shijiao paigu yiji guo dan niurou de baozaifan ou↑ black-bean pork-rib and pot egg beef PRT (dish) PRT =‘black-bean-pork-rib (“baozaifan”) and egg-beef “baozaifan” OU↑.’

In excerpt (29), the marked ou is attached to a piece of supporting evidence for the long-standing reputation of this restaurant’s baozaifan C that is, the fact that very many people in Hong Kong had had their Wrst baozaifan at this restaurant. In excerpt (30), the marked ou is attached to the hostess’ recommendations of the most popular baozaifan in this restaurant. In each case, the use of marked ou C like many others in this TV program C does not seem to be pointing to any contrasting background, the presence of which is otherwise frequently needed for the proper understanding of an event’s heightened news value, as discussed above. Rather, what the marked ou appears to be doing in each excerpt is to emphasize or intensify the newsworthiness of the event being reported; that is, it is used to reXexively constitute the emphatic reading regularly associated with its use, and to invite its recipients/viewers to just this

Final ou

kind of reading. That the marked ou is used here for emphatic purposes is reinforced by the fact that each of these ou-suYxed turns also contains other intensiWers C for example, hen duo ‘very many’ and di yi ‘the Wrst’ in (29), and yiding ‘deWnitely’ and feichang ‘extremely’ in (30); all of these appear to be deployed and designed to highlight the salience and signiWcance of the reported event. In sum, this section has illustrated the use of marked ou in Wrst position. In this sequential position, marked ou is commonly used to register a heightened sense of newsworthiness of the event being reported. As we have seen, this heightened news value regularly turns on the juxtaposition of a background situation which, as we have also seen, may be invoked by the ou speaker, the interlocutor(s), both, or neither. In the last scenario C where no contrasting background is presented C I have suggested that the use of marked ou is indexical and suggestive in nature; that is, its very occurrence may reXexively embody or constitute the emphatic quality that is otherwise regularly associated with its use. In the next section, we will see that registering an emphatic reading of what is being reported can also be observed in the use of marked ou in responsive position, although the associated purposes of its use are particularized distinctively in this sequential position.

3.3.2 In responsive position In the previous section, we noted two properties exhibited by the use of marked ou in Wrst position. First, its use is mainly associated with the speaker’s attempt to accord a heightened sense of newsworthiness to the event being reported, proposing that it contains information not only previously unknown to its recipient, but also extraordinary in character. Second, the proposed extraordinary character of an event is frequently only able to receive its due appreciation via the lamination of another event or other circumstances. In this section, we will see that these two properties are also observed in marked ou when it occurs in responsive position. In this sequential position, however, the use of marked ou is also designed to propose a marked sense of newsworthiness with respect to what is being stated or conveyed in the particle-suYxed turn. Unlike the use of Wnal ou in Wrst position, however, this sense should be understood not in light of the juxtaposition of a background event, but in light of its relationship to what another has just said or done in

97

98

Final Particles in Mandarin

the current interaction; that is, its use, as we will see, regularly serves to allude to some negatively-valenced interactional project it attempts to accomplish in the local conversational environment. One of these negatively-valenced projects, as we have already seen in (23), is lodging a complaint. In that excerpt about whether the ou speaker had been invited to join in an extended trip to Las Vegas, we noted that marked ou is deployed to receipt a piece of information contrastive with what the ou speaker had previously asserted, and thereby transforms an otherwise plain news receipt to one with an overtone of complaint. Marked ou is also commonly found in a turn in which the current speaker disagrees with the prior speaker. Excerpt (31), from a conversation between a man from Mainland China (M) and a woman from Taiwan, oVers a straightforward case. Just before this excerpt, M has mentioned that it is diYcult to grow rice in the northeast area of Mainland China. To this, F proVers a candidate understanding: (31) (WQ 1b) 1F:

suoyi dongbei bijiao qiong ou. = so northeast relatively poor PRT ‘So the Northeast is relatively poor?’ =

2F:

=[(zhe yangzi ma) this manner Q =[‘(Is that so?)’

3M:→

[↑dongbei bu qiong ou↑↓ northeast N poor PRT [‘↑The Northeast is not poor OU↑↓.’

4F:

bu qiong [ma? N poor Q ‘(It’s) not [poor?’

5M:

6M:

[nei ge (.)
Final ou

7M:

<dongbei mianfen ye hen hao northeast Xour also very good ‘
8M:→

[<dongbei bu qiong ou↑ northeast N poor PRT [‘
9F:

[dadou na lai zuo shenme soybean take come do what [‘What’re soybeans used for?’

As we can see, M employs two tokens of marked ou in this excerpt, both attached to dispreferred responses. The Wrst one is attached to a disconWrmation (line 3) of F’s proVered understanding of the economic situation of the Northeast of Mainland China. The second one is attached to the reassertion (line 8) of his prior position, which comes as a conclusion at the end of a series of accounts (lines 5B7). Excerpt (32) is a similar case. This excerpt is taken from a conversation recorded in a restaurant where it is not uncommon for dining customers to receive personal phone calls. In this excerpt, H’s talk about a friend (lines 1B2) is interrupted by the background switchboard announcement indicating that one of the coparticipants, F, has a phone call. (32) (Tea Time S2517b) 1H:

yinwei ta- fei hei ji bai ma. because 3sg N black then white PRT ‘Because for her- (things) are either black or white.’

2H:

[hou. ranhouPRT then [‘Right? And then-’

3

[*laibin fang xiaojie, qing jie san xian dianhua.* guest (name) miss please receive three line telephone [‘Guest Ms. Fang, please pick up the phone on line 3.’ ((* to * background switchboard announcement))

4H:

ni mama ((to F)) your mother ‘(It’s) your mom.’

99

100 Final Particles in Mandarin

5

*laibin fang xiaojie, qing jie san xian dianhua.* guest (name) miss please receive three line telephone ‘Guest Ms. Fang, please pick up the phone on line 3.’ ((* to * background switchboard announcement))

6L:→

keneng tingwen ou↑:: probably (name) PRT ‘(It’s) probably Tingwen OU↑::.’

7L:

wo zai xiang. I ASP think ‘I think.’

Upon completion of the announcement, H oVers an assertion that it must be F’s mother, which another coparticipant, L, does not agree with. After a repeated announcement (line 5), L then oVers a diVerent proposal and suYxes it with a marked ou (line 6). The marked ou is also found in a more complicated disagreement sequence, namely, in a sequence which can be roughly described as (report)B (counter-assertion)B(ou-suYxed disagreement) (arrows [1]-[3]). This pattern typically emerges in a multi-party conversation where the speaker of an ou-suYxed turn participates in an already-initiated disagreement sequence among his or her coparticipants. Excerpt (33) is a case in point. (33) (Tea Time s139b) 1L:1→ [keshi ni daxue deshihou,bu shi shuo bu hui hen shou ma. ((to S)) but you college when N be say N ASP very thin Q [‘But didn’t you say that you were not very thin when you were in college?’ 2

(.)

3S:

dui a wo daxue- [(..dagai wushi) right PRT I college probably Wfty ‘(That’s) right. In college [(..) I was about Wfty (kilograms).’

4F:

5F:

[qiancheng fengshui bu hao:: (school) fortune N good [‘Qiancheng doesn’t have good luck.’ [hhh (laugh) [‘hhhh’

Final ou 101

6H:2→ [keshi ta bu- shi hen shou ye pang bu dao nali qu ba.= but 3sg N be very thin also fat N to where go PRT [‘But even if she was not- very thin, (she) wouldn’t be fat at all.’= 7W?:

=[[wushi eryi. Wfty only =[[‘50 (kilograms) only.’

8S:

=[[shi meiyoube N =[[‘(I) wasn’t-’

9F:3=> ou::: meiyou ta daxue deshihou:: (.) [man- fengyu de ou↑= PRT N 3sg college when pretty plump PRT PRT ‘Oh::. No. When she was in college:, (.) [(she was) pretty plump OU↑.’= 10H:

11S:

[hen pang. very fat [‘Very fat.’ =hui ma::. ASP PRT =‘(I) was::?’

In this excerpt, one of the coparticipants, S, who is quite skinny, is reported to have been less so when she was in college (line 1). This report attracts a counter-assertion from H in line 6, who states that even if S was not skinny, she most likely would not have been fat at all, probably given what she looks like now. However, the validity of this counter-assertion is disconWrmed by another coparticipant, F, who has been S’s friend since college. In line 9, following a lengthened receipt token (ou:: ) and a disagreement component (meiyou ‘no’), F produces an ou-suYxed utterance, which provides a counterinforming to what H has previously asserted. The pattern of (report)B(counter-assertion)B(ou-suYxed disagreement) is also clear in excerpt (34) below (arrows [1]-[3]).26 Here the coparticipants are discussing the change in attitude of one of their colleagues, who used to come by to have lunch and chat with them. Recently, this colleague has dramatically reduced the number of his visits:

102 Final Particles in Mandarin

(34) (Tea Time s580b) 1S:1→

meiyou xiang yiqian= N like before ‘(He’s) not like before’=

2S:1→

=dou hai liu zai zhebian chifan [a all also stay at here eat PRT =‘when (he) would always stay here for lun[ch.’

3H:2a→

[shi yinweibe because [‘Is (it) because-’

4H:2a→ wo hen jiu mei- mei xiaqu.= I very long N N go-down ‘I haven’t- haven’t gone down (to your oYce) for a long time.’= 5H:2a→ =keshi wo zuijin- xiaqu- liang ci, ta- ta dou zai a but I recently go-down two C 3sg 3sg both at PRT =‘But recently- (when) I went down- twice, he- he was there.’ 6S:2b→ danshi ta meiyou xiang yiqian dou liubut 3sg N like before all stay ‘But he isn’t like before, always stay-’ 7S:2b→ yizhi: [(Y.) a (..) always PRT ‘always: [(Y.)’ 8L:

9L:

[zuo zai gen women yiqi chifan= sit at with we together eat [‘Sitting there and eating with us.’= =[(Y)

10F:3=> =[ganjue shang bu yiyang ou↑:::. feeling on N same PRT =[‘(My) impression (of him) isn’t the same OU↑::.’

In lines 3B5, H, who does not share the same oYce as the other coparticipants, provides counter evidence that she nonetheless saw that colleague “every time” (albeit only twice) she dropped by their oYce. To this, the other coparticipants (i.e., S and L) then provide further evidence to support their claim of this colleague’s change (lines 6B9). The ou-suYxed utterance is produced in

Final ou 103

line 10, when another coparticipant, F, joins the conversation and aligns herself with S’s and L’s position. It is important to note here that the ou-suYxed utterances in excerpts (31)B(34) are similar not only in that they occur in a disagreement sequence, and speciWcally in a “dispreferred second turn” where a counter-informing is being made; they also share a common characteristic in that none of these ousuYxed counter-informings are prefaced by “contrastive” markers, such as danshi or keshi (‘but’) (cf. the use of another particle, a, in lines 5 and 6B7 in (34)). What these two characteristics suggest, then, is that the interactional work of disagreeing accomplished through these ou-suYxed utterances is not built to be confrontational or counteractive. It is rather more of a product of the strategic employment of ou-suYxed informing. That is, by bringing to the recipient’s attention something that he or she is otherwise unaware or uninformed of, the speaker displays to the recipient that what the recipient has conveyed or stated in the prior turn is problematic with reference to this new information. The ou tokens in these examples, therefore, are not used to register disagreement per se, but can be understood in view of an emphatic “newsmarking” function, by marking that what is conveyed or stated in the ou-suYxed turn is noteworthy and implicative. The exploitation of the “newsmarking” function of marked ou is also observed in excerpt (35). Here the ou-suYxed utterance is produced in a turn with which the speaker declines a prior speaker’s request. This sequence of talk begins with L’s suggestion that W, who is studying in the US and is back home for a vacation, should try to install a certain Chinese software (Yitian) in her computer after returning to the US (lines 1B4). (35) (Tea Time R375A; s2a313) 1L:

baituo: xiaojie ni- ni- ni- ni nong yidian= please miss you you you you bring a-little ‘Please: lady, you- you- you- (why don’t) you bring’=

2L:

=yitian: de huiqu nide diannao limian- guan jinqu, (Chinese) PRT return your computer inside install into =‘the Yitian with you and install it in- your computer?’

104 Final Particles in Mandarin

3L:

women yao da %e-mail% yong zhongwen gei ni jiu hao le. hh we need type e-mail use Chinese to you just good CRS (laugh) ‘(Then) when we want to %e-mail% you, we can just use Chinese. hh’

4L:

buyao [jiao women xie N ask we write ‘Don’t [ask us to write-’

5W:→

[xitong you- you- wenti ou↑ system have have problem PRT [‘The system will have problems then OU↑.’

6L:

[(Y) ma Q [‘(Y)?’

7F:

[%kam boe sai% really N can [‘%(It) won’t work?%’

8W:

xitong de guanxi. system PRT matter ‘(It’s because of) the problem of the system.’

9

((W’s elaboration of the potential problems))

Here, L’s request is implicitly declined through an ou-suYxed utterance in line 5, which brings to the interlocutor’s attention the fact that some potential problems may occur as a result of this request. It is interesting to note that while this ou-suYxed utterance is double-edged, i.e., bringing in a piece of new information while at the same time declining a request, it is the former that seems to get attended to by both the coparticipant (line 7) and the ou speaker (lines 8B9) in the subsequent sequence of talk. But marked ou Wgures not only in contexts where a request is implicitly declined. It can also be attached to a more explicit rejection of an expectation or a presupposition. This is illustrated in the next two examples. In excerpt (36), a woman has called her broker to check whether a previous buy order she had requested over the phone has gone through. In excerpt (37), W is talking about a huge purchase he made at a supermarket, only to Wnd out that this branch of the supermarket was not having the sale he had expected. Both the stock broker’s and the supermarket cashier’s negative responses, we can note, are suYxed with a marked ou (at the arrows).

Final ou 105

(36) (Stock Lady A83) 1M:

wei:: (.) qing wen:: yi si san yi liu you mei you [chengjiao hello please ask one four three one six have N have transaction ‘Hello:: (.) May I ask:: has the transaction for 14316 [gone through?’

2B:

[wo kan yixia I look a-while [‘Let me see.’

3

(1.0)

4B:→

meiyou ou↑::= N PRT ‘No OU↑::.’=

5B:

=meiyou mai dao. N buy reach =‘(You) didn’t get (it).’

6M:

(ou) <mei mai dao PRT N buy reach ‘(Oh,)
7B:

hen.
(37) (CS Party R550) 1W:

ta dangchang jiu jie chulai jiu (sishiwu). 3sg on-the-spot then total out then forty-Wve ‘He totaled it right away and then (it) was (forty-Wve dollars).’

2W:

wo shuo ei? na shi bu shi %discount% wan? I say PRT that be N be discount Wnish ‘I said, “Hey, is that after the %discount%?”’

3W:→ ta shuo- women mei you %discount% ou↑ 3sg say we N have discount PRT ‘He said- “We don’t have a %discount% OU↑.”’ 4W:

wo shuo nimen zeme mei you %discount% I say you how-come N have discount ‘I said, “How come you don’t have a %discount%?”’

106 Final Particles in Mandarin

5W:

ta shuo %Rowland-Heights% hhhh cai you hhhh 3sg say (branch name) (laugh) only have (laugh) ‘He said, “Only the %Rowland Heights% branch” h “is having a sale.” hh’

Of additional interest in (37) is that the marked ou is deployed in an instance of reported speech. Whether or not this cashier actually expressed him or herself in those terms, one of W’s practices for depicting how this cashier alerted him to this negative news is to report him or her to have suYxed that news with a marked ou. Important to note is that, in both (36) and (37), the use of marked ou is optional, and the negative response without the ou-suYxing could be characterized as more “straightforward” C or, more precisely, as “unmotivated.” I wish to suggest that part of the motivation for the use of marked ou in each case may arise from the fact that a straightforward negation of the matter being inquired about is less than accurate in its present context. For example, in (36), we can see that the stock broker self-corrects (line 7) her response following the recipient’s receipt of it. Her move to recast the response from a “no” (meiyou) to a “not yet” (hai mei) displays her awareness that, while it is not untruthful to say that the transaction at issue has not gone through, the actual fact is that it has not gone through “as yet” C in other words, the buy order is still open. Similarly, in (37), as revealed in the cashier’s reported response (line 5) to W’s challenge (line 4) after the request is declined, this cashier is actually fully aware of the fact that another branch of this supermarket chain is having a sale, and that W’s previous inquiry (line 2) was likely to have been motivated on that ground. Thus, the cashier’s prior ousuYxed response (line 3), though presumably answering the question (in line 2) honestly, does not, in fact, answer it with a full account. And the use of marked ou here, as well as that in (36), is therefore similar to most tokens of marked ou in the present corpus, in that its use is implicative and suggestive in nature C commonly alluding to, or motivated by, the fact that there is more beyond what is being said. What holds across the cases considered thus far (i.e., (23), (31)B(37)) is the existence of a contrast between what a prior speaker has displayed to have known or expected, and what has been informed or noted in the ou-suYxed utterance. The use of marked ou in these excerpts serves to alert its recipient(s) to just this kind of contrast, and to the potentially negative interactional work the manifestation of this contrast is meant to accomplish C interactional work such as complaining (e.g., (23)), disagreeing (e.g., (31)B(34)), declining a

Final ou 107

request (e.g., (35)), rejecting an expectation (e.g., (36)), and denying a presupposition (e.g., (37)). However, while the use of marked ou in responsive position is commonly implicative and allusive in character C serving to put its recipient on alert that some additional interactional work is being done through the ou-suYxed utterance C this kind of interactional work is not always predicated on a contrast resulting from a prior speaker’s otherwise displayed expectation or knowledge. In fact, marked ou can be used to instruct its recipient in something that he or she has otherwise not expected or has displayed to not expect. The traditional characterization of Wnal ou as conveying an import of “warning” (Chao 1968; Li and Thompson 1981) appears to fall under this category.27 This use of marked ou is illustrated in excerpts (38)B(40) below. Excerpt (38) is taken from a dinner party attended by a group of friends from college. This excerpt begins with the end of a larger story-telling sequence, in which X, a man who is married but whose wife is not co-present in this conversation, is talking about a woman both he and his wife met at another party. (38) (CS Party R876A) 1L:

ta shuo ta gang qu %party% huilai na yi ci. 3sg say 3sg just go party return that one C ‘That was the time when she said she just came from a %party%.’

2 3X:

[((iconic gestures of the length of the skirt and the shape of a tank top)) chuan duo duan a,
4X:

jiaozuo shenme- xiao- [na zhong xiao beixin. call what little that kind little blouse ‘what-is-this-called- [this kind of tank- tank top.’

5L:

6L:

[dui dui dui right right right [‘Right. Right. Right.’ [[hhhh (laugh) [[‘hhhhhh’

108 Final Particles in Mandarin

7C:

[[hhhh (laugh) [[‘hhhhh’

8X:

dui a right PRT ‘Yeah.’

9X:

ranhou- nabian- (.) you bu neng zuo yizi, you yao zuo dixia. then there also N can sit chair also need sit ground ‘And then- there- (.) there were no chairs, (so she) had to sit on the Xoor.’

10

a::ou:: you-de-meiyou-de. ou::., zhe yang (exclamation) stuV:like:that PRT this manner ‘A::ou:: and all that. Oh:: like this.’

11W:→ you luyin ou↑ have recording PRT ‘(You are) being recorded OU↑.’ 12

((people laugh))

13W:

yishang shi xiaoxu shuo de. [hhhhh above be (name) say PRT (laugh) ‘The preceding is reported by Xiao Xu. [hhhh’

14C:

[hhhhh (laugh) [‘hhhhh’

15X:

luyin mei guanxi a. wo laopo ye kandao le a recording N matter PRT I wife also see CRS PRT ‘It doesn’t matter that (I’m being) recorded. My wife saw it too.’

16

((people laugh))

The ou-suYxed utterance here (line 11) is produced at a possible completion point of an embedded sequence, in which X is giving a report on this woman’s dress (lines 2B4) and an embarrassing situation she had to face in the party (i.e., sitting on the Xoor with a sexy dress; lines 9B10). To understand how the ou-suYxed utterance Wgures in its sequential environment, let me Wrst note several features of this sequence. First, X’s depiction of the event is allusive in character, probably with a sexually-charged implication that the woman had incidentally exposed her

Final ou 109

body to the eyes of those who were present, including X himself. Second, this report is delivered in a highly enthusiastic manner: It contains several tokens of emphatic exclamation (i.e., aou, ou in line 10) and is produced at a faster tempo (marked by “<“ in line 3 in the transcript), with a number of accompanying iconic gestures (line 2). X’s report of the event in question and his display of enthusiasm about it were initially treated by two coparticipants as “laughable,” as evidenced by the laugh tokens in lines 6B7. However, upon completion of his subsequent elaboration (lines 9B10), where the sexual nature of the event is more explicitly portrayed, another coparticipant, W, provides an ou-suYxed informing, to wit, that all of X’s prior talk and behavior have been oYcially documented. While W’s informing here, with the suYxing of marked ou, is meant to bring its recipient’s attention to something that he has otherwise overlooked or had no knowledge of, exactly what this ou-suYxed informing is alluding to is left unsaid. It is worth noting that it is the recipient of the informing who subsequently explicates the interactional import of the ou-suYxed utterance: In line 15, recipient X Wrst partially repeats what has been said in the ousuYxed turn, i.e., luyin ‘recording,’ and then follows it with his comment,28 mei guanxi ‘doesn’t matter’ C thereby dismissing his having been tape-recorded as anything worthy of concern. Important to note is that, by proposing such a dismissal, X actually displays that he understands the upshot of the ousuYxed informing as a warning of some kind of trouble (cf. Chao 1968; Li and Thompson 1981). Note also that, by following his dismissal with an account (i.e., that his wife was co-present on that occasion), X further shows that he not only understands the ou-suYxed utterance as a warning; he also knows speciWcally what the warning is about C i.e., the possibility that his wife will later be informed (probably through the availability of this videotape) of his enthusiasm for the sexual appeal of another woman, as conveyed through his prior talk. While in (38), marked ou is used to alert its recipient to something that he may have overlooked or have had no knowledge of, excerpts (39) and (40) below involve cases in which the use of marked ou invites its recipient to a twist of meaning that the ou-suYxed utterance has just imparted to the recipient’s prior talk C something that he or she had otherwise not intended. Excerpt (39) is taken from the same conversation as (38). At this point, the talk has turned to a professor the coparticipants had at college, and to the fact that this professor is now also teaching at another university. The name of this

110 Final Particles in Mandarin

university (Jinan) happens to be a homonym for “male prostitutes” in Mandarin Chinese. (39) (CS Party 920)29 1T:

ta shi san tian taida= 3sg be three day (university) ‘He (teaches) three days at Taiwan University,’=

2T:

=san tian jinan three day (university) =‘(and) three days at Jinan University.’

3L:

san tian taida, (san tian) three day (university) three day ‘Three days at Taiwan University. (Three days-)’

4H:

zhe shenme yisi [wo ting bu dong this what meaning I hear N understand ‘What does this mean? [I don’t understand.’

5W:→

[ta hai jianchai ou↑ hhh= 3sg also work-part-time PRT (laugh) [‘He also works part-time OU↑. hhh’=

6W:

=hhh san tian zai taida, san tian zuo ji
7

((people laugh))

Here, the ou-suYxed utterance (line 5), punning on the same sound of “male prostitutes” and the name of this university, involves an oV-color implication C the implication that the teacher may be working part time in the profession of prostitution. This implication is only vaguely alluded to in the ou-suYxed utterance, but then is subsequently explicated in greater detail by the ou speaker (line 6). In response, the coparticipants start to laugh, displaying their appreciation of the wisecrack W has just made. Excerpt (40), from the same conversation, provides a similar instance. This excerpt starts at the end of a sequence in which the coparticipants are inquiring about the quantity of a certain brand of vitamins (i.e., “Centrum”) which T has purchased at his father’s request and will bring with him on his trip home to Taiwan from the US.

Final ou

(40) (CSParty A025A) 1X:

ni hua le wu bai kuai meiyou. you spend PFV Wve hundred dollar N ‘Did you spend Wve hundred dollars?’

2W:→

hou↑:. zhe ge PRT this C ‘Hou↑:. This-’=

3W:→

zhe ge keneng you hen duo ren yao jian ou↑:. hh this C probably have very many person ASP see PRT (laugh) =‘this- (You) must have a lot of people to see OU↑:. hh’

4L:

hh[hhh[[hhh (laugh) ‘hh[hhh [[hhh’

5W:

6H:

7T:

[hhh[[hhh (laugh) [‘hh [[hhh’ [[%bai a% bad PRT [[‘%Uh-oh!%’ mei yi jia song wu guan. every one C give Wve C ‘Give each family (of a prospective date) Wve bottles.’

Here, what the ou-suYxed utterance in line 3 alludes to is a Chinese custom in which the parents of a son or daughter of marriageable age will usually try to arrange dates for their child when he or she comes home for a vacation, especially if the child lives or works in another city. Against this background, it is implied that T’s extravagant purchase of vitamin supplements, which are quite expensive in his home country, has been done in anticipation of his upcoming “excessive numbers” of dates. It can be noted that while this import is implicit in nature, with no subsequent explication ever provided, T’s response in line 7 (mei yi jia song wu guan ‘give each family (of a prospective date) Wve bottles’) nonetheless shows a good grasp of what exactly is implicated in W’s prior ou-suYxed utterance. To summarize what I have presented here regarding the use of marked ou in responsive position: We have seen that, in responsive position, suYxing an

111

112

Final Particles in Mandarin

utterance with a marked ou commonly operates to alert its recipient to some negatively-valenced interactional work accomplished by that utterance. As we have also seen, this kind of interactional work may range from complaining, disagreeing, declining a request, rejecting an expectation, and/or denying a presupposition or warning, to simple wisecracking. Central to this wide range of activities, however, is the fact that there exists a gap in knowledge, information, expectations, awareness, or orientation between a prior speaker and the ou speaker, which the launching of an ou-suYxed informing or assertion intends to Wll or underscore. We have also noted that, while these activities are commonly negatively-valenced, they are nonetheless not designed to be confrontational. In fact, as the preceding examples reveal, it is not uncommon for an ou-suYxed utterance to Wgure in a joke-implicated sequence (cf. (33), (38), (39), (40)). We will be returning to these last few points in Chapter 5.

3.3.3 Summary of marked ou In Section 3.3, we have examined how marked ou is used in Wrst position and in responsive position in a sequence. We have observed that the use of marked ou in these two positions shares two common features: First, its use serves mainly to register a heightened sense of newsworthiness with respect to what is being reported in the ou-suYxed utterance. Second, the proper understanding of the proposed heightened news value frequently turns on the juxtaposition of another event or situation, which may or may not be subsequently invoked. In the case when marked ou is used in Wrst position, it is frequently found attached to the punchline of a story and to the information leading up to that punchline. Its use here is generally designed to underscore the fact that the event being reported in the ou-suYxed utterance contains information which is not only previously unknown to its recipient, but which is also extraordinary or allusive in character. In addition, as we have also noted, the use of marked ou in this position can operate reXexively C i.e., it can be used to reXexively constitute and embody the emphatic force generally associated with its use, even though no contrasting background is overtly presented. When marked ou occurs in responsive position, the ground to which an ou-suYxed utterance is intended to be juxtaposed is commonly not a background event, but the immediately local conWguration of the preceding action C that is, the talk or behavior by the recipient in a previous turn. This

Final ou

juxtaposition regularly amounts to some implicit yet potentially negativelyvalenced interactional work, the very relevance of which to the recipient appears to be signaled in and through the mere employment of marked ou. That is, the use of marked ou here not only serves to alert its recipient to the negatively-valenced interactional work the ou-suYxed utterance attempts to accomplish, but, in cases where the occurrence of marked ou is obligatory, the suYxing of marked ou also serves a “relevance-providing” function, which is to accord the discourse/interactional relevance needed for this kind of interactional work to be accomplished. What we can summarize from the discussion in Section 3.3, then, is that the use of marked ou C whether in Wrst position or in responsive position C is implicative and suggestive in nature: It is a conversational resource a Mandarin speaker may draw upon in order to highlight the salience and newsworthiness of a focal event, commonly by alerting his or her interlocutor to the implication that there is more here than meets the eye!

3.4

Marked ou versus unmarked ou: summary and discussion

3.4.1 Functional distribution of marked ou and unmarked ou In the previous two sections, we examined the use of Wnal ou in Mandarin conversation. SpeciWcally, we examined two kinds of prosodically diVerent ou found in the present corpus C marked ou and unmarked ou. Unmarked ou is observed to perform two common functions: (i) making a conWrmation or disconWrmation relevant next; (ii) registering a piece of information as news. These two functions, as was demonstrated, are not mutually exclusive, and may, on occasion, appear equivocal to the parties in a conversation. Marked ou, on the other hand, is characteristically used to register a heightened sense of newsworthiness. It may be used to mark the event under discussion as extraordinary or allusive in character, or to alert its recipient to some additional negatively-valenced interactional work the ou-suYxed utterance is attempting to accomplish in the local conversational environment. The functional distribution of marked ou and unmarked ou is summarized in Figure 1.

113

114

Final Particles in Mandarin

Final ou Unmarked ou Registering a piece of information as news

Making a confirmation or disconfirmation relevant next

Marked ou Registering a heightened sense of newsworthiness: (1) reveals that the event being reported is extraordinary or allusive in nature; (2) alerts recipients to additional interactional work (e.g., registering complaint, disagreeing, denying, warning, teasing and ridiculing)

Intrinsic “newsmarking” function Intrinsic “newsmarking” function

Registering an “epistemic alert”

Figure 1. Functional distribution of marked ou and unmarked ou

3.4.2 Sequential position, prosody, and imports of Wnal ou As Figure 1 also demonstrates, while marked ou and unmarked ou seemingly perform distinctive functions, a substantial number of tokens of these two particles actually share an intrinsic “newsmarking” property C i.e., marking a piece of information as newsworthy. Important to note here is that although the preceding discussions in Section 3.2 and Section 3.3 show that unmarked ou is predominantly used to register a news receipt and marked ou to register a news delivery, either function can, in fact, be performed by either particle, depending on which sequential position the particle Wgures in. In other words, both marked ou and

Final ou

unmarked ou can be used to mark a news delivery when occurring in a turn of informing, and both can be used to mark a news receipt when occurring in a turn responsive to an informing. The major diVerence between marked ou and unmarked ou pertains to the fact that while the speaker of a marked ou commonly reports or receipts the event in question with an additional layer of emphasis or implication, the speaker of an unmarked ou commonly does not. The diVerences between marked ou and unmarked ou in this regard and the examples illustrating their uses are summarized in Table 3. In the previous sections, we have already examined the prototypical usages of marked ou and unmarked ou: (i) the use of marked ou to register an emphatic news delivery; and (ii) the use of unmarked ou to register a plain news receipt. It may be useful at this point to examine the apparent “deviant” combinations in this two-by-two matrix C that is, the use of unmarked ou to register a plain news delivery, and the use of marked ou to register an emphatic news receipt C and to explore how marked ou and unmarked ou Wgure in these otherwise less typical sequential environments. Consider Wrst the following excerpt, which oVers a rare case30 in which the unmarked ou is used in the turn of informing. This excerpt is drawn from a

Table 3. Distribution of marked ou and unmarked ou in performing the “newsmarking” function (numbers in parentheses refer to examples in text) Registering a news delivery:

Registering a news receipt:

marking the matter being reported as newsworthy to the recipient

marking the matter being responded to as newsworthy to the ou speaker

Marked ou

[with additional emphasis or implications] (24), (25), (26), (27), (28), (29), (30), (31), (32), (33), (34), (35), (36), (37), (38), (39), (40)

[with additional negative implications] (23)

Unmarked ou

[without additional emphasis or implications] (41)

[without additional negative implications] (1), (9), (15), (16), (17), (18), (19), (20), (21), (22)

115

116

Final Particles in Mandarin

telephone conversation between two friends, X and D. In this excerpt, they are talking about X’s roommate, also an acquaintance of D. (41) (T-Dancer 211) 1X:

erqie ta- (.) xianzai bijiao zhongin-addition3sg now relatively concentrate ‘In addition, now she’s- (.) concentrating more on-’

2X:

ta- xianzai bijiao- ((clear throat)) rezhong jiaohui de shiqing 3sg now relatively enthusiastic church PRT thing ‘She’s- now more- ((clear throat)) enthusiastic about the church stuV.’

3

(0.3)

4D:

ou:. PRT ‘Oh:.’

5X:

suoyiso ‘So-’

6D:

.hhh wo kan bu chulai ta shi ge- (.)jiaotu ei:= I see N out 3sg be C church-member PRT ‘.hhh I couldn’t tell that she was a- (.) church-going person.’=

7X:

=[(ta shi jiaotu.) 3sg be church-member =[‘(She is a church-going person.)’

8D:

=[houlai na tian shi shei gen wo shuo wo cai zhidao de. afterwards that day be who with I say I then know PRT =[‘It was not until that day when what’s-his-name told me, then I knew.’

9X:→

ta shi. ta xianzai dagai yi ge libai .hh (. )= 3sg be 3sg now about one C week ‘She is. Now she’=

10X:→ =liang tian huo san tian shi qu chajing ou two day or three day be go bible-study PRT =‘goes to the Bible-study meeting about .h(.) 2B3 days a week OU.’ 11

(.)

Final ou

12D:

ou. (.) ta shenme shihou kaishi:: PRT 3sg what time start ‘Oh. (.) When did she start::?’

Here, X attaches an unmarked ou to her report (lines 9–10) of the frequency with which this roommate attends Bible-study meetings. Note that while this information can certainly be treated as “extraordinary” C to emphasize, for example, how pious X’s roommate has become C X’s choice of an unmarked ou, instead of the more commonly-used marked ou in this sequential position, shows that she (X) is neither treating it, nor does she intend to deliver it, this way. In other words, she is “doing” merely delivering a piece of information which she supposes D otherwise does not know. And indeed, this is how D understands it: Following a slight pause, D registers (line 12) a receipt of the news with a “change-of-state” token, ou, and then moves on to inquire about another matter. Just as the use of an unmarked ou in the turn of an informing can be “context-renewing” (Heritage 1984a:242), demonstrating thereby that the speaker is doing nothing but delivering a piece of information previously unknown to the recipient, so too can a marked ou in responsive position be exploited to display that the speaker is registering a news receipt with an additional negatively-implicated stance. A return to excerpt (23), reproduced below, oVers us a case in point. (23) (CS Party 190) 1L:

ei, shangci can- ((to W)) PRT last-time ‘Hey, last time-’

2L:

nimen qu lasiweijiasi you hhh rang ta qu?= ((to W)) you go (place) have (laugh) let 3sg go ‘(did you) let her hhh follow you (when) you guys went to Las Vegas?’=

3C:

=you. hhhh have (laugh) =‘(They) did. hhh’

4L:

you ma. have Q ‘(You) did?’

((to W))

117

118

Final Particles in Mandarin

5?:

.hhhhh (inbreath) ‘.hhhhh’

6W:

na yi ci. h[hh[[hhhhhh which one C (laugh) ‘When? h[hh[[h’

7C:

[hh[[hhhh (laugh) [‘hh[[hhh’

8L:

[[qu san tian ban de nago three day half PRT that [[‘Three and a half days-’

9L:

san tian duo de (na yi ci) three day more PRT that one C ‘When (you) went for more than three days.’

10C:

san tian duo de na yi ci? three day more PRT that one C ‘More than three days?’

11C:→ ↑meiyou ou↑[:: N PRT ‘↑No:: OU↑[:::.’ 12L:

[meiyou (le:) ((in a playful tone)) N ASP [‘No.’

13C:

[hou↑::::: ni meiyou dai wo qu. (exclamation) you N take I go [‘Hoh↑::::. You didn’t take me.’

14H:

[you ma. (0.2) wo conglai meiyou qu guo name jiu. have Q I never N go ASP that long-time [‘Did (we/I)? (0.2) I’ve never been there that long.’

15

(.)

16

((people laugh))

Final ou

17C:

qu name jiu deshihou jiu bu dai wo qu. go that long-time when then N take I go ‘When (you guys) went for that long, (you) just didn’t take me.’

As was noted, the background to this excerpt is that C, a female visitor to the US, has just claimed that H and W have shown her around and have taken her along with them each time they went on a trip. In lines 1B2, L initiates an inquiry to W regarding whether or not they had also taken C with them on a previous trip to Las Vegas. While C answers positively (you ‘yes’) on behalf of W in line 3, she revises the answer to a negative one (meiyou ‘no’) and suYxes it with a marked ou (line 11), when L’s clariWcation in lines 8B9 reveals that H and W had actually gone on an extended trip to Las Vegas, which C apparently was neither informed of nor invited to. Here, unlike the cases observed in Section 3.2.3 (i.e., excerpts (15)B(22)), where unmarked ou is used merely to register a news receipt, C’s deployment of a marked ou is double-edged and implicative: It serves not only to register the matter at issue as news for her, but also to do so with a negative stance C that is, a stance of complaining. This stance, as can be noted, is subsequently made more explicit in lines 13 and 17. What the previous two examples demonstrate, then, is that marked ou and unmarked ou appear to retain their respective distinctive imports, whether in a turn of informing or in a turn which receipts an informing. In other words, while both marked ou and unmarked ou can be used to register a news delivery as well as a news receipt, the former characteristically invokes an additional sense of emphasis or implication, which is not exhibited in the use of the latter. Given that marked ou and unmarked ou share a common interactional function, i.e., the function of “newsmarking,” and that the use of marked ou regularly invokes an additional sense of emphasis or implication otherwise not present in the use of unmarked ou, the possibility can be entertained that the additional layer of import exhibited in the use of marked ou may be carried by its distinctive prosody. The proposed model for the contribution of prosody to the import of Wnal ou is demonstrated in Figure 2. It should be noted, however, that while the prosodic diVerence between marked ou and unmarked ou clearly serves here as “an activity-type distinctive signalling cue which makes diVerential reactions relevant in the next turn” (Selting 1996:239), as Figure 2 suggests, whether this prosodic diVerence resides in the particles themselves, in the intonational contours of the particle-

119

120 Final Particles in Mandarin

/ou/ “registering an epistemic alert”

with unmarked prosody (no additional meaning) registering a “plain” news receipt or a “plain” news delivery

with marked prosody “emphasis” registering an “emphatic” news receipt or an “emphatic” news delivery (i) reveals that the matter at issue is extraordinary in character, and/or (ii) alerts recipients to additional negatively-valenced interactional work

Figure 2. The contribution of prosody to final ou

suYxed utterances, or in an interaction of both, remains an open question. More research in this area is needed to elucidate this matter.

3.4.3 Final ou as a linguistic resource for registering an epistemic alert Whereas the vast majority of tokens of Wnal ou in the present corpus are observed to share an intrinsic “newsmarking” property, this property, as Figure 1 also reveals, does not Wgure prominently in a small subset of unmarked tokens in the corpus. This subset, discussed earlier in Section 3.2.1, involves cases in which unmarked ou is attached to a candidate understanding which the current speaker has formulated from a prior turn’s talk. While this kind of ou-suYxed candidate understanding may be double-barreled, that is, being news-implicated and repair-relevant at the same time, some of these uses appear to involve only the latter kind of work, i.e., to clarify, or help clarify, what seemed opaque to the ou speaker in another’s prior talk (e.g., (5), (6), (7), (8)). How, then, are we to understand the role of Wnal ou in this small subset? How is the use of Wnal ou in this subset related to the vast majority of ou tokens which adumbrate an intrinsic newsmarking property? More relevantly, is there a general account that can encompass both subsets?

Final ou

I wish to suggest that there is, and that this account is: Underlying the apparent diVerences between these subsets is a more fundamental similarity C the similarity that these ou tokens are all used to register an epistemic alert. That is, they are used either to instruct the recipients to scrutinize the talk for what merits special attention with respect to its epistemic status, or to display that the speakers themselves have just undergone such a process and have just come to a newly epistemically-transformed state with respect to the matter at issue. SpeciWcally, the use of Wnal ou to signal an epistemic alert to the recipient Wgures in cases where the ou tokens are deployed in a turn of informing. And the use of Wnal ou to embody the speaker’s having just undergone such an /ou/ “registering an epistemic alert”

“newsmarking” with unmarked prosody

proposing that the speaker has just come to understand or recall something that was previously opaque to him/her

making a confirmation or disconfirmation relevant next

with unmarked prosody (no additional meaning)

with marked prosody “emphasis”

registering a “plain” news receipt or a “plain” news delivery

registering an “emphatic” news receipt or an “emphatic” news delivery (i) reveals that the matter at issue is extraordinary in character, and/or (ii) alerts recipients to additional negativelyvalenced interactional work

Figure 3.

The imports and functions of final ou

121

122 Final Particles in Mandarin

epistemically transforming process Wgures in cases where the ou-suYxed utterances serve as a news receipt, where they serve as a repair initiator, and where they serve as both: In all of these cases, the ou speakers display, through the practice of ou-suYxing, that something which had otherwise not crossed their minds has just now occurred to them; in other words, they have just come to a newly epistemically-transformed state because of a prior turn’s talk (or because of the noticing of something in the physical context). The discussions of the imports and functions of Wnal ou in this chapter are summarized schematically in Figure 3. Having examined the uses of Wnal ou as an epistemic alert marker in its prosodically marked and unmarked forms, we will turn our attention to another Wnal particle C Wnal a C in Chapter 4.

Notes 1. I thank Emanuel SchegloV for suggesting this term. My use of the term is my responsibility. 2. Although the speakers may also alert the recipients to something in the physical setting, or display that they themselves have come to a newly epistemically-transformed state because of their having noticed something in the physical context of the talk, the central focus of this chapter will be on cases where this kind of epistemic alert is prompted by another’s talk or behavior in a prior turn. 3. In a study of Taiwanese Wnal particles, which only came to my attention after the present study was completed, I. Li (1999) observes very similar functions of the Taiwanese Wnal particle ou as those observed to be performed by the Mandarin Wnal ou in the present corpus. She argues that the central meaning of the Taiwanese ou is a marker of “introduction/reception of new information,” suggesting that in unmarked uses, the ou particle with a low-falling pitch is used to signal “speaker orientation” (i.e., marking the reception of new information by the speaker), whereas with a mid-level, a high-level or a low-rising pitch, this particle is used to signal “addressee-orientation” (i.e., marking the introduction of new information to the addressee.) I. Li herself, however, points out a few exceptional contexts in which such a distinction becomes blurred, and in which she argues that Wnal ou with a low-falling pitch, relative to that with a level or with a rising pitch, serves to signal a lower degree of involvement on the part of the speaker, displaying such stances as detachment or indiVerence. In the present study, while “newsmarking” is also observed to be an intrinsic property of the Mandarin Wnal ou, and while prosody is also observed to play a key role in calibrating the exact sense conveyed by a particular token of the Mandarin ou (cf., also, Wu 1997b), the eVect of prosody on the Mandarin Wnal ou does not seem to be an index of

Final ou 123

the direction of participation orientation or of speaker involvement, as suggested and deWned by I. Li for the Taiwanese Wnal ou; rather, as will be demonstrated in Sections 3.3 and 3.4 of this chapter, the major function of prosody on the Mandarin ou is to give a special sense of emphasis, registering an “emphatic” news receipt or an “emphatic” news delivery. Whether the diVerence between I. Li’s proposal and the proposal of the present study arises from the diVerence in use between the Taiwanese Wnal ou and the Mandarin Wnal ou remains, however, an open question. 4. It should be noted that in the present corpus while marked ou is observed to be used by speakers from both Taiwan and Mainland China, unmarked ou seems to be used predominantly by speakers from Taiwan. 5. Exceptional cases of this kind will be further discussed in Section 3.4.2 (excerpt (41)). See also note 22 in this chapter. 6. For the purpose of consistency, the glossing convention used in the original study for (2)B(4) has been changed to that of the present study. 7. The ambiguity here turns in part on the verb zou, which in the present context can mean ‘to go,’ ‘to leave,’ or even ‘to quit (a job).’ 8. Unlike the one in line 8, this conWrmation question (line 6) is done in the form of a tag question (shi bu shi ‘right’), which, according to Li and Thompson (1981), is “seeking only conWrmation” (ibid.:548). It may be worthwhile for future studies to explore the diVerences between these two types C and other types C of conWrmation questions. 9. Although the focus of this chapter is on the ou particle in TCU-Wnal position, it should be pointed out that Mandarin does have an ou particle which can either stand alone (as in line 10 in excerpt (7) in this chapter) or be combined with other turn components and occur in TCU-initial position (as in line 7 in excerpt (7) in this chapter). A preliminary examination of the free-standing or the TCU-initial ou shows that it behaves very similarly to the English oh (see, for example, Heritage 1984b, 1998 and 2002a for an explication of the English oh), although a more complete explication of the TCU-initial or freestanding ou in Mandarin is beyond the scope of this book. 10. It should be noted, however, that in (8) speaker L deploys two devices in constructing her conWrmation question (line 4) C the use of ni shuo ‘you mean’ and the practice of ousuYxing. And, as it turns out, recipient W appears to have grasped the import of this question before the Wnal ou is produced, with the result that W’s conWrmatory response (line 5) is produced in partial overlap with the Wnal ou. 11. It is not uncommon, however, for an ou-suYxed utterance to receive a recipient disconWrmation. Further study is required to examine such cases and their implications. 12. See, however, note 10. 13. It may be noted that the utterance in line 8 is, in fact, an ou-initiated utterance. The appearance of the ou particle in the initial position here reXects the speaker’s “nowinformed” status. This status presumably arises from the information provided by speaker L in line 5, which apparently has served to jog the memory of speaker Y in line 8, thus prompting her to make an ou-initial utterance.

124 Final Particles in Mandarin

14. This should not be taken as implying that a candidate understanding which is not suYxed with ou never gets a conWrmation. In fact, many of these candidate understandings do attract conWrmation, as in the following: (CS Party) L: cunxianyizhi dou zai %R&D% de bumen (a). (a mutual friend) always all be R&D PRT department PRT ‘Cunxian has been (working) in the Department of %R&D.%’ X:

uh-huh. PRT ‘Uh huh.’ (1.0)

H:→

ou. cunxian dui %R&D% bijiao you xingqu. PRT (friend) toward R&D relatively have interest ‘Oh. Cunxian is more interested in %R&D%.’

L:→

dui. ta yizhi liu zai nabian. right 3sg always stay at there ‘Right. He’s been working there.’

This, however, seems to be motivated on a diVerent ground: As previous work (e.g., Labov and Fanshel 1977) has shown, even constructed as declaratives, “B”-event statements, statements which describe information primarily known to the recipient, can be heard as inquiries which invite conWrmation. The crucial point to note here is that when a candidate understanding delivered with a statement intonation is not responded to with a conWrmation or disconWrmation, it is hardly ever treated as missing as would regularly be the case if the candidate understanding were suYxed with ou. 15. It should be noted, however, that the use of ou-suYxing to mark a news receipt is not entirely absent from all of the preceding cases. Cases in which the usage of ou-suYxing appears equivocal (i.e., whether it adumbrates a conWrmation request or a news receipt) to the parties in conversation will be further discussed in Section 3.2.4. 16. With respect to the information targeted by the ou-suYxed understanding check (i.e., L’s having transferred to teach at a senior high school), it may be helpful to point out that it is more common for one to teach at a junior high school, at least when this conversation was recorded. Being able to teach at a senior high school is thus considered as more “privileged.” 17. The context in which these two stance markers are produced and the way in which they are delivered suggest that the ou speakers use these stance markers to assert solidarity with the recipients against a third party outside of the conversation (cf. Mori 1999). Namely, these markers serve to display the ou speakers’ concerns about the greater than

Final ou

ordinary requirements or tasks (i.e., the number of credits R was required to take; a diYcult course L was assigned to teach) imposed on the recipients by that party. 18. This is evidenced by the fact that, in (21), L’s follow-up question (line 6) is produced in overlap with R’s response (line 5) to L’s prior ou-suYxed utterance (line 4). 19. This is meant to capture the cases in which Wnal ou is not attached to a candidate understanding or a repeat, but is attached to a newsmark (e.g., zhende ‘really’) or lexical items displaying a state of realization (e.g., zhe yangzi ‘I see’), illustrated by the arrowed turns below: (Tea time s-2 a343) W: ta hui jiang hao duo. ta hui ting hao duo ou↑ 3sg can speak very much 3sg can hear very much PRT ‘She can speak a lot (of Chinese). She can understand a lot.’ L:→ zhende ou.= really PRT ‘Really OU?’= W:

=suoyi wo jiu zai ta mian qian jiang hei: nimen dou buyao xiaokan ta ou↑= so I then at 3sg face front say PRT you all N belittle 3sg PRT =‘So, I then said in front of her, “Hey, don’t you guys belittle her.”’=

W:

=ta hui ting zhongwen. 3sg can hear Chinese =‘“She can understand Chinese.”’

L:→ zhe yangzi ou= this manner PRT ‘I see OU.’= 20. While not a focus of this analysis, it is interesting to note that this free-standing (h)ou, which is produced with the same intonational contour as the marked ou, shares a common feature with it in that they are both essentially “forward-looking” C i.e., proposing that there is something yet to come. 21. This excerpt will be explicated in greater detail in Section 3.4.2. 22. This ou, used as part of the structure for expressing exclamations, haoY.ou ‘How (adjective) OU!’, is always realized in the prosodically unmarked form C namely, with a Xat, low pitch C whether it occurs in Wrst position or in responsive position in a sequence. This type of ou is also among the few cases in which unmarked ou is found in Wrst position in the present corpus. 23. The apparent discrepancies between the story teller’s and the story recipients’ interpretations of the import of the story may come from a change in the story teller’s displayed stance toward the event being reported in the course of its telling: On the one hand, recipient S’s provision of a mimicking sound (piu) and laugh tokens here (line 22) C as well as recipients F’s and L’s laughter (in lines 17 and 19 respectively) C can be understood

125

126 Final Particles in Mandarin

as displays of alignment with the story teller W’s initial characterization of the story C that it is “funny” (line 1). On the other hand, however, while W may initially proVer a characterization of this kind in a “troubles-resistance” (JeVerson 1988) fashion, she appears to shift to a more serious mode of telling when she moves to formulate the import of the telling (lines 20B21) after the story comes to a possible completion point, and after she hears how the recipients make light of (lines 17, 19) her prior telling. 24. It is interesting to note that while C’s preemptive telling turns out to involve exactly the same material as what H subsequently projects, C’s telling C in contrast to H’s C is not suYxed with a marked ou. Additionally, it can be noted that C’s subsequent conWrmation (line 4) intersects with the marked ou in H’s informing, which suggests that C not only does not use a marked ou herself, she also appears not to expect H to use one. These two actions by C may be accounted for by the fact that C already knows the news, and that, in contrast to H, she does not treat this news, or intend to deliver it, as extraordinary or implicative. 25. Tongyi is the company which owns the chain of “7-Eleven” stores in Taiwan. 26. In this excerpt, however, there are two rounds of counter-assertion: In the Wrst one (lines 3B5), speaker H is disagreeing with an assertion speaker S has just made in lines 1B2, and in the other (lines 6B7), speaker S is countering this disagreement by H with another piece of evidence. These two rounds of counter-assertion will be marked respectively as 2a and 2b. 27. Of course, the use of marked ou to convey a warning can also occur in Wrst position in a sequence. I wish to suggest that, in this sequential context, the practice of ou-suYxing commonly operates reXexively; i.e., its use regularly embodies some presupposition or background knowledge on the part of the speaker which suggests the potential “warnable” character of the matter being warned against. 28. Note that the Wrst turn constructional unit in line 15 is composed of an utterance built with the “topic-comment” structure, a prominent feature of Mandarin Chinese (Li and Thompson 1981): The “topic” is luyin ‘recording,’ which is repeated from the ou-suYxed utterance (line 11), and the “comment” is mei guanxi ‘doesn’t matter.’ 29. The transcript of this excerpt has been slightly simpliWed; another brief simultaneous conversation is not included here. 30. Aside from the cases in which unmarked ou Wgures as part of the structure, haoYou ‘How (adjective) OU!,’ where ou is always realized in the prosodically unmarked form, and where ou is frequently found in Wrst position in a sequence, excerpt (41) is one of the only two cases found in the present corpus where unmarked ou is used in a turn of informing.

Final a 127

Chapter 4

Final a

4.1

Introduction

The status of Wnal a as a modal particle has been well documented in the literature. Not only has it been proposed to have its earliest origin1 as a “hypothetical particle” (jiashe zhuci) (Ota 1987 [1958]), it is also one of those very few Wnal particles which have been unanimously included as exemplars in almost all reference grammars of Modern Mandarin Chinese (e.g., Chao 1968; Li and Thompson 1981; Zhu 1982; Ota 1987 [1958]). Despite its frequent mention in the reference grammars, there have been very few works that have attempted to provide an account for the meanings and functions of this Wnal particle. Chao (1968:803B806), one of the earliest of these works, lists ten diVerent functional uses for the Wnal particle a: (1) “Starting a question” (2) “ConWrmation question” (3) “Vocative particle” (4) “Commands” (5) “Exclamation” (6) “Impatient statement” (7) “Reminder” (8) “Warning” (9) “Pause for hearer” (10) “Enumeration” While Chao does not propose any central meaning (or meanings) of this Wnal particle, a careful examination of his descriptive statements reveals two interesting, yet somehow contrasting, views regarding the use of Wnal a: On the one hand, he claims that the addition of Wnal a appears to make the tone softened and less blunt (e.g., in his discussions of (1), (3), (8)); on the other hand, he seems to take the position that Wnal a can be used with the opposite eVect C eVects such as conveying a “slightly insistent air” (e.g., in (4)), a force of “of

128 Final Particles in Mandarin

course you know” (e.g., in (6)), or a “condescending manner” on the part of the speaker (e.g., in (10)). These views have been made more explicit in the later works on a. For example, Li and Thompson (1981:313B317) propose the basic semantic and pragmatic function for the Wnal particle a as “reducing the forcefulness of the message conveyed by the sentence,” with their discussion focused mainly on the examples about which Chao (ibid.) appeared to hold a similar view. Zhu (1982) claims that while suYxing a question with Wnal a can make it less blunt, suYxing it to a declarative or an imperative sentence nonetheless conveys an import of warning or reminding. Likewise, Chu (2002:4) argues that although Wnal a in his data does indeed appear to reduce the forcefulness of the utterance it attaches to, this function of “reduced forcefulness” is not applicable in all cases. In fact, in many instances he found that, “the presence of the particle actually intensiWes the force of whatever kind contained in the utterance.” He therefore proposes the function of Wnal a instead as expressing “speaker involvement.”2 The intensifying function has also been highlighted in a few recent CFL (Chinese as a Foreign Language) textbooks (Kubler and Ho 1984; Yao et al. 1997), where Wnal a is glossed as a particle for doing emphasis C “to emphasize agreement, exclamation, interrogation, etc.” (Yao et al. 1997:113). As will be shown in this chapter, while previous investigations of the contexts in which the Wnal particle a can occur have produced important insights into the nature of a, such characterizations of its senses and associated functions do not always hold true when tested against authentic conversational data. Diverging from previous characterizations of a, I will propose and demonstrate in this chapter that Wnal a in TCU-Wnal position generally exhibits a “contrast-invoking” property; namely, it is used to mark a discrepancy in knowledge, expectation or perspective regarding some state of aVairs between the current speaker (i.e., the a user) and the prior speaker. Important to note is that the discrepancy invoked through this practice is regularly assessmentladen, which in turn implicates, and reXexively embodies, the speaker’s preexisting knowledge, perspective, expectation or experience in relation to the matter at issue. In what follows, I will focus on the use of a in TCU-Wnal position. Examination of the data reveals two phonetically diVerent a tokens: a with a notably low pitch and a with a Xat or a slightly higher pitch.3 These manifestations of a will be discussed in Sections 4.2 and 4.3 below.

Final a 129

4.2

A with a notably low pitch

In the present corpus, Wnal a, when produced with a notably low pitch and a slightly falling intonation, is generally attached to a grammatically-constructed question or deployed as a means by which a conWrmation question is constructed. In this section, we will begin by examining cases in which Wnal a itself is used to construct a conWrmation question C cases which I have termed “aformulated questions.” We will then move to cases in which this Wnal particle is attached to a grammatically-constructed question C cases which will be termed “a-attached questions.”

4.2.1

A-formulated questions

4.2.1.1 ConWrmation requests and pre-disagreements The use of Wnal a as a device for constructing conWrmation questions has long been recognized in the literature (e.g., Chao 1968; Li and Thompson 1981; Tao 1996). This Wnal particle, as with Wnal ou, can be attached to a declarative statement and thereby transform the status of that statement into one which makes conWrmation or disconWrmation relevant next. Such a-formulated questions regularly serve as understanding checks initiated as a result of problems in hearing or understanding the preceding talk. In that respect, they are part of what is known otherwise in conversation analysis as the organization of repair.4 They can take the form of a repeat or partial repeat of the trouble source turn, as in excerpts (1) and (2), or a candidate understanding of what the current speaker takes to be what the prior speaker may have intended, as in excerpt (3): (1) (CS Party A094A) ((T is reporting on his itinerary for an upcoming trip when X joins in with a piece of information about their mutual supervisor at line 1.)) 1X:→1 na ge libai laoban bu zai a.5 that C week boss N at PRT ‘The boss won’t be here that week.’ 2

(.)

3T:=>2 na ge libai laoban bu zai a) that C week boss N at PRT ‘The boss won’t be here that week A)’

130 Final Particles in Mandarin

4X:→3 dui a.= right PRT ‘(That’s) right.’= 5H:→4 =a shenme shihou huilai. PRT what time return =‘And when (will you) come back?’ (2) (T-copyright 235) ((L is inquiring about the academic progress of a mutual friend.)) 1L:→1 pt! ei, na %jul- j-% shenme shihou biye. PRT then (name) what time graduate ‘pt! By the way, when will %Jul- j-% graduate?’ 2

(.)

3T:=>2 %julie% a) (name) PRT ‘%Julie% A)’ 4L:→3 hen. PRT ‘Yeah.’ 5

(0.2)

6T:→4 dagai shiyue ba probably October PRT ‘Probably October.’ (3) (CS Party A025A) ((L is inquiring about what T had purchased at a wholesaler.)) 1L:→1 ni qu %price club% mai shenme. you go (wholesaler) buy what ‘What did you buy at %Price Club%?’ 2

(0.2)

3T:=>2 jintian a) today PRT ‘Today A)’ 4L:→3 hen. PRT ‘Yeah.’

Final a

5T:→4 mai- zhuyao shi mai shancun naxie. buy mainly be buy (vitamin supplement) those ‘(I) bought- (I) bought mainly stuV like Centrum.’

In each of these cases, a hearing or understanding problem (arrow 1) is displayed through an a-formulated question (arrow 2); and after that question is addressed by the provision of a responsive conWrmation (arrow 3), a momentarily suspended activity is then resumed (arrow 4). In this context, the use of a embodies the speaker’s less-than-full grasp of what has just been delivered or intended by another speaker and therefore can be viewed as invoking a contrast in the current knowledge or information state between the a speaker and his or her coparticipant. But Wnal a does not always mark a contrast resulting from the speaker’s lack of full knowledge of what another knows. It also can, and frequently does, mark a contrast arising from an incongruity of knowledge or information C that is, an incongruity between what the previous speaker has just said and what the a speaker presumes or believes to be true based on independent knowledge.6 This is supported by the fact that a substantial number of aformulated questions in the present corpus are deployed as harbingers of subsequent disaYliative moves on the part of the a speaker. Consider, for example, the following two excerpts, both from a telephone conversation between a dancer (viz., X) and an acquaintance of hers. In (4), speaker X is comparing herself to one of her colleagues in terms of the length of their respective dance training. In (5), speaker D is reporting a story which she heard about X’s roommate. (4) (T-dancer 077) 1X:

ta gaozhong xue. wo y- xu- wo san sui jiu xue wu le a 3sg high-school learn I I three age then learn dance CRS PRT ‘She learned (to dance) in high school. I o- le- I learned to dance at three.’

2

((background noise))

3D:=>1 ni san sui jiu xue wu a) you three age then learn dance PRT ‘You learned to dance at three A)’ 4X:→2 um. PRT ‘Um.’

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132 Final Particles in Mandarin

5D:→3 ou:: wo zeme kan bu chulai::. PRT I how see N out ‘Oh:: how come I couldn’t tell::?’ (5) (T-Dancer 211) 1D:

jieguo renjia gen wo shuo ta shi waishengren= result others with I say 3sg be mainlander ‘And then (when) other people told me that she is a mainlander,’=

2D:

=wo- (.) wo (ziji) dou xia yi tiao a= I I self all shock one C PRT =‘I- (.) I (myself) was shocked.’ =

3X:=>1 =ta shi waishengren a) 3sg be mainlander PRT =‘She is a mainlander A)’ 4D:→2 dui a right PRT ‘(That’s) right.’ 5X:→3 ta yi ban yi ban la. 3sg one half one half PRT ‘She’s half and half.’ 6X:→3 yi ban kejia yi ban:: one half Hakka one half ‘Half Hakka and half:: (mainlander.)’

In each case, immediately following the responsive conWrmation (arrow 2), the information checked by an a-formulated question (arrow 1) is contested by the a speaker on the basis of her independent knowledge or experience (arrow 3): In (4), the believability of X’s assertion about her dance history is questioned by D on the ground that it runs contrary to what D has otherwise expected of X based on their prior contacts (line 5); in (5), the validity of D’s report of the genealogical background of X’s roommate is rejected by X with a corrective counterinforming (lines 5B6). The use of a-formulated questions to project contrastive and/or disaligning responses can also be observed in excerpts (6) and (7) below. In contrast to excerpts (4) and (5), the speakers of the a-formulated questions in these two instances do not overtly contradict the prior speakers’ assertions, but rather bring in another perspective involved in the issues being discussed in order to support a diVerent position.

Final a

Excerpt (6) comes from a multi-party conversation among a group of friends. Immediately preceding this excerpt, the participants were engaged in a discussion of a popular chain store in Taiwan, a topic initiated by speaker X’s claim that it takes a lot of capital to start a franchised business with this chain. Shortly after this sequence is brought to a conclusion, speaker C displays a disagreeing stance (bu hui a ‘can’t be’; line 1) and follows it with an assertion that the franchise fee of this chain store is not high (lines 2, 5), which is hearably a rebuttal of X’s stated position on the matter at hand. To this, X launches an a-formulated question (arrow 1) in the form of a partial repeat of C’s assertion. (6) (CS Party A119b) 1C:

bu hui a N can PRT ‘Can’t be.’

2C:

ta zai taiwan shuo: na ge: (.) jiaru na ge quanlijin a 3sg at Taiwan say that C join that C franchise-fee PRT ‘In Taiwan they said: that uh:: (.) the franchise fee,’

3L:

[hen PRT [‘Yeah?’

4X:

[uh PRT [‘Uh.’

5C:

hoaxing bu shi hen gao a= seem N be very high PRT ‘doesn’t seem very high.’=

6X:=>1

=quanlijin bu gui a) franchise-fee N expensive PRT =‘The franchise fee is not expensive A)’

7C:→2

dui a tingshuo [qishi bu gao. right PRT I-heard actually N high ‘(That’s) right. (I) heard [(it’s) actually not high.’

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134 Final Particles in Mandarin

8X:→3

9X:→3

[ou. keshi ta houlai chou shui bu shi ch- baPRT but it later apply tax N be [‘Oh. But isn’t the tax it later requires- er-’ choucheng bu shi chou man gao de. commission N be commission pretty high PRT ‘Isn’t the commission pretty high?’

Notice that after C conWrms this a-formulated question with dui a ‘(that’s) right’ (arrow 2), X Wrst acknowledges it with ou but then moves on to launch a challenge prefaced with keshi ‘but’ (arrow 3, lines 8, 9). Here X does not reject the validity of C’s prior assertion about the franchise fee but invites her to consider another aspect of the issue under discussion C that high commission fees are required after the initial franchise fee C which C had otherwise overlooked in expressing her opposition to X’s prior claim. A similar pattern can be seen in excerpt (7), which is taken from the same sequence cited in (4) above. In this excerpt, the a-formulated question (arrow 1) is launched after D’s report of a rumor about one of X’s colleagues (lines 1, 4) is disconWrmed by X (lines 3, 5). (7) (T-dancer 077) 1D:

ou tingshuo ta shi nimen yiqian de longtoulaoda. PRTI-heard 3sg be your before PRT leader ‘Oh, (I) heard that she was your leader before.’

2

(0.5)

3X:

[mei:, N [‘No:,’

4D:

[jiao nime- (0.3 ) jiushi jiao nimen de (la)/(a)= teach you that-is teach you PRT PRT PRT [‘Taught you- (0.3) That is, the one who taught you.’=

5X:

=meiyou. wo meiyou bei ta jiao guo (la)/(a).= N I N BEI 3sg teach ASP PRT PRT =‘No:. I’ve never been taught by her.’=

6D:=>1

=ou ni- (.) ni meiyou bei ta jiao guo a) PRT you you N BEI 3sg teach ASP PRT =‘Oh you- (.) you’ve never been taught by her A)’

Final a

7X:→2

wo meiyou, ta- (.) zenme keneng jiao guo wo lei. I N 3sg how possible teach ASP I PRT ‘I never. She- (.) how can she possibly have taught me?’

8X:→2

ta cai da wo mei duo- (.) 3sg only old I N many ‘She is not much older than I- (.)’

9X:→2

jiushi na zhong (.) e:n lun wuling dehua, that-is that kind PRT regarding years-of-dancing if ‘I mean, the kind of (.) en: if (compared) in terms of the years of dancing,’

10D:

uh-huh. PRT ‘Uh huh.’

11X:→2

ye meiyou duo shao a. also N many few PRT ‘there is not much (diVerence.)’

12D:→3 keshi ta haoxiang shi jiao na ge shei, shufang bu shi ma but 3sg seem be teach that C who (name) N be Q ‘But she seemed to have taught what’s-her-name, Shufang, didn’t she?’

Here again, after the recipient X reaYrms (arrow 2, lines 7B9, 11) her prior assertion C a denial of a claimed apprentice/master relationship with this colleague C the speaker of the a-formulated question, D, launches a turn prefaced with keshi ‘but’ (arrow 3): Through it, speaker D points to a related matter (i.e., this colleague’s having taught another dancer whom they both know), which, while not directly challenging recipient X’s prior assertion or its subsequent reconWrmation, makes evident that speaker D has held a diVerent view on the given issue all along, and at the same time provides justiWcation for it. What is of additional interest in these two excerpts is that the a-formulated questions are not only produced by the speakers, but also understood by the recipients, as disagreement-implicated. This can be supported by the fact that both recipients upgrade the epistemic strength of their prior assertions in responding to these a-formulated questions. For example, in (6), we can notice that the recipient follows her simple conWrmation of the question (dui a ‘(that’s) right’; line 7) with a reassertion of her prior position (tingshuo qishi bu gui ‘(I) heard (it’s) actually not high’); and this reassertion, which otherwise appears substantively to be the same as what she had said before (at line 5), is

135

136 Final Particles in Mandarin

accorded a “facticity” force through the use of qishi ‘actually’7 and appears designed in view of the overtones of misalignment implicated in the a-formulated question. Similarly, in (7), the a-formulated question is met with upgraded conWrmations C an emphatic rejection (i.e., wo meiyou ‘I never’ with a stress on the negative marker mei; line 7), followed by a complete denial of the grounds for D’s prior claim (ta zenme keneng jiao guo wo lei ‘How can she possibly have taught me?’; line 7), and Wnally a basis for this denial (at lines 8, 9). These elaborate and emphatic responses suggest that the recipient does not treat this question as a straightforward conWrmation request, but as one which involves the possibility of non-alignment toward her prior claim (at line 5), which she therefore feels impelled to defend. In fact, recipients of a-formulated questions may not only implicitly build into the design of their responses the understanding that these questions are deployed to project incipient misalignment, as the previous two examples have shown. They may also overtly display that understanding by attempting to preempt the misalignment projected by the a-formulated questions. Consider, for example, the following excerpt from a telephone conversation between two graduate students. This excerpt begins with an ensuing lapse (line 1) after a prior discussion of a work project is brought to a close. At lines 4B5, speaker L initiates a unilateral topic shift through a series of inquiries about the academic progress of W’s co-worker (Xiaohan), who is also a mutual friend of theirs. One of these inquiries (i.e., xiaohan zenme ban nei ‘What could Xiaohan do?’; line 4), notably, adumbrates a presumption that this friend may have trouble obtaining his degree as planned. (8) (T-oYcemate, 037) 1

(2.0)

2L:

bu xiaode:::. N know ‘No idea::.’

3

(.)

4L:

a xiaohan zenme ban nei. xiaohan:: tch! PRT (name) how do PRT (name) ‘What could Xiaohan do? Xiaohan:: tch!’

Final a 137

5L:

ta- ta bu shi shujia yao biye ma. haishi zenyang. 3sg 3sg N be summer ASP graduate Q or what ‘He- isn’t he going to graduate in the summer? Or what?’

6W:→

xiaohan a) [xiaohan ta- wenti hai hao ban a (name) PRT (name) 3sg problem still good deal-with PRT ‘Xiaohan A) [Xiaohan his- problem is still easy to deal with.’

7L:

[%fall-% fall [‘%Fall-%’

Here, in response to L’s troubles-implicated query, W launches an a-formulated question (line 6). Like those in (4)B(7), this a-formulated question is intended as a harbinger of a dispreferred response. This can be evidenced both by W’s subsequent delivery of a disaligning response which dismisses L’s concern as unnecessary (i.e., xiaohan ta- wenti hai hao ban a ‘Xiaohan hisproblem is still easy to deal with’; line 6), and by his move to deliver this dismissal without awaiting a responsive conWrmation of his prior a-formulated question. Of particular interest in this excerpt is that, in response to W’s a-suYxed partial repeat (xiaohan a ‘Xiaohan A?’; line 6), and in overlap with his ensuing disaligning response (xiaohan ta- wenti hai hao ban a ‘Xiaohan his- problem is still easy to deal with’), L moves (in line 7) to preempt what he takes it W is about to project C namely, a correction (i.e., “fall (quarter)”; line 7) to L’s just delivered candidate understanding of this friend’s graduation time frame (i.e., shujia ‘in the summer’; line 5). While L turns out to err in his anticipation of the trajectory of W’s subsequent talk, his preemptive move does display an accurate understanding of W’s deployment of the a-formulated question as embodying a contrastive and non-aligning stance. It is worth noting that while in the earlier examples (e.g., (6), (7)), the aformulated questions are deployed after the questioners’ prior claims have been rejected, and the overtones of misalignment implicated in the use of these a-formulated questions are thus arguably available from their sequential contexts as well, (8) oVers a “clean” case in which the a-formulated question does not serve as a response to disagreement, making it evident that the sense of contrastiveness and disaYliation picked up by the recipient can indeed be carried by the production of an a-formulated question alone. What excerpts (4)B(8) demonstrate, then, is a speciWc undertaking that aformulated questions can serve to accomplish, namely, foreshadowing up-

138 Final Particles in Mandarin

coming contrastive and/or dispreferred responses. Such foreshadowed responses, as we have seen in the examples above, may manifest themselves subsequently as straightforward disagreements (e.g., (4)), counter-informings (e.g., (5), (8)), or various assertions which can problematize a prior speaker’s informing and/or undermine the validity of the information by making relevant another perspective yet to be considered in discussing the matter at issue (e.g., (6), (7)). Across these sequences, the use of a-formulated questions is associated with speakers’ attempts to call into question some earlier-evoked information the speakers Wnd problematic by reference to their prior knowledge, information, or experience. In this sense, such a use of Wnal a can be understood as embodying a divergence between the parties’ understandings of, or perspectives on, some state of aVairs. Whereas understanding checks and pre-disagreements C the two uses of a-formulated questions that we have considered so far C are not the only ones found in the present corpus, they are by far the most common usages of aformulated questions. Before we proceed to consider other slightly diVerent instances (e.g., (13), (14)), it may be useful to discuss in more detail how the particle a Wgures in these two operations in invoking contrasts.

4.2.1.2 Final a and invoking a contrast To better understand the work accomplished with the use of a in the above sequences, it is essential to examine comparable sequences in which this Wnal particle is absent. It may be recalled that, as we have noted in the discussion of Wnal ou in Chapter 3, repair initiators in the form of a repeat or partial repeat of the trouble source turn are not always suYxed with a Wnal particle, and such question-intoned bare repeats regularly embody speakers’ non-comprehension of the repeated elements. Excerpt (9), from the same telephone conversation as (8), oVers another instance which involves such a use of bare repeats. In this example, W has been reporting on how he and his co-worker plan to complete a project. As this report comes to a possible completion, L proposes (line 3), through a partial repeat, some diYculty with W’s just-prior talk. (9) (T-oYcemate 035) 1W:

yi bufen deng- (.) one part wait ‘The other part (we’ll) wait- (.)’

Final a 139

2W:

jiuyue huilai zai zuo ba. September return then do PRT ‘(We) probably won’t work on it until- (he) comes back in September.’

3L:→

jiuyue huilai? September return ‘Comes back in September?’

4L:

[shenme yisi. what mean [‘What (do you) mean?’

5W:

[jiuyue zai kaishi zuo na [ge a September then start do that C PRT [‘Start to work on that in Septembe[r.’

6L:

[ou, jiuyue kaishi. PRT September start [‘Oh, start in September.’

It can be noted that this repeat-formatted repair initiator is both produced and understood as the speaker’s lack of understanding of the piece of information repeated. This can be evidenced by the repeat speaker’s further explication of his diYculty as a comprehension problem (shenme yisi ‘What (do you) mean?’; line 4); by the recipient’s simultaneous move to repair the trouble source through a clariWcation (line 5); and by the fact that this clariWcation, in turn, is acknowledged by the repeat speaker in a way (i.e., with an “ou + repeat” format; line 6) that treats the clariWcation as providing an adequate solution to his proposed problem. Comparing excerpt (9) with excerpts (1) and (2) in this chapter, we can see that these three excerpts are similar in that all three involve a repair initiation in the form of a repeat. However, we can see diVerent epistemic stances displayed by the use or non-use of Wnal a: Whereas frequently a bare repeat with a question intonation locates something that the speaker claims to not understand and requires further clariWcation about, the addition of a marks the repeated element as something that the speaker proposes to understand, and for which a conWrmation or disconWrmation would be suYcient. In this regard, it should be noted that what Wnal a invokes is not merely a contrast between the information or knowledge states of conversational coparticipants; its occurrence also indexes that its speaker has had a relatively8 strong and conWdent grasp of the matter in question.

140 Final Particles in Mandarin

Similar epistemic work of indexing not only an information gap but the speaker’s strong access to the matter involved is also clearly visible in the other use of a which we have seen in the previous section C namely, when aformulated questions are deployed as pre-disagreements. This can be attested to in our earlier observation that all these sequences involve the use of an aformulated question to cast doubt on the truth value of the information delivered in a previous turn, with this questioning stance subsequently supported and justiWed by evidence grounded in the questioner’s independent experience or knowledge. This higher degree of speaker certainty about his or her grasp of the matter at hand also appears to be implicated in another unique feature of these sequences: In contrast to other dispreferred responses, these a-formulated questions notably are delivered not only without delay, but actually in a compressed manner, namely, latched onto the immediately preceding turns (e.g., marked by “=” in (5), (6) and (7), and by “[” in (8)). That such an epistemic stance is conveyed mainly by the deployment of Wnal a, rather than by the utterance to which this Wnal particle attaches C commonly a repeat or partial repeat of prior turn by another C again becomes clearer if we look at sequences involving question-intoned bare repeats. In this latter set of instances, while bare repeats are observed also to participate in dispreferred interactional work, such sequences generally exhibit very diVerent patterns from those in (4)B(8). Consider, for example, the following three excerpts. Excerpts (10) and (12) have been taken from telephone conversations and excerpt (11) is from a multi-party conversation. Each of these excerpts will be presented initially, and an explication of all three excerpts will follow. Excerpt (10) is taken from a conversation recorded at the end of August between two friends, L and U, who haven’t contacted each other for a while. This excerpt involves a sequence in which L is pursuing further information about U’s new job, a topic which U has shown unwillingness to develop all along. (10) (T-career) 1L:

a shenme- (.) shihou likai. PRT what time leave ‘And when- (.) (will you) leave (for your new job)?’

Final a

2U:→1

hhhh (.) jiuyue a. hh (laugh) September PRT (laugh) ‘hhhhh (.) September. hhh’

3L:=>2

jiuyue? September ‘September?’

4U:

hen. PRT ‘Yeah.’

5

(.)

6L:→3

jiuyue mashang dao le a jiu xia libai le a= September immediately arrive CRS PRT just next week CRS PRT ‘September is coming soon. (That’s) coming up next week.’=

7U:

=dui a right PRT =‘(That’s) right.’

8

(.)

9L:

ou::, %i see% PRT I see ‘Oh::, %I see.%’

Excerpt (11) comes from a conversation among a group of teachers and a former colleague (W) of theirs. Immediately preceding this excerpt, speaker L has talked about several committees of this school, including that of the Teachers’ Union. To this, W launches an understanding check at line 1. (11) (Tea Time s2B061a) 1W:

women xuexiao you jiaoshi hui ou. we school have teacher association PRT ‘Our school has a Teachers’ Union?’

2L:

gang chengli. just establish ‘Just established.’

141

142 Final Particles in Mandarin

3L:→1

zhaoming shi diyi jie de:: (name) be Wrst C PRT ‘Zhaoming is the Wrst:::’

4S?

hu[i zhang association leader ‘Pre[sident (of the Union).’

5L:

[hui zhang. association leader [‘president (of the Union).’

6W:=>2

zhaoming? (name) ‘Zhaoming?’

7L:

um. women songyong ta chulai zuo de. hhh PRT we urge 3sg come-out do PRT (laugh) ‘Um. We urged him to come out for this (position). hhh’

8F:

[ni hai you mei you yinxiang you still have N have impression [‘Do you still remember (him)?’

9W:→3

[(na) jiaoshi hui hai you shenme- jiushi then teacher association still have what that-is [‘(Then) how can the Teachers’ Union have any- I mean,’

10W:→3 jiaoshi hui hai you shenme- (.) qiantu ne teacher association still have what prospect PRT ‘how can the Teachers’ Union have any- (.) prospects?’

And excerpt (12) is from a conversation between two Taiwanese graduate students in the US; both of them will be taking a trip to their home country soon, with T going on vacation and L moving back permanently. Just before this excerpt, L has claimed that he plans to purchase a ticket from one particular airline (i.e., EVA Airlines) because he has a mileage card from that airline. In response to this remark, T expresses a disaYliative stance by giving a report on his own prior investigation into the matter of plane fares: (12) (T-copyright 007) 1T:

keshi wo you- wo you ding guo changrong, but I have I have reserve ASP (airlines) ‘But I’ve- I ‘ve asked about EVA Airlines.’

Final a 143

2T:→1

bai kuai a ta yao qi it need seven hundred dollar PRT ‘It costs seven hundred dollars.’

3T:

wo jiu- .hhh [laihui la, qi bai la. I then round-tripPRT seven hundred PRT ‘I then- .hhh [(It’s for) a round trip, seven hundred.’

4L:=>2

5T: 6L:→3

[yao qi bai kuai? need seven hundred dollar [‘(It) costs seven hundred dollars?’ .hhh[((cough)) [zeme name gui.= how-come that expensive [‘Why so expensive?/!’=

7T:

=jieguo .hh xinhang cai liu bai a result (airlines) only six hundred PRT =‘And then .hh Singapore Airlines costs only six hundred.’

8T:

na wo suan yi suan, then I calculate one calculate ‘Then I calculated it,’

9T:

wo shuo .hhh wo ye you guibin ka a I say I also have honor-guest card PRT ‘I said- .hhh I also have a mileage card.’

10T:

[wo zai xiang shuo, na wo- duo hua na yi bai kuai:, I ASP think say then I more spend that one hundred dollar [‘I was thinking, (.) if I- spent this additional one hundred dollars,’

11L:

[ °um ° PRT [‘°Um.°’

12T:

ranhou .hhhh [qu leiji %mileage::% then go accumulate mileage ‘and .hhhhhh [accumulated the %mileage,%’

13L:

[uh huh huh PRT PRT PRT [‘Uh huh huh.’

144 Final Particles in Mandarin

14T:

15L:

you juede- [bing bu juede hen huasuan further feel actually N feel very worthy ‘(I) just didn’t feel [(it was) worth (it).’ [%okay% OK [‘%Okay.%’

In each of these three cases, it can be noted that, following a partial repeat (arrow 2) of the talk in a preceding turn (arrow 1), the repeat speaker displays a less than positive stance (arrow 3) toward the state of aVairs in question, which retrospectively marks the prior repeat as doing more than repair initiation. It can also be noted, however, that, unlike (4)B(8), the production of a repeat in each of (10)B(12) is associated not so much with the speaker’s intent to contest the information just received as with a sense of the unexpectedness he or she feels about the information. In addition, this sense of unexpectedness appears to arise from, or index, a recipient-design diYculty in juxtaposing the newly articulated information with what the recipient/repeat speaker takes to be shared background knowledge, or with what he or she had expected to be projected. Thus, in (10), L’s comprehension problem, adumbrated by the use of the repeat, appears to be related to the way in which U formulates his date of departure and to the reference form he chooses (i.e., jiuyue ‘September’; line 2). As previous conversation-analytic work (e.g., SchegloV 1972, 1979, 1996d; Sacks and SchegloV 1979) has shown, the selection of reference forms is a matter of primary interactional relevance: While there is a set of possible terms to be deployed for a particular referent, not every member of the set is equally appropriate or adequate at every moment; and on the actual occasion of use, the selection itself regularly implicates, and is subject to, considerations of “recipient design” C considerations such as “who the recipient is and what the recipient knows about the referent, or how the recipient stands with respect to the referent” (SchegloV 1996d:458B459). With this understanding, we can note that U’s formulation of his departure date is peculiar in its local conversational context on several fronts: First, ordinarily when one makes reference to a time that falls within the following week, the normal way to formulate it in Mandarin Chinese is not by month, as U does here (i.e., jiuyue ‘September’), but by smaller units such as week (e.g., xia ge libai ‘next week’) or day (e.g., guo ji tian ‘in a few days’). In addition, when there is such a short

Final a 145

interval between the speech time and the time of the referent event as in the present case, the speaker would normally orient the recipient’s attention to the imminence of that event by employing adverbs such as mashang ‘immediately’ or jiu.9 Interestingly, while neither of these practices (i.e., formulation of time in smaller and relevant units; deployment of adverbs) is employed in the speaker’s turn (at line 2) here, both are “recovered” in the recipient’s subsequent understanding check (line 6). And it thus appears that it is speaker U’s violations of these formulation norms, and in fact of common sense knowledge,10 that make his response unexpected and opaque to L, and hence this response results in the latter’s momentary breakdown in comprehension.11 In (11), the diYculty W exhibits in associating this colleague (Zhaoming) with the job in question, i.e., the president of the union, seems to come from a perceived lack of Wt between this colleague’s personal background or disposition and what is typically required by this type of job, as reXected in the subsequent talk by the informant (L) and the information recipient/repeat speaker (W) (at lines 7 and lines 9B10 respectively). It is noticeable that while such a person-job mismatch is clearly recognized by informant L, she neither builds this understanding into the design of her voluntary informing (lines 3 and 5) nor explicitly marks this information as newsworthy12 (e.g., by saying instead Ni zhidao shei shi diyi jie de huizhang ma? ‘Guess who the Wrst president is?’13). Therefore W’s initial puzzlement may be due in part to the abruptness with which L introduces this additional piece of information. And in (12), we can note that informant T suspends his informing in progress (wo jiu ‘I then-’; line 3) and undertakes to remedy and clarify (i.e., laihui la ‘(It’s) for a round trip)’; line 3) his prior announcement of the plane fare just as the recipient, L, launches his question-intoned repeat (yao qi bai kuai ‘(It) costs seven hundred dollars?’; line 4). This suggests that L’s diYculty with the information about the fare, as T appears to realize in the midst of his informing, may arise from L’s preparedness to receive information about the fare for a one-way ticket, and the price mentioned may thus be so far from the price range he has in mind that it appears, initially at least, to arrive “out of the blue.” Important to note is that while the repeat speakers in these three excerpts subsequently (arrow 3, in each case) display a less-than-embracing stance toward the information itself, they do not challenge or disagree with the truth value of the information, as speakers of a-attached repeats often do (cf.

146 Final Particles in Mandarin

(4)B(8)). In addition, in contrast to examples involving a-attached repeats, where recipients frequently display an orientation to the disagreement-implicativeness of the repeats by upgrading the epistemic strength of their prior assertions (e.g., (6), (7)), the recipients in (10)B(12) do not interpret the repeats as portending disagreements: They either orient to the repeats as adumbrating comprehension problems (i.e., lines 7, 8 in (11); line 3 in (12)), or show their understandings and stances (i.e., the laugh tokens at line 2 in (10) and line 7 in (11)) that the information at issue can be, indeed, odd. Thus, whereas previous conversation-analytic studies of English conversations (e.g., JeVerson 1981; Heritage 1984b; Pomerantz 1984; SchegloV 1995, 1997a) have demonstrated that repeats or partial repeats of a prior turn by another frequently convey a sense of pre-disagreement of some kind, such a sense, as the preceding discussion reveals, is mainly carried by the Wnal particle a, rather than just by a repeat alone, in Mandarin Chinese. SpeciWcally, what Wnal a indexes C something that Wgures centrally in (4)B(8) but is missing from (10)B(12) C is the speaker’s invocation of, and insistence on, prior knowledge or experience of the matter in question; and it is by reference to this knowledge or experience that the speaker also conveys that the matter at issue is, from his or her perspective, not merely unexpected, i.e. previously not expected, but also counter to expectation. This claim that a-suYxing serves to mark the matter being addressed as counter to expectation C or, more accurately, as deviant from how the matter being addressed should be, or normally is, from the a speaker’s perspective C can be further supported, and reinforced, by excerpts (13) and (14) below. In each case, this kind of a-embodied thought process on the part of the speaker is either voluntarily debriefed by the a speaker, or overtly registered by the recipient, in the ensuing talk. Excerpt (13) comes from a conversation among a student couple C and S, and their friend D, recorded shortly after a spring break. C was the thenpresident of the Chinese Student Association, and was frequently in charge of many activities, including regular trips during the academic breaks. In line 1, D initiates an inquiry about whether or not this couple went on a recent trip sponsored by this association. This inquiry receives a negative answer in line 4 from recipient C. In response, D launches an a-formulated question in line 6.

Final a 147

(13) (Three Friends b036) 1D:

nimen na ge:: lüxing you mei you qu. na ge shi= you that C trip have N have go that C be ‘Did you guys go on the uh:: trip? That’s-’=

2C:

=ni shuo %spring trip% you say spring trip =‘You mean the %spring trip%?’

3D:

dui a right PRT ‘(That’s) right.’

4C:

meiyou [women meiyou qu. N we N go ‘No. [We didn’t go.’

5S:

[(meiyou qu) N go [‘((We) didn’t go.)’

6D:→

[nimen meiyou qu a) = you N go PRT [‘You guys didn’t go A)’=

7C:

=[[uh PRT =[[‘Uh.’

8S:

=[[uh PRT =[[‘Uh.’

9

(0.2)

10D:

ou::. PRT ‘Oh::.’

11C:

um PRT ‘Um.’

148 Final Particles in Mandarin

12S:

ni ye mei qu ma. you also N go PRT ‘You didn’t go either, right?’

(11 lines omitted, where D is reporting on her spring break.)) 24S:

dui a women %spring break% ye meiyou qu nabian. right PRT we spring break also N go where ‘Yeah. We didn’t go anywhere during %spring break,% either.’

25D:

uh-huh PRT ‘Uh huh.’

26C:

mm PRT ‘Mm.’

27D:

meiyou a.< wo yiwei chenyi= no PRT I thought (speaker C’s name) ‘No. I thought Chenyi’=

28D:

=zhuban ren yinggai hui qu a. in-charge person should ASP go PRT =‘was the one in charge; presumably (he) would have gone.’

We can note that, while initially (line 10) D simply (albeit with a slight delay) ou receipts14 the recipients’ responses (lines 7, 8) to her a-formulated question and moves thereby to close that sequence, she later proceeds to debrief what was actually behind that question, when further on in the sequence the matter at issue becomes relevant again (lines 27B28). Here, she declares that she had a contrary expectation of this state of aVairs (through the lexical expression, wo yiwei ‘I thought’) and follows up with the grounds for the basis of this expectation (chenyi zhuban ren yinggai hui qu a ‘Chenyi was the one in charge; presumably (he) would have gone’). A similar phenomenon can be observed in (14), taken from another multi-party conversation. This excerpt begins with speaker L’s registering a coincidence he suddenly realizes C that another mutual friend of theirs (Chenzu), who is not present on this occasion, also graduated from the same school (Fuxin) which participant T has just claimed to be from. The aformulated question is launched (at line 7) by another coparticipant (W) after this information is conWrmed by T.

Final a 149

(14) (CS Party regular 260a; video 23”) 1L:

ou::: ni gen- [chenzu yiyang. PRT you with (name) same ‘Oh:: you (came from) the same (school) as- [Chenzu.’ [( °zai renai lu °) at (name) road

2T:

[‘(°On Renai Road.°)’ 3T:

shei? who ‘Who?’

4L:

chenzu.= (name) ‘Chenzu.’=

5T:

= a, dui dui dui dui. PRT right right right right =‘Ah, right right right right.’

6T:

°(wo)

gen chenzu yi[yang.° I with (name) same ‘ °(I) (came from) the [same (school) as Chenzu.°’

7W:→

[chenzu ye shi fuxin a) (name) also be (school) PRT [‘Chenzu was also from Fuxin A)’

8L:

dui a. chenzu ta ge ye shi a right PRT (name) 3sg older-brother also be PRT ‘(That’s) right. Chenzu’s older brother, too.’

9T:

fuxin qishi ye shi you youxiurencai = ((to W)) you N know (school) actually also be have elite ‘ Fuxin actually also has excellent graduates?/!’=

10R?:

=[hhhh (laugh) =[‘hhhh’

11T:

=[ye bu shi shuo dou shi xiang wo zhe yang. also N be say all be like I this manner =[‘(It’s) not like all (of its graduates) are (just) like me.’

150 Final Particles in Mandarin

Here it can be noted that, after W’s a-formulated question is conWrmed (line 8), speaker T launches a (mock) rebuttal (lines 9, 11), and, speciWcally, a rebuttal of a putative misconception held by W C that the school in question neither provides quality education nor has quality students, with T as a clear example. What T is in eVect doing through this rebuttal and self-deprecation, then, is attributing the stance implicated in the a-formulated question not merely to W’s receipt of a coincidence previously noticed and registered by L (i.e., that this friend and T happen to be fellow alumni; line 1), but to the (presumed) fact that this coincidence is itself taken by W as counter to expectation C i.e., that somebody like this friend should have graduated from the same school as T! While the validity of T’s proVered reading of W’s state of mind remains unveriWed,15,16 it should be noted that T does not appear to arrive at this reading out of the blue. In fact, his interpretation is perfectly Wtted to our earlier characterization of the use of Wnal a: that its production is designed to mark the state of aVairs being responded to as deviant, or counter to expectation, when compared to the a speaker’s prior knowledge or experience. In this regard, while W does not subsequently explicate what (if anything) is implicated in his use of the a-formulated question, his very selection of an asuYxing, as opposed to, for example, an ou-suYxed utterance, or a bare repeat, does reXexively inform the recipients of a distinctive direction (or directions) in which his question can, and probably should, be interpreted. Before we close this section, it may be relevant to register two other points which can be demonstrated by excerpts (13) and (14) above. First, as has been shown, and will be further discussed in this chapter, a generic feature of Wnal a is its indication that the matter being addressed is, from the a speaker’s point of view, deviant in some way; that is, the matter being addressed diverges from how it normally is, or how the a speaker had otherwise expected it to be. While this process in itself generally implicates the speaker’s orientation to some pre-existing knowledge, experience, or circumstances as the baseline from which the matter at issue is being viewed, such baseline knowledge, experience, or circumstances may not always be made explicit in the speaker’s ensuing talk. For example, in (13), we can see that the baseline knowledge C the ground for the basis of what the a speaker had otherwise expected (i.e., that Chenyi is (presumed to be) the person in charge of the spring trip (and hence his participation is virtually required)) C is not brought out into the open until much later in this conversation. And, indeed, it may not have been

Final a

brought up at all C just as what in fact has happened in (14) and in many other sequences in the present corpus C had the topic in question not become relevant again further on in the sequence. Second, and relatedly, insofar as an a speaker may withhold and mask his or her otherwise held expectation and its basis by simply registering the recipient conWrmation of the a-suYxed question with ou,17 and insofar as this kind of withholding and covering up can “succeed,”18,19 excerpt (13) allows us to see an additional characteristic of Wnal a. That is, its production C while clearly adumbrating a stronger epistemic stance on the part of the speaker with respect to the matter being responded to C does not in itself disambiguate whether the question it constitutes serves as a simple conWrmation request, or as a harbinger of an upcoming dispreferred response. Which use is being made of a particular instance of an a-suYxing is something that may, and frequently does, need to be worked through by the parties in the ensuing talk. In sum, what we have seen in this and in the prior sections is a speciWc feature of Wnal a: the indexing of the speaker’s stronger epistemic stance in the face of an apparent knowledge or information gap between him or herself and the interlocutor. This stronger epistemic stance, as we have also seen, may come from the speaker’s Wrmer grasp of the interlocutor’s less than fully transparent talk. Or, it may be because the speaker believes him or herself to have a stake in the matter at hand, on the basis of prior knowledge or experience whose validity or believability the speaker takes as over and above what the interlocutor has just claimed about the matter involved. However, important to note is that, while Wnal a adumbrates a higher degree of speaker certainty about his or her grasp of the matter in question, it also marks an epistemically weakened stance: attributing the epistemic authority over this matter, prima facie at least, to the interlocutor. This is made evident by the fact that an a-formulated question, be it repair-relevant or believability-implicated, is regularly (though not invariably) heard as sequentially implicating a recipient conWrmation (or disconWrmation) as its response. This kind of dual epistemic stance C displaying a speaker’s commitment to his or her own grasp of the matter at issue while at the same time giving the “veto power” over its validity to the interlocutor C is somehow similar to that displayed by another Wnal particle which we have seen in the previous chapter, i.e., Wnal ou. A comparison of these two Wnal particles in this respect will be oVered in the next chapter.

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152 Final Particles in Mandarin

4.2.2 A-attached questions In the previous section, we have examined cases in which Wnal a is used to construct conWrmation questions; namely, when it is attached to non-interrogatives and thereby transforms their status to one which makes conWrmation (or disconWrmation) relevant next. As we have seen, while these aformulated questions may be used to accomplish nothing more than pointing to a possible information gap between the speaker and the interlocutor, i.e., initiating repairs, they can also be used to further mark the stance that the matter being addressed is deviant from how it should be, or normally is, from the a speaker’s perspective. In this section, we turn to cases in which Wnal a does not serve to construct a question, but instead is merely attached to one. In other words, we will be examining cases in which Wnal a is attached to grammatically-constructed questions, such as question-word questions (e.g., (15)), disjunctive questions (e.g., (16)), or A-not-A questions (e.g., (17)):20,21 (15)

zhe yao zeme kai a) this need how open PRT ‘How can (I) open this A)’

(16)

ni qu haishi wo lai a) you go or I come PRT ‘Will you go, or shall I come A)’

(17)

nimen zuo de zhe ge dongxi= you do PRT this C stuV ‘(Like) the kind of stuV you are making,’= =zai taiwan you mei you ren zai zuo a) at Taiwan have N have person ASP do PRT =‘is there anybody in Taiwan making it A)’

We will see that the central usage of Wnal a here, as with Wnal a when deployed to construct a conWrmation question, is marking the matter being addressed as “deviant” from the a speaker’s point of view. However, we will also see that, by virtue of the diVerences in the turn design, a-attached questions regularly (though not invariably) probe into diVerent kinds of problems than those targeted by a-formulated questions, with Wnal a marking diVerent kinds of “deviance.”

Final a

SpeciWcally, in the case of a-formulated questions, as noted in Section 4.2.1, Wnal a is commonly attached to an utterance predicated on another’s prior talk.22 There, the “deviance” marked by Wnal a regularly relates to the fact that the adequacy or truth value of what another has just said runs counter to the a speaker’s expectation based on prior knowledge or experience; hence, the use of Wnal a regularly serves to mark its attached utterance as a pre-disagreement of sorts. In the cases to be examined in this section, on the other hand, Wnal a is attached to grammatically-constructed questions, the launching of which regularly serves to take up and deal with various problems emergent from the immediate conversational contexts. The “deviance” marked by Wnal a here is therefore not limited to C and, in fact, is seldom related to C the truth value of another’s prior talk; rather, it is generally circumstantial in nature, and is most commonly associated with what the a speaker perceives as a problematic and/or unexpected aspect of a situation in the local conversational environment. An interesting feature of a-attached questions is that while they commonly serve to mark problematicity, the locus of problematicity can not only be the matter addressed by an a-attached question; it can also be the question itself. In other words, Wnal a may be used to indicate that the question is being launched to deal with some problematic and/or unexpected situation, or it may be used to mark the very launching of this question as in some way problematic. These two uses of Wnal a will be explicated next in Section 4.2.2.1 and Section 4.2.2.2 respectively.

4.2.2.1 Marking the matter addressed by the question as problematic As already noted, one common use of Wnal a is to mark a problematic and/or unexpected aspect of a situation in the local context. Excerpt (18) below, drawn from a multi-party conversation recorded on a hot summer day, provides a case in point. This excerpt begins with host W’s calling attention to the Sesame-oil Chicken dish C a highly nutritious dish traditionally only served in the wintertime C and in eVect issuing an invitation to try it: (18) (CS Party authentic 034)

1W:

[((reaching his arm to lift up the lid of the pot where the chicken is)) ou, zhe ge- zhe (ge)/(shi) mayou ji. PRT this C this C be sesame-oil chicken ‘Oh, this- this is “Sesame-oil Chicken.”’

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154 Final Particles in Mandarin

2

[((L returning to his seat)) (0.7)

3L:→

shei yao jinbu= who need supplement-nutrition ‘Who needs to supplement food with extra nutrition?’=

4L:=>

=shei yao bu a) who need supplement-nutrition PRT =‘Who needs to supplement A)’

5L:

[((looking at W, smiling)) [ni yao bu you need supplement-nutrition [‘You need to supplement?’

6W:

[dajia dou yao bu. ((smile voice)) everybody all need supplement-nutrition [‘Everybody needs to supplement.’

7T:

((jokingly pointing W out to L behind W’s back, indicating that it is W who is in need of the dish in question))

Notice that, in response to W’s invitation, L Wrst launches an inquiry (line 3) topicalizing the implication of this dish (i.e., that someone needs to supplement food with extra nutrition), but then notably moves to redo C indeed repair C this inquiry by attaching an a to it (line 4). What this move accomplishes is to transform an otherwise “fact-gathering” inquiry into one which is assessment-laden and implicates a stance23 C here clearly associated with the unexpected and problematic status of serving this dish during this season.24 In addition to registering a stance toward the practical consideration of whether or not to serve such a heavy dish in summer, there is an interactional motivation for L to initiate through a-suYxing a repair of his own prior inquiry. SpeciWcally, as is evident from the a speaker’s (line 5) and the interlocutors’ (lines 6B7) subsequent talk and reactions, this a-attached question is intended (by speaker L) and understood (by recipient W and coparticipant T) as a joke C possibly teasing host W, who was known to have worked especially hard recently, and implying that in serving this dish, he is being self-serving: The dish in question serves more his own needs than his guests’. And this joke arises precisely from the juxtaposition of W’s invitation to the dish in question (line 1) with L’s subsequent problematizing of the relevance of that dish to the people being invited, which amounts to: “Who else (other than W himself)

Final a

would ever need the dish to which W has just called attention?” This import, of course, would not have been adequately conveyed had L employed just the fact-gathering question without explicitly marking (through a-suYxing) the event being addressed as deviant and unexpected in character. In addition to marking a situation as problematic and/or unexpected, the addition of Wnal a is also observed to be commonly deployed to register a diYcult situation or a predicament C for example, when one fails to accomplish what he or she has been trying to accomplish or wishes to accomplish, or when one is required to accomplish something far beyond his or her capability. A critical distinction to be made here is that while a diYcult situation or predicament of this kind regularly relates to the fact that the speaker has encountered a problem, Wnal a is not always used whenever there is a problem; it is only used when a speaker wishes to register a negative stance toward a problem at hand and/or to bring its problematic status into focus. This distinction can be illustrated by excerpt (19), below, in which participant C is trying to open a bottle of sparkling cider while the other coparticipants are engaged in telling a joke:25 (19) (CS Party) 1W:

ta hai jianchai ou↑ 3sg in-addition work-part-time PRT ‘He also has a part-time job.’

2C:→

[zhe ge zeme kai this C how open [‘How do (I) open this?’

3W:

[hhh san tian zai taida, san tian zuo ji
4L:

hhhhhhh [hh (laugh) ‘hhhhhh[hhhh’

5C:=>

[zhe yao zeme kai a) this require how open PRT [‘How can (I) open this A)’

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156 Final Particles in Mandarin

Here, when C is not able to open the bottle as she wishes, she Wrst produces a question (line 2) which is hearably a request for help. This question, we can note, does not have an a attached to it. It is only when this question-formatted request hardly gets any attention from the other coparticipants, and when C still fails to open the bottle after several tries by herself, that she repeats the same question in a slightly-upgraded version (i.e., the addition of the yao ‘require; need to’; line 5) with an a attached to it. This time, she is not only asking for a remedy for the problem at hand; she is also doing so with a stance C possibly the stance that the unavailability of the remedy being requested is unexpected and problematic. A similar phenomenon can be seen in excerpt (20). This example is taken from the same telephone conversation as (10) between two college friends who now live in diVerent cities in the United States and who have not talked to each other for a while. As noted earlier, more than half of this conversation involves a “tug-of-war” between these two friends C with L persistently pursuing topics, namely, U’s whereabouts in the past few months and his new job, which U resists all along. This tension can be glimpsed in the span of talk from lines 1B15 below, which is typical of this conversation before the truth is Wnally unveiled.26 Here, U’s reluctance to provide straightforward responses to L’s inquiries is clearly implicated in (1) U’s consistent provisions of evasive and bland responses (e.g., lines 2, 7, 13, 15); and (2) the various ways by which he delays giving his responses, including, for example, inter-turn gaps (lines 8, 12), uses of the repair initiator huh (lines 4, 11), hesitating prefaces (e.g., e- at line 2; ei::, en:: at line 15), and sound stretches, cuts-oV, or pauses right before the focal elements are due next (e.g., qu- ‘go’, qu:: ‘go’ at line 7; qu:: ‘go’ at line 13; zai ‘at’ at line 15). As with (19), the excerpt about opening the bottle, the question to which Wnal a attaches (line 55) in this excerpt is not the questioner’s Wrst try, but has been launched previously (lines 1, 3, 5, 10, 54) without much success. (20) (T-career 003) 1L:→

2U:

ni weishenme xiao[shi name [jiu? you why disappear that long-time ‘Why did you dis[appear so [long?’ [e[‘E-

[xiaoshi nie ji le a. disappear extinct trace CRS PRT [(I)’ve (made myself) extinct.’

Final a

3L:→

zhenzi pao qu nar. dui a. ni shangci- shang- s- (.) qian right PRT you last-timelast previous period run go where ‘Yeah. You last time- last- t- (.) Where did you go a while ago?’

4U:

huh? huh ‘Huh?’

5L:→

qian zhenzi pao qu nar.= previous period run go where ‘Where did (you) go a while ago?’=

6L:

=[((clear throat))

7U:

=[qu- paoqu:: daochu guihun. go run go everywhere fool-around =[‘(I) went- went to:: fool around everywhere.’

8

(0.5)

9U:

wo yao likai %bell-lab% a. I ASP leave (company) PRT ‘I’m leaving %Bell Labs.%’

10L: →

yao qu nar. ((clear throat)) [yao qu nar- (.) yao qu nali. ASP go where ASP go where ASP go where ‘To where? ((clear throat)) [To where- (.) To where?’

11U:

[huh? huh [‘Huh?’

12

(0.3)

13U:

qu:: yi jia xiao gongsi. go one C small company ‘To:: a small company.’

14L:

.hhh zai nar. at where ‘.hhh Where?’

15U:

ei::. en:: zai: women zhebian. PRTPRT at we here ‘Ei:: en:: At: where we are.’

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158 Final Particles in Mandarin

((32 lines omitted, in which L attempts to gather more information about U’s new job, only to be provided with more evasive responses like those above.)) 48L:

.hhh shangci- (.) xuhhlast-time (name) ‘.hhh Last time- (.) Xuhh-’

49L:

xuhong haoxiang you gen ni lianluo (ou). <°shi bu shi °> (name) seem have with you contact PRT be N be ‘Xuhong seemed to have contacted you. <°Right?°>’

50L:

<wo bu xiaode.=ta shi shuo ta ye zhao bu dao ni. I N know 3sg be say 3sg also look-for N reach you ‘
51L:

.hh [wo shuo wo zhao bu daoI say I look-for N reach ‘.hh [I said I couldn’t reach-’

52U:

[dui a wo you yi duan shijian bu zai zhebian a right PRT I have one segment time N at here PRT [‘(Right. There was a period of time when I wasn’t here.’

53

(.)

54L:→

na qu nali? PRT go where ‘Then where’ve (you) been?’

55L:=>

ni qu nali a)= you this (manner) you go where PRT ‘ Where’ve you been A)’=

56U:

=jiu qu:: fanzheng daochu huang huang zhe yangzi (a) just go anyway everywhere fool-around fool-around this manner PRT =‘(I) just went to:: anyway to fool around everywhere.’

If we focus on how L attempts to revive (lines 48B51) his earlier unsuccessful pursuit of U’s whereabouts during the past few months, it becomes readily observable that, if L had previously not been fully aware of the recipient’s reluctance to talk to this topic, he certainly appears to have developed a sense of it by now, for, this time, his pursuit is done in a much less straightforward manner C at least initially. At lines 48B51, we can note that L launches a report of a past conversation with a mutual friend regarding their recent common

Final a 159

experiences of not being able to reach U. In reporting this conversation and reporting just this aspect of the conversation, L appears to be taking the tack of “telling my side as a Wshing device” (Pomerantz 1980); that is, the oVering of this limited information about the recipient is done with a view to soliciting that recipient’s voluntary account or elaboration of the matter involved. While U clearly understands the import and purpose of L’s report, he declines, once again, to further develop this topic: At line 52, he moves to conWrm the reported state of aVairs but does not provide the account made relevant by this report. Note then that, in response to this dispreferred response, L, after a pause, Wrst launches another query (na qu nali ‘Then where’ve (you) been?’; line 54) notably built as a follow-up to U’s prior response in line 52 (through the use of na ‘(and) then’ and the omission of the subject ni ‘you’; line 54), in eVect legitimizing the adequacy of U’s response. Note, further, that when the response to this question is not immediately forthcoming, L launches (line 55) what appears to be a projection of possible blame of U for his hesitations (e.g., ni zhe ya(ng tuntun tutu) ‘you (having been hesitating) like this’), or possible topicalization of the issue at hand (e.g., ni zhe ya(ng xiaoshi name jiu) ‘you (having been gone for so long) like this’). While he abandons this utterance before it comes to be fully delivered, and revises it into a more “normalized” pursuit/inquiry, it is noticeable that this revised pursuit/inquiry (ni qu nali a ‘Where’ve you been A?’; line 55) C in contrast to his previous one (line 54) and the ones before (lines 3, 5, 10) C is a-attached. In both (19) and (20), then, the production of Wnal a appears prompted by its speaker’s failed pursuit of a response to a prior question C a question which is being asked here again and is now a-attached. Important to mention is that the use of Wnal a here not only indicates that what is being asked now is what was being asked before, but also indicates the stance that this is something which is deviant from normal, and diVerent from what the questioner/a speaker would otherwise expect and hope for, and hence is potentially something which can be complained about. This can be supported by the fact that such an overtone of complaint and/ or frustration is, in each case discussed until now, also evident in the other features of the turn in which the a-attached question is hosted. For example, as noted earlier, the questioner in (19) incorporates an additional term yao

160 Final Particles in Mandarin

(‘require; need to’) into her second try: the a-attached question (line 5). And the addition of this term upgrades the epistemic strength of what would otherwise be a Xat information request, thereby invoking a sense of diYculty and problematicity in accomplishing the matter being addressed. And in (20), as also noted earlier, the questioner’s frustrations with and complaints about the question recipient’s evasiveness have apparently come to the very verge of being forthrightly articulated before being suppressed and replaced by an aattached question at the last moment. The use of Wnal a to mark its attached question as being asked here not for the Wrst time, and thereby to constitute a complaint of sorts, can be further supported by examining comparable sequences in which Wnal a is absent C that is, sequences in which a question is being asked more than one time by the same speaker but is not marked with an a. A ready example is that of repeating one’s own prior question as a response to an other-initiated repair. This can be seen in line 5 in (20), where L does an identical repeat of his own prior question (qian zhenzi pao qu nar ‘Where did you go a while ago?’) C the trouble-source C in response to recipient U’s production of huh (line 4). This repeat, as we can see, does not have an a attached to it. Similarly, if we turn to lines 3 and 54 in (20), we Wnd two other tries by L to reinitiate this inquiry about H’s whereabouts after his previous attempt(s) to obtain that information (e.g., in line 1 and in lines 3, 5, 48B51, respectively) turned out to be less than successful. These two modiWed resayings of this question also do not have an a attached. Comparing these three reiterated questions (i.e., lines 3, 5, 54) with the one to which Wnal a is attached (line 55), we Wnd that while these questions are analyzably inquiring about the same thing (i.e., U’s whereabouts), and are all launched in pursuit of a response which their prior saying failed to generate, they diVer in the kind of relationship they stand in with respect to their current, local sequential context. SpeciWcally, in contrast to the a-attached question, the three questions without the a-suYxing, although having been asked prior to the current saying, are treated by their speaker as being asked here for “another Wrst time” (Harold GarWnkel, cited in SchegloV 1992b). Such a treatment may come from the fact that the production of the question is indeed the sequentially relevant next action in its current, local sequential environment, and hence the question being produced is treated by its producer as a sequentially justiWable new utterance C one which is being

Final a

initiated in its own right. Something like this can be observed in the sequence from lines 3B5 in (20) and may account for the lack of a-suYxing to an otherwise “repeated” question (line 5) therein, for, here, it is observable that this question is initiated in response to an “open class” repair initiator (Drew 1997) C a huh C whose production in eVect renews the relevance of the articulation of that question. Or, such a treatment may, in fact, be an interactional tack. That is, the lack of a-suYxing to an otherwise reinitiated question may be part of an eVort by its original sayer to avoid being understood as displaying/claiming that he or she is re-implementing a question previously unsatisfactorily dealt with C thereby avoiding conveying or invoking the stances that would otherwise be implicated in such a display/claim. In these instances, the reinitiated question commonly undergoes some modiWcations that allow it to be reintroduced by its original sayer into the current context (i) as if it were occasioned by another’s just-prior talk in the present context, e.g., as a follow-up question to that just-prior talk (line 54 in (20)); or (ii) with a stance that it is being asked here in its current C and more accurate C form/tone for the very Wrst time. The latter can be seen at line 3 in (20). Here, L Wrst closes, with a minimal acknowledgment token (dui a ‘yeah’), the previous “kidding” sequence C which had been launched by himself (through the selection of the lexicon xiaoshi ‘disappear’ to refer to the fact that U could not be reached by phone; line 1) and subsequently aligned with and upgraded by U (xiaoshi nieji le a ‘I’ve (made myself) extinct’; line 2). Thereafter, L proceeds to reformulate the question and recast it as a more serious inquiry into the matter at hand. What we can see from this comparison, then, is that, just as speakers can modify a previously articulated question in a way that allows it to come oV as being said in the current sequential environment for the very Wrst time, and thereby undermine the fact that its production is motivated by the ineVectiveness of the question’s prior saying, so also can speakers design their resaying in a way that invokes and underscores just this fact and predicament, with the possible eVect of displaying or claiming frustration, complaint, and/ or aggravation (cf. SchegloV 1992b, 1996a, 1996d).27 And clearly, one of the resources which can be employed to accomplish this latter kind of interactional work is the practice of a-suYxing.28 Thus far, I have discussed two uses of Wnal a when it is attached to a grammatically-constructed question. As seen in excerpt (18), the conversation about Sesame-oil Chicken, Wnal a is used to mark a problematic and/or

161

162 Final Particles in Mandarin

unexpected aspect of a situation in the local context. In addition, Wnal a can be used to register a predicament with overtones of frustration, complaint and/or aggravation. This can be seen in (19) and (20), in which Wnal a is used to highlight the fact that the question being asked has been asked more than once, and hence it is used to register the speaker’s stance that he or she has failed to accomplish what he or she would otherwise wish to accomplish. However, the diYcult situation or predicament that Wnal a embodies can not only relate to a sense that the speaker has not fulWlled his or her goal; it can also relate to a speaker’s stance that the matter being addressed, in fact, involves a potentially impossible task. Excerpt (21), from a telephone conversation between a dancer (X) and an acquaintance of hers, provides one such instance. In this excerpt, the dancer is talking about how her former dance school rigorously controlled students’ weight and how she was trying to fulWll a stringent demand imposed on her by the school administrators. (21) (T-dancer 108) 1X:

wo nashihou sishisan gongjin.= I at-that-time forty-three kilogram ‘I weighed 43 kilograms at that time.’=

2D:

=[ou: PRT =[‘Oh:.’

3X:

=[ta jiu shuo (0.2) 3sg then tell =[‘He then told me, (0.2)

4X:

ni yao gei wo: pang dao sishiwu gongjin= you need for I gain-weight to forty-Wve kilogram “You gotta: gain weight to 45 kilograms.”’=

5X:

=hao wo jiu yao huiqu= OK I then need return =‘All right. I’d then need to go back (to gain weight).’=

6X:

=ruguo wo meiyou pang (0.2) liang gongjin dehua if I N gain-weight two kilogram if =‘If I didn’t gain (0.2) two kilograms of weight,’

Final a 163

7X:

.hh wo jiu yao fa yi qian kuai zhe yangzi I then need Wne one thousand dollar this manner ‘.hh I’d be Wned one thousand dollars, like that.’

8D:→

na- na ni zeme pang a) then then you how gain-weight PRT ‘Then- then how did you gain weight A)’

9D:

<jiu yizhi [meng chi meng chi] just continue heavy eat heavy eat ‘<Just kept [stuYng (yourself) like mad?’ ]

10X:

[↑jieguo huiqu ] result return you know [‘↑So (I) went back, ’]

11X:

(.) meng chi meng chi ranhou qheavy eat heavy eat then ‘(.) stuYng (myself) like mad. And then (I) w-’

12X:

yizhi mei tian yizhi zhan zaicontinue every day continue stand at ‘kept- every day kept standing on-’

13X:

bangchen shangmian liang scale on-top-of weigh ‘on the scale, weighing (myself).’

14

((narrative continues))

Note Wrst that the a-attached question (line 8) here comes at the end of an episode where there has been a temporary intermission in the story by the story-teller in order to convey the background information on why this was a traumatic event for the story-teller C namely, what the consequences were of the requirement that had been imposed on her. Note further that this aattached question, although in the form of a question, appears to be produced, and is treated, not as an information request, but as a stance display. This can be evidenced, on the one hand, by the fact that the turn (lines 8–9) which contains the a-attached question takes the form of “(Wh-)Question + candidate response” (SchegloV 1997c), with the question apparently designed to display a stance, rather than to elicit a response; and, on the other hand, that this is so understood by its recipient, X, can be attested by the fact that, in the next turn (line 10), she does not respond to the a-attached question, but rather

164 Final Particles in Mandarin

launches C in overlap with speaker D’s provision of a candidate answer to that question C the next increment of the story. Here, then, is another example (cf. (18)B(20)) of the practice of a-suYxing transforming the status of a question from a straightforward information request into a stance display. SpeciWcally, the stance being displayed here, as the a speaker, D, subsequently explicates through the proVered candidate answer (meng chi meng chi ‘stuYng (oneself) like mad’; line 9), appears related to her treatment of the matter just reported as a predicament; namely, that a less than reasonable demand was being imposed on the protagonist, also the story teller, (and therefore the only thing she could possibly do was to “stuV herself like mad”). It can further be noted that, after the post-overlap hitch (line 11), the story teller, X, incorporates this proVered candidate answer (meng chi meng chi ‘stuYng (oneself) like mad’) into the telling before she resumes the suspended story line (with ranhou ‘and then’; line 11). This move suggests that X is accepting not only the validity of this proVered candidate answer, but also the action implemented through it (and the associated aattached question), i.e., D’s showing sympathy and siding with her by topicalizing the impossible nature of the weight requirement. In sum, whether it is used to mark an unexpected appearance of a dish (e.g., (18)) or to mark a predicament that Wgures in the interactional context (e.g., (19)B(21)), a central feature of Wnal a in the sequences examined in this section is its marking the matter being addressed as deviant, unexpected, and somehow problematic from the a speaker’s point of view. In each of these cases, the a speaker’s less than positive stance toward the matter at issue, as we have observed, is also apparent in the co-occurring features of the turn and the sequential context of the a-attached question. However, as noted earlier, Wnal a is not always used to mark the matter being addressed as problematic; it can also be used to mark the question itself, or the very asking of this question, as problematic. We will turn to these cases in the next section.

4.2.2.2 Marking the very launching of the question as problematic Before explicating the set of a-attached questions which have the locus of problematicity in themselves, it may be relevant to brieXy review two conversation analytic studies which report on a similar phenomenon C namely, how a questioner’s orientation to the potentially problematic character of the action which the question serves to implement can be reXected in the ques-

Final a 165

tioner’s design of that question. One of these is SchegloV’s (1980) work on action projections. In this study, SchegloV shows that question projections in such forms as “Can I [X]?” or “Let me [X]” (“Can I ask you a question?” or “Let me ask you something,” etc.) can serve, among other things, to mark the projected question as a delicate one. In a similar vein, Lindström (1997) examines eller (‘or’)-inquiries (e.g., ska ja komma vgen frbi eller ‘should I come and drop by your place or’) in Swedish conversations. She demonstrates that eller-inquiries are recurrently used to mark the actions they otherwise engage in as problematic. She suggests that the eller-construction relaxes the preference structure of its host turn to facilitate a non-aligning response. In what follows, I will demonstrate that Mandarin speakers, as well, may display an orientation to the potentially problematic character of the interactional projects they are engaged in. And one of the means through which they can display such an orientation when these projects are implemented through the launching of a question is through a-suYxing that question. To explore this phenomenon, let us begin with excerpt (22), below. This excerpt oVers a case in which Wnal a is attached to a question which serves as a vehicle for accomplishing dispreferred interactional work C here a challenge to what the recipient has just said in a prior turn. At this point in this telephone conversation, speaker X, a dance major, is criticizing and complaining about the extravagant ways in which one of her colleagues has been preparing for her graduation performance C an exit requirement for all the dance majors: (22) (T-dancer 041) 1X:

suoyi ta hai %pay% gei tamen so 3sg still pay to them ‘So she %paid% them additional money’

2X:

you mai liwu gei tamen also buy gift to them you know ‘and bought them gifts, ’

3X:

.hh na- yinwei ta bijiao you qian then because 3sg relatively have money ‘.hh And- because she is richer,’

4X:

ta keyi zhe yangzi zuo a = 3sg can this manner do PRT ‘she can aVord it.’=

166 Final Particles in Mandarin

5X:

6D:

=na [xia yithen next one =‘But [the next-’ [wo bu dong shenme jiao ta bijiao you qian::= I N understand what call 3sg relatively have money [‘I don’t understand what you mean by “she is richer::.”’=

7X:

=jiushi- (.) xuexiao you- buzhu gei ta::.(0.6) that-is school have support to 3sg =‘That is- (.) the school has- given her: (0.6)’

8X:

gei ta qian zuo zhe ge to 3sg money do this C ‘given her money to do this.’

9X:

=keshi ta ziji .hh benshen you- (0.2) but 3sg self self have =‘But she herself .hh herself has- (0.2) ’

10X:

nengli keyi zai duo fu ability can further more pay ‘the ability to pay more.’

11D:

↑keshi xianzai wenti shi nimen- (.) nimen shi bu shi= but now problem be you you be N be ‘↑But now the problem is you- (.) Isn’t it true that’=

12D:

mei ge ren you biye wuzhan dehua= every C person have graduate dance-performance if ‘if any of you have a graduation performance,’=

13D:→

=xuexiao dou hui: (.) ↓zizhu a) school all ASP support PRT =‘the school will: (.) ↓support (you) all A)’

14X:

dui dou hui zizhu
15X:

=xuefeiei xuexiao zizhu nide qian= school-tuition PRT school support your money =‘the tuition- ei- the money the school supports you’=

Final a 167

16X:

fei: =zhi gou ni fu chang:: zu: only enough you pay location rental fee =‘is suYcient only for the rental:: for the location::.’

17

(.)

18D:

↑ou:: PRT ‘↑Oh::.’

In the midst of X’s complaining, recipient D Wrst launches a repair initiation (at line 6), requesting X to clarify her just-prior assertion of this colleague’s Wnancial well-being C something that this colleague is being accused of exploiting. Notice that, after speaker X undertakes to elaborate on this issue (lines 7B10), D moves in her next turn (lines 11B13) to launch a disaligning response: an a-attached question topicalizing the fact of the equal distribution of funding from school and in eVect challenging X’s prior claim of the unfair Wnancial advantage this colleague enjoys alone. What is noteworthy about this disaligning response is that the epistemic stance of this response apparently gets weakened in the course of its production. For example, we can note that D’s response is initially (line 11) produced not only with a higher pitch (marked by “↑” in the transcript), but also with expressions speciWcally chosen to foreground the speaker’s counteractive stance (i.e., keshi ‘but’; wenti shi ‘problem is’). While she maintains this pitch in delivering the rest of her turn, just where the key word zizhu ‘support’ would go (line 13), whose production would make the meaning of this question C and hence its function as a potential challenge C clear, D notably resets her tone of voice C with a much lower pitch and a softened voice (marked by “↓” in the transcript). This radical change in voice quality appears to adumbrate D’s sudden awareness of the negatively-valenced and dispreferred nature of her question C something that appears also to trigger her deployment of an a-suYxing in this turn. Thus, an a-suYxing appears here to be serving this function of marking the question as problematic. Final a is also frequently observed to attach to questions which topicalize or probe into potentially delicate matters in relation to the recipients. Excerpts (23) and (24) below provide two such instances. Excerpt (23) comes from the telephone conversation between two college friends that we have seen earlier (e.g., (20)). Where this excerpt begins, the fact that U has just established his own company in the US has already been unveiled. At lines 1B2, L launches an

168 Final Particles in Mandarin

a-attached question, bringing up the issue of the (lack of) prospective market for this kind of product in Taiwan. (23) (T-career 108) 1L:

pt! .hhhh aaxiang nimen zuo de zhe ge dongxi PRT PRT like you do PRT this C stuV ‘pt! .hhhh And- and- like the stuV that you are making,’

2L:→

zai taiwan you mei you ren zai zuo a) at Taiwan have N have person ASP do PRT ‘is there anyone making (it) in Taiwan A)’

3L:

<wo shuo xiang::xinzhu kexue yuanqu. I say like (place) science center ‘
4

(0.4)

5U:

taiwan genben mei you shichang. Taiwan base N have market ‘There is no market in Taiwan at all.’

6U:

taiwan genben hai yong bu dao zhe- zhe- zhe fangmian de %tool% Taiwan base still use N reach this this this aspect PRT tool ‘Taiwan has absolutely no need for this- this kind of %tool% yet.’

7L:

suoyi tamen- taiwan genben meiyou zai %design% shi bu shi so they Taiwan base N ASP design right N right ‘So they- In Taiwan there is nobody %designing% this tool at all, right?’

8

(0.7)

9U:

dui a right PRT ‘(That’s) right.’

10L:

ou::. PRT ‘Oh::.’

Excerpt (24) is taken from the telephone conversation between a dancer (X) and an acquaintance of hers (D). Just before this excerpt, the dancer has talked about the sports injury she has been suVering from. At line 1, D starts to shift

Final a 169

the topic to a potentially sensitive one: the short career spans of athletes C as well as of dancers C as a result of common sports injuries. (24) (T-dancer 129) 1D:

na- (0.5) keshi jiu xiang yundongyuan a:, tamenthen but just like athlete PRT they ‘Then- (0.5) But just like athletes, they-’

2D:

xiang yundongyuan de na ge nianling dou bu chang a like athlete PRT that C career-life all N long PRT ‘Like all athletes, the uh career life is not long.’

3X:

dui ya [tamen ye shi yiyang [yundong shanghai right PRT they also be same sports injury ‘Yeah. [They are the same. [Sports injuries.’

4D:

[jiu shi yinwei [yundong shanghai= just be because sports injury [‘Just because of [sports injuries.’=

5D:→

=na- (.) wo xiang- tiaowu dehua ye hui bu hui ↓ zhe yangzi a)= then I think dance if also ASP N ASP this manner PRT =‘And- (.) I was wondering- if (you) dance, will (you) also be ↓like this A)’=

6X:

=hui. tiaowu ye shi yiyang ASP dance also be same =‘Yes. Dancers are the same.’

7

(0.5)

8D:

ou::. PRT ‘Oh::.’

In each of these two cases, we can note that the question marked with a (at the arrowed turn) serves to bring into focus some potentially negative and problematic aspect of the recipient’s career. Additionally, we can note that the questioner in each case appears to be fully aware of the delicacy involved in the interactional project currently in progress. This can be evidenced in (23) by the fact that the delivery of the question is substantially delayed through in-breath and hedges (line 1). In addition, upon delivery, the question is immediately (marked by “<” in the transcript) followed by the questioner’s self-repair (wo shuo xiang::xinzhu kexue yuanqu ‘I

170 Final Particles in Mandarin

mean places like:: Xinzhu Kexue Yuanqu’; line 3). In eVect, this self-repair suggests the most probable market for the product in question,29 and appears to be done with a view to maximizing the opportunity for a positive response to be given C in an environment where a negative response appears to be highly anticipated. This anticipation, we can note, is subsequently conWrmed despite the post-completion self-repair: Following the question and the repair, there is Wrst a 0.4 second gap (line 4), signaling potential trouble, which is then followed by the recipient’s emphatic delivery of two successive negative responses (lines 5B6). And in (24), the questioner/a speaker’s orientation to the potential delicateness involved in the asking of the question is also evident in the ways in which the question is delivered. We can note Wrst that, in inquiring about this sensitive issue of short career spans, the questioner tactfully presents this issue by Wrst raising it as it pertains to athletes (lines 1B2) before subsequently bringing its relevance to dancers C and hence to the recipient (line 5). We can note also that, as with (23), the question is itself delivered with great disXuency (e.g., the cuts-oV and the pause), and, as with (22), is accompanied by a change in voice quality (marked by ↓) C to a much softened tone C just when the substantive elements are about to be articulated. And again, we see that the questioner/a speaker’s displayed sense of the delicate standing of the question seems to be justiWed: The recipient’s subsequent response (line 6) conWrms that dancers do indeed suVer from short career spans. In both (23) and (24), then, there are good grounds for treating the matters being targeted by the a-attached questions as potentially delicate. In both cases, there is evidence that they are so treated by the questioners. And in both cases, I would argue, it is just this kind of treatment that prompts the questioners to employ an a-suYxing to their questions: That is, the practice of a-suYxing is deployed in each case to register the potentially problematic character of the question being asked. The claim that Wnal a can be used to mark its attached question as delicate C and hence the very asking of this question as potentially problematic C can be reinforced by cases in which an arguably delicate question is apparently not so treated by the questioner, and, consequently, the question is not marked with an a. Excerpt (25), below, taken from the same telephone conversation as (24), oVers a case in point. Here, dancer X is complaining about a side eVect of her rigorous training C the development of strong muscles. This physical

Final a

attribute has been previously hinted at by X as something that makes her “look like a man” (data not shown). (25) (T-dancer 126) 1X:

wo jirou hao zhuang ou. tch! = I muscle very strong PRT ‘I have really strong muscles. tch!’=

2X:

=[.hh suoyiso =[‘.hh So-’

3D:→

=[nimen shi bu shi tiaowu dou hui jirou man zhuang de= you be N be dance all ASP muscle pretty strong PRT =[‘Is it true that you dancers will always have pretty strong muscles?’=

4X:

=dui jirou hen zhuang right muscle very strong =‘Yes, very strong muscles.’

5D:

na zhe yang hen hao a= then this manner very good PRT ‘Then this is very good.’=

6D:

=zhe yang shenti yinggai hui hao yidian ba this manner body should ASP good little PRT =‘This way, (you) should have a healthier body, right?’

While this reported physical attribute appears to be taken as something less than desirable by speaker X, it is notable that, when D inquires further into this matter (at line 3), she appears to be treating this question as anything but delicate: Not only does she deliver this inquiry C in contrast to what she does at (24) C in a straightforward manner without any disXuencies, but she also notably projects (lines 5–6) subsequent positive comments on what could otherwise appear to be a negative and delicate matter. In view of our preceding discussion, which shows that a-suYxing regularly serves to mark problematicity, I suggest that the lack of a-suYxing to the question at line 3 here comes as a result of the questioner’s treatment of the question being asked as non-delicate and non-problematic. In this section, we have observed cases in which Wnal a is attached to questions which serve as vehicles for doing dispreferred interactional work C

171

172 Final Particles in Mandarin

interactional work such as challenging or compromising what another has just said (e.g., (22)), or probing into potentially delicate matters in relation to the recipients (e.g., (23), (24)). In these cases, the use of Wnal a appears to display and embody the a speaker’s awareness of the potentially problematic character of the project implemented through the question. And such an awareness, as I have also shown, is frequently also adumbrated by other cooccurring features of the turn in which the a-attached question is hosted. A key feature of the use of Wnal a here is its grounding in how the matter is perceived from the a speaker’s point of view, rather than on any objectivelydeWned scale of delicacy or problematicity. This was demonstrated by (25), in which, even though there is evidence showing that the matter being addressed has been treated by the recipient as less than desirable, insofar as the questioner does not share in that view, the speaker can still choose not to deploy the practice of a-suYxing when probing into this matter. Thus, it seems cogent to conclude that this process of a-suYxing a question to register it as potentially problematic is one which is subjectively-deWned and recipientdesigned: It is a practice that is speciWcally chosen “on this occasion, by this speaker, for this recipient” (SchegloV 1980:134).

4.2.2.3 Final a and marking “problematicity” In the previous two sections, we have observed cases in which Wnal a is attached to grammatically-constructed questions. We have noted that a central usage of Wnal a across these cases is marking problematicity: It is used to mark either the matter addressed by the question, or the question itself, as in some way problematic from the a speaker’s point of view. We have also noted that this practice of a-suYxing a question is optional and subjectively-deWned. Its implementation has not so much to do with the seriousness or triviality of the problem at hand as it has to do with how that problem is treated by the questioner and whether or not the questioner wishes to register such a treatment.30 Before we leave this section, there are a few more points worth registering. First, as already demonstrated, this practice of a-suYxing a question can be used to mark either the question, or that which is addressed by the question, as problematic. It may be worth spelling out now that these two operations can, in eVect, contribute to two diVerent hearings/imports, corresponding to those previously ascribed to the use of Wnal a in the literature. More speciWcally, as reviewed in the introduction of this chapter, Wnal a has been

Final a 173

claimed to perform two seemingly contrasting functions C namely, to achieve an intensifying force, such as to emphasize interrogation (Kubler and Ho 1984; Yao et al. 1997; Chu 2002);31 and to reduce the forcefulness of the action being implemented, such as to soften a query (Chao 1968; Li and Thompson 1981). These two functions, we can now see, parallel to a certain extent those which have been proposed and demonstrated in the previous two sections C i.e., the use of Wnal a to intensify the speaker’s stance that the matter being inquired into is unexpected and/or problematic; and the use of Wnal a to problematize the very asking of the question, which, I would argue, can yield as a by-product the softening of its force. What I am suggesting here is that whereas the use of Wnal a can create the possible eVects of softening or intensifying the force of the action being implemented, as previously proposed in the literature, such eVects are only by-products of the action being marked as deviant and problematic in the Wrst place. In other words, when one is marking his or her own projected action as problematic, it can create a certain quality of mitigation C i.e., mitigating the potentially negative force of that action. On the other hand, when one is marking the matter being inquired into as problematic, it can be heard as the speaker’s intent to intensify this query and/or to underscore a negative stance taken up toward the matter involved. In essence, I would argue that what Wnal a does is merely register a Wgurative comment indicating that something which has just happened C that which the a is responding to or pointing to C did not happen the way it should have, or normally does, from the speaker’s perspective. A further point to be noted here is that while the problematicity indexed by the practice of a-suYxing in the case of questions can be “self-reXected,” i.e., marking the asking of the question as problematic, or “other-related,” i.e., marking the matter being addressed as problematic, which process is at work on any given occasion can be equivocal. In fact, much like looking at the types of drawings used in Gestalt Psychology, which can produce an optical illusion between two conWgurations, it is indeed possible that one may see the problematicity one way or the other, depending on which perspective is being taken. Consider, for example, excerpt (26), below. This excerpt is taken from the same sequence cited in the previously examined (10) and (20), in which there is continual tension between two friends, as one of them (i.e., L) is attempting to discover the whereabouts of the other during the past few

174 Final Particles in Mandarin

months. Our focus here will be on the a-attached question initiated by L in line 29. (26) (T-career 007) 5L:

qian zhenzi pao qu nar.= previous period run go where ‘Where did (you) go a while ago?’=

6L:

=[((clear throat))

7U:

=[qu- pao qu:: daochu guihun. go run go everywhere fool-around =[‘(I) went- went to:: fool around everywhere.’

8

(0.5)

9U:

wo yao likai %bell-lab% a. I ASP leave (company) PRT ‘I’m leaving %Bell Labs.%’

10L:

yao qu nar. ((clear throat)) [yao qu nar- (.) yao qu nali. ASP go where ASP go where ASP go where ‘To where? ((clear throat)) [To where- (.) To where?’

11U:

[huh? huh [‘Huh?’

12

(0.3)

13U:

qu:: yi jia xiao gongsi. go one C small company ‘To:: a small company.’

14L:

.hhh zai nar. at where ‘.hhh Where?’

15U:

ei:: en:: zai: women zhebian. PRT PRT at we here ‘Ei:: en:: At: where we are.’

16

(.)

Final a

17L:

ou. zai nimen nabian (a))/(ou) PRT at you there PRT PRT ‘Oh, at where you are?/!’

18U:

heng heng. PRT PRT ‘Yeah. Yeah.’

19L:

a shenme- (.) shihou likai. PRT what time leave ‘And when- (.) (will you) leave (for your new job)?’

20U:

hhhh (.) jiuyue a. hh (laugh) September PRT (laugh) ‘hhhhh (.) September. hhh’

21L:

jiuyue? September ‘September?’

22U:

hen. PRT ‘Yeah.’

23

(.)

24L:

jiuyue mashang dao le a jiu xia libai le a= September immediately arrive CRS PRT just next week CRS PRT ‘September is coming soon. (That’s) coming up next week.’=

25U:

=dui a right PRT =‘(That’s) right.’

26

(.)

27L:

ou:::, %i see%. suoyi ni- (.) hai shi zai ni nabian gongzuo. PRT I see so you still be at you there work ‘Oh:::, %I see%. So you- (.) still work in (the area) where you live?’

28U:

dui dui dui. right right right ‘Right. Right. Right.’

175

176 Final Particles in Mandarin

29L:→

ou::. weishenme a) PRT why PRT ‘Oh::. How come A)’

30U:

huh? huh ‘Huh?’

31L:

weishenme. why ‘How come?’

32U:

uh: fanzheng:: (.)qu yi jia xiao gongsi:: (.) ye:: bu cuo. uh anyway go one C small company also N wrong ‘Uh: Anyway:: (.) Working for a small company:: (.) is also: not bad.’

33L:

%an-ne ou% h[hhh this-way PRT (laugh) ‘Really?/! hhh[hh’

34U:

[hen. PRT [‘Yeah.’

35L:

hhhh (laugh) ‘hhhh’

Without going through the whole of the above sequence in detail,32 I shall, for the present purpose, register only a few observations which suggest that there are indeed grounds for supposing that the a-suYxing in line 29 may be used in either of the two ways discussed above C namely, marking the asking of the question, or the matter addressed by the question, as potentially problematic. Note, on the one hand, that this a-attached question appears in a context in which U has exhibited great reluctance to talk about the topic of his new job: Prior to the launching of this a-attached question by L, U has repeatedly provided evasive and bland responses (lines 7, 13, 15, 20) to L’s queries, and has delivered these responses in an extremely hesitant manner, including, for example, uses of the repair initiator huh (line 11), hesitating prefaces (line 15), sound stretches (lines 7, 13, 15), cuts-oV (line 7), and intra-turn pauses (line 20). There is, therefore, this possibility that L’s deployment of an a-suYxing to his query here may embody his frustration with, and negative stance toward, his unsuccessful pursuit as a result of U’s evasiveness.

Final a 177

Note, on the other hand, that there is also the possibility that L’s asuYxing his query here may come as a result of his treatment of this particular matter C U’s leaving his current company (“Bell Labs”), presumably the best in the area where he lives (New Jersey), for a much smaller company in the same area C as potentially delicate. This can be supported, in part, by the fact that this query appears to be a delayed production: Its relevance was arguably introduced as early as lines 18B19, where, following U’s reconWrmation (line 18) of L’s repeat-formatted newsmark (zai nimen nabian (a))/(ou) ‘at where you are?/!’; line 17), L could have just asked this question, namely, weisheme ‘why?’. L’s apparent treatment of this matter as something requiring further explication (see, for example, his turns at lines 17, 27), while at the same time withholding the request for its explication until later in the sequence, suggests that he is treating this matter as a potentially sensitive one. Thus, his deployment of the practice of a-suYxing when Wnally inquiring into this matter can be seen as a manifestation of his orientation to the potential delicateness involved in asking this question. Despite the grounds for these two possibilities, unlike the cases that we have examined in the previous two sections, there appears to be no clear evidence, in the sequel of this a-attached question or its host turn, to enable a decisive resolution as to which use is being made of this token of Wnal a. In any case, even in the most clear-cut instances examined earlier, it may be recalled, the resolution does not lie in the Wnal particle itself, but rather in the contextual, co-textual or prosodic resources present in the interaction. Final a, in and of itself, as I have suggested, serves only to mark speakerdeWned problematicity. A Wnal point to be noted here concerns what I propose as “ritualized” uses of Wnal a. These uses are observed to be employed especially, though not exclusively, by native Mandarin speakers from northern areas of Mainland China. It is observed that these speakers recurrently attach a Wnal a to their questions, even though these questions do not, prima facie, appear to be addressing any problematic situations nor doing any kind of delicate interactional work along the lines explicated in Section 4.2.2. These questions are ordinarily requests for factual information, personal opinions, or information regarding someone’s personal circumstances. If the practice of a-suYxing, as proposed in this chapter, serves to mark problematicity, how, then, are we to understand these cases, in which the use of Wnal a does not seem to serve this proposed function at Wrst glance?

178 Final Particles in Mandarin

Without having a set of clear33 and representative exemplars of this kind in the data at hand, at this moment I wish only to oVer a plausible account for this phenomenon. That is, these uses of Wnal a may be best understood in light of what GoVman (1971:109) termed “remedial work,” whose major function is to “change the meaning that otherwise might be given to an act, transforming what could be seen as oVensive into what can be seen as acceptable.” The target of this kind of remedial work, according to GoVman (ibid.:108B109), does not need to be a serious wrongdoing, but can be what he termed a “virtual oVense.” Interestingly, inquiring into one’s personal circumstances or requesting information pertaining to facts or opinions are among the types of activities which GoVman (ibid.) proposed may constitute just this kind of virtual oVense and hence may require what he regarded as ritualistic remedial work. With this noted, and in view of the recurrent uses of Wnal a to mark problematicity observed elsewhere in the corpus, I would like to suggest that the role of Wnal a in this kind of instance may be that of marking “ritualized” problematicity. This proposal, of course, awaits further investigation and should be treated as impressionistic at present.

4.2.3 Summary of a with a notably low pitch Section 4.2 has covered the occurrences of Wnal a when it is produced with a notably low pitch. We have seen that, with this prosody, Wnal a commonly Wgures in an interrogative: It may be attached to a grammatically-constructed question (cases termed “a-attached questions”); or it may be attached to a repeat, partial repeat, or a candidate understanding of what another has said or intended in a previous turn, and thereby makes conWrmation or disconWrmation a relevant next action (cases termed “a-formulated questions”). Aside from a few unique usages C such as when a-formulated questions serve as straightforward repair initiators, or when Wnal a is possibly marking nothing but “ritualized” problematicity C a central feature of Wnal a across these two sets of instances is its marking of the matter being addressed as deviant from how it should be, or normally is, from the a speaker’s point of view: In the case of a-formulated questions, where a is commonly attached to utterances predicated on another’s prior talk (or action), the use of Wnal a regularly serves to call into question the adequacy or believability of that prior talk (or action). In the case of a-attached questions, Wnal a regularly serves to

Final a 179

mark problematicity, and the problematicity indexed by Wnal a can be “selfreXected” or “other-related”: In the former, the use of Wnal a operates to mark the very asking of the question as problematic; in the latter, Wnal a is deployed to mark the matter being addressed as problematic. In the next section, we will turn to cases in which Wnal a is produced with a Xat or slightly high pitch. In spite of the prosodic diVerence, we will see that a central tenor of the majority of those a tokens is also the marking of problematicity.

4.3

A with a Xat or slightly high pitch

Thus far in this chapter we have focused on Wnal a with a notably low pitch. This section examines cases in which Wnal a is produced with a Xat or slightly high pitch.34, 35 One major diVerence between these two types of Wnal a, aside from the diVerence in the prosody, pertains to the fact that while Wnal a with a notably low pitch characteristically Wgures in interrogatives, Wnal a with a Xat or slightly high pitch characteristically Wgures in non-interrogatives. Consider, for example, the following excerpt, reproduced from the earlier cited (1): (1) (CS Party A094A) ((T is reporting on his itinerary for an upcoming trip when X joins in with a piece of information about their mutual supervisor at line 1.)) 1X:→

na ge libai lao ban bu zai a. that C week boss N at PRT ‘The boss won’t be here that week A.’

2

(.)

3T:→

na ge libai laoban bu zai a) that C week boss N at PRT ‘The boss won’t be here that week A)’

4X:→

dui a.= right PRT ‘(That’s) right A.’=

5H:

=a shenme shihou huilai. PRT what time return =‘And when will you come back?’

180 Final Particles in Mandarin

Here we can note that while the Wnal a with a notably low pitch (line 3) Wgures as part of a conWrmation request, the two tokens of Wnal a with a slightly high pitch both occur in non-interrogatives: The one in line 1 is attached to an informing and the one in line 4 to a reconWrmation. As excerpt (1) also illustrates, in the present corpus, Wnal a with a Xat or slightly high pitch overwhelmingly occurs in responsive position: It may Wgure as part of an utterance which is produced in responsive position, as is the a token in line 4, or its occurrence, as the one in line (1), may reXexively embody that its attached utterance is one which is launched to address some prior talk or action by oneself or another person, rather than one which is produced in its own right and is produced to instigate an entirely new departure in talk.36 In what follows, I will begin the explication of this kind of Wnal a by looking at two major sequential contexts in which it recurrently occurs C namely, “informing” and “disagreeing.”

4.3.1 Informing The sequential context which I term “informing” is represented schematically as follows: Speaker A: question/claim/assertion Speaker B notices in A’s turn that there is something speaker B knows but speaker A does not, then: Speaker B: a-suYxed utterance (which carries with it the information speaker A has displayed to not know)

As noted above, speaker A asks a question, or makes a claim or an assertion in a prior turn. In that turn, speaker B notices that there is something which he or she knows but speaker A does not. Speaker B then delivers an utterance which carries with it the information speaker A has displayed to not know, and then suYxes that information with a Wnal a. One prototypical example of this kind is question-answer sequences. In the present corpus, some of the answer turns in these sequences are observed to be marked with an a. Consider, for instance, excerpt (27) below, which comes from a dinner party among a group of friends, recorded in the US.

Final a

Here, as the participants are about to start dinner, speaker H notices an additional bowl of rice on the table and initiates a question in line 1: (27) (CS Party 018A; video 41”) 1H:

ei) (.) weisheme hui duo yi wan fan zai nabian. PRT why ASP additional one C rice at there ‘Hey, (.) how come there is an additional bowl of rice over there?’

2

(1.3)

3X:→

↑hai you %Victor% a. still have (friend) PRT ‘↑There is still %Victor% A.’

When coparticipant X replies, we can note, his response is suYxed with an a. A similar case is the following, which is taken from the same conversation as (27). (28) (CS Party video-lift 216A; video 20')37 1T:

wo jintianI today ‘I today-’

2T:

wo- (.) jinnian de shaobang dui wo you zai jichang kandao guo. I this-year PRT little-league team I have at airport see ASP ‘I- (.) saw- this year’s (Taiwanese) little league team at the airport.’

3

(1.2)

4L:

a zai nali da. PRT at where play ‘So where’s (it) playing?’

5T:→

zai weilianpote a. at (place) PRT ‘At Williamsport A.’

6L:

(ou zai weilianpote) PRTat (place) ‘(Oh, at Williamsport.)’

Here, we can note that L’s question in line 4, initiated in response to speaker T’s informing in lines 1B2, also receives an a-attached response (line 5).

181

182 Final Particles in Mandarin

To understand how Wnal a Wgures in the above question-answer sequences, it is relevant to note that, in Mandarin Chinese, the answer turn need not be suYxed with an a, and in fact, it is not suYxed with an a in the majority of cases. The question then arises as to what has motivated the speakers in the preceding examples to employ the practice of a-suYxing to their responses. A closer investigation of the above two excerpts and excerpts of a similar kind in the corpus shows that all these exemplars share a similar characteristic. That is, the person who asks the question is expected to be the one who should have known the answer in the Wrst place. For instance, in (27), the questioner, H, is actually one of the two party hosts, and hence is supposed to have primary access to the arrangements for the party. The fact that he is puzzled about an additional bowl of rice prepared for a guest-yet-to-come and has to solicit an account for that from those who are invited can be seen as not only unexpected but also potentially problematic. Similarly, in (28), L’s inquiry about the location of the Little League Series is potentially counter-to-expectation, for it is reasonable to suppose that such a person as L, who not only is a baseball fan, but also used to play for the Taiwanese Little League,38 ought to have the knowledge that the Little League Series is held annually at Williamsport (Philadelphia).39 Thus, what we Wnd from (27) and (28) is that the use of Wnal a here is, in fact, very much in line with what we have observed about Wnal a in Section 4.2 C namely, that it serves to mark the matter being addressed as deviant from how it should be, or normally is, from the a speaker’s point of view. In the present context, where Wnal a is used in responses to questions, its use commonly operates to mark the unwarranted status of the question being responded to, carrying within it an implied attack on the legitimacy of that question (cf. Heritage 1998). The claim that Wnal a can serve to problematize the legitimacy of a question C marking, for example, that it is an inquiry into supposedly knownin-common information C can be further supported by cases in which a questioner’s state of knowledge concerning the inquired-about matter is subsequently attested to or acknowledged. Excerpt (29), from the same multiparty conversation as (27) and (28), provides a case in point. In this excerpt, W is telling a story about how he once mistakenly took an icon for a newlyinstalled computer software program as a signal of a virus alert and ended up reformatting the hard drive of his computer.40

Final a 183

(29) (CS Party A124A) 1W:

wo juede zui haoxiao de shi hhh I feel most funny PRT be (laugh) ‘I think the most funny thing is hhhhh’

2W:

ta you shang jiao bu shi you chuxian na ge- gui lian ma. it right up corner N be have appear that C ghost face Q ‘isn’t there a- ghost face appearing in the upper right hand corner?’

3L:

dui a. right PRT ‘(That’s) right.’

4W:

wo yiwei na ge wo yijing zhong le bingdu I thought that C I already get PFV virus ‘I thought that meant my (computer) had a virus.’

5W:

houlai jiu ba ta hhhh %format% diao hhhh later then BA it (laugh) format oV (laugh) ‘(So) later (I) just hhh %reformatted% it. hhhh’

6L:

qishi bu shi. actually N be ‘(But) actually (it) was not (a virus).’

7X:→

jieguo lei. result PRT ‘And then?’

((to W))

8L:

qishi shi bu shi de. actually be N be PRT ‘Actually (it) was not (a virus).’

((to X))

9X:

ni: you: ‘You::’

10

(0.5)

11W:=>

wo hai da dianhua wen guo ni a ((to X)) I still call telephone ask ASP you PRT ‘I actually had called you to ask you (about it) A.’

184 Final Particles in Mandarin

12W:

wo shuo zhe yang shi bu shi zhong du le I say this manner be N be get virus CRS ‘I said, “Is this a virus?”’

In response to W’s story, X Wrst inquires about the consequence of W’s mistake (jieguo lei ‘and then?’; line 7) and appears to make a subsequent (yet aborted) move to comment on it (ni:: ‘you::’; line 9). While these moves display X’s ignorance of and innocence in this matter, they are nonetheless contrary to W’s expectation: As it turns out when W unfolds the whole story later in the conversation, X was the one who had actually given W the wrong guidance and suggestion when consulted about this matter. We see, then, that, in lines 11B12, W Wrst asserts that he had a prior conversation with X regarding this matter, and then moves on to cite that conversation as evidence for X’s knowledge of, involvement in, and probable liability for the reported matter. W’s assertion in line 11 is suYxed with Wnal a, which appears to serve here to register the unexpected and problematic aspect of X’s initial reaction to this matter. Excerpt (30), below, provides an instance in which a coparticipant’s subsequent reaction echoes, and lends further support to, the a speaker’s apparent treatment that the question being responded to runs counter to his expectation C as adumbrated by his deployment of a-suYxing to the response. This excerpt comes from the same sequence that we have seen several times in Chapter 3, in which coparticipants are discussing L’s baseball-playing history. Prior to this excerpt, speaker L has just conWrmed that he had played in the national baseball league in Taiwan. In line 1, speaker R C L’s long-term girlfriend C initiates a question about when this particular event had happened. We can note that L’s response in line 2 as well as his responses (line 4)41 to R’s subsequent conWrmation request in line 3 are all suYxed with Wnal a. (30) (CS Party 216A) 1R:

shenme shihou. what time ‘When?’

2L:=>

xiao shihou a. little time PRT ‘When (I) was a kid A.’

Final a 185

3R:

ni da guo ou. you play ASP PRT ‘You played (ball in the league)?/!’

4L:=>

dui a. dui a. right PRT right PRT ‘(That’s) right A. (That’s) right A.’

5T:→

%li m chai ou% you N know PRT ‘%You didn’t know?%’

6R:

[(wo zhidao ta you.) lishi hai bu zhidao I know 3sg have history still N know [‘(I know he had (but I) didn’t know about the history yet.’

That L’s deployment of a-suYxing here may be grounded in the presumption that R should have known his baseball-playing history is reinforced by coparticipant T’s subsequent reaction in line 5. Here, T’s question (%li m chai ou% ‘You didn’t know?/!’) clearly shows that he, too, is treating R’s displayed state of knowledge about this particular event as less than expected. Whereas in the previous two examples, it is either the question recipient ((29)) or the coparticipant ((30)) who subsequently moves to contest the questioners’ displays of a lack of prior knowledge of the matters involved, the next example oVers a case in which the a-embodied claim that the questioner should have known what he is asking about is subsequently conWrmed by the questioner’s post-response reaction. In this excerpt, coparticipants are talking about a woman (Wu Qing) whom they suspect is dating one of their mutual friends (Victor). This excerpt begins with X’s response to L’s just-prior inquiry about the state of the relationship between this woman and the mutual friend.42 (31) (CS Party ordinary 466A; video 37') 1X:

bu xiaode shi bu shi nüpengyou. N know be N be girlfriend ‘(I) don’t know if (she) is (Victor’s) girlfriend.’

2

(.)

3X:

yangmuzhe admirer ‘(His) admirer.’

186 Final Particles in Mandarin

4L:

ou, yangmuzhe= PRT admirer ‘Oh, (his) admirer.’=

5X:

= her name just be admirer =‘’

6

(0.5)

7H:

shei? who ‘Who?’

8T:

[%victor% bei yangmu le (ma) (name) BEI admire CRS Q [‘%Victor% has been admired./?’

9X:=>

[wu-qing a (name) PRT [‘Wu Qing A.’

10X:=>

[[wu-qing a (name) PRT [[‘Wu Qing A.’

11L:

[[<%victor% you yi ge nüpengyou> changchang qu zhao ta. (name) have one C girlfriend often go visit 3sg [[‘<%Victor% has a girlfriend,> (who) goes to visit him very often.’

12X:

3sg have one C admirer PRT ‘’

13H:→

ou, na ge- [wu-qing la.= PRT that C (name) PRT ‘Oh. That(’s)- [Wu Qing.’=

((in the kitchen at the moment))

((to X))

Here, H’s repair initiator in line 7 (shei ‘who’) generates two rounds of responses from the recipients: the Wrst round by X (line 9), produced in overlap with T’s conWrmation request (line 8), and the second round by X (line 10) and L (line 11), produced in overlap with each other. Of these responses, we can note that the two responses by X C his initial one in line 9 and the

Final a 187

subsequent reproduction in line 10 C are both suYxed with a. X’s consistent C and insistent C deployment of a-suYxing to his responses appears to embody his treatment of H’s question as counter-to-expectation, possibly on the ground of H’s presumed prior knowledge about the matter under discussion. And indeed, this a-embodied supposition is subsequently conWrmed. In line 13, we can see that, following the production of a “realizing” ou and a brief word search (na ge- (‘that(’s)-’), H not only displays that he has indeed known about this mutual friend’s recent romance, but does so through a display of that knowledge C i.e., by specifying the woman’s name. Excerpts (27) through (31), then, show how the practice of a-suYxing can serve to adumbrate the question recipient’s assumption that the questioner should have known what he or she has just inquired about. And in each of these cases, this assumption appears to turn on some ethnographic or personal knowledge shared by the questioner and the question recipient. However, a supposition of this kind may also turn on knowledge directly obtained from the local sequential context. That is, a question recipient may a-suYx his or her response if the question is, in his or her view, inquiring into information already conveyed in the prior sequence. It comes as no surprise, then, that one of the most frequent sequential contexts used for Wnal a is in a turn of (re)conWrmation. This use of Wnal a is illustrated by the following excerpts, all from the earlier-cited examples in this chapter.43 (1) (CS Party A094A) 1X:→1

na ge libai laoban bu zai a. that C week boss N at PRT ‘The boss won’t be here that week.’

2

(.)

3T:→2

na ge libai laoban bu zai a) that C week boss N at PRT ‘The boss won’t be here that week?’

4X:=>3

dui a.= right PRT ‘(That’s) right A.’=

188 Final Particles in Mandarin

(5) (T-Dancer 211) 1D:→1

jieguo renjia gen wo shuo ta shi waishengren= result others with I say 3sg be mainlander ‘And then (when) other people told me that she is a mainlander,’=

2D:

=wo- (.) wo (ziji) dou xia yi tiao a= I I self all shock one C PRT =‘I- (.) I (myself) was shocked.’ =

3X:→2

=ta shi waishengren a) 3sg be mainlander PRT =‘She is a mainlander?’

4D:=>3

dui a right PRT ‘(That’s) right A.’

(6) (CS Party A119b) 1C:→1

ta zai taiwan shuo: na ge: (.) jiaru na ge quanlijin a 3sg at Taiwan say that C join that C franchise-fee PRT ‘In Taiwan they said: that uh:: (.) the franchise fee,’

2L:

[hen PRT [‘Yeah?’

3X:

[uh PRT [‘Uh.’

4C:→1

haoxiang bu shi hen gao a= seem N be very high PRT ‘doesn’t seem very high.’=

5X:→2

=quanlijin bu gui a) franchise-fee N expensive PRT =‘The franchise fee is not expensive?’

6C:=>3

dui a tingshuo qishi bu gao. right PRT I-heard actually N high ‘(That’s) right A. (I) heard (them) say (it’s) actually not high.’

Final a 189

(23) (T-career 108) 1L:

pt! hhhh aaxiang nimen zuo de zhe ge dongxi PRT PRT like you do PRT this C stuV ‘pt! hhhh And- and- like the stuV that you are making,’

2L:

zai taiwan you mei you ren zai zuo a) at Taiwan have N have person ASP do PRT ‘is there anyone making (it) in Taiwan?’

3L:

<wo shuo xiang:: xinzhu kexue yuanqu. I say like (place) science center ‘
4

(0.4)

5U:→1

taiwan genben mei you shichang. Taiwan base N have market ‘There is no market in Taiwan at all.’

6U:→1

taiwan genben hai yong bu dao zhe- zhe- zhe fangmian de %tool% Taiwan base still use N reach this this this aspect PRT tool ‘Taiwan has absolutely no need for this- this kind of %tool% yet.’

7L:→2

suoyi tamen- taiwan genben mei you zai %design% shi bu shi so they Taiwan base N have ASP design right N right ‘So they- In Taiwan there is nobody %designing% this tool at all, right?’

8

(0.7)

9U:=>3

dui a right PRT ‘(That’s) right A.’

(29) (CS Party 216A) 1R:

shenme shihou. what time ‘When?’

2L:→1

xiao shihou a. little time PRT ‘When (I) was a kid.’

190 Final Particles in Mandarin

3R:→2

ni da guo ou. you play ASP PRT ‘You played (ball in the league)?/!’

4L:=>3

dui a. dui a. right PRT right PRT ‘(That’s) right A. (That’s) right A.’

In each of these excerpts, we can see that the a speaker’s just-prior informing or assertion (arrow 1) is met with a query (arrow 2), which, in turn, receives an a-suYxed (re)conWrmation (arrow 3). In view of its sequential position, the query C whether it turns out to be a (straightforward) repair initiator, a predisagreement or a newsmark C is, at the moment of its production, vulnerable to the analysis by its recipient that it is questioning the obvious C something that he or she has just articulated or conveyed. And I suggest that it is just this kind of analysis and an intent to register this analysis that lead the recipient to a-suYx his or her subsequent (re)conWrmation. Excerpt (33) oVers another example of (re)conWrmation suYxed with Wnal a. In this example, however, the locus of the presumably shared knowledge is not located in the sequence in which the a-suYxed (re)conWrmations are deployed, but rather occurred further back in the conversation. This earlier conversation is presented in excerpt (32), below. (32) (CS Party ordinary 183A; sony 210A; video 19:20) 1X:

houlai shaobang you jiang shenme hua ma? later little-league have speak what word Q ‘Did (they) talk about anything else later in (today’s) Little League?’

2?:

(Y)

3H:

haoxiang meiyou (nei). seem N PRT ‘(I) suppose not.’

4L:

tch! shenme shiqing. what matter ‘tch! What’s up?’

5X:

ying [(le) a win CRS PRT ‘(We) [won.’

Final a

6H:

[jintian- <shaobang %li kam-u khoaN% today little-league you Q see [‘%Did you watch% today’s-
7L:

%bo% =%an-noaN% N why ‘%No,%=%why?%’

8H:

shisan bi san. thirteen compare three ‘Thirteen to three.’

9X:

%iaN a% win PRT ‘%(We) won.%’

10H:

[%iaN a% win PRT [‘%(We) won.%’

11W:

[((bringing in a pot of hot soup)) [bang wo na yixia dianzi help I hold a-while mat [‘Get me the mat, (please).’

Here, several participants are discussing the Little League Final that they watched on TV earlier that day, which was played by the Taiwanese team, and in which the Taiwanese team won. In line 4, speaker L, who apparently did not watch this baseball game, produces a repair initiator (shenme shiqing ‘what’s up’) and is then informed of the results of the game by several coparticipants (lines 5, 8, 9, 10). This topic, however, is temporarily abandoned in the face of a disruption in the setting (line 11). It is not until two minutes later when the topic becomes relevant again that L initiates a conWrmation request (line 4): (33) (CS Party ordinary 183A; sony 210A; video 19:20) 1W:

jintian bu shi you yi ge hao da piantoday N be have one C very big C ‘Wasn’t there a really big (guy) today-’

2W:

[(Y)

191

192 Final Particles in Mandarin

3X:

[na ge yinggai meiyou chaoguo.= that C should N exceed [‘(I don’t think) that guy exceeds (the age limit for the League).’=

4L:→

=women na ge shaobang shi-shijie guanjun le ((to W)) we that C little-league world champion CRS =‘Our Little League team has (won) the wor- world championship?’

5W:=>

dui a right PRT ‘(That’s) right A.’

6W?:

[jintiantoday [‘Today-’

7L:

[(ye shi) lide. also be (school) [‘(The team is also from) Lide./?’

8L:→

jintian da le= today play PFV/CRS ‘(It’s) already been played today?’=

9X:=>

=(jintian)/(yijing) da wan le a today already play Wnish PFV/CRS PRT =‘(It’s) (already) Wnished (today) A.’

10L:

ou. PRT ‘Oh.’

11

(.)

12L:

wo zhidao qingbang guanjun le ma.= I know major-league champion PFV/CRS PRT ‘I knew (we’d) won the championship for the Major League.’=

13L:

=[shaobanglittle-league =[‘The Little League-’

14W:

=[shaobang ye shi guanjun. little-league also be champion =[‘(We’ve) also won the championship for the Little League.’

Final a 193

Here, we can note that L’s conWrmation request in line 4 (women na ge shaobang shi- shijie guanjun le ‘our Little League team has (won) the worworld championship?’) and the subsequent one in line 8 (jintian da le ‘(it’s) already been played today?’) each attract an a-suYxed response from a diVerent recipient, which shows that both recipients appear to be treating the answers sought by L’s queries as self-evident. Of particular interest here is that, having undergone two successive implicit attacks on the unexpected and unwarranted status of these queries, L Wrst ou-receipts (line 10) the response, but then subsequently moves (lines 12B13) to explicate his knowledge base: that while he did in fact have (independent) knowledge that the Taiwanese Major League team has won this year’s championship, he did not have that independent knowledge about the Little League team. (The second half of this explication, however, is overlapped and interrupted by W’s reassertion of the news (line 14) and is only halfway projected.) In eVect, what L attempts to accomplish through the explication of his knowledge state, at least in part,44 appears to be defending the legitimacy and relevance of his prior inquiries C i.e., that these inquiries were launched to mark the matters being addressed as news for him. While the a tokens in the previous examples ((1), (5), (6), (23), (29), (33)) all attach to reconWrmations initiated in response to conWrmation (or information) requests, Wnal a can also be attached to a reassertion produced at the speaker’s own initiative. This can be illustrated by the following excerpt, which provides a slightly expanded version of the previously-examined (31), involving a discussion of a mutual friend’s prospective girlfriend. (34) (CS Party ordinary 466A; video 37:00) 5X:

= her name just be admirer =‘’

6

(0.5)

7H:

shei? who ‘Who?’

8T:

[%victor% bei yangmu le (ma) (name) BEI admire CRS Q [‘%Victor% has been admired./?’

((in the kitchen at the moment))

((to X))

194 Final Particles in Mandarin

9X:

[wu-qing a (name) PRT [‘Wu Qing.’

10X:

[[wu-qing a (name) PRT [[‘Wu Qing.’

11L:

[[<%victor% you yi ge nüpengyou> changchang qu zhao ta. (name) have one C girlfriend often go visit 3sg [[‘<%Victor% has a girlfriend,> (who) goes to visit him very often.’

12X:

3sg have one C admirer PRT ‘’

13H:

ou, na ge- [wu-qing la.= PRT that C (name) PRT ‘Oh. That’s- [Wu Qing.’=

14X:

15L:→

16X:=>

[wu-qing shi tade yangmuzhe a (name) be his admirer PRT [‘Wu Qing is his admirer.’ [((X turning gaze to L)) =wo ye bu xiaode ta jiao shenme mingzi jiu yi ge- ((to H)) I also N know 3sg call what name just one C =‘I don’t know what her name is. (She’s) just a-’ wu-qing a. (name) PRT ‘Wu Qing A.’

((to L))

Here, in response to H’s identiWcation of the woman’s name (line 13),45 L seems hesitant (line 15) to provide a straightforward aYrmative response; instead, he claims a lack of suYcient knowledge of this speciWc matter (wo ye bu xiaode ta jiao shenme mingzi ‘I don’t know what her name is’) before apparently proceeding to aYrm only the understanding that this mutual friend does have a new girlfriend C or an “admirer” (jiu yi ge- ‘just a (girlfriend/admirer)’; line 15). While L’s non-committal stance to the name proVered by H may come from the fact that L himself C in contrast to H C has just learned about this news from X, and hence may Wnd it awkward to conWrm this matter, his (L’s) claim of lack of knowledge of this woman’s name

Final a 195

can nonetheless appear inadequate to speaker X, and may even appear itself as a sign of misalignment, given that X has just asserted the woman’s name three times (lines 9, 10, 14) in the immediately preceding sequence. Note then that, before L’s turn (in line 15) comes to a possible completion point, X turns his gaze to L, asserts the woman’s name one more time, and suYxes the name with a Wnal a (line 16). This time, the a-suYxing appears to be addressed to the problematic nature of L’s just-prior disclaimer of something which he in fact has already known (about). What we have seen thus far in this section, then, is a speciWc use of Wnal a: marking a prior speaker’s utterance as unexpected and/or problematic by virtue of the fact that that utterance implicates or displays the prior speaker’s ignorance of something which the a speaker supposes him or her to have known. This supposition, as we have seen, may turn on personal knowledge shared by the prior speaker and the a speaker; or it may be predicated on the immediate interactional history C i.e., what has been made available, prima facie at least, from the prior talk. There is, however, another set of cases in which it is not the sheer ignorance of supposedly known-in-common information that is at issue. It is rather the perceivably (from the a speaker’s point of view) dispreferred or problematic status of the presupposition, understanding, and/or stance displayed or conveyed in a prior speaker’s utterance that is in question. In the present corpus, for example, Wnal a is frequently observed to occur in responses to questions which serve as vehicles for accomplishing dispreferred interactional work, especially questions which display a negative stance toward the matter under discussion, and/or toward the recipient. Excerpt (35) provides just such a case. Here, speaker L is inquiring about how long speaker T is planning to stay home on his upcoming trip to Taiwan from the US. (35) (CS Party A094A; video 08:53) 1L:

a ni huiqu duojiu. PRT you return how-long ‘How long will you go home for?’

2

(0.5)

3T:

yi ge duo libai eryi. one C more week only ‘Only a little over a week.’

196 Final Particles in Mandarin

4L:

a zenme name gan. PRT how that hurry ‘Why so rushed?’

5

(0.3)

6T:→

khhh cha bu duo a. (clear throat) minus N more PRT ‘kkh (That’s) about average A.’

Note Wrst that L’s question in line 4 (zenme name gan ‘why so rushed?’) is built of a negative assessment of the information provided in T’s response in line 3 (yi ge duo libai eryi ‘only a little over a week’), and, in eVect, challenges the appropriateness of T’s schedule and requests an account for it. Note then that T’s response in line 6, which deXects this challenge by asserting his length of stay as normal, is suYxed with a. Excerpt (36) provides another instance of Wnal a attached to an utterance given in response to a question with a strong negative implication. Prior to this excerpt, speaker T has expressed his dislike for wine. This excerpt begins with another less-than-positive comment he makes (line 1) after tasting the wine host W had purchased. (36) (CS Party authentic B016) 1T:

hou, zhe yi ci bu neng he tai duo. (exclamation) this one C N can drink too much ‘Hou, this (wine you) can’t drink too much at a time.’

2

(.)

3

(1.2)

4T:

ni zhende juede jiu hao he ou? you really feel wine good drink PRT ‘You really think wine is tasty?’

5W:→

man hao he de a. pretty good drink PRT PRT ‘Pretty tasty A.’

6

(.)

((to W))

Final a 197

7X:→

wo juede ye man hao he a I feel also pretty good drink PRT ‘I also feel (it’s) pretty tasty A.’

In line 4, T directs a question to W. Note two design features of T’s question. First, this question is constructed through the practice of ou-suYxing, which, among other things, can mark the matter being addressed as news for the ou speaker, as has been discussed in Chapter 3. Second, and more crucially, this question contains a lexical item, zhende (‘really’), whose incorporation has been claimed, at least for its equivalent in English (e.g., Koshik 1999, Heritage 2002b), to have the eVect of “‘raising the bar’ to justify anything other than a ‘no’ answer” (Koshik ibid.:189), and, in doing so, maximizing the questioner’s negative epistemic stance toward the matter being addressed. What these two design features amount to, then, is a hearably disbelief-implicated challenge to W’s interest in wine. Note then that, in the face of this strongly negatively-implicated stance displayed in the question, both W and X deploy the practice of a-suYxing when asserting an opposite position in response to this question. In the present corpus, it is not only questions with a clear negative orientation to the matter involved that are frequently responded to with an a-suYxed answer. Questions which do not display a negative orientation, but which nonetheless display a problematic presupposition, are frequently also treated in the same way. Excerpt (37) below, from a multi-party conversation recorded in the US, oVers a case in point. This excerpt begins with a sequence in which speaker X and speaker L are discussing the prices of computers in Taiwan. In this sequence, speaker L, who is moving back to Taiwan soon, repeatedly asserts (lines 3, 5, 6) that computers in Taiwan are generally more expensive than those in the United States, even at computer shows. After this sequence is brought to a conclusion, another coparticipant, T, directs a query to L (line 8) regarding whether or not the latter intends to purchase a computer in the United States and take it back to Taiwan. This query meets two asuYxed responses (lines 9, 10), produced in overlap with each other. (37) (CS Party A080A) 1X:

keshi taiwan diannao zhan deshihou but Taiwan computer show when ‘But when (there are) computer shows in Taiwan,’

198 Final Particles in Mandarin

2X:

na ge diannao mai chulai bu shi ye- bu hui hen gui ma. that C computer sell out N be also N ASP very expensive Q ‘isn’t it true that computers aren’t sold at a high price?’

3L:

hai shi man gui de. still be pretty expensive PRT ‘Still pretty expensive.’

4X:

[zhende ma. really Q [‘Really?’

5L:

[ta shuo hai shi hen gui. 3sg say still be very expensive [‘He said (it’s) still very expensive.’

6L:

dui. right ‘Right.’

7

(0.5)

8T:

na ni you mei you dasuan mai yi tai huiqu. hhh then you have N have plan buy one C return (laugh) ‘Then are you planning to buy a computer and take it back? hhhh’

9L:→

[wo you mai (a) maiI have buy PRT buy [‘I already did (A). (I) bought-’

10W:→

[ta you mai a 3sg have buy PRT [‘He already did A.’

11T:

zhende really ‘Really?’

To understand how these two a suYxes relate to T’s prior question (line 8), several aspects of this question deserve mentioning. First, T’s question is delivered in a non-serious manner, as revealed by his intonation and his laughter following the question. Second, this question is initiated after a sequence (lines 1B6) in which L had just asserted the high prices of computers in Taiwan, and is designed to be built on the upshot of that sequence (through

Final a 199

the use of a sequential linkage marker, na ‘then’46; line 8). Given this sequential position and relationship, T’s display of a “non-serious” stance in his question in eVect reveals his expectation of a negative response to this question C namely, that it is unlikely, if not impossible, for L to purchase a computer in the United States and take it back to Taiwan. As it happens, however, this displayed expectation turns out to be faulty: L not only planned to buy a computer, but has in fact already bought one. In the next turns (lines 9, 10), then, both the recipient (L) and another participant (W) come to make an explicit correction, and both suYx their corrections with a Wnal a. These two a suYxes, therefore, can be understood as serving here to address T’s displayed faulty presupposition C one whose very existence is retrospectively conWrmed by the newsmark T produces (line 11) in response to W’s and L’s corrective informings. The use of Wnal a to address a faulty presupposition displayed by a prior speaker can also be seen in the following example. This time, however, what is cast in doubt is not the prior speaker’s presupposition of a state of aVairs, but that of its tellability. This example is drawn from a telephone conversation between two friends, T and L. At this point, they are talking about a mutual friend, Julie, who is a fellow graduate student and co-worker of T, and whom L knows through his girlfriend. Where this excerpt begins, T is Wnishing a report that Julie’s (and his) advisor is ready to grant her the degree, contingent on the results of her job search. (38) (T-copyright 235) 1T:

jiu kan ta gongzuo zhao de zemeyang ranhou: just see 3sg job look-for CSC how then ‘Just depends on the results of her job search, and then:’

2L:

yinwei tabecause 3sg ‘Because she-’

3L:

ta shuo %roger::% na ge gongsi haoxiang you zhao ta. 3sg say (name) that C company seem have look- for 3sg ‘she said %Roger’s::% company seemed to have contacted her.’

4

(0.2)

200 Final Particles in Mandarin

5L:

a hai you shenme %paciWc-bell% PRT also have what (company) ‘And also companies like %PaciWc Bell.%’

6

(0.2)

7T:→

pt!
8T:→

gei ta de a.= =%pa- paciWc-bell% shi women jieshao (company) be we introduce to 3sg PRT PRT =‘We’re the ones who recommended her to %Pa- PaciWc Bell% A.’=

9L:

=ou, zhe yangzi a) PRT this manner PRT =‘Oh, really?’

In response to T’s report in line 1, L begins to share information he has learned from Julie about her recent activities in the job market (lines 2–3, 5). Neither of the two pieces of information he oVers, however, receives an immediate response from T (cf. the two ensuing pauses in lines 4, 6). Notice that when T Wnally starts to respond in line 7, he Wrst produces two conWrmation tokens, delivered at a faster tempo (marked with “<” in the transcript), which almost sound impatient. He then goes on with another piece of related information (line 8) C how Julie came to be contacted by one of the prospective employers L has just named C which apparently is news for L (cf. line 9). All three of these responses by T, we can note, are suYxed with a. T’s production of the two conWrmation tokens, the manner of their delivery, and his subsequent provision of a piece of information to which L has no prior access all appear related to T’s treating L’s prior informing as violating the common constraint of tellability C the constraint on a speaker telling a recipient what the speaker ought to suppose the recipient already knows. And in the present context, L’s informing is not only done to an already-informed party, but is in fact done to a better-informed party C one who has a closer relationship to the person being informed about (Julie) and hence one who is supposed to have a priori epistemic authority on her aVairs (cf. Heritage 2002a). Thus, all these subsequent reactions by T can be seen as working to reclaim his epistemic authority in this matter. And the three attached a tokens can thus be understood as serving here to register the prior speaker’s faulty presupposition of the tellability of, and the epistemic priority involved in, the

Final a 201

matter under discussion, conveying a resentful irony, as if to say, “You’re telling me?” In sum, this section has examined one of the major sequential positions in which Wnal a regularly occurs C namely, in a turn in which a speaker asserts informing. Such informing may be solicited by the recipient, such as in a question-answer sequence, or it may be volunteered by the speaker. No matter how these a-suYxed informings come about, what holds across these examples is the a speaker’s display that what is being informed in the asuYxed utterance is something that the recipient should have known (e.g., (27), (28), (29), (30), (31), (1), (5), (6), (23), (29), (33), (34)), or has displayed to have known otherwise (e.g., (35), (36), (37), (38)).47 In this regard, the use of Wnal a here conveys a very similar import to that conveyed by the Wnal a discussed in Section 4.2 C namely, that it is used to register the problematic status of the matter being responded to and the speaker’s less than positive stance toward it.

4.3.2 Disagreeing Earlier in our discussion of a-suYxed informings, we noted that one common use of Wnal a is to respond to an utterance by a prior speaker which takes a problematic stance toward a matter involving the a speaker and which thereby casts him or her in a problematic way (e.g., (35), (36)). In these cases, we noted as well that the a speakers frequently come to defend themselves by launching an a-suYxed informing which asserts a diVerent position than that which has just been conveyed or displayed by the prior speaker. In eVect, cases like this have begun to converge with another set of cases involving the use of Wnal a in the other major sequential context proposed earlier C namely, the context of “disagreeing.” This sequential context is sketched as follows: Speaker A: question/informing/claim/assertion Speaker B notices in A’s turn that there is something which speaker B does not agree with, then: Speaker B: a-suYxed utterance (with which speaker B disagrees or disaligns with speaker A.)

202 Final Particles in Mandarin

In this sequential context, speaker A asks a question, does an informing, or makes a claim or an assertion in a prior turn. In it, speaker B notices that there is something which he or she does not agree with. Speaker B then delivers an utterance to disagree with speaker A, or counter his or her position in some way, and then suYxes that utterance with Wnal a. Before we explicate cases involving a-suYxed disagreements, it may be relevant to Wrst register that while a-suYxing is a common feature of disagreeing turns, disagreeing turns are not always suYxed with Wnal a. They may be suYxed with other Wnal particles, such as Wnal ou, as has been demonstrated in Chapter 3. Excerpt (39), reproduced from one of the examples discussed in that chapter, is an apt illustration. (39) (WQ 1b) ((Prior to this excerpt, speaker M, who is from Mainland China, has just informed speaker F, who is from Taiwan, that it is diYcult to cultivate rice in the northeast area of Mainland China.)) 1F:

suoyi dongbei bijiao qiong ou= so northeast relatively poor PRT ‘So the Northeast is relatively poor?’=

2F:

=[(zhe yangzi ma) this manner Q =[‘(Is that so?)’

3M:→

[↑dongbei bu qiong ou↑↓ northeast N poor PRT [‘↑The Northeast is not poor OU↑↓.’

4F:

bu qiong [ma? N poor Q ‘(It’s) not [poor?’

5M:

[nei ge (.)
6M:

.hhh dadou (k)- mai de jiaqian hen hao soybean sell PRT price very good ‘.hhh soybeans can be sold at a good price.’

7M:

<dongbei mianfen ye hen hao northeast Xour also very good ‘
Final a 203

8M:→

[<dongbei bu qiong ou↑ northeast N poor PRT [‘
9F:

[dadou na lai zuo shenme soybean take come do what [‘What’re soybeans used for?’

This excerpt contains two ou-suYxed disagreements: The one in line 3 is initiated in response to a candidate understanding proVered by F (line 1), and the one in line 8 occurs as a reassertion of his position at the end of a series of follow-up accounts (lines 5B7). In fact, disagreeing or disaligning responses may not be suYxed with any Wnal particles at all. A return to (37) in this chapter, partially reproduced below as (40), provides us with one such instance. (40) (CS Party A080A) 1X:

keshi taiwan diannao zhan deshihou but Taiwan computer show when ‘But when (there are) computer shows in Taiwan,’

2X:

na ge diannao mai chulai bu shi ye- bu hui hen gui ma. that C computer sell out N be also N ASP very costly Q ‘isn’t it true that computers- aren’t sold at a high price?’

3L:→

hai shi man gui de. still be pretty costly PRT ‘Still pretty expensive.’

4X:

[zhende ma. really Q [‘Really?’

5L:

[ta shuo hai shi hen gui. 3sg say still be very costly [‘He said (it’s) still very expensive.’

6L:→

dui. right ‘Right.’

204 Final Particles in Mandarin

Here, neither L’s response (line 3) to X’s negatively-implicated question (lines 1B2), nor his reconWrmation (line 6) of X’s subsequent query, have any Wnal particles attached to them. If we compare these two excerpts with those which contain an a-suYxed disagreeing/misaligning response, such as (35) and (36), examined in the previous section, we note that an apparent diVerence between these two sets of cases pertains to the epistemic stance displayed in and through the target of the disagreeing/misaligning response. More speciWcally, although the disagreeing/misaligning responses in all these cases are deployed to address a question which exhibits an understanding or expectation of a state of aVairs divergent from that held by the current speaker C the disagreeing party, the two questions which are not met with an a-suYxed disagreement ((39), (40)) are both substantially weakened epistemically. In (39), for example, M’s ou-suYxed disagreeing/misaligning response (line 3) is addressed to an understanding check by F (line 1). While an understanding check can be deployed and heard as a pre-disagreement, there are three features of this understanding check which serve to minimize such an implication and hearing. First, this understanding check is introduced by suoyi ‘so,’ which explicitly marks what is to be projected as an inference drawn from M’s just-prior talk. Second, this understanding check is suYxed with Wnal ou, which, as opposed to Wnal a, regularly adumbrates a relatively weaker epistemic stance, and serves to mark the matter being addressed as news for its speaker, rather than to foreshadow an incipient disagreement (cf. (4)B(8) in this chapter). And third, this understanding check is immediately followed by a conWrmation request (zhe yangzi ma ‘is that so?’; line 2), which invites M to yet again conWrm (or disconWrm) the adequacy of the proVered understanding while at the same time reinforcing the just-prior understanding check as a straightforward repair initiator. All three of these features appear designed to underscore the asymmetric distribution in knowledge between F and M, registering M as the authority on this issue. And in (40), we can see that the target of L’s misaligning response C X’s negatively-formulated question (lines 1B2) C has been developed up to the point where the key word would be due next (keshi taiwan diannao zhan de shihou, na ge diannao mai chulai bu shi ye- ‘But when (there are) computer shows in Taiwan, isn’t it true that computers-’), when X then self-interrupts the turn in progress and initiates a repair. The product of this self repair C a double negative construction (bu shi ye bu hui hen gui ‘isn’t (it) true that

Final a 205

computers aren’t sold at a high price?’) C is epistemically much weaker than its aYrmative version (bu shi ye hen pianyi ‘isn’t (it) true that computers are sold quite cheap?’) C a version which X could have projected instead and, in fact, may have been projecting before the initiation of the self-repair. In both cases, then, there is evidence that an otherwise negatively-implicated question is designed or modiWed in such a way as to downgrade its epistemic strength. In both cases, it appears to be just this display of an epistemically weakened stance by the questioner that has led to a possible withholding of the practice of a-suYxing by the question recipient when issuing the disagreement C a practice which is otherwise commonplace in this sequential position, as (35) and (36) have demonstrated. It is clear, then, that there is an association of the deployment or nondeployment of an a-suYxing to a disagreement, and the epistemic strength displayed in and through the utterance to which the disagreement responds. A possible account for this association, I suggest, pertains to the intrinsic property of Wnal a and the role it plays in disagreement sequences. As we have observed in the previous sections, a central feature of Wnal a is marking the matter being addressed as deviant from how it should be, or normally is, from the a speaker’s point of view. This feature makes a-suYxing an apt and wellsuited resource for strengthening a disagreeing or disaligning stance. That is, by marking what another has conveyed or asserted in a prior turn as “deviant” or counter-to-expectation, the speaker could in eVect reinforce the legitimacy and adequacy of the position he or she is holding. With this particular feature, then, when a disagreeing party suYxes his or her response with Wnal a, he or she is commonly understood not only to be doing a disagreement, but also to be doing it in an upgraded manner C with a counteractive stance. Not surprisingly, such a stance display is most relevant when there is a strong target for the disagreeing party to be counteracting C such as when another party has launched a strongly negatively-implicated question which is hearably casting the current speaker in a problematic way C and is frequently suppressed when another party has weakened his or her epistemic stance in the Wrst place. As a means of asserting a counteractive stance, Wnal a in the present corpus is observed to Wgure in two major operations to achieve this end. First, it can be attached to an utterance which presents information contrastive with, contradictory to, or even in direct opposition to, that which has been asserted or conveyed by another speaker in a previous turn. This, in fact, has already been illustrated in (35). In that example, we noted that, in response

206 Final Particles in Mandarin

to L’s disagreement-implicated query, zenme name gan ‘why so rushed?’, speaker T asserts a counter position by launching a contradictory claim, cha bu duo a ‘(that’s) about average A’; and this contradictory claim is suYxed with a Wnal a. A similar use of Wnal a is apparent in the next two examples. Excerpt (41) comes from the dinner party among a group of friends that we have seen several times in this chapter. In the talk prior to this point, the topic of the conversation centered around participant L’s upcoming trip to Taiwan. Just before this excerpt, speaker X has made a suggestion to L that he should consider taking one of the two airlines (namely, China Airlines and EVA Airlines) which have direct Xights to his destination. This suggestion, however, is subsequently contested by another participant, C, at line 1, through an assertion that these two airlines are among those which have relatively high airfares. In turn, this assertion engenders an argument among participants C with W aligned with C against X. (41) (CS Party 55A) 1C:

keshi huahang gen changrong dou shi bijiao gui de but (airlines) with (airlines) both be relatively expensive PRT ‘But both China Airlines and EVA Airlines are more expensive.’

2

(0.5)

3X:→

jushuo huahang hen pianyi a I-heard (airlines) very cheap PRT ‘I heard that China Airlines is very cheap A.’

4

(.)

5C:

[(tamen geng) pianyi. they more cheap [‘(They are) cheap(er).’

6W:→

[bu hui ba. huahang hai shi hen gui a N ASP PRT (airlines) still be very expensive PRT [‘Not likely. China Airlines is still very expensive A.’

7X:→

jushuo xianzai yijing bijiao pianyi le a I-heard now already relatively cheap CRS PRT ‘I heard (it has) already become cheaper now A.’

8

(1.5)

Final a 207

9X:

[keshi yao renshou shengming-renshou shengming de weixian but need bear life bear life PRT danger [‘But (you) need to tolerate the risk of life.’

Here, we can note that Wnal a occurs three times in this excerpt (at the arrows), all attached to countervailing arguments. The Wrst one (line 3) is attached to X’s rebuttal to C’s challenge C that one of the airlines he has earlier recommended to L (China Airlines) was reported to have good airfares. The second one (line 6) is attached to an overt disagreement by W with X C an insistence on, and a tacit endorsement of, C’s earlier claim of the high airfares of the airline in question (huahang hai shi hen gui a ‘China Airlines is still very expensive A’; line 6). And the third one (line 7) is attached to X’s reassertion of his earlier-stated position C which is launched to address W’s disagreement, and in which he recalibrates his argument by adding the information that the reported lower airfares are a recent development (jushuo xianzai yijing bijiao pianyi le a ‘I heard that (it ) has already become cheaper now A’).48 In each instance, then, the a-suYx is attached to an utterance which is launched either to disagree with a stated position by another, or to reassert one’s own previously stated position which has just undergone an attack. In either case, what the speaker displays is a counteractive stance toward his interlocutor C a stance which is registered and underscored here through the practice of asuYxing. While the a-suYxes in (41) are deployed in an already-initiated disagreement sequence, a-suYxing can also Wgure in a turn in which the speaker initiates a disagreement. Excerpt (42), taken from the same conversation as (41), is an example of this. Where this excerpt begins, speaker C is Wnishing a report on the laborious work involved in preparing and selling a particular chicken snack at night markets C including the tedious work of plucking chicken feathers (line 1). In line 2, speaker X provides a piece of information, in the form of a conWrmation question, that nowadays the plucking is all done by machines. After a 0.7 second gap in which no recipient uptake (line 3) is forthcoming, X undertakes (line 4) to detail the machine-operated featherremoval procedure he has just mentioned. (42) (CS Party A086B) 1C:

bozi a, shenme ji chi. yao ba mao naxie. neck PRT what chicken wing need pluck feather those ‘Necks, chicken wings, (you) need to pluck feathers (and all that).’

208 Final Particles in Mandarin

2X:

a xianzai bu shi dou shi- (.) diandong ba mao. PRT now N be all be machine pluck feather ‘Isn’t it all- (.) machines that do the plucking nowadays?’

3

(0.7)

4X:

sha le (gang jinqu shi ) yi zhi [ji: just enter be one C chicken kill PFV ‘(When just put into the machine), it’s a [chicken. After killed-’

5C:

[(Yyi zhi ji ) one C chicken [‘(Y a chicken.)’

6H:→

ou na ge ou. haoxiang yaoping chu mao a PRT that C PRT seem chemicals remove feather PRT ‘Oh. That(’s)- (That) seems to be done by chemical pills A.’

7X:

*sha le yihou diu jinqu, (0.5) kill PFV after throw into *‘After killed, (it’s) thrown into (the machine), (0.5)’

8X:

chulai jiu shi: out just be ‘(and then after) it comes out, there is (a plucked chicken).’

9W:

hhhh diandong ba mao. huaxue yaoping chu mao.* (laugh) machine pluck feather chemical pill remove feather ‘hhhhh Machine-operated, chemically-aided feather removal.’* ((from * to *, people laugh))

10H:

na bu yiyang. na shi yong huaxue yaoping. ta bu shi diandong. that N same that be use chemical pill it N be machine ‘That’s different. That’s done by chemical pills, not by machine.’

X’s elaboration of this procedure, however, triggers another participant, H, to recall something which he knows independently C something which, however, is not compatible with X’s just-prior informing. In line 6, H interrupts X’s elaboration with a “change-of-state” token ou, followed by a brief word search (na ge ‘that(’s)-’), and Wnally the outcome of this search C the information that the current practice for people to remove chicken feathers is by chemical pills. By oVering this piece of contradictory information, H in eVect

Final a 209

rejects the validity of the information X has just provided. And this contradictory information is, once again, marked with Wnal a. Of additional interest in this excerpt is that H’s commitment to the information he oVers C as embodied by his deployment of a-suYxing C is subsequently made more explicit. We see that, after participant W jokingly repeats (line 9) the names of the two feather-removal procedures, thereby displaying a stance toward the fact that X and H have employed such sophisticated terms to describe a seemingly trivial matter and have even engaged in an argument about it, H moves (line 10) to emphasize the need for this distinction (na bu yiyang ‘that’s not the same’) and then goes on to reassert the validity of his proposal (na shi yong huaxue yaoping, ta bu shi diandong ‘that’s done by chemical pills, not by machine.’) In the previous examples, the a tokens are all attached to information contrastive with, or contradictory to, what another has just said or conveyed in a previous turn. There is, however, another operation in which Wnal a can Wgure in expressing one’s disaYliative or disagreeing stance toward the position taken up by his or her interlocutor(s). In this operation, the utterance to which Wnal a attaches does not directly contradict or oppose another’s prior talk, but the information introduced in this utterance can nonetheless render the prior talk in some way problematic. In such cases, what Wnal a appears to be doing can be understood as marking “on the other hand,” i.e., grounds for the/an alternative position. Consider excerpt (43) below. This excerpt is a continuation of the talk between two friends (L and T) about a mutual friend, Julie, who is currently looking for a job (cf. excerpt (38) in this chapter). At this point in the talk, T is reporting on how he was trying to lead Julie to appreciate the desirability of a job oVer which Julie apparently had shown hesitancy in accepting. (43) (T-copyright 278) 1T:

.hhhbingqie wo gen ta jiang shuo- ta dou shi= furthermore I with 3sg say say it all be ‘.hhh I also told her that- they all work’=

2T:

=zaoshang jiu dian shangban xiawu wu dian xiaban. (.) morning nine o’clock work afternoon Wve o’clock oV-work =‘from 9 am to 5 pm. (.)’

210 Final Particles in Mandarin

3T:

[duo hao. zhe zhong- sh::: shenghuo duo shufu how nice this kind life how comfortable [‘How nice. How comfortable that kind of li::: lifestyle is.’

4L:

[dui. right [‘Right.’

5T:

[[dou meiyou- (.) %overtime%= all N overtime [[‘Don’t- (.) need to work %overtime,%’=

6L:

[[hhhhh (laugh) [[‘hhhh

7T:

=libailiu libaitian you bu yong [qu. Saturday Sunday also N need go =‘nor go to work on wee[kends.’

8L:→

[dui a right PRT [‘(That’s) right A.’

9L:=>

keshi ta- ta nanpengyou zai zhebian a. wenti shi zai zhe. but 3sg 3sg boyfriend at here PRT problem be at here ‘But her- her boyfriend is here A. That’s the problem.’

When T’s report comes to a possible completion point (line 7), L Wrst launches (line 8) an agreement token, dui (‘right’), and suYxes it with a, which appears to adumbrate his claim of epistemic authority and independence (cf. Heritage 2002a; see also the explication of excerpt (38) above) C conveying that he, too, like T, has had prior and independent access to the matter being reported. Immediately following this agreement token, L launches a disaligning response (keshi ta- ta nanpengyou zai zhebian a ‘But her- her boyfriend is here A’; line 9). Through this response, L points out one C and probably the C obstacle (namely, the consideration of Julie’s boyfriend) which prevents Julie from accepting the job under discussion C a job which otherwise appears perfect for Julie in T’s view. This new information, although not contradicting what T has just said, introduces a conXicting perspective involved in the issue being discussed, which is otherwise disregarded by T in his prior talk (cf. Mori 1999). This information, as we can see, is marked with Wnal a.

Final a

A notable aspect of this excerpt is that whereas L does not directly reject the grounds for T’s position, he does undertake to claim a superior status for the argument he has just put forward C through the subsequent remark, wenti shi zai zhe ‘that’s the problem’ (line 9). It is worth noting that while it is not uncommon for this kind of remark to co-occur with a-suYxed disaligning responses, remarks of this kind, in the present corpus at least, never co-occur with disaligning responses suYxed with other Wnal particles, including Wnal ou. This observation thus lends further support to our proposal for the unique role Wnal a plays in disagreement sequences C i.e., reinforcing grounds for an alternative or opposite position. Of course, a-suYxed disaligning responses may not always accompany reinforcing remarks; the job of reinforcing the relevance of an alternative position can be done by the practice of a-suYxing alone. Excerpt (44), below, provides one such instance. This excerpt is taken from the same sequence cited in (12), in which two friends are discussing their travel plans. T has just reported that he will be Xying on Singapore Airlines and asked L which airline he will be taking, whereupon the following sequence ensues: (44) (T-copyright 007) 1L:

wo dagai hui zuo changrong.
2L:

tch! shenme guibin ka, haishi shenme ka what honor-guest card or what card ‘tch! a mileage card, or cards like that.’

3L:

wo ye bu xiaode. [jiuI also N know just ‘I don’t know. [(It’s) just-’

4T:

[um. PRT [‘Um.’

5L:

jiu you na zhong leiji: licheng (.) na zhong dongxi [(la)/ (a). just have that kind accumulate mileage that kind stuV PRT PRT ‘just the kind of thing that will accumulate: (your Xight) mi[leage.’

211

212 Final Particles in Mandarin

6T:

7L:

8T:

[um PRT [‘Um.’ dui a [suoyiright PRT so ‘Yeah. [So-’ [keshi wo you- wo you ding guo changrong, but I have I have reserve ASP (airlines) [‘But I’ve- I’ve asked about EVA Airlines.’

9T:→

ta yao qi bai kuai a it need seven hundred dollar PRT ‘It costs seven hundred dollars A.’

10T:

wo jiu- .hhh [laihui la, qi bai la. I then round-trip PRT seven hundred PRT ‘I then- .hhhh [(It’s for) a round trip, seven hundred.’

11L:

12T: 13L:

[yao qi bai kuai? need seven hundred dollar [‘(It) costs seven hundred dollars?’ .hhh [((cough)) [zeme name gui.= how-come that expensive [‘Why so expensive?/!’=

14T:→

= jieguo .hh xinhang cai liu bai a result (airlines) only six hundred PRT =‘And then .hh Singapore Airlines costs only six hundred A.’

15T:

na wo suan yi suan, then I calculate one calculate ‘Then I calculated it.’

16T:→

wo shuo .hhh wo ye you guibin ka a I say I also have honor-guest card PRT ‘I said- .hhh I also have a mileage card A.’

17T:

[wo zai xiang shuo, na wo- duo hua na yi bai kuai:, I ASP think say then I more spend that one hundred dollar [‘I was thinking, (.) if I- spent this additional one hundred dollars:,’

Final a 213

18L:

[°um° PRT [‘°Um.°’

19T:

ranhou .hhh [qu leiji %mileage::% then go accumulate mileage ‘and .hh [accumulated the %mileage:::,%’

20L:

21T:

[uh huh huh PRT PRT PRT [‘Uh huh huh.’ you juede- [bing bu juede hen huasuan further feel actually N feel very worthy ‘(I) just didn’t feel [(it was) worth (it).’

In line 1, L responds that he is planning to take EVA Airlines. Here, while L may simply be supplying an honest answer to T’s question, his announcement of the plan to take a diVerent airline can nonetheless be heard as doing a disaligning action, namely, undermining the appropriateness of T’s decision. And indeed, both parties appear to display an orientation to the potentially dispreferred nature of this response: In lines 1–2, L does something which typically accompanies a dispreferred action C he provides an account. Here, he attributes his decision to take this particular airline to a personal circumstance C the beneWt he can enjoy from his mileage card. And in response, T Wrst provides a few minimal receipt tokens (lines 4, 6), but then proceeds (line 8) to project a lengthy justiWcation for his decision, which runs counter to the decision made by L. In this justiWcation, we Wnd T deploying an a-suYx three times (at the arrows), and interestingly, all three a-suYxes are attached to the central arguments supporting his counter position, i.e., that the large price diVerence makes it not worthwhile to accumulate mileage. The Wrst two a-suYxes are attached to the utterances delivering the information about the fares of the two airlines, and the third one is attached to the informing that he, too, is in the frequent Xyer program of the airline that L favors, and, by implication, that he is also qualiWed for, and was not unaware of, the beneWts L has just mentioned, when making the decision. While none of these three utterances presents information contradicting or opposing what L has just said, the information provided in these utterances nonetheless compromises L’s stated position and its grounds (i.e., the beneWts obtained from his mileage card). In

214 Final Particles in Mandarin

this excerpt, then, Wnal a again serves to invoke a speaker’s counteractive stance C here, not by invalidating another’s prior talk, but by reinforcing the grounds for a diVerent position the a speaker is taking. In this section, we have examined how Wnal a Wgures in disagreement sequences C sequences in which parties convey or assert a diVerent position than those positions taken up by their interlocutors toward some state of aVairs. A central feature of Wnal a in this sequential context is its use to convey a speaker’s counteractive stance, which is observed to be commonly accomplished through two operations in the present corpus. In the Wrst operation, Wnal a is attached to an utterance which presents information contrastive with, or contradictory to, that which has been asserted or conveyed by another speaker. In the second operation, Wnal a is attached to an utterance which does not directly contradict or oppose another’s prior talk, but which nonetheless provides grounds for an/the alternative position. It has been suggested that the use of Wnal a to invoke a counteractive stance is made possible through an exploitation of its basic import. That is, by marking what another has conveyed or asserted in a prior turn as counter to expectation, or deviant from the way things normally are, the speaker in eVect reinforces the legitimacy of the position he or she is holding. This stance display is most relevant when there is a strong target for the disagreeing party to be counteracting C such as when another party has asked a question which exhibits a strong negative orientation, implication, presupposition or stance, or when another party has made a claim or an assertion which displays an understanding of, or a stance toward, a state of aVairs that the a speaker does not fully agree with.

4.3.3 Dealing with problems related to sequential contingency In the previous two sections, we have examined the use of Wnal a in two major sequential contexts C informing and disagreeing. In this section, I want to focus attention on, and brieXy illustrate, another prevalent environment for the use of Wnal a C when the utterance to which Wnal a attaches is launched to deal in an ad hoc way with some problem related to sequential contingency (cf. Drew 1997; Heritage 1998). One such problem arises when a speaker has brought a turn’s talk to a possible transition-relevance place, and yet either Wnds the interlocutor not self-selecting to either continue or close down that sequence of talk, or Wnds him or herself unable to do so following the interlocutor’s response to his or

Final a 215

her prior talk. In such cases, Wnal a is frequently deployed to attach to a class of words C most commonly dui (‘right’) and shi (‘yeah’) C to serve as “turn reexit devices” (cf. Sacks, SchegloV and JeVerson 1974:718; Park 1997:53B54). This use of Wnal a is illustrated in excerpts (45)B(47) below. Excerpt (45) is taken from a telephone conversation between two fellow graduate students and co-workers. Just prior to this excerpt, L, who is graduating and leaving soon, has made a claim that he is not likely to Wnish the tough work project assigned to him by the time he leaves, which implies that his fellow co-workers, including W, will have to take over this project. In response, W utters a cry of dismay: (45) (T-oYcemate, 037) 1W:

hhhh wandan le. hhh (laugh) die CRS (laugh) ‘hhhh (We’ll) be dead. hhh’

2

(.)

3L:

yinwei xianzai wanquan- bu xiaode- tch! because now complete N know ‘Because now (I) completely have- no idea about- tch!’

4L:

daodi zeme qu nong a. base how go deal-with PRT ‘how in the world can (I) proceed?’

5

(0.5)

6L:→

dui a right PRT ‘Yeah A.’

7

(2.0)

8L:

bu xiaode:::. N know ‘No idea::.’

9

(.)

In defense, L justiWes (lines 3B4) his failure to accomplish this project on the basis of his inability to do so, proposing it as a predicament for himself. This

216 Final Particles in Mandarin

self-defense by L, however, does not receive any response from W (line 5), and, by implication, is not endorsed by the latter. Note then that, facing the apparent non-alignment from the recipient, L proceeds (line 6) to recomplete his prior turn with dui a (‘right A’) and thereby recreate an opportunity for W to respond. This eVort by L to re-exit the turn, however, turns out to be to no avail: A further two-second pause ensues (line 7) following the dui a, whereupon L makes another attempt to exit from the turn (line 8). A return to the previously examined (44), reproduced below as (46), oVers us a successful case of the use of dui a (‘right A’) as a turn re-exit device. (46) (T-copyright 007) 1L:

wo dagai hui zuo changrong.
2L:

tch! shenme guibin ka, haishi shenme ka what honor-guest card or what card ‘tch! a mileage card, or cards like that.’

3L:

wo ye bu xiaode. [jiuI also N know just ‘I don’t know. [(It’s) just-’

4T:

[um. PRT [‘Um.’

5L:

jiu you na zhong leiji: licheng (.) na zhong dongxi [(la)/ (a). just have that kind accumulate mileage that kind stuV PRT PRT ‘just the kind of thing that will accumulate: (your Xight) mi[leage.’

6T:

7L:→

8T:

[um. PRT [‘Um.’ dui a [suoyiright PRT so ‘Yeah A. [So-’ [keshi wo you- wo you ding guo changrong, but I have I have reserve ASP (airlines) [‘But I’ve- I’ve asked about EVA Airlines.’

Final a 217

Here, in response to L’s account (lines 1B3, 5) for why he plans to take a diVerent airline from that which T has chosen, T provides (in lines 4, 6) only minimal and equivocal receipt tokens in the form of um, which merely registers information receipt but does not, for example, display a change of state on the part of the speaker, as the production of an ou receipt would otherwise do (cf. Section 3.2.2). Having encountered this equivocal, and potentially disaligning, stance from T toward his prior account, L launches (line 7) a turn prefaced with a dui a (‘yeah A’), upon whose completion the interlocutor moves to talk about what he apparently had otherwise been withholding (line 8). Thus, whereas this dui a (‘yeah A’) is not the only turn constructional unit in L’s turn in line 7,49 it in eVect succeeds in serving here as a turn re-exit device. As noted earlier, not only the lexical item dui (‘right’), but also its equivalent shi (‘yeah’), can be suYxed with Wnal a to serve as turn re-exit devices. Excerpt (47), from the same telephone conversation as (46), recorded in the US, provides one such instance. At this point in the talk, T is explaining to L, in response to the latter’s query, why he (T) did not purchase the tickets for his upcoming trip from Taiwan to Singapore in the United States. (47) (T-copyright 027) 1T:

na ruguo ni shi zai meiguo chufa, ranhou shenme ni mai= then if you be at US set-oV then what you buy ‘But if you departed from the US, and suppose you bought’=

2T:

=[.hhh lingwai yi ge di- di- difang de= other one C place PRT =[‘.hhh the tickets for (connecting Xights) departing elsewhere,’=

3L:

=[ou PRT =[‘Oh.’

4T:

=jiu hui bijiao gui.= then ASP relatively expensive =‘then (that)’ll cost (you) more.’=

5L:

=ou::. PRT =‘Oh::.’

218 Final Particles in Mandarin

6T:

tamen shuo tongchang dou shi zhe yangzi la.= they say generally all be this manner PRT ‘They said that’s the way it normally is.’=

7L:

=uh huh huh huh PRT PRT PRT PRT =‘Uh huh huh huh.’

8T:→

suoyi na ge:: so this C ‘So that uh:::’

9

(.)

10T:→

%yeah%. suoyi .hhhhh %(y’know)/ (yeah)% zhe ge:: yeah so you-know yeah this C ‘%Yeah% So .hhhh %(Y’know)/(Yeah)% The uh::’

11

(0.4)

12T:=>

hehe hhh shi a (laugh) yes PRT ‘hehehhh Yeah A.’

13L:

.hhh na ni: er- ni- ni- (.) ni shiPRT you two you you you be ‘.hhh Then you: two- You- you- (.) you are-’

14L:

ji hao qu zhongcheng yanjiang. which day go (school) give-speech ‘What date will you give the talk at Zhongcheng?’

T’s explanation Wrst receives from its recipient ou-receipts (lines 3, 5), and subsequently a strong display of alignment, uh huh huh huh (line 7). With his points clearly made and accepted, however, T apparently has diYculty in closing this sequence. In lines 8, 10, and 12, he makes a number of attempts to exit from the turn, only the last of which C the production of shi a (line 12) C Wnally succeeds: Upon its completion, the recipient L moves (line 13) to launch a new sequence/topic through a question. What (45)B(47) demonstrate, then, is how Wnal a can be attached to words such as dui (‘right’) and shi (‘yes’) to serve as a turn re-exit device. It is worth noting that, in all three excerpts, the lexical items dui and shi are not employed as a form of agreement or conWrmation token produced in response to

Final a 219

another’s question, as they normally are. In fact, the use of dui and shi without the a-suYxing in these sequential environments would be anomalous, if acceptable at all. In this regard, there is a sense that Wnal a in the above excerpts appears to serve to accord the relevance necessary for the use of dui and shi as a turn re-exit device, by marking that the attached lexical items do not carry the semantic meanings they normally do.50 In addition to Wguring as part of turn re-exit devices to deal with the aftermath of a sequence of talk that does not develop properly, Wnal a is frequently observed to attach to an utterance which is launched to relate back to some prior talk or action by the a speaker. A return to the previouslyexamined (13) C about whether the then-president of the Chinese Student Association had gone on a spring-break trip sponsored by that association C serves as an example. (13) (Three Friends b036) 1D:

nimen na ge:: lüxing you mei you qu. na ge shi= you that C trip have N have go that C be ‘Did you guys go on the uh:: trip? That’s-’=

2C:

=ni shuo %spring trip% you say spring trip =‘You mean the %spring trip%?’

3D:

dui a right PRT ‘(That’s) right.’

4C:

meiyou [women meiyou qu. N we N go ‘No. [We didn’t go.’

5S:

[(meiyou qu) N go [‘((We) didn’t go.)’

6D:

[nimen meiyou qu a)= you N go PRT [‘You guys didn’t go.’=

7C:

=[[uh PRT =[[‘Uh.’

220 Final Particles in Mandarin

8S:

=[[uh PRT =[[‘Uh.’

9

(0.2)

10D:

ou::. PRT ‘Oh::.’

11C:

um PRT ‘Um.’

12S:

ni ye mei qu ma. you also N go PRT ‘You didn’t go either, right?’

((11 lines omitted, where D is reporting on her spring break.)) 24S:

dui a women %spring break% ye meiyou qu nabian. right PRT we spring break also N go where ‘Yeah. We didn’t go anywhere during %spring break,% either.’

25D:

uh-huh PRT ‘Uh huh.’

26C:

mm PRT ‘Mm.’

27D:→

meiyou a. wo yiwei chenyi= no PRT I thought (speaker C’s name) ‘No A. I thought Chenyi’=

28D:

=zhuban ren yinggai hui qu a in-charge person should ASP go PRT =‘was the one in charge; presumably (he) would have gone.’

Here, we can note that D’s meiyou (‘no’) in line 27, with which she begins to elaborate what she had apparently been suppressing when producing the stand-alone ou in line 10, is suYxed with a Wnal a. What the Wnal a appears to be doing here, then, is registering the speaker’s orientation to the apparent disjunctiveness of what she is about to bring up C something which

Final a 221

is not completely in line with what immediately preceded in the local sequential context, but rather relates further back to some earlier talk in the conversation. In fact, a-attached utterances can relate not only to one’s own prior talk in the same conversation, as in (13); they can also relate back to an earlier conversation, as in (48), below. Earlier that day, T (=Taiming) had unexpectedly called L at L’s girlfriend’s house. That conversation was cut short because it was apparently not a good time or place for L to talk. In this excerpt, L is returning the call after he arrives home. (48) (T-copyright 001) 1T:

%hello::?% hello ‘%Hello::?%’

2L:

%hello:?% hello ‘%Hello:?%’

3L:

[taiming (name) [‘Taiming’

4T:

[↑%yeah:% yeah [‘↑Yeah:.%’

5L:

[[taiming. hen= (name) PRT [[‘Taiming. Yeah.’=

6T:

[[%yeah.% yeah [[‘%Yeah.%’

7T:→

=(hen) bu-hao-yisi a. zhe ge= very embarrassed PRT this C =‘(I’m) (very) sorry A. The uh-’=

8T:

=[(keneng zai mang shenme) hen duo [shiqing probably ASP busy what very many thing =[‘((You) were probably busy with some- a lot of [stuV.’

222 Final Particles in Mandarin

9L:

= [hen PRT =[‘Yeah.’

10L:

=wo zai- zai na ge:: shou dongxi la. I ASP ASP that C pack stuV PRT =‘I was- (I) was uh:: packing stuV.’

[ou::= PRT [‘Oh:.’=

Here, T’s apology in line 7 ((hen) bu hao yisi ‘(I’m) (very) sorry’), initiated after the identiWcation sequence (lines 3B6), apparently is addressed to his previous unexpected call. This apology, we can note, is marked with a Wnal a, which, as with (13), appears to serve to register the “out-of-order-ness” of the host turn in its local sequential context, since it was an apology for something which had occurred as part of a stretch of talk which had taken place some hours earlier. Thus we can see that the interactional import of a-suYxed utterances is not limited to the bounds of a given interaction. In this section, we have examined cases in which Wnal a Wgures as part of a turn which either serves as a turn re-exit device, or which serves to relate an utterance to some prior talk other than that which immediately preceded it. Across these sets of examples, Wnal a appears to retain its characteristic of marking the matter being addressed as deviant from how things normally are C here, however, what is being addressed is not what another has conveyed or asserted in a prior turn, as in the previous two sections, but some problem related to sequential contingency.

4.3.4 Final a and marking “counter-valence” In Section 4.3, we have explored the occurrences of Wnal a with a Xat or slightly high pitch, which, in contrast to the a tokens discussed in Section 4.2, Wgures in non-interrogatives in the present corpus. An intrinsic feature of Wnal a here, which is not entirely absent from the use of Wnal a with a notably low pitch, is marking a departure C i.e., that the matter being addressed departs from how the matter should be, or normally is, from the a speaker’s perspective. In many of the cases discussed in this section, Wnal a is observed to serve the function of marking counter-valence, viz., marking a countervailing perspective. This is most apparent when Wnal a is employed to reinforce a counter position or a countervailing argument in the context of disagreement, as discussed in Section 4.3.2. This process of marking counter-valence is also

Final a 223

apparent when Wnal a occurs in the context of informing: In this sequential context, as discussed in Section 4.3.1, one of the most common functions of Wnal a is to mark the stance that the question being responded to inquires into something which the answerer/a speaker assumes the questioner should have known in the Wrst place. To the degree that a question seems to present the premise that the person who asks it does not know the answer, the stance display in response conveying the sense that the answer is obvious can be understood as counter to the premise of the question. Before closing this topic, it should be noted, however, that while marking counter-valence generally implicates disaYliation, it does not invariably do so. Consider, for example, the following excerpt, in which the ethnographer (R), who is taping the occasion, approaches the party host to ask him to turn down the volume of the background music. (49) (CS Party a044a) 1R:

(Y) yinyue zhuan xiao sheng. music turn small volume ‘(Y) turn down the volume a little bit?’

2H:→

ou, hao a PRT OK PRT ‘Oh, OK A.’

3R:

yaoburan wo (shou)/(ting) bu dao nimen jianghua. otherwise I receive hear N reach you speak ‘Otherwise I cannot (record)/(hear) clearly what you guys are saying.’

Here, we can note that H’s compliance in line 2 is marked with a Wnal a. To understand why Wnal a is attached to an expression of apparent aYliation here, it should be noted Wrst that this Wnal a Wgures in a sequence in which one party is making a request C more speciWcally, it Wgures in a response to that request. Note further that making a request is generally treated as a dispreferred type of action (e.g., Heritage 1984a), and, in fact, is so treated by the requesting party in this excerpt, as evidenced by her provision of a followup account (line 3), which characteristically accompanies a dispreferred action. On these understandings, we can now notice that, in response to this potentially dispreferred action, H not only gives a preferred response C a compliance C but does so in an upgraded fashion, as embodied by the stress placed on this compliance. What H appears to be doing here, I suggest, is

224 Final Particles in Mandarin

conveying a heightened sense of compliance, with a view to avoiding any hint of diYculty with this matter. In other words, he is maximizing a “no problem” stance to something which otherwise has a delicate standing.51 Thus, whereas Wnal a is characteristically employed to intensify the relevance of a counter position C which ordinarily signals a disaYliative move C Wnal a can also be exploited to intensify the force of a positive response to achieve certain interactional eVects, such as to neutralize the potential problematicity of a state of aVairs, as exempliWed by (49).

4.4

Summary of Chapter 4

In this chapter, we have observed the use of Wnal a in Mandarin Chinese conversations. I have suggested that the central feature of Wnal a, with only a few exceptions, is marking the matter being responded to as deviant from how the matter should be, or normally is, from the a speaker’s perspective. When attached to a repeat, partial repeat, or a candidate understanding of another’s prior talk, for example, Wnal a regularly serves to mark a pre-disagreement or a pre-disaYliative move. When attached to a grammatically-constructed question, Wnal a commonly serves to mark speaker-deWned problematicity: It may be used to register the matter addressed by the question, or the question itself, as in some way unexpected and/or problematic. When attached to a non-interrogative, in addition to marking some problem related to sequential contingency, Wnal a commonly occurs in two sequential contexts C namely, “informing” and “disagreeing.” In the former, Wnal a is regularly deployed to mark the speaker’s stance that the information provided in the a-suYxed utterance is something that the recipient should have known, or has displayed to have known otherwise. In the latter, Wnal a is regularly used to invoke a speaker’s counteractive stance. In the majority of these cases, we have observed as well that Wnal a also exhibits the characteristic of intensifying the relevance or signiWcance of a countervailing perspective C one which can potentially problematize or otherwise counterbalance what is currently in play. While this characteristic makes Wnal a an apt and well-suited resource for accomplishing dispreferred interactional work, we have noted that this characteristic can also be exploited to achieve certain interactional eVects C such as to neutralize the potentially problematic standing of a state of aVairs.

Final a 225

Notes 1. According to Ota (1987 [1958]), the Wnal particle a may have various historical origins and obtain its current form and uses from a number of sources and their combinations. 2. See, however, Section 2.1 as well as notes 34–35 in this chapter for a discussion of potential problems associated with the proposal of “speaker involvement.” 3. These two kinds of phonetically diVerent a tokens have also been noted in Shie (1991) and Chu (2002). See, however, notes 34–35 for a further discussion of their Wndings. 4. See, for example, SchegloV, JeVerson and Sacks 1977; SchegloV 1979, 1992b, 1995, 1997a, 1997b, 2000b for discussions of repair organization and its operations. 5. This particular a token is an instance of a with a slightly higher pitch and should not be confused with a with a notably low pitch. To distinguish between these two types of a in the data, I have transcribed a with a notably low pitch as “a)” and a with a Xat or slightly high pitch as “a.” 6. These two types of contrast that a can mark are not, of course, mutually exclusive; a single use of this particle may indicate contrasts of both kinds in many of the cases that we will see below. 7. There is a convergence here with SchegloV’s (1996b) comment that such (English) terms as “actually” can serve the function of indicating that “what follows has a contemporary relevance to the speaker other than that created by the question just asked, and that what it is about has a reality and ‘facticity’ independent of the circumstance prompting the talk which it introduces” (ibid.:63). See, also, Clift (2001) for an explication of the use of “actually” in British English conversation. 8. This is relative not only to the use of a bare repeat, but also to the use of the Wnal particle ou in similar contexts, namely, when it is attached to a repeat or a candidate understanding. The diVerent epistemic stances displayed by the use of a and ou will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 5. 9. Jiu has generally been proposed as an adverb pertaining to logical reasoning in relation to the speaker’s expectation, or to the relationship between two propositions. (For a comprehensive review of studies of jiu, see Biq (1988) and Liu (1993).) Of the various functions proposed for jiu, what is closest to the usage here is the use of jiu as a linking device, which “may relate two propositions in an antecedent-consequent relation and always occurs with the consequent clause” (Liu 1993:82). As Liu (1993:85B86) has also pointed out, the relationship between the antecedent and consequent may be temporal; in this temporal linking use, jiu “does not merely provide temporal information of the event, since the unmarked form of temporal coding would simply be a juxtaposition of the event and the time. The essential function of jiu is to assert a direct, or immediate relation between an event/state and a temporal reference, by signaling an extremely short interval.” 10. As displayed by the laugh tokens surrounding the response at line 2, U’s violations of these norms in the design of his response do not seem to stem from his ignorance of this

226 Final Particles in Mandarin

common sense knowledge. Rather, they appear to embody his resistance to L’s persistent pursuit of a topic that he would rather not develop. More speciWcally, this particular turn design is consistent with a tact that U has been taking all along to handle this interactionally uncomfortable situation C that is, providing a plausible answer to each of L’s inquiries while at the same time doing it in a highly evasive, indirect, and somehow “kidding” manner. 11. In this example, however, there may be a blurred boundary between the problem having to do with the utterance, i.e., how it is formulated and delivered, and the problem having to do with the event being reported by that utterance. In other words, what is being treated as problematic and surprising through the production of the repeat here may also be the fact that U’s departure for the new job is so soon. 12. It should be noted, however, that L does appear to display a stance toward this event and implicate such a stance in the stress she places on this colleague’s name (i.e., Zhaoming at line 3). 13. One possibility for why L does not project her informing in this manner may be due to her motivation to convey her claim of epistemic authority in this matter C a claim which she nonetheless knows can potentially be challenged or compromised by her coparticipants, who have equal access to this information. In this context, then, what L needs to accomplish is not only to take the lead in delivering the information, but also to get it done as fast as she can. Such a motivation can be supported, ironically, by the fact that one coparticipant does subsequently (line 4) join in co-telling this information and in eVect shares its authorship. 14. Recall that free-standing ou translates roughly into the English expression oh, an expression which signals receipt of the information and possible termination of the topic sequence (cf. Heritage 1984b). 15. Throughout this sequence, W remains smiling, without making any additional verbal or non-verbal comments on L’s and T’s remarks. 16. There are certainly other possibilities C for example (just to name a few), that W may be conveying (1) that “Chenzu’s family should be so rich as to be able to aVord to send him to this private school”; or (2) “What a shame that somebody like Chenzu should have got into the same school as you (T)!” Both are quite compatible with what Wnal a is generally used to accomplish C i.e., to mark the matter being addressed as deviant from what the a speaker would otherwise expect based on prior knowledge or experience. However, the data suggest that the stance expressed in (2) is more likely to be conveyed through the practice of ou-suYxing, in that this practice is frequently deployed not only to mark the matter being addressed as unexpected, but also to assert the speaker’s solidarity with the recipient on that matter. 17. See line 10 in excerpt (13) in this chapter. 18. This is evidenced by the fact that the recipients of the a-suYxed question in excerpt (13) do nothing but merely conWrm (lines 7, 8) and reaYrm (line 11) this a-suYxed question.

Final a 227

19. Of course, just as an a speaker may withhold and mask contrary expectations, so a recipient may mask his or her understanding and analysis that there may exist divergent expectations or understandings between him or herself and the a speaker concerning the matter at hand, as possibly indexed by the production of the a-suYxed question. 20. Of the four types of grammatically-constructed questions discussed in Li and Thompson (1981) C question-word questions, disjunctive questions, A-not-A questions, and particle questions C Wnal a can co-occur with the Wrst three, but not the last one. In other words, questions like the following are ungrammatical in Mandarin Chinese: *Xiaozhang lai ma a) (name) come Q PRT ‘Will Xiaozhang come (MA) A)’ 21. Excerpts (15) and (17) are excerpted from the present corpus and will be further discussed below. Excerpt (16) is a made-up example: While this kind of construction C a disjunctive question suYxed with a Wnal a C is perfectly grammatical and plausible in Mandarin Chinese, I cannot locate any examples of this kind in the present database. 22. It should be noted, however, that a-formulated questions can also be used to mark an unexpected situation. For example, when a guest takes his leave shortly after the party starts, the party host may say, “ ni yao zou le a) ‘you are leaving A)’” to mark the leavetaking as counter-to-expectation. When used this way, Wnal a is regularly attached to a formulation of another’s prior action, rather than of another’s prior talk. 23. In idiomatic English, this a-attached inquiry would probably be better translated as “Who would need to supplement (food with extra nutrition)?” 24. The problematic status of this dish can be reinforced by the fact that after the meal there turned out to have been a lot of it left over, and a guest makes the comment (line 3), na ge tai bu le. xiatian ‘That’s too nutritious/heavy. (It’s) summer.’ (CS Party authentic 209) ((Slightly simpliWed)) 1W:

(zhe haoxiang) meiyou xiaolu. hh ((referring to the “Sesame-oil Chicken”)) this seem N consume (laugh) ‘This seems not too popular. hhhh’

2X:

hai mei lun dao na ge still N take-turn reach that C ‘(We’ve/I’ve) not turned to that (yet).’

3C:

hai mei lun↑na ge tai bu le. xiatian. still N take-turn that C too nutritious CRS summer ‘Have not turned- ↑That’s too nutritious/heavy. (It’s) summer.’

25. This joke sequence has been explicated in Chapter 3 (excerpt (39)). 26. As it transpires later in the conversation, U has actually been away during the past few months not merely to Wnd a new job, but to establish his own company, a fact which he has

228 Final Particles in Mandarin

been reluctant to share with speaker L. After Wnally revealing this information, he explicitly requests that L keep it conWdential: (T-career 74) L:

ni kai hh gongsi le ei. [hhhh ((smile voice)) you open (laugh) company CRS PRT (laugh) ‘You’ve established hh (your own) company. [hhhh’

U:

[haihh. meiyou. meiyou. (sigh) no no [‘haihhh No. No.’

U:→

bu yao gen womenzhe ge: fanzheng ni jiu zhanshi this C anyway you just temporary N ASP with we ‘This: anyway, just for now don’t tell our-’

U:→

[naxie tongxue jiang. those classmate say [‘those classmates.’

L:

[%okay% hao hao hao. OK OK OK OK [‘%Okay.% Okay. Okay. Okay.’ (.)

L:

°mei

wenti.° N problem ‘°No problem.°’

U:→

yinwei zhe zhong %cad% de shijie hen xiao de a. because this kind CAD PRT world very small PRT PRT ‘Because this world of %CAD% is very small.’

27. As SchegloV (1996a) has claimed and demonstrated, repeating one’s own prior words is a practice in English whereby the speaker can convey that what is being said now is the same thing that was being said before. And, as SchegloV (ibid.) has also shown, while the central use of this practice is to propose that its speaker is reintroducing his or her earlier contribution into the talk, and to do just that, the deployment of this practice in certain sequential environments may convey additional stances taken up toward the matter being addressed C stances such as protestations. Whereas the same phenomenon C repeating one’s own prior words to show/claim that “what I am saying now is what I was saying before” C is also observed in Mandarin (cf., also, excerpt (11) (lines 8B10) in Chapter 3), the present study shows that Mandarin speakers tend to distinguish between two diVerent types of stances. That is, they distinguish between whether they are just doing/saying again what they did/said before, rather than responding to what may have transpired in between their Wrst and subsequent sayings, and whether they are displaying additional

Final a 229

(negative) stances toward the matter in question. The former is generally accomplished by the use of an identical repeat, and the latter a repeat with an a-suYxing. 28. With respect to the observation that a question being asked not for the Wrst time is characteristically marked with a Wnal a in Mandarin Chinese, SchegloV (personal communication) points out that there is a comparable phenomenon in English: That is, WHquestions in English ordinarily take falling, rather than rising, prosody. But when given rising prosody, they convey “not-the-Wrst-time-ness.” 29. Xinzhu Kexue Yuanqu is the place where the majority of hi-tech companies are located in Taiwan, and is hence considered Taiwan’s “Silicon Valley.” 30. See Heritage (1998) for a similar view on the deployment of oh-prefacing in responses to questions in English conversations. 31. As was noted, this kind of intensifying force of Wnal a is also mentioned in Chao (1968), although his discussion of this function focuses exclusively on cases where a is attached to a non-interrogative. 32. Interested readers may refer to the discussions of excerpts (10) and (20) in this chapter for more detailed explications of this sequence. 33. One complication in identifying “clear” exemplars of this kind is that, as noted earlier, this process of a-suYxing a question to mark it as problematic is always subjectivelydeWned. And part of what makes a matter potentially delicate C and hence the probing into that matter problematic C may turn on some background knowledge which is shared by the parties but is inaccessible to external analysts. Thus, even though an a-attached question appears to Wgure in a sequential context where there is no clear evidence from the parties’ preceding or ensuing talk that warrants the delicate status of the matter being inquired into, there is still the possibility that this matter is, and is being treated as, a delicate one by reference to some background knowledge known exclusively to the parties, and that this treatment is being reXexively embodied through the production of Wnal a. 34. While the kind of a described in this section is commonly produced with a Xat or slightly high pitch, it should be noted that these a tokens do appear to be sensitive to the so-called “tone sandhi” phenomenon C i.e., the change of tones when syllables are juxtaposed (e.g., Chao 1968; Li and Thompson 1981). This occurs most commonly when these a tokens are preceded by a third-tone syllable or a fourth-tone syllable. In these cases, the a tokens are sometimes observed to be produced with a slightly low pitch, though such a slightly low pitch is still relatively higher than the kind of low pitch the a token would be produced with if it were used as part of a question or an assessment. By contrast, the kind of Wnal a examined in Section 4.2 does not appear to be aVected by “tone sandhi” and is almost always produced with a notably low pitch. This observation apparently is closer to the Wndings by Shie (1991) than to those by Chu (2002): The former claims that in contrast to a with a high pitch, the low-pitched a almost always occurs as part of a question or an assessment, whereas the latter claims that the lower-pitched a occurs in a variety of contexts, and maintains that the distributional pattern is related instead to the content of the utterance, with a high pitch signaling “addressee orientation”

230 Final Particles in Mandarin

and a low pitch signaling “speaker orientation.” More investigations are clearly needed before an account can be oVered as to why there are such distributional diVerences, and whether in fact there are such diVerences. (Considering especially the fact that the terms “high pitch” and “low pitch” are used as relative terms and in an impressionistic way in these studies, it is unclear whether or not these terms are used comparably across these studies.) 35. The issue of the validity of the diVerences in the observed distributional patterns aside, there are a number of issues related to Chu’s (2002) proposal (built on I. Li (1999)) of the functions of high pitch and low pitch as respectively signaling “addressee” and “speaker” orientations. According to Chu (ibid.:26B27), a high-pitched a is “addresseeoriented,” with its attached utterance “intentionally directed to the addressee,” and a lowpitched a is “speaker-oriented,” with the utterance “primarily meant for the speaker him-/herself” C as if to say, “This is what I am telling myself.” Such a dichotomy between “speaker” and “addressee” orientations appears to underestimate the highly interactional nature of, and the complexity involved in, talk-in-interaction where mutual orientation between speaker and hearer is the most basic element (cf. C. Goodwin and Heritage 1990). It is unclear, for example, whether it is plausible for a speaker to exclusively direct a message to the addressee without Wrst having his or her own orientation directed to this message, or whether a speaker can make an a-attached utterance in talk-in-interaction and direct that utterance solely to him or herself without having the addressee’s attention directed to it as well. And even if all these were plausible, there is still this issue of why a speaker would need to display the stance that the utterance is “primarily meant for the speaker him-/herself,” while in fact he or she is talking to his or her addressee. In addition to these issues, in both Chu’s (2002) data and I. Li’s (1999) data, there are a number of sequential contexts where both high-pitched and low-pitched a tokens occur, and in fact a few contexts (e.g., assessment contexts) in which the non-expected form, rather than the expected form, occurs predominantly. It seems to me that the validity of the functional dichotomy between speaker and addressee orientations as proposed in these studies remains an empirical question that must be addressed before these issues can be clariWed. 36. For discussions of the operation of a possibly multi-stage and reXexive practice in the domain of person reference in English conversations, see SchegloV 1996d:451B453; in the domain of repair in English conversations, see SchegloV 1992b:1326B1334. 37. This excerpt has been slightly simpliWed; another simultaneous conversation is not included here. 38. This is the same L that we have seen in excerpt (1) in Chapter 3. See, also, excerpt (30) in this chapter. 39. It may be relevant to register that during the late 1970s and early 1980s, staying up late to watch the World Series played by the Taiwanese teams, including the Little League Series, was an “annual festival” for the Taiwanese people. To a great many Taiwanese people of L’s age, the fact that the Little League Series is played annually at Williamsport is, in fact, common knowledge. 40. Considering that most of the coparticipants in this conversation, including W him-

Final a 231

self, are computer science majors, this mistake may be taken as extremely silly and embarrassing. 41. However, the deployment of a-suYxing in line 4, although also indicating the problematic nature of the question being responded to, appears to be motivated on an additional ground. We will return to this example later in this section. 42. Neither the woman nor the friend is present on this occasion. 43. Only relevant portions of these excerpts are included in the following. 44. Another motivation for L to have provided this information may be an attempt to defend his expertise and informedness with respect to baseball C namely, that he, at least, has a piece of news about the Taiwanese Major League team to share. 45. While H is not within the camera frame at the moment, there is evidence that he may be addressing his response in line 13 to L, and in doing so, is selecting L as a potential next speaker. This can be evidenced by L’s response in line 15, which is not only latched onto H’s prior response but also includes the word, ye, literally translated as “also” in English. The use of ye, aside from its literal and semantic meaning, is observed in my database to serve a distinctive pragmatic function C i.e., marking a speaker confession that he or she does not know what he or she is supposed/expected to know. Hence, L’s employment of ye here may reXexively embody his analysis of the expectation implicated in H’s prior turn C one which appears to have targeted L as an intended (and competent) recipient. 46. There may be a convergence here with Yang’s (1992:86) Wnding that one of the contexts in which na is deployed is when there is “a serious discrepancy between the speakers and the hearers in subjective attitudes toward one event or one opinion.” In this example, na appears to be double-edged: marking what is to be projected as in some way motivated or warranted by another’s prior talk (cf. SchiVrin 1987) while at the same time alerting its recipient to its dispreferred nature. 47. Similar usages are observed crosslinguistically C by Heritage (1998, 2002a) in his study of the English oh-prefacing and by I. Li (1999) in her study of the Taiwanese Wnal particle a, though I. Li’s account of this phenomenon (i.e., that the Wnal particle is used to “activate the addressee’s prior/accessible knowledge”), based on a more cognitive approach, is diVerent from the accounts oVered in the Heritage studies and the present study. 48. This (as well as X’s statement in line 9) may be alluding to the fact that, at the time this conversation was recorded, this airline was suVering from a very bad reputation because of a few recent successive crashes, and hence was having promotion sales in an attempt to increase its clientele. 49. Although the subsequent turn constructional unit (suoyi ‘so’) in L’s turn in line 7 appears to be cut oV midway through its production, there is a good chance that he may be projecting a summary of this sequence (e.g., suoyi wo dagai hui zuo changrong ‘so I’ll probably take EVA Airlines’), in the service of recompleting the turn. Or, the use of suoyi (‘so’), as with (47) (lines 8, 10), may be intended here as a turn re-exit device in itself.

232 Final Particles in Mandarin

50. This may account for why other turn re-exit devices in Mandarin Chinese such as bu xiaode ‘no idea; don’t know’ (line 8 in (45)), or suoyi ‘so’ (lines 8, 10 in (47)), are seldom, if ever, suYxed with a Wnal a, as (45)B(47) also demonstrate. SpeciWcally, all these excerpts involve a sequence in which there is a discrepancy in the participants’ opinions about, or stances toward, some state of aVairs C states of aVairs such as whose responsibility it is to complete the project at hand (i.e., (45)), whether or not it is worthwhile to purchase tickets from one particular airline (i.e., (46)); and what is a more sensible and economical way to purchase airline tickets (i.e., (47)). The lexical items such as bu xiaode ‘don’t know’ and suoyi ‘so’ are semantically compatible with, and thus Wt nicely in, these sequences, for the former can C and often does C serve as an epistemic downgrader in the face of a recipient misalignment, and the latter may, prima facie at least, appear to project a summary or a reassertion of the speaker’s prior points. 51. Indeed, as opposed to hao (‘OK’), hao a is better translated as “of course,” “sure” or “no problem.”

Conclusion 233

Chapter 5

Conclusion

The present study was designed to contribute to the Welds of Chinese linguistics and conversation analysis (CA) by conducting a CA-based study in Mandarin Chinese. To this end, this study chose as its domain of inquiry one of the most intriguing areas in Chinese linguistics C i.e., Wnal particles. SpeciWcally, it has focused on the use of two Wnal particles, a and ou, in TCU-Wnal position, and examined their functions in conversational Mandarin. Through a close examination of the sequential environments of these two Wnal particles and the interactional work accomplished by their use, this study has shown that despite the fact that these Wnal particles do not have a denotative or referential meaning, and despite the fact that their actual sense is particularized by reference to the speciWc context of their use as well as their prosodic features, they do, with the exception of a few unique usages, convey consistent indexical meanings across diVerent usages. With respect to Wnal ou, we noted that there are two types of phonetically distinctive ou in the present corpus: “marked ou” and “unmarked ou.” Unmarked ou is regularly attached to a repeat, a partial repeat, or a candidate understanding of another’s prior talk. What Wnal ou does here is to make a conWrmation or disconWrmation relevant next, and/or to register the matter being addressed as news. Marked ou, on the other hand, is characteristically used to register a heightened sense of newsworthiness. Its use commonly serves to invite its recipient to the reading that there is more here than meets the eye: It may be used to mark the event under discussion as extraordinary or allusive in character, or to alert the recipient to some additional negativelyvalenced interactional work that the ou-suYxed utterance is attempting to accomplish. I have suggested that the diVerent uses of Wnal ou can be understood in terms of a speaker’s attempt to register an epistemic alert. It can be used to instruct the recipient to scrutinize the talk for what merits special attention with respect to its epistemic status, as in cases where Wnal ou is deployed in a turn of informing. Or, it can be used to display that the speaker him or herself

234 Final Particles in Mandarin

has just undergone such a process, and has just come to a newly epistemicallytransformed state. The latter can be seen in cases where the ou-suYxed utterances serve as repair initiators, where they serve as news receipts, and where they serve as both. With respect to Wnal a, we also discussed two phonetically distinctive types: a with a notably low pitch and a with a Xat or slightly high pitch. When produced with a notably low pitch, Wnal a commonly Wgures in interrogatives: It may be attached to a grammatically-constructed question to mark the question or the matter addressed by the question as in some way problematic. Or, it may be attached to a repeat, partial repeat, or a candidate understanding in the service of initiating a repair. While repairs of this kind may be launched merely to solicit a recipient conWrmation or disconWrmation concerning some state of aVairs, they are frequently observed to also serve as harbingers of subsequent disaYliative moves. Final a with a Xat or slightly high pitch, in contrast, commonly Wgures in non-interrogatives. It is regularly attached to an utterance which serves to (i) inform a party of something which that party should have known but has displayed to not know, or which that party has displayed to have known something contrary to; (ii) convey or assert a counteractive stance; or (iii) address some problem related to sequential contingency. Despite the prosodic diVerence, what holds across these various uses of Wnal a, aside from a few unique usages, is a speaker’s attempt to register the stance that the matter being addressed is deviant from how it should be, or normally is, from the a speaker’s perspective. Most commonly, it serves to mark speaker-deWned problematicity while at the same time reinforcing the speaker’s perspective regarding the matter at hand. Table 4 summarizes the functional distribution of Wnal ou and Wnal a observed in the present corpus. A double dash indicates that the Wnal particle is not found in the given context.1 As Table 4 demonstrates, while Wnal ou and Wnal a convey quite distinctive meanings, they do occur in several similar sequential and activity contexts. These contexts, as indicated by the shaded areas in Table 4, involve (i) the use of particle-suYxed utterances as repair initiators; and (ii) the use of particle-suYxed utterances to substantiate or address a contrast between what a prior speaker has displayed to have known or expected, and what the current speaker is informing or conveying in the particle-suYxed utterance C such as when the current speaker/particle user is doing the interactional work of

Conclusion 235

Table 4. Functional distribution of Wnal ou and Wnal a Utterance to which particle is attached

Final OU

Final A

Repeat, partial repeat or candidate understanding of another’s prior talk

(i) makes (dis)conWrmation relevant next; and/or (ii) marks the matter being addressed as news

(i) makes (dis)conWrmation relevant next; and/or (ii) marks the matter being addressed as counter to the a speaker’s expectation – i.e., marking a pre-misalignment or pre-disagreement

Grammatically-constructed — question

Non-interrogative

(i) marks “self-reXected” problematicity: that the question or the asking of the question is problematic; (ii) marks “other-related” problematicity: that the matter addressed by the question is problematic

(i) marks the matter under discussion as extraordinary in nature; and/or

(i) marks the stance that the party being informed is someone who should have known the matter in the Wrst place;

(ii) alerts the recipient to some negatively-valenced interactional work the ou-suYxed turn is attempting to accomplish – interactional work such as complaining, disagreeing, warning, wisecracking, declining a request, rejecting an expectation, or denying a presupposition

(ii) marks the stance that the presupposition, understanding, and/or stance displayed or conveyed by the recipient is problematic; (iii) registers a counteractive stance in the context of disagreement;

(iv) registers some problem related to sequential contingency

236 Final Particles in Mandarin

complaining, disagreeing, declining a request, rejecting an expectation, or denying a presupposition. In essence, what these two contexts have in common is the fact that there exists a contrast or discrepancy in knowledge, expectation, and/or perspective regarding some state of aVairs between the current speaker (i.e., the particle user) and the prior speaker (i.e., the particle recipient). In other words, both Wnal particles can be used to invoke a speaker/ recipient contrast in terms of their knowledge state and/or epistemic stance with respect to the matter at hand. While further study is required to explicate in greater detail the division of labor between these two Wnal particles in this regard, I wish to suggest that there are two intertwining aspects which appear to be relevant here: (i) the degree of the particle speaker’s certainty about, and commitment to, the validity of his or her knowledge or understanding of the matter at issue; and (ii) the particle speaker’s attitudes toward the recipient and/or the matter under discussion. With respect to the former, it is observed that, as compared to Wnal ou, Wnal a regularly implicates stronger speaker certainty about his or her own knowledge C namely that it embodies a stronger epistemic stance on the part of the speaker. This can be evidenced by the fact that while both Wnal particles can occur in the sequential contexts where information management or information negotiation Wgures centrally (e.g., repair, informing, and disagreeing), Wnal ou serves mainly to register the information or the matter at issue as “news” C i.e., something previously unknown or unexpected. Final a, on the other hand, serves mainly to mark the information or the matter as counter to the particle speaker’s expectation. Marking something as counter-to-expectation, as opposed to unknown or unexpected, implicates not only some preexisting knowledge on the part of the speaker, but also his or her commitment to its validity or legitimacy. Not surprisingly, in contrast to Wnal ou, Wnal a is rarely associated with sequences in which the speaker displays a lack of prior access to the matter or information at hand, as in excerpts (1) and (2), or sequences in which the speaker displays strong uncertainty about his or her knowledge, as in excerpt (3):2

Conclusion 237

(1) (CS Party A081B; video 52’20”) ((R has just talked about cram schools in Taiwan which teach prospective emigrants how to make popular Taiwanese foods sold at night markets.)) 1C:=>

*you buxiban ou. have cram-school PRT ‘There are cram schools OU?’

2R:

((nods, smiling))

3C:→

wo shi bu xiaode.* ((* to * = smile voice)) I be N know ‘(That) I didn’t know.’

(2) (T-copyright 318) ((T is giving a report on the academic progress of a mutual friend.)) 1T:

tingshuo zhijian- (.) %Wnal defense% dou kao wan le a. I-heard (name) Wnal defense all test Wnish CRS/PFV PRT ‘(I ) heard that Zhijian has Wnished his %Wnal defense.%’

2L:=>

%Wnal defense% kao wan ou. Wnal defense test Wnish PRT ‘Has Wnished his %Wnal defense% OU?’

3L:→

wo- wo daoshi bu zhidao. wo- wo zhi shi- (.) I I actually N know I I only be ‘I- I actually didn’t know. I- I only- (.)’

4L:→

.hh wo shangci shi zhidao shuo kao:: %proposal% kao wan I last-time be know say test proposal test Wnish ‘.hhh The last thing I knew was that (he) had Wnished his %proposal.%’

5L:→

%defense% wo shi bu zhidao. defense I be N know ‘%Defense% I didn’t know.’

(3) (Tea Time S2517b) ((Prior to this excerpt, the public address system in the restaurant has just indicated that one of the coparticipants, F, has a phone call.)) 4H:

ni mama ((to F)) your mother ‘(It’s) your mom.’

238 Final Particles in Mandarin

5

*laibin fang xiaojie, qing jie san xian dianhua.* guest (name) miss please receive three line telephone ‘Guest Ms. Fang, please pick up the phone on line 3.’ ((* to * background switchboard announcement))

6L:=>

keneng tingwen ou↑:: probably (name) PRT ‘(It’s) probably Tingwen OU↑::.’

7L:→

wo zai xiang. I ASP think ‘I think.’

In (1) and (2), the particle-suYxed utterances are followed by the particle speakers’ disclaimers of the information at issue (line 3 in (1); lines 3B5 in (2)). In (3), the particle-suYxed utterance is epistemically substantially weakened, both through the inclusion of the epistemic downgrader, keneng (‘probably’), in the utterance, and through the post-completion addition of the epistemic qualiWer, wo zai xiang (‘I think’). In all three examples, the particle speakers display either a lack of prior knowledge of the matter under discussion, or a lack of commitment to the validity of his or her knowledge. While these kinds of sequential environments are among the most prevalent for the use of Wnal ou in the present corpus, Wnal a is seldom observed to occur in environments of these kinds in the corpus. It should be noted that although the selection of Wnal ou versus Wnal a is clearly related to the distribution of knowledge between the particle speaker and the particle recipient, what the selection encodes is not how the state of knowledge is objectively distributed, but the particle speaker’s subjective evaluation of it C i.e., the degree of speaker conWdence in his or her knowledge visà-vis that of the recipient. And, relative to Wnal ou, this study has shown that Wnal a serves to encode the higher end of this subjectively-deWned continuum of speaker epistemological disposition. As noted earlier, the epistemological disposition of a speaker is not the only axis along which Wnal ou and Wnal a diVer from one other. Intertwined with this axis is the axis of a speaker’s emotional orientation toward the recipient and/or the matter at issue. As shown in the previous two chapters, whereas the use of Wnal a generally implicates a speaker’s disaYliative or counteractive stance toward his or her interlocutor, Wnal ou Wgures mainly in light banter, such as in joke-implicated sequences (e.g., (26), (28), (39), (40) in

Conclusion 239

Chapter 3) or joke-disguised complaining/disagreeing sequences (e.g., (23) in Chapter 3), and also in sequences in which the particle speaker is displaying solidarity with, or concern about (cf. Li and Thompson 1981), the recipient (e.g., (18), (19), (21), (38) in Chapter 3). In this regard, there is a sense that, while both Wnal particles can occur in the context where there is a possible asymmetric distribution of knowledge, orientation and/or expectation between the particle speaker and his or her interlocutor, Wnal a serves mainly to reinforce the speaker’s perspective in the face of such a knowledge/orientation/expectation gap, whereas Wnal ou serves mainly to alert the recipient to the existence of this gap. Final particles, such as a and ou, are thus integral recipient-design resources available to Mandarin Chinese speakers. They allow a speaker to convey or display an assessment of his or her own knowledge state vis-à-vis that of his or her interlocutor; they also allow a speaker to embody his or her emotional orientation toward the recipient and/or the matter being addressed in the talk. In other words, they provide a window into how Mandarin speakers construct their epistemic and aVective stances in talk-in-interaction. And it is a microanalysis of how Wnal ou and Wnal a Wgure in such a process that this study has aimed to oVer. The work presented here is just the tip of the iceberg; it serves only as a starting point for more investigations. There are many other Wnal particles in Mandarin Chinese, and many resources other than Wnal particles, which make up the cultural repertoire of devices used to accomplish various kinds of interactional work, and whose practices await compelling analytic speciWcation. This study is only a small step on a long journey. However, if it marks the Wrst step in a new direction C one which can advance our understanding of how Mandarin speakers interact with one another C our purpose here is served.

Notes 1. As Table 4 shows, it is ungrammatical to suYx a grammatically-constructed question with Wnal ou, and hence structures of this kind are not found in the present corpus. The only exception is in the context of repair where Wnal ou is attached to a REPEATED grammatically-constructed question to form a candidate understanding, as in the following excerpt:

240 Final Particles in Mandarin

(Café) Y:

na shi shenme ziliao. that be what data ‘What data is that?’

R:→

shenme ziliao ou. what data PRT ‘What data OU?’

Y:

hen. PRT ‘Yeah.’

2. Excerpts (1) and (3) have been explicated in Chapter 3, as excerpts (15) and (32) respectively.

References 241

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vi

Contents

Name index 253

Name index B Biber, Douglas 3, 4 Biq, Yung-O 20, 23, 38, 225 C Chao, Yuan-ren 14, 28, 32, 42, 43, 48-50, 54, 107, 109, 127-129, 173, 229 Chu, Chauncey C. 21, 22, 28, 33, 34, 128, 173, 229, 230 Clayman, Steven E. 9-11, 23 Clift, Rebecca 37, 225 Cook, Haruko M. 6 Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth 2, 11, 12, 14, 37 D Drew, Paul 1, 4, 161, 214 Drummond, Kent 7 Duranti, Alessandro 38 E Egbert, Maria 30, 38 F Fanshel, David 53, 124 Finegan, Edward 3, 4 Ford, Cecilia E. 2, 6, 23, 37, 43 Fox, Barbara A. 2, 4, 5, 14, 15, 20, 23, 37 Freese, Jeremy 12, 14, 15, 17 G Gardner, Rod 7, 12, 14, 15 Goffman, Erving 10, 13, 78, 178 Goodwin, Charles 5, 13-15, 19, 23, 37, 47, 230 Goodwin, Marjorie H. 13-15, 19, 23, 37 Günthner, Susanne 12, 14, 15 H Hayashi, Makoto 23, 38

He, Agnes W. 4, 21, 22 Heritage, John 1, 4, 7-10, 14, 16, 17, 19, 35, 37, 47, 60, 65, 74, 117, 123, 146, 182, 197, 200, 210, 214, 223, 226, 229-231 Hopper, Robert 7, 21, 23, 24 Huang, Shuanfan 20 Huang, Yan 21 J Jefferson, Gail 7, 8, 34, 35, 37, 40, 43, 47, 74, 80, 126, 146, 215, 225 K Kim, Kyu-hyun 8, 38 Koshik, Irene 9, 14, 15, 17, 47, 197 L Labov, William 53, 124 Levinson, Stephen C. 47 Li, Charles 14, 25, 28, 32, 43, 47, 49, 50, 54, 107, 109, 123, 126-129, 173, 227, 229, 239 Li, Ing C. 21, 22, 33, 34, 48, 122, 123, 230 Lindström, Anna 38, 165 Local, John 11, 14, 15, 17 Luke, Kang Kwong 6, 21, 25, 32, 47 M Maynard, Douglas W. 12, 14, 15, 17 Maynard, Senko K. 6, 25 Mori, Junko 6, 23, 38, 124, 210 Müller, Frank E. 13, 14 O Ochs, Elinor 2, 23, 37 P Park, Yong-Yae 6, 38, 215 Pomerantz, Anita 37, 47, 53, 146, 159

254 Name index

R Raymond, Geoffrey 10, 11, 16, 17 Roth, Andrew L. 10, 11, 37 S Sacks, Harvey 34, 35, 37, 43, 47, 80, 144, 215, 225 Schegloff, Emanuel A. 2, 5, 6, 14, 16, 22, 23, 34-37, 43, 47, 53, 65, 80, 84, 88, 144, 146, 160, 161, 163, 165, 172, 215, 225, 228230 Schiffrin, Deborah 6, 21, 23, 231 Selting, Margret 2, 11, 12, 37, 119 Sorjonen, Marja-Leena 7, 8, 12, 14, 15, 38, 53 T Tai, James H-Y 20, 23, 38

Takagi, Tomoyo 23, 38 Tanaka, Hiroko 38 Tao, Hongyin 20, 43, 47, 54, 129 Thompson, Sandra A. 2, 14, 20, 23, 25, 28, 32, 37, 38, 43, 47, 49, 50, 54, 107, 109, 123, 126-129, 173, 227, 229, 239 W Wang, Yu-Fang 20 Whalen, Marilyn R. 5 Wu, Ruey-Hua 48 Wu, Ruey-Jiuan R. 20, 21-23, 49, 122 Z Zhang, Wei 21, 22 Zimmerman, Don H. 5, 34

Subject index 255

Subject index A action 2, 3, 14, 15, 19, 22, 35-37, 46 and conversation analysis 2, 3, 19, 35-37 and stance 3, 14, 19 affect 8, 9, 12, 23, 74-76, 78-81 see also stance assessment-laden 78, 128, 154 B “B”-event statements 124 body behavior 14 see also gesture; non-verbal conduct C candidate understanding 53, 54, 55, 58, 63, 65, 67, 69, 70, 73, 98, 120, 124, 125, 129, 137, 178, 203, 224, 225, 233-235, 239 see also repair; understanding check Cantonese 6, 21, 47 Chinese linguistics 2, 19, 20, 32, 38, 233 context-renewing 19, 35, 117 see also context-shaped context-sensitive 19 context-shaped 35 see also context-renewing contextually-licensed 35 continuers 6, 12, 14 conversation analysis (CA) 1-4, 11, 19-23, 28, 34-38, 43, 47, 129, 144, 146, 164, 233 in Chinese 21-22 in languages other than English 38 D demonstrably relevant 36 see also determinate consequences; procedurally consequential determinate consequences 36 see also demonstrably relevant; procedurally consequential

deviant 146, 150, 152, 155, 159, 164, 173, 178, 182, 205, 214, 222, 224, 226, 234 deviant cases 36, 115 disagreement-implicated 135, 206 disagreement-implicativeness 146 discourse markers 6 dispreferred 89, 99, 103, 137, 138, 140, 151, 159, 165, 167, 171, 195, 213, 223, 224, 231 responses 89, 99, 137, 138, 140, 151, 159 second turn 103 E epistemic 1, 2, 6, 7, 9-11, 16, 25, 49, 53, 67, 69, 82, 114, 120-122, 135, 139, 140, 146, 151, 160, 167, 197, 200, 204, 205, 210, 225, 226, 232, 233, 236, 238, 239 see also stance alert 49, 114, 120-122, 233 authority 7, 16, 53, 151, 200, 210, 226 downgrader 232, 238 independence 7, 210 priority 200 qualifier 238 reservation 69, 82 status 1, 49, 121, 233 strength 1, 9, 135, 146, 160, 205 epistemically-transformed 49, 121, 122, 234 epistemological disposition 238 epistemology 5, 10 practical 5 social 10 eventful nonoccurrence 34, 46 evidential 5, 15, 17 F Finnish 7, 8, 12, 38 first position 16, 18, 85, 97, 112, 113, 125, 126

256 Subject index

see also responsive position; sequential; sequentially footing 10 G German 12, 38 gesture 23, 36, 107, 109 see also body behavior; non-verbal conduct grammar and interaction 37 see also interactional linguistics I intensifying 95, 96, 128, 173, 224, 229 interactional linguistics 2-4, 20 and prosodic research 11-14 in Chinese 20-22 intersubjectivity 28, 35, 47 intonation unit 43, 47 invoking contrast 128, 131, 138 J Japanese 6, 9, 38 jokes 112, 154, 155, 227, 238, 239 see also light banter K Korean 38 L lexical 4-6, 12, 15, 18, 19, 78 see also turn design; word selection choice 4-6, 18 light banter 238 see also jokes M modal 4, 6, 25 N negatively-valenced 85, 98, 112, 113, 120, 121, 233, 235 see also valence newly-acquired 69 newly-transformed 54, 60

news 1, 9-12, 15, 53, 69, 70, 72, 78, 79, 82, 84, 85, 95-98, 106, 112-115, 117, 119124, 126, 193, 194, 197, 200, 204, 233236 delivery 12, 15, 114, 115, 119-121, 123 -indexing 53 interviews 9-11 receipt 69, 70, 78, 79, 82, 84, 85, 98, 114, 115, 117, 119-124, 234 value 95-97, 112 newsmark 74, 80, 125, 177, 190, 199 newsmarking 49, 74, 82, 85, 103, 114, 115, 119-122 newsworthiness 89, 91, 96, 97, 112-114, 233 newsworthy 6, 11, 51, 70, 72, 74, 76, 78, 82, 84, 88, 91, 95, 114, 115, 145 non-TCU-final position 43, 44, 46 see also TCU-final position; transitionrelevance place; turn constructional unit non-verbal conduct 23, 42, 226 see also body behavior; gesture P possible completion 31, 43, 57, 60, 65, 108, 126, 138, 195, 210 see also transition-relevance place; turn constructional unit of sequence 31, 57, 60, 65, 108, 138, 210 pre-announcement 89 pre-disagreement 129, 138, 140, 146, 153, 190, 204, 224, 235 preemptive 89, 126, 137 preference 37, 165 organization 37 structure 165 problematicity 153, 160, 164, 171-173, 177179, 224, 234, 235 other-related 173, 179, 235 ritualized 177, 178 self-reflected 173, 179, 235 speaker-defined 224, 234 procedurally consequential 36 see also demonstrably relevant; determinate consequences

Subject index 257

prosodic 4, 11-15, 18, 19, 49, 50, 78, 119, 177, 179, 233, 234 features 12, 14, 15, 78, 233 manifestation 4, 11, 18 prosody 2, 11-15, 114, 119, 120, 122, 178, 179, 229 Q question design 9-11, 165 see also syntactic design; turn design question projection 165 R recipient design 35, 144, 172, 239 recipientship 6, 7 see also speaker incipiency reducing forcefulness 18, 128, 173 reflexive 35, 230 reflexively 4, 7, 11, 19, 95-97, 112, 126, 128, 150, 180, 229, 231 reinforcing 18, 204, 205, 211, 214, 222, 234, 239 relevance 8, 18, 36, 52, 113, 144, 154, 161, 170, 177, 193, 211, 219, 224, 225 remedial work 178 repair 2, 12, 16, 20, 22, 28, 29, 31, 37, 57, 67, 69, 72, 120, 122, 129, 138, 139, 144, 151, 152, 154, 156, 160, 161, 167, 169, 170, 176, 178, 186, 190, 191, 204, 205, 225, 230, 234, 236, 239 see also understanding check -implicated 72 initiation 12, 31, 57, 139, 144, 167 initiator 31, 67, 69, 122, 138, 139, 156, 161, 176, 178, 186, 190, 191, 204, 234 organization 22, 37, 129, 225 other-initiated 67, 160 -relevant 120, 151 self- 31, 169, 170, 204, 205 sequences 16, 57, 67 repeat 12, 16, 57, 65, 67, 69, 80, 109, 125, 129, 133, 137-140, 144-146, 150, 156, 160, 177, 178, 209, 224-226, 228, 229, 233-235

identical 65, 160, 229 question-intoned bare 69, 138-140, 144146, 150 response cries 13, 78 response tokens 6-8, 12-15 responsive position 18, 51, 82, 85, 97, 107, 111-113, 117, 125, 180 see also first position; sequential; sequentially S sequence organization 37 sequential 4, 5, 9, 13-19, 21, 22, 24, 33, 60, 63, 67, 80, 82, 97, 108, 114, 115, 117, 126, 137, 160, 161, 164, 180, 187, 190, 199, 201, 202, 205, 214, 219, 221-224, 228, 229, 233-236, 238 see also first position; non-TCU-final position; responsive position; sequentially; TCU-initial position; TCU-final position context 15, 18, 60, 82, 126, 137, 160, 164, 180, 187, 201, 202, 214, 221-224, 229, 234, 236 contingency 214, 222, 224, 234, 235 environment 5, 15, 17, 33, 108, 115, 160, 161, 219, 228, 233, 238 implication 60, 67 position 16, 17, 19, 22, 24, 60, 97, 114, 117, 190, 199, 201, 205 positioning 4, 14, 15, 17, 18, 24, 80 sequentially 16, 21, 46, 52, 63, 70, 78, 80, 151, 160 see also first position; non-TCU-final position; responsive position; sequential; TCU-initial position; TCUfinal position eventful 78 implicating 63, 70, 80, 151 -initial position 16 justifiable new utterance 160 relevant next action 52, 160 -second position 16 -third position 16

258 Subject index

speaker incipiency 12 see also recipientship speaker involvement 33, 123, 128 stance 1-19, 23, 30, 69, 70, 74-76, 78, 81, 82, 117, 119, 124, 125, 133, 137, 139, 140, 142, 144-146, 150-152, 154-156, 159, 161-164, 167, 173, 176, 194, 195, 197, 199, 201, 204, 205, 207, 209, 214, 217, 223-225, 228, 229, 232, 234-236, 238, 239 affective 8, 11, 13, 16, 78, 239 counteractive 9, 167, 205, 207, 214, 224, 234, 235, 238 definition of 3 disaffiliative 142, 209 disaligning 5, 6, 8, 205, 217 display 5, 6, 11, 12, 16-18, 23, 76, 78, 163, 164, 205, 214, 223 epistemic 6, 7, 11, 16, 69, 139, 140, 151, 167, 197, 204, 205, 225, 236, 239 evaluative 6, 12, 13 markers 3-5 negative 9, 13, 119, 155, 173, 176, 195, 229 non-aligning 137 Swedish 38, 165 syntactic design 4, 8, 11, 18 see also question design; turn design

TCU-final position 42, 43, 45, 46, 128, 233 see also non-TCU-final position; transition-relevance place; turn constructional unit tellability 1, 199, 200 transcription 40-42, 47, 48 transition-relevance place 214 see also possible completion; turn constructional unit turn 1, 2, 4, 9, 11, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 23, 37, 43, 80, 152, 215-219, 222, 231, 232 construction 2, 9 constructional unit (TCU) 42-46, 80, 123, 128, 217, 231, 233 design 1, 4, 11, 14, 15, 17-19, 23, 152 organization 4, 37 re-exit 215-219, 222, 231, 232 taking 2

T Taiwanese 33, 48, 122, 123, 231 TCU-initial position 123 see also turn constructional unit

W warning 49, 52, 107, 109, 126-128 word selection 5 see also lexical

U understanding check 55, 57, 60, 69, 70, 74, 124, 129, 138, 141, 145, 204 see also candidate understanding; repair V valence 12, 222, 223 see also negatively-valenced counter- 222, 223

In the Pragmatics & Beyond New Series the following titles have been published thus far or are scheduled for publication: 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102

TROSBORG, Anna (ed.): Analysing Professional Genres. 2000. xvi, 256 pp. PILKINGTON, Adrian: Poetic Eﬀects. A relevance theory perspective. 2000. xiv, 214 pp. MATSUI, Tomoko: Bridging and Relevance. 2000. xii, 251 pp. VANDERVEKEN, Daniel and Susumu KUBO (eds.): Essays in Speech Act Theory. 2002. vi, 328 pp. SELL, Roger D.: Literature as Communication. The foundations of mediating criticism. 2000. xiv, 348 pp. ANDERSEN, Gisle and Thorstein FRETHEIM (eds.): Pragmatic Markers and Propositional Attitude. 2000. viii, 273 pp. UNGERER, Friedrich (ed.): English Media Texts – Past and Present. Language and textual structure. 2000. xiv, 286 pp. DI LUZIO, Aldo, Susanne GÜNTHNER and Franca ORLETTI (eds.): Culture in Communication. Analyses of intercultural situations. 2001. xvi, 341 pp. KHALIL, Esam N.: Grounding in English and Arabic News Discourse. 2000. x, 274 pp. MÁRQUEZ REITER, Rosina: Linguistic Politeness in Britain and Uruguay. A contrastive study of requests and apologies. 2000. xviii, 225 pp. ANDERSEN, Gisle: Pragmatic Markers and Sociolinguistic Variation. A relevance-theoretic approach to the language of adolescents. 2001. ix, 352 pp. COLLINS, Daniel E.: Reanimated Voices. Speech reporting in a historical-pragmatic perspective. 2001. xx, 384 pp. IFANTIDOU, Elly: Evidentials and Relevance. 2001. xii, 225 pp. MUSHIN, Ilana: Evidentiality and Epistemological Stance. Narrative Retelling. 2001. xviii, 244 pp. BAYRAKTAROĞLU, Arın and Maria SIFIANOU (eds.): Linguistic Politeness Across Boundaries. The case of Greek and Turkish. 2001. xiv, 439 pp. ITAKURA, Hiroko: Conversational Dominance and Gender. A study of Japanese speakers in ﬁrst and second language contexts. 2001. xviii, 231 pp. KENESEI, István and Robert M. HARNISH (eds.): Perspectives on Semantics, Pragmatics, and Discourse. A Festschrift for Ferenc Kiefer. 2001. xxii, 352 pp. GROSS, Joan: Speaking in Other Voices. An ethnography of Walloon puppet theaters. 2001. xxviii, 341 pp. GARDNER, Rod: When Listeners Talk. Response tokens and listener stance. 2001. xxii, 281 pp. BARON, Bettina and Helga KOTTHOFF (eds.): Gender in Interaction. Perspectives on femininity and masculinity in ethnography and discourse. 2002. xxiv, 357 pp. McILVENNY, Paul (ed.): Talking Gender and Sexuality. 2002. x, 332 pp. FITZMAURICE, Susan M.: The Familiar Letter in Early Modern English. A pragmatic approach. 2002. viii, 263 pp. HAVERKATE, Henk: The Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics of Spanish Mood. 2002. vi, 241 pp. MAYNARD, Senko K.: Linguistic Emotivity. Centrality of place, the topic-comment dynamic, and an ideology of pathos in Japanese discourse. 2002. xiv, 481 pp. DUSZAK, Anna (ed.): Us and Others. Social identities across languages, discourses and cultures. 2002. viii, 522 pp. JASZCZOLT, Katarzyna M. and Ken TURNER (eds.): Meaning Through Language Contrast. Volume 1. 2003. xii, 388 pp. JASZCZOLT, Katarzyna M. and Ken TURNER (eds.): Meaning Through Language Contrast. Volume 2. 2003. viii, 496 pp. LUKE, Kang Kwong and Theodossia-Soula PAVLIDOU (eds.): Telephone Calls. Unity and diversity in conversational structure across languages and cultures. 2002. x, 295 pp. LEAFGREN, John: Degrees of Explicitness. Information structure and the packaging of Bulgarian subjects and objects. 2002. xii, 252 pp.

103 FETZER, Anita and Christiane MEIERKORD (eds.): Rethinking Sequentiality. Linguistics meets conversational interaction. 2002. vi, 300 pp. 104 BEECHING, Kate: Gender, Politeness and Pragmatic Particles in French. 2002. x, 251 pp. 105 BLACKWELL, Sarah E.: Implicatures in Discourse. The case of Spanish NP anaphora. 2003. xvi, 303 pp. 106 BUSSE, Ulrich: Linguistic Variation in the Shakespeare Corpus. Morpho-syntactic variability of second person pronouns. 2002. xiv, 344 pp. 107 TAAVITSAINEN, Irma and Andreas H. JUCKER (eds.): Diachronic Perspectives on Address Term Systems. 2003. viii, 446 pp. 108 BARRON, Anne: Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics. Learning how to do things with words in a study abroad context. 2003. xviii, 403 pp. 109 MAYES, Patricia: Language, Social Structure, and Culture. A genre analysis of cooking classes in Japan and America. 2003. xiv, 228 pp. 110 ANDROUTSOPOULOS, Jannis K. and Alexandra GEORGAKOPOULOU (eds.): Discourse Constructions of Youth Identities. 2003. viii, 343 pp. 111 ENSINK, Titus and Christoph SAUER (eds.): Framing and Perspectivising in Discourse. 2003. viii, 227 pp. 112 LENZ, Friedrich (ed.): Deictic Conceptualisation of Space, Time and Person. 2003. xiv, 279 pp. 113 PANTHER, Klaus-Uwe and Linda L. THORNBURG (eds.): Metonymy and Pragmatic Inferencing. 2003. xii, 285 pp. 114 KÜHNLEIN, Peter, Hannes RIESER and Henk ZEEVAT (eds.): Perspectives on Dialogue in the New Millennium. 2003. xii, 400 pp. 115 KÄRKKÄINEN, Elise: Epistemic Stance in English Conversation. A description of its interactional functions, with a focus on I think. 2003. xii, 213 pp. 116 GRANT, Colin B. (ed.): Rethinking Communicative Interaction. New interdisciplinary horizons. 2003. viii, 330 pp. 117 WU, Ruey-Jiuan Regina: Stance in Talk. A conversation analysis of Mandarin ﬁnal particles. 2004. xiv, 263 pp. + index. 118 CHENG, Winnie: Intercultural Conversation. 2003. xii, 279 pp. 119 HILTUNEN, Risto and Janne SKAFFARI (eds.): Discourse Perspectives on English. Medieval to modern. 2003. viii, 243 pp. 120 AIJMER, Karin and Anna-Brita STENSTRÖM (eds.): Discourse Patterns in Spoken and Written Corpora. 2004. viii, 279 pp. 121 FETZER, Anita: Recontextualizing Context. Grammaticality meets appropriateness. 2004. x, 272 pp. 122 GONZÁLEZ, Montserrat: Pragmatic Markers in Oral Narrative. The case of English and Catalan. xvi, 398 pp. + index. Expected Summer 2004 123 MÁRQUEZ REITER, Rosina and María Elena PLACENCIA (eds.): Current Trends in the Pragmatics of Spanish. xv, 377 pp. + index. Expected Summer 2004 124 VINE, Bernadette: Getting Things Done at Work. The discourse of power in workplace interaction. ix, 267 pp. + index. Expected Summer 2004 125 LERNER, Gene H. (ed.): Conversation Analysis. Studies from the ﬁrst generation. vi, 297 pp. + index. Expected Fall 2004 126 WU, Yi’an: Spatial Demonstratives in English and Chinese. Text and Cognition. xviii, 226 pp. + index. Expected Fall 2004 127 BRISARD, Frank, Michael MEEUWIS and Bart VANDENABEELE (eds.): Seduction, Community, Speech. A Festschrift for Herman Parret. Expected Fall 2004 128 CORDELLA, Marisa: The Dynamic Consultation. A discourse analytical study of doctor-patient communication. Expected Fall 2004 129 TABOADA, María Teresa: Building Coherence and Cohesion. Task-oriented dialogue in English and Spanish. Expected Fall 2004

A complete list of titles in this series can be found on the publishers website, www.benjamins.com

Conversation Analysis (Pragmatics & Beyond New)

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When Listeners Talk (Pragmatics & Beyond New)

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Contrastive Functional Analysis (Pragmatics & Beyond New)

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Getting Acquainted in Conversation: A Study of Initial Interactions (Pragmatics & Beyond New, Volume 64)

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South Slavic Discourse Particles (Pragmatics and Beyond. New Series)

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The Japanese Sentence-Final Particles in Talk-in-Interaction

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Gender, Politeness and Pragmatic Particles in French (Pragmatics & Beyond New)

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Epistemic Stance in English Conversation: A Description of Its Interactional Functions, with a Focus on I Think (Pragmatics & Beyond New)

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Conversation in Action: Let's Talk

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Hedging in Scientific Research Articles (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

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Verbal Aspect in Discourse (Pragmatics & Beyond)

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Essays in Speech Act Theory (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

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Discourse Constructions of Youth Identities (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

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Discourse Constructions of Youth Identities (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

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Taboo in Advertising (Pragmatics & Beyond)

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Youngspeak in a Multilingual Perspective (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

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Cognitive Semantics: Meaning and Cognition (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

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Evidentiality and Epistemological Stance: Narrative Retelling (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

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Evidentials and Relevance (Pragmatics & Beyond New, 86)

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Particles at the Semantics Pragmatics in

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The Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics of Spanish Mood (Pragmatics & Beyond New)

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The Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics of Spanish Mood (Pragmatics & Beyond New)

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Evidentiality and Epistemological Stance: Narrative Retelling (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

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Language, Social Structure and Culture: A Genre Analysis of Cooking Classes in Japan and America (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

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Instructional Writing in English: Studies in honour of Risto Hiltunen (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

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New Adventures in Language and Interaction (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

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Perspectives on Dialogue in the New Millennium (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

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Reanimated Voices: Speech Reporting in a Historical-pragmatic Perspective (Pragmatics & Beyond New)

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The Language of Business Studies Lectures: A corpus-assisted analysis (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

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Impoliteness in Interaction (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)

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