AUTHOR ""
TITLE "When Listeners Talk: Response tokens and listener stance"
SUBJECT "Pragmatics & Beyond, New Series, Volume 92"
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When Listeners Talk
Pragmatics & Beyond New Series Editor Andreas H. Jucker Justus Liebig University Giessen, English Department Otto-Behaghel-Strasse 10, D-35394 Giessen, Germany 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 Chris Butler, University College of Ripon and York Jean Caron, Université de Poitiers Robyn Carston, University College London Bruce Fraser, Boston University Thorstein Fretheim, University of Trondheim John Heritage, University of California at Los Angeles Susan Herring, University of Texas at Arlington Masako K. Hiraga, St.Paul’s (Rikkyo) University David Holdcroft, University of Leeds Sachiko Ide, Japan Women’s University Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni, University of Lyon 2 Claudia de Lemos, University of Campinas, Brazil Marina Sbisà, University of Trieste Emanuel Schegloff, University of California at Los Angeles Deborah Schiffrin, Georgetown University Paul O. Takahara, Kobe City University of Foreign Studies Sandra Thompson, University of California at Santa Barbara Teun A. Van Dijk, University of Amsterdam Richard J. Watts, University of Berne
Volume 92 When Listeners Talk: Response tokens and listener stance by Rod Gardner
When Listeners Talk Response tokens and listener stance
Rod Gardner University of New South Wales
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 Gardner, Rod. When listeners talk: response tokens and listener stance / Rod Gardner. p. cm. (Pragmatics & Beyond, New Series, issn 0922-842X ; v. 92) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1.Conversation analysis. I.Title. II.Series P95.45.G28 2001 401.41--dc21 isbn 90 272 51088 (Eur.) / 1 58811 0575 (US) (Hb; alk. paper)
2001043029
© 2001 – 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
Acknowledgements Transcription Notation
ix xi
Chapter 1. Introduction
1
Chapter 2. A Review of Response Tokens Introduction What do response tokens do? A brief survey of eight response tokens Early work on response tokens in Conversation Analysis Eight response tokens Typical Uses of Eight Response Tokens Continuer uses Acknowledgement uses Newsmarking uses Change-of-activity uses Summary: Eight Response Tokens Tokens-in-a-series The Dietetic Interview Conclusion
13 13 17 22 22 24 25 25 34 40 52 57 58 58 64
Chapter 3. Five types of Mm: The non-response tokens Introduction The Lapse Terminator Mm The Degustatory Mm The ‘Hesitation Marker’ Mm The Repair Initiator Mm The Answering Mm Conclusion
65 65 67 78 87 93 95 96
vi
When Listeners Talk
Chapter 4. From continuer to acknowledgement token: Mm as a token between Mm hm and Yeah Introduction Distribution of Mm, Mm hm/Uh huh and Yeah Terminal pitch direction and the response token Mm Mm as a weaker, more neutral acknowledger than Yeah Response tokens Mm, Yeah and Mm hm with falling terminal pitch direction Canonical cases of Mm as acknowledgement token with falling contour Canonical cases of Yeah as acknowledgement token with falling contour Non-canonical case of Mm hm with falling contour Response tokens Mm, Yeah and Mm hm with rising terminal pitch direction Canonical cases of Mm hm as continuer with rising terminal pitch direction Non-canonical cases of Mm as continuer with rising terminal pitch direction Non-canonical cases of Yeah as continuer with rising terminal pitch direction Conclusion Chapter 5: The Weakness of Mm: Topic disalignment and zero projection Introduction Mm and topic disalignment Mm plus substantial same speaker talk Topic change Topic recycling Mm plus substantial same speaker talk in dispreferred environments Free-standing Mm and contiguous silence Mm followed by silence Mm following a silence Free-standing Mm and other speaker continuation Mm at the end of a multi-unit turn Mm in topic attrition environments
99 99 101 104 105 108 109 113 116 117 119 124 126 129
133 133 135 136 136 141 147 152 152 155 159 159 162
Contents vii
Mm at a point of completion, with falling intonation Mm as a continuer, with fall-rising intonation Mm plus brief same speaker reactive talk Yeah and Mm hm followed by substantial same speaker talk Conclusions
163 166 168 176 184
Chapter 6: Intonation contour and the use of Mm Introduction Intonation in conversation: a review Identifying intonation units Functions of intonation Mm with falling intonation Canonical cases of Mm as acknowledger with falling contour Falling Mm as a Xexible second position response Falling Mm in post-expansion position Falling Mm following a multi-unit turn Falling Mm accompanied by other minimal same speaker talk Falling Mm: Some apparently anomalous examples Mm with fall-rising intonation Free-standing, fall-rising Mm in the environment of incipient trouble in the talk Fall-rising Mm in an environment in which a topic has not yet become salient Fall-rising Mm in the middle of a multi-unit turn by the other speaker Fall-rising Mm following a dependent clause Fall-rising Mm in the environment of dispreferreds Fall-rising Mm in the environment of hitches and perturbations A fall-rising Mm with substantial same speaker talk Mm with rise-falling intonation Rise-falling Mm in the environment of assessments Rise-falling Mm following other speaker assessment Rise-falling Mm prior to own assessment Rise-falling Mm following other speaker expression of inner state Rise-falling Mm in the environment of ‘involving’ topics Rise-falling Mm in some other environments Conclusion
187 187 188 189 193 196 197 198 199 200 202 204 210 213 214 216 220 221 225 228 232 236 236 238 241 242 244 249
viii When Listeners Talk
Chapter 7: Summary and future directions Summary Future directions
251 251 254
Notes Bibliography
257 269
Acknowledgements
An enterprise such as this could not reach its conclusion without the support of many people. I am indebted, Wrst, to those who gave generously of their advice during the study at the University of Melbourne from which this book grew: Susanne Döpke and Mark Durie, who provided supervisory support, and to John Heritage for invaluable input through the middle and later stages of the project. Numerous students have provided stimulating discussions on issues in Conversation Analysis. I wish to mention the following: Valerie Astbury, AnneMarie Barraja-Rohan, Catarina Cafarelli, Libby Clark, Anna Filipi, Sera Giannone, Anna Medeiros, Ruth Pritchard, Elizabeth Taylor and Anna Milionis. Colleagues have also given their time to read, discuss, or make comments. Foremost amongst these are Paul Drew, Maria Egbert, John Gibbons, Sue Hood, Tony Liddicoat, Ilana Mushin, Manny SchegloV and Johannes Wagner. The study is also indebted to the fourteen volunteers, who must remain anonymous, who agreed to being taped, and who provided the data without which this work would not have been possible. Finally, I would like to thank Ilana Mushin for her love and support during the Wnal stages of the writing of this book, and love and thanks to my mother Brigitte, brother CliV and late father John.
Transcription notation
The transcription system used in this book is JeVersonian, with some modiWcations. In particular, the notations are compiled from Atkinson & Heritage (1984), JeVerson (1984a), SchegloV (1990; ND), as well as Sacks, SchegloV & JeVerson (1974), although some of the conventions used in this last paper have been superseded as transcription practice has evolved. In addition, some speciWc notations have been developed by the author.
Simultaneous, overlapping and latched utterances Turns beginning simultaneously are marked by left-hand square brackets: [
B: A:
[That wz the problem, bicoz they were[wo:z, I r’member that letter you wrote,
In overlap, the point of overlap onset is marked with left hand square brackets: [
B: A:
No:, (they wer- (.) y’kno [:w they-) [b’d et th’ sa:me ti:me, they- y’know-,
and the point at which overlap stops is marked by right-hand square brackets: ]
L: M:
[seeing ‘f I cn:- cook th’m, ] [Cook th’m a mea:l er something, ]
Contiguous stretches of talk between which there is no gap and no overlap (latched) are linked with equal signs. This can be between diVerent speakers: =
B: A:
oh well, (.) y’know couldn’t we come over to your place?= =Yeah, well they will be tomorrow, so, (.) huh
This sign is also used where the single utterance of a speaker cannot be kept on a adjacent lines (transcriptionally disjoined utterance) to show that it is the
xii When Listeners Talk
same speaker utterance (to accommodate overlap or continuer tokens): =
B: A: B:
alone, like if your Ma[c’ntosh], wasn’t= [ M m , ] =connect’ to a network, sortev thing:, jest on its ow:n,
It is also used for within-turn latching, to show that the same speaker produces a new intonation unit without a pause between units. =
N: M: N:
The: Pear’s encyclopaedia, Yes, it certainly will,= have you used this teabag a second time¿ I don’t know, I didn’t- (0.4) you:’d(.) made my tea last night, (0.3) (a:h de but-)
If more than one speaker latches onto a previous turn, this is shown through a combination of equal sign and square bracket =[
B: A: B:
Yea:h.= =[But I mean ] =[we:ll, (.) ] the only:, (0.6) problem I see the:re
Where simultaneous utterances are coterminal and latch onto a subsequent utterance, this is marked by a right-hand bracket and equal sign: ]=
L: M: M:
An yet- n’ (.) it w’ld be a -te:rrible time, to [sell at Ry:e.]= [Yes it would.]= =I -kno:w,
Intervals in and between utterances Intervals are measured in tenths of a second, and placed within curved brackets. Silences can occur within a turn or turn constructional unit (pauses): (0.0)
B:
I mea:n (0.8) y’know I picked ‘em up Monday
or between turns (gaps):
Transcription notation xiii
B: A:
No:, I said look put Alistair ondo it. (0.4) It’ still the:re!
A very short pause, or micropause, of less than 0.2 seconds (ie. within the normal transition space), is indicated by a full-stop between brackets: (.)
M: L:
Yeah (.) [Okay?] [Okay,]
Prosodic features of utterances There is no adequate way of capturing all the subtleties of intonation and prosody on paper. The terminal contour is indicated by punctuation marks (. , _ ; ¿ ? !). Note that these are used to mark terminal pitch direction, and are used diVerently from graphological convention. In itself, this is a crude system, but can render the intonation of an utterance to a satisfactory degree for most purposes in the analysis of conversation. Note also that these symbols do not necessarily occur at obvious syntactic boundaries. .
A full-stop/period indicates a falling terminal contour, a ‘Wnal’ intonation. This can occur with many other speech activity types than a statement, including questions. The best identifying feature is that it ends at the low end of the pitch range. B: Y’kn’w it’s jess bo:ring.
;
A semi-colon is one of three continuative terminal contours. It indicates a slight fall, from high to mid, or from mid, but not to low. It is most common turn internally during a multi-unit turn at talk. A: Oh; ga:me player.
_
An underline mark at the end of a word is a second continuative contour. It represents level pitch terminally. It is most characteristically used in listings or in hesitation markers. A: Yeah_ right,
,
A comma indicates a third continuing contour, a slight rise. The crucial point for transcription purposes for all three continuative contours is that they represent talk that is hearably incomplete, ie. the hearer (or the
xiv When Listeners Talk
transcriber as overhearer) senses that there is more talk to come. These three types of terminal contour are not restricted to utterances occurring prior to the last utterance of a turn. M: O:wh, I- don’ wanta go that fa:r,
?
A question mark indicates a strongly rising terminal contour, typically, but not exclusively, for polar questions. There has been an increasing use of high rise for statements in recent years in some English speaking regions, including Australia (see for example Guy and Vonwiller 1989). Its characterising feature is that it rises a long way in pitch and ends up at the high end of the pitch range. B: so:- c’n you: give him a copy ev my sa:les repo:rt?
¿
The ‘Spanish’ question mark is used for terminal contours that rise more than in a continuing contour, but less than the sharp rise of the question mark contour. Its characterising feature is that it rises substantially, but ends up in the mid to mid-high end of the speaker’s pitch range, rather than the high end. B: j’s< gave ‘im a biteva ba:ckgrou:n’¿ coz ee kne:w we’d bin ta:lkin’ fer some minutes¿
!
A exclamation mark indicates a strongly animated tone, and may have pitch movement in any direction. It has been used very sparingly in this book. If it is used, then it is characterised by violent Xuctuations in pitch, such as from very low to very high, or is preceded by a strongly undulating contour. A: -Rea:lly:!
Each of these marks in itself will be used in combination with some widely diVering contours internal to the intonation unit. However, in combination with the stress markings explained below, a fairly Wne reading of what is going on intonationally can be captured. Stress is indicated by underlining. CA has been inconsistent with marking for stress over the years, but JeVerson has come up with the most Wnely grained conventions. Stress is realised in speech through drawl (sound stretch) and/or a marked pitch movement and/or increased amplitude. Tonic (or nuclear) stress will always have pitch movement internal to the syllable, which other stressed or unstressed syllables will not. Conventionally in CA, short underlin-
Transcription notation
ing indicates less stress than a long underlining. _
B:
en j’st all a the things I wanneda gedone, I didn’t ge- done¿
For this book, only single symbol underlining has been used to indicate stress, with increased amplitude being indicated by upper case letters, and increased length (sound stretch) by colons. This allows for a more delicate representation of the internal contour of a stressed syllable in an intonation unit, as well as the overall contour of the intonation unit. As virtually all strongly stressed syllables are lengthened, these syllables will include a colon. The following examples use the token Mm to illustrate the points. If the contour of the syllable moves initially at level tone, the Wrst letter of the syllable is underlined. xxx
M: L:→
(On) channel two; (0.1) channel two:. Mm:.
Note that the full stop after the Mm indicates that it falls away terminally to low pitch. The underline symbol after the Mm indicates that the contour remains level through the syllable. B:→
I l:ike the one where you (0.4) mm:_ (0.8) it’s rilly f:unny how they do: that,
If the contour of the syllable falls and then rises, a colon after the Wrst symbol or sound, internal to the syllable, is underlined. x:x
M:
L:→
So; (0.2) I a:sked him-; ho:w w’d it go:; over three: mo:nths. (0.3) M:m,
Note the comma after the Mm indicates that the syllable has a slight terminal rise. If the contour of the syllable rises and then falls, the second letter symbol of the syllable is underlined, and is followed by a colon that is not underlined. xx:
B: A:→
Yea:h; it’s acksh’ly a good way e- (.) ev being °Mm:°.
xv
xvi When Listeners Talk
Note the full stop after the Mm indicates that the syllable falls away to low pitch terminally. If the contour of the syllable rises throughout, the last symbol of the syllable is underlined, in Mm most commonly this is a Wnal colon. xx:
A: B:→
In fact I’ll have two days alone with Luisa ‘n’ Carol. Mm:?
Note the question mark after the Mm indicates the syllable rises strongly to high pitch terminally. Drawl, or the lengthening or prolongation of a sound (sound stretch), is marked through colons. Each colon represents approximately the length of a beat in the rhythm of the preceding talk: :
A:
it wz th’ sa:me bra:nd, en’ (0.5) I went to:: I ws pud on to: thee:: em:, (1.3) a pla:ce, the Werribee ti::le (0.3) place,
If shift in pitch is particularly marked, this is indicated by up arrows for a marked rise in pitch and down arrows for a marked drop in pitch. They indicate a ‘recalibration of talk all of a sudden to a higher [or lower] pitch’ (SchegloV, 1990). ↑
L:
↓
A:
if only this: (.) ↑wre:tched person Carola wasn’t the:re. Why she was late tonight, ↓yea:h (.) just a (0.4) little retaliatory thing¿
The symbols ˆ and © are also used to indicated sudden movement to higher or lower pitch respectively. (These are used to avoid the Symbol font necessary for the up and down arrows, as that font is non-proportional and of a diVerent width from the proportional fonts such as Courier, and can thus cause problems of alignment between the lines in a transcription). These two symbols are found in the following fragment from the Chicken Dinner transcript. ©
^
Viv:→ O©kay[good.? Sha: [Yuwuh (.) g’ss I g’d say ih same abaht p’t[atoes. Nan:→ [^Mm::.
Certain combinations of these symbols can indicate strongly undulating intonation:
Transcription notation xvii
B:
I mean ↑un:↓be↑lie:v↓able. ↑ho:w ↓many ↑clo:thes.
Talk that remains at a high or a low pitch can be enclosed by up or down arrows respectively. This means that the talk between the arrows was either all raised or all lowered in pitch: ↑words↑
B:
↑Oh, c’n I ‘ave th’ ca:r↑ Monday.
Without the right closure, ↑ or ↓ means that the high pitch has sudden onset, but it then gradually wanders down (from ↑) or up (from ↓) to normal pitch level, ie. there is no sharp return to the baseline pitch. Falsetto voice or very high pitch can be indicated by double up arrows: ↑↑
A:
↑THAT’S ↑↑RI:GHT!
Similarly, very markedly low voice can be indicated by double down arrows: ↓↓
I:
↓↓whee:.
Loud talk is indicated by upper case. CAPS
A:
↑THAT’S ↑↑RI:GHT!
The option exists for using loud talk. WORD
WORD
A:
SMALL CAPS
to:: keep up the
for loud talk and ALL CAPS for very
THIRTY
perCE:(H)NT¿
For talk that is softer than the surrounding talk, the degree sign is used: °
B:
she’s °prob’ly late°, ·hh and then on the way ho:me,
If it is very quiet (ie. barely audible), a double degree sign can be used: °°
A:
and Doris visited her day- in, dayout, ev’ry day fer three ‘n’ a half yea:rs:¿
B: °°Yeah°°,
Subscribed degree sign is used for unvoiced talk or vocalisations, including whispering: °
B:
°so:°.
n:’ yeh I see why it-
xviiiWhen Listeners Talk
An abrupt cutoV is represented by a single dash. This generally represents a glottal stop. -
L:
We:nsda:y, but- I- c’d- cook afta the:m?
Stuttering is represented by a series of symbols connected by hyphens w-w-word
L:
b-b-but Pat wanted to tell her himse:lf,=
Audible aspirations are represented by h’s, audible inhalations are represented by h’s preceded by a raised dot: hh ·hh
B: B:
but- hh she’s prob’ly late, ·hh and then on the way ho:me,
H’s inserted into the words in the transcription indicate breathiness: h
P:
an- an’ they think peohple w’l pa:hy tah come ta this, do the:y¿
An h in parenthesis indicates plosive quality, as in talk in laughter or breathlessness (h)
A:
Depends, th’ first time might ev been when they w’re three:, and the(h)y do(h)n’t re(h)me(h)mbe(h)r i(h)t huh huh huh huh huh,
Gutturalness is shown by inserting gh into the transcription where the gutturalness occurs. gh
A:
huh huh huh huh huh huh huh °huh° (.) ·hughh
Sympathetic voice (legato) can be shown by enclosing the talk between the # symbol: #
L: M:
and also: (0.7) just- (0.7) so: bad Rebe:cca and Suza:nne? about #↑Ye:s#,
Creaky voice is enclosed by asterisks *
A:
when her (.) elderly mother *became frai:l*, ·hh
Transcription notation xix
(Note in earlier versions of JeVersonian transcription, the asterisk functions in the same way as right square brackets in later versions to indicate the oVset of overlap. Also in some later transcriptions, the asterisk is used in place of the degree sign [°] to indicate quiet talk.) Tremulous voice can be indicated by the tilde: ~word~
B: A:
[~Yea:h ri:ght~], [ > ~b’coz it ] ws gedding a bit late~<,
Heavily staccato talk is indicated by the bullet: •
M:
↑Right? virt’ually ↑•ev’ry •owner •dri:ver;= w’ll go oudev bus’ness.=
Extreme tautness of the vocal chords is indicated by the Greek letter gamma: ã
B: →
thet- (.) she ed either ↑wo:rked with:↑_ or ha:d ãeã they ↓hed wo:rked fer ↑he:r;=
Talk that is faster than its surrounding talk is enclosed by a right-pointing carat at its beginning, and a left pointing carat at its conclusion: >words<
L:
·hh of course th’t we’ll help them financi’lly, >I mean I think-<
Note that slow talk does not always need special marks, as it will be apparent from colons indicating lengthening. However, slow talk can also be represented by a left pointing carat at its beginning, and a right pointing carat at its conclusion: <words>
A:
So:: e:m, (.) I ws jes sortev ↑thinking about that toda:y, ‘n’ sortev thinking about pudding, (1.3)
, if ya know whad I mea:n¿
A prepositioned left carat without a postpositioned right carat indicates a hurried start, which then returns gradually to the previous pace (common at self-repair starts) >
B:
four hundr’d dollars more expensive, (0.5) per single user client, (.) tha:n:, (1.2) >s- single us’r, like stand alone, like if your Mac’ntosh, wasn’t connect’=
xx
When Listeners Talk
Laughter is generally represented by an approximate phonetic rendition of the laugh, eg. huh, huhn, hah, hih. B: A:
Don’ think I’ve hadth’ pleasure. huh huh huh hh do(h)n’ bo(h)ther huh huh huh (0.3) ·huh
Smiling while talking, which can be detected audibly (also known as smile talk), can be enclosed by $ $
A:
huh huh huh hh $don’ bother$ huh huh huh (0.3) ·huh
Vocalisations that cannot be satisfactorily transcribed, references to contextual features or occurrences, or prosodic features not otherwise captured, can be indicated within double parentheses. This is for transcribers’ description, rather then representation, of what is going on at a particular time (SchegloV, 1990): (( ))
?: I?: I:
B:
((smoke exhalation?)) hhh (1.7) ((sniff)) ↓↓whee:. ((music begins)) (5.2) ((whispered harshly)) °Yea(h):h°.
Inadequate hearing If the transcriber fails to make a coherent hearing of the talk of a speaker, this is indicated by the use of empty parentheses, the distance they are apart in the transcript reXecting the approximate length of the unheard talk: P: P:
↑Yea:h the’re nice ones. (0.4) ( (0.8)
).
If the transcriber achieves an uncertain hearing of the talk, this is placed within parentheses: M:
Well it doesn’t seem (to me like Susan like) she did suici:de. (2.5)
If the transcriber is unsure which speaker has produced a particular utterance,
Transcription notation xxi
this can be indicated by the use of a question mark: P: ?:
↑Yep- ↓that’d be nice:. (4.9) Can I have some.
Alternative possible hearings can be placed in two sets of parentheses separated by a slash: P:
Come on (Poss)/(Boss).
Transcriptionist highlighting and text ellipsis A feature of interest referred to in the text can be highlighted in the transcription by a right pointing arrow to the left of the line or lines being highlighted: →
A: → A:
B:→
=°Yeah, well they will be tomorrow, so, (.) huh° hhh yea:h-, (1.4) ↓°You: kno:w ‘at I mean°, hh °the’re obv’ously:, (0.3) completely comf’table, with coming he:re°¿ ↑Yea:h, (.) oh yea:h,
If portions of the transcription are not included this can be represented by a spaced series of dots, either horizontally: . . .
L:
·hh But- (.) I mean hh ·hh he’s going (.) . . . an’ see if the’s any packing wo:rk,
or vertically . . . .
A:
So yer going Mon:da:y, . .
B:
The’re puttin’ an- (0.4) a n:ew (1.1) (Nobel) network system,
Chapter 1
Introduction
The principal way in which we are social beings, in contrast to being individuals, is through talk. It is the main way in which we are not alone. The brief listener responses that are the subject of this book shed light on one of the central features of this human togetherness: the listener. In the totality of all the language of talk, there are few indicators of the stance and orientation of this side of conversation. At least, that is how it appears at Wrst glance. However, such unobtrusive response tokens as Yeah, Mm hm, Okay and Mm turn out to be exquisitely complex, in a way that is still becoming apparent. This is a book about these listener activities in talk: the brief mono- or bisyllabic responses of a restricted number of types. Listeners as a group have generally been neglected in language research. The discipline of linguistics, for example, has traditionally focused on language production (speaking and writing). As Goodwin (1986) says, “[t]he primary source of data for the study of language has typically come from the activities of speakers. Noticeably lacking within linguistics, has been systematic study of the action of hearers” (p 205). This is understandable to the extent that what language users say or write is available and ‘out there’ for study, unlike listening (or reading), the processes of which are internal, invisible, and not directly accessible to an observer. In pragmatics, too, most work has focused on speakers, for example in the speech act tradition (e.g. Austin 1962; Searle 1969, 1979, 1992), Gricean pragmatics (e.g. Grice 1975), and politeness theory (e.g. Brown and Levinson 1988), though there is also a focus on hearer-oriented speech acts in the last of these. There are, though, some scholars who have paid more attention to the roles and contributions of listeners in interactive discourse. The sociologist GoVman (e.g. 1976, 1978) is notable in this regard, having written extensively on the listener. He distinguished various kinds of listeners: overhearers; ratiWed, but non-addressed participants; and addressees (GoVman 1976). Psycholinguists have an established tradition of studying hearers, in early work in controlled ‘laboratory’ settings, but more recently some, for example Clark (e.g. 1992), have begun to study the listener in natural interactive settings. In
2
When Listeners Talk
discourse analysis, Brown (1995) has also explored how listeners achieve comprehension in discourse. Other exceptions to the general trend to ignore listener roles have been McGregor and White (1990:1), who considered ‘receiver-responders’ to have a crucial role in the shaping of discourse, as the real “arbiters of what becomes meaningfully determinant in an interpretive sense”, and as such can be understood to be more powerful than speakers. This, they argue, is because speakers express their own ideas and meanings, whereas listeners are more likely to be the ones for whom what is said is new. That is, the listener is more likely to be the one who goes through a transformation, for whom changes in states of knowledge occur. In addition, as Pellowe (1986:1112) has said, “a person who is able to listen, but who does not need to speak, suVers fewer doubts (does not need to trade vulnerability for conWrmation) than one who needs to speak but is unable to listen”. The most extensive studies of the role of the listener as recipient and coconstructor of interactive talk have come from conversation analysts working in the ethnomethodological tradition (e.g. Sacks 1992a, 1992b; Sacks et al. 1974; Goodwin 1981, 1986; SchegloV 1982; JeVerson 1984a; Heritage 1984b). Many of these studies have focussed on brief, non-topical responses. The range of activities participants in talk-in-interaction do in the role of listener include the following (cf. Gardner 1994). This list includes archetypal examples of each:1 – – –
– – –
–
Continuers, which function to hand the Xoor back to the immediately prior speaker (e.g. Mm hm, Uh huh); Acknowledgements, which claim agreement or understanding of the prior turn (e.g. Mm, Yeah); Newsmarkers, and newsmarker-like objects, which mark the prior speaker’s turn as newsworthy in some way, (e.g. Really?, the change-ofstate token Oh, the ‘idea-connector’ Right); Change-of-activity tokens, which mark a transition to a new activity or a new topic in the talk (e.g. Okay, Alright); Assessments, which evaluate the talk of the prior speakers (e.g. Great, How intriguing, What a load of rubbish); Brief questions for clariWcation or other types of repair, which seek to clarify mishearings or misunderstandings (e.g. Who?, Which book do you mean?, or the very generalised Huh?); Collaborative completions, whereby one speaker Wnishes a prior speaker’s utterance (e.g. A: So he’s moved into . . . B: commercial interests);
Introduction
–
Many non-verbal vocalizations and kinesic actions (e.g. sighs, laughter, nods and head shakes).
The Wrst four of these — continuers, acknowledgement tokens, newsmarkers and newsmarker-like objects, and change-of-activity tokens — are discussed in this book. These objects have historically been neglected by linguists and lexicographers, and even by many discourse analysts. The high frequency of their occurrence in spoken interaction, however, suggests they are worthy of study, and potentially of signiWcant interest to students of language. The listener responses on this list are frequently referred to in the literature as ‘backchannel’ utterances (cf. Yngve 1970; Duncan and Fiske 1977). There is, though, a problem with the broad notion of ‘backchannel’: a wide range of functionally very varied tokens is covered by the term, and it is very easy for these diVerences can be obscured. As Drummond and Hopper (1993a:162) say: The failure … to distinguish between diVerent classes of back-channels and the consequences they may have for speakership incipiency has made the backchannels category a hodgepodge — though the concept itself captures a basic intuition about brief turns. The concept remains widely cited, but evidence for its usefulness is thin and undiVerentiated.
One objective of this book is to survey the major distinctions between some backchannels, namely those from the list that can be characterised as response tokens: continuers, acknowledgement tokens, newsmarkers and change-ofactivity tokens. These tokens are a prime example of action types of a nonprimary speaker (or current listener) in interactive talk, and demonstrate the non-primary speaker’s power to inXuence the course of talk, by providing evidence of the stance that the recipient in the talk is taking at that moment (cf. Gardner 1998). Together with assessments, response tokens provide information to other participants in the talk not only about how some prior talk has been receipted, but also some information on how the response token utterer is projecting further activities in the talk, for example whether they approve of, agree with, disagree with, will remain silent on, or have something to say about the prior talk. This is not done in a way that says something topically or semantically precise, but through the general characteristics of the brief response that has been given. Response tokens are diYcult to describe, as they lack meaning in the conventional dictionary sense of the word. They have long eluded clear treat-
3
4
When Listeners Talk
ment by researchers of conversational interaction. Linguists have rarely considered them (but see Fries 1952; Yngve 1970), probably in part because they are not incorporated into clausal structures, which has been the overriding focus of linguistics in recent decades. Response tokens often stand alone in a turn as single items. Even linguists interested in pragmatics and language-inuse have struggled to provide adequate and convincing descriptions of response tokens. This is especially true of more conventional linguistic approaches to the study of language, with their intuitive, ‘native speaker’ understanding of what is going on in talk. Whilst response tokens have attracted the attention of many discourse analysts, particularly those interested in questions of language and gender, this work has in most cases continued to treat them as a homogenous, undiVerentiated group. There is, though, one approach to the study of naturally occurring spoken interaction, ethnomethodological conversation analysis (CA), which has made greater headway in unraveling the mysteries of response tokens. CA focuses on the occurrence of talk in the context of an emerging, coconstructed dialogue, with each utterance dependent upon what has gone before, and in turn setting up a context for a next utterance (cf. Heritage 1984a), and has a major focus on trying to discover how the participants in the conversation, rather than the analyst, understand what is going on. If one studies what it is that response tokens are responding to, and what speakers do after a response token has been produced, and how participants themselves deal with them, then one can begin to make sense of how they are used.2 From the foregoing, it is apparent that it is not enough simply to consider response tokens as items in themselves, for example their phonetic form, prosodic shape, or intonational contour. What they do is highly dependent not just on sound shape, but also on the context in which they occur, particularly their timing and their precise placement within a sequence of talk, or whether the token is an ‘only’ in its turn. They provide wonderful examples of the collaborative nature of interactive discourse, and illustrate the importance of the co-construction of talk by participants (cf. Jacoby and Ochs 1995), and the ways in which meaning is transformed from utterance to utterance. As Goodwin and Goodwin (1987:4) say (emphasis in the original): The treatment that a bit of talk gets in a next utterance may be quite diVerent from the way in which it was heard and dealt with as it was spoken; indeed, rather than presenting a naked analysis of the prior talk next utterances characteristically transform that talk in some fashion — deal with it not in its own terms but rather in the way in which it is relevant to the projects of subsequent speaker. Thus while
Introduction
subsequent utterances can reveal crucial features of the analysis participants are making of prior talk they do not show how participants hear the talk as it is emerging in the Wrst place, what they make of it then, and what consequences this has for their actions, not in a next turn, but within the current turn.
The focus of Goodwin and Goodwin’s observations is assessments, utterances that do appreciative, sympathetic or evaluative work, and which “can range from fully referential and predicational … down to relatively desemanticized displays of empathy, etc., that lack an explicit referent and evaluation, but do display aVective involvement in principal speaker’s statement” (Goodwin and Goodwin 1987:25 – fn. 15). These observations on how responses transform the prior talk are similarly applicable to response tokens such as Mm, Yeah and Okay. Even a continuer takes a stance: if a listener does nothing except hand back the turn to the prior speaker, this contrasts with doing anything else, and this means that the prior turn has been responded to in a particular way. There are, though, also some crucial diVerences between assessments and response tokens. In a discussion of continuers (as one sub-type of response tokens) and assessments, Goodwin (1986:210) points to a particular diVerence (apart from the obvious ‘evaluative’ one) between the two. The latter “display an analysis of the particulars of what is being talked about” through there evaluative stance on the prior talk, whereas continuers take no such stance to the content of the unit of talk to which they are responding, “but rather deal with that unit as a preliminary to another”. Mm hm/Uh huh in particular show a low level of speakership incipiency, being used primarily to return to Xoor to the prior speaker. In the same paper Goodwin also notes that some assessments, such as a long, falling Ah::: (unlike Beautiful or How sad for example) resemble continuers in that they have no readily identiWable semantic content, but their impact appears to hang as much as anything on their intonation contour and prosodic form being Wtted appropriately to the talk to which they respond. Further, assessments can occur as a last response to an extended turn, a position which is inappropriate for a continuer, which, if it does occur in that position, would most likely be indicative of a problem with the telling (though of course some other response token types may occur at the end of an extended turn, such as Okay). A third diVerence is that continuers are purely recipient actions, whereas assessments can be done by recipient or primary speaker. Assessments, though, share some other qualities with continuers (and other response tokens), apart from the lack of semantic content of response
5
6
When Listeners Talk
tokens and some assessments. One feature they have in common is that “despite their apparent simplicity [they] constitute one central resource available to participants for organizing the perception and interpretation of what is being talked about” (Goodwin 1986:49). They also provide participants “with the ability to not simply display alignment to ongoing talk, but establish and negotiate that alignment through a systematic process of interaction while the talk being aligned to is still in progress” (Goodwin 1986:49). We are then, according to Goodwin, dealing with two structurally diVerent ways of dealing with another’s talk. Assessments comment on what another has said, without treating it as preliminary to something else, and continuers (and some other response tokens) treat the talk to which they are responding as an emerging element in a larger, as yet incomplete structure. Continuers share the non-evaluative stance with acknowledgement tokens, newsmarkers and change-of-activity tokens3 . What they do is a contribution to the management of the turn-taking (such as handing the Xoor back to prior speaker), or provide information on how topical talk is being treated (acknowledged, as news, as being ripe for closure). Response tokens also are not distributed evenly through talk. Their most natural home is during extended turns by another, such as a storytelling or an extended explanation. In fact, even though they can occur hundreds of times in an hour of talk (as in much of the data used in this study), there are also long sequences of talk in which they hardly occur, most typically in ‘turn-by-turn’ talk (cf. Sacks et al. 1974). The uneven rate of occurrence also appears to be related to individual factors. JeVerson (1993) reports that some speakers of English use both Mm hm and Yeah, whilst others use very few Mm hms. Guthrie (1997) found similar individual variation amongst her subjects in their use of Mm hm and Okay. Also in the data set used for the main study reported in this book, there was great variation in the use of Mms, with the highest users producing them at a rate of more than 200 per hour, and the lowest at six per hour. The distribution of response tokens can also be considered at the level of the turn. It comes as no surprise that they are overwhelmingly placed at transition relevance places (TRPs) (cf. Sacks et al. 1974; Ford and Thompson 1996), that is, around points in the talk of others that are potentially grammatically, intonationally and pragmatically complete. An example of this systematic placement at TRPs is seen in the extract below, which is taken from a dietetic interview, in a phase in which D (the dietician) is giving Cl (the client) advice about modifying his diet.
Introduction
(1)
Diet, 29.7.96:1630
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
D: Cl:→ D:
Cl:→ D:
D: Cl:→ D: Cl:→ D: Cl:→ D: Cl:→ D:
I mean granted you are only having it a few times a ?we:ek? [·hh- but they’re just a-= [Mm hm, =potential source of uh (.) calories th’t·hhh jess tuh make a seggestion,= en’ ( [ ) you c’d try:: the:[m, [Righ’. [Mm hm, ·h- other things are things like (ev course) ·hh if yuh like yo:ghurt-? (.) low fat yoghu’t (the:re)¿= =Mm [hm, [as a- (.) desse:rt-¿ [might ] be anothuh= [Ye:hs.] =option:¿ [·hhhhhh ] or a light Fru:che¿ if= [Uh; huh,] =yuh like the Fruch [es ·hhh (.) [Mm hm, uhm or with (.) a low fat custard¿ . . .
It can be seen that the majority of these response tokens are placed very neatly at point of possible completion, that is, at points at which speaker transition would be relevant if this were not an extended ‘advice-giving’ turn by D, but a sequence in which the turn-taking rules for conversation were being followed. For example, the Wrst Mm hm in line 3 is spoken during the inbreath by D and just after she has completed her utterance, I mean, granted you are only having it a few times a week. There are, though, a few instances in this passage where the response tokens are not placed precisely at the point of potential completion. The Mm hm in line 18 overlaps with the -es of Fruches at the end of or a light Fruche, if you like the Fruches. This Mm hm (similar to the Mm hm in line 7) is very close to the end of the utterance, and within the normal ‘space’ for transition relevance. Sometimes response tokens are not placed close to an obvious point of possible completion. Very often this is not random, but they are positioned at what Lerner (1996) calls an ‘opportunity space’, which is a point of partial grammatical completion, such as after an initial subordinate clause, but before a subsequent main clause, as in the following fragment (from Lerner 1996). (2)
Mother’s Day (simpliWed)
1 2
D:
S-so if if ah you were strong in your feeli:ngs about (0.2) people (0.2)
7
8
When Listeners Talk
3 4 5 6
A:→ D:
Mm hm= =you that you li:ked (0.3) and it was completely contrasted to (0.4) what your mother (.) thought was right . . .
A’s Mm hm here is placed after a potential completion of D’s if-clause, but note that it is only potentially, and not actually complete: it is potential and not actual completion that speakers orient to. Research has found that each response token is used in diVerent ways from others, and that each is a variable, multifunctional token in its own right. This variability can be extreme, to the extent that speakers regularly utter nonce words such as Nyem, Neuh, Mnuh or Nyuh (cf. JeVerson 1978b), which appear to be blends of more ‘standard’ versions of the tokens, so that Nyem, for example, looks like a blend of No, Yeah and Mm. As JeVerson has shown, even such seemingly weird utterances are at least at times used to achieve rational and orderly ends. This may be an equivocal stance towards a prior utterance, as in ‘I’m not sure whether I agree with that or not, I don’t know whether I want to say “yes” or “no”, so I’ll say “nyuh”’. Whilst response tokens are highly variable, even unstable, they do have identiWable core forms and core uses. As Heritage (1984b:335) says of acknowledgement tokens, they are “used to achieve a systematically diVerentiated range of objectives which, in turn, are speciWcally consequential for the onward development of the sequences in which they are employed”. Whilst there is still a great deal to be discovered, some fairly robust preliminary Wndings about the way in which many of them are used have emerged. Response tokens have, though, been seen by some as unimportant, even trivial objects. As SchegloV (1986:111) says of the beginnings of telephone conversations (and which can equally be said of response tokens), they “can seem a peculiar object on which to lavish scholarly attention”. However, response tokens are amongst the few objects that reveal something about how the responder-recipient is engaging in talk as a social action, whatever it may be — important or trivial — and such talk is, as SchegloV (1986:112) says, “what appears to be the primordial site of sociality”. One example may suYce to illustrate an attitude that demotes response tokens to the realm of triviality. The Birmingham discourse analysis tradition uses a hierarchical model of discourse, Wrst developed by Sinclair and Coulthard (1975), and developed by Burton (1981) and others. This model proposes a ranked structure to discourse starting with the smallest unit of discourse, the ‘act’, which is very roughly equivalent to a single utterance, then the next
Introduction
smallest unit, the move, followed by the exchange, the transaction, and the interaction. The move approximates to a turn at talk, though one turn may comprise more than one move. Two moves, such as a question-answer, complaint-denial, compliment-rejection, make an exchange, which in turn link together to form transactions, which are sequences of exchanges that are related, most obviously topically. These again form sequences which ultimately constitute an entire interaction. Within this model of the structure of spoken discourse, response tokens are considered to be examples of utterances akin to ‘acts’. Burton (1981) places them within this category, and deWnes the ‘acknowledge’ act in a similar way to Sinclair and Coulthard (1975), saying that its function is to show that an Informative has been understood, and its signiWcance appreciated. Note how these tokens are undiVerentiated and underanalysed. Stubbs (1983:190) says of the acknowledge act (which includes Yeah, Uh huh and Mm) that it is the minimal purely metainteractional category of move, which does no more than indicate that an utterance has been heard and accepted into the stream of talk, and thus indicates continued auditory presence … A functional gloss might be: ‘I am still listening’ (emphasis added).
Again, apart from an assumption that response tokens are indicators of hearing and acceptance, rather than a complex bunch of utterances that does very varied work, there is a suggestion, with ‘no more than’, that they are unimportant and trivial. In later work in this tradition, Francis and Hunston, who worked on ordinary conversation, have a category of act which they call ‘engage’ acts, which include Mm and Yeah as minimal feedback tokens. They say the function of these acts “is to provide minimal feedback while not interrupting the Xow of the other participants’ utterance” (Francis and Hunston 1992:133). In their coded transcripts, engage acts appear in parentheses in the ‘act’ column. They are thus relegated to marginal status, implying lack of importance in the discourse, doing something ‘minimal’, and allowing the main speaker to ‘Xow’. Once again the privileging of the speaker over the listener is illustrated. It can be instructive to note how these tokens are seen by non-scholars. A media interviewer in Australia, for example, has told me that journalists are often instructed as part of their training to withhold their Mms during interviews, though no-one could give him a convincing reason why they should. But as Heritage and Greatbatch (1991) observe, the recipients in media interviews are Wrst and foremost the audience at the other end of the airwaves, and
9
10
When Listeners Talk
not the interviewer. A response token is an appropriate action only for the true recipient, and thus not for the mediating interviewer. In the Weld of medicine, the use of Okay has been an object of reproach by medical trainers. Beach (1995) reports that this token was seen by the trainers as being an inappropriate response by a student doctor to a patient in consultations, as they considered it to carry connotations of ‘good’ or ‘all right’. The trainers cited an example in which a student responded with an Okay to a patient who admitted to smoking. As a result, the following is found in a program of the medical school in question: [Too frequent use of Okay] encourages the RPAP [Rural Physician Associate Program] student to be sensitive to and aware of the destructiveness of using the word ok as a response … approximately 50% of the students recognize they are inadvertently reinforcing some harmful behaviours and the inappropriateness of this phenomenon … Given the use of ok as a response to patient answers, the patient may think the doctor believes smoking, drinking, or other potentially harmful behaviors are acceptable. Additionally, an ok response also conditions and prepares patients to wait for the doctor’s next question, forcing the student to work and interrogate harder to obtain necessary personal information. RPAP faculty use direct confrontation and suggestion to eliminate the use of the word ok in interviewing (p 263).
These medical trainers thus believe that an Okay can be so powerful as to encourage patients to engage in activities harmful to their health! Beach pointed out to them that Okay, in this use, is not necessarily approving of the behaviour it responds to, but rather is being used as a device for moving on from one question (or question set) to another, as in: (3)
Diet:29.7.96:SimpliWed
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
D: Cl:
D: → Cl: D: D: D:
An:d with the chicken, would you tend to eat skin? or would you take the skin off?= or= =U::::::HM:, I think my wife leaves the- s:kin on:: an’ she takes et o(h)ff, but I think I leave it on. °hih [hih ·hh° [°O-kay°¿ °that’s fi:ne.° °( )° (°Ah we can talk about it,)° ·hh an:d what about with your meat. D’you tend to have the fat on:? or d’you take the fat off:¿
The Okay in line 6 is placed at a boundary between one question about fat on chicken, and the next question about fat on other meat. This has no implica-
Introduction
tions in terms of the dietician accepting the patient’s consumption of fat as good. This point is explicated further in Chapter 2. There are thus diVering views on the importance of response tokens in talk. In fact, some non-linguists appear to attach very considerable power to these small objects, whilst many researchers into spoken interaction downgrade their importance, either fairly explicitly, as the Birmingham discourse analysts, or implicitly, as for example researchers into language and gender issues. A major purpose of this book is to show some of the ways in which these tokens are used, particularly in their core uses. Chapter 2 is a survey of eight response tokens, summarising current knowledge on their main uses. These tokens are: Mm hm, Uh huh, Yeah, Mm, Oh, Right, Okay and Alright. The subsequent chapters present an in-depth description and analysis of one of these tokens, Mm, which illustrates how complex, Xexible and variable they can be. These chapters will include a summary of Wve uses of Mm, with a brief reference to three further uses that are discussed in subsequent chapters. This will be followed by a comparison between Mm and the two most closely related tokens, the continuer Mm hm4 and the stronger acknowledgement token Yeah, which is followed by an examination of Mm as a weak acknowledgement token. There is then a chapter on the eVects of intonation on Mm, especially terminal pitch direction. Depending on factors such as placement within a sequence of talk, variation in intonational shape and terminal pitch direction, Mm can be an acknowledgement token, a continuer or an assessment. Mm has been chosen for this detailed study because, Wrst, it has been very little studied previously, and second, because there is so much to say about just one response token. Indeed, there is a lot more that could be said. The Wnal chapter draws some conclusions and suggests some areas for future research.
11
Chapter 2
A review of response tokens
Introduction The brief responses that are the subject of this book can be glossed as conversational objects that indicate that a piece of talk by speaker has been registered by the recipient of that talk. They are “neutral1 monitoring responses and ‘generalized acknowledgers’” (Müller 1996:136), claiming that talk by another has been heard, acknowledged, perhaps understood or agreed with or treated as news, or not news. In some cases they are uttered instead of something more topical or substantial, or used to pass the turn back to the prior (or to another) speaker, and sometimes to indicate incipient speakership, or if shaped with certain prosody, such as a marked rise-falling tone or high pitch, to utter encouragement or appreciation (in which case they have aYnities with assessments), or if low and level in tone, indiVerence. They include Mm hm, Uh huh, Mm, Yeah, Oh, Right, Okay and Alright.2 There is inconsistency in the literature in what these conversational items are called. Several of the terms used refer to a wider range of response types than is discussed here. For example, the terms ‘backchannels’ or ‘backchannel responses’ (Yngve 1970) include not only response tokens, but also clariWcation questions, completions by one speaker of another’s utterance, and nonverbal responses. They have also been called: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
‘verbal listener responses’ (Dittman and Llewellyn 1968); ‘accompaniment signals’ (Kendon 1967); ‘aYrmative responses’ (Hirschman 1994 [1973]); ‘acknowledge acts’ (Sinclair and Coulthard 1975); ‘hearer signals’ (Bublitz 1988); ‘reactive tokens’ (Clancy et al. 1996); ‘minimal feedback’ (e.g. Holmes 1997); ‘minimal responses’ (e.g. Fishman 1983); ‘receipt tokens’ (e.g. Atkinson 1992).
14
When Listeners Talk
This last term including sub-types such as 10 11 12
‘continuers’ (SchegloV 1982); ‘acknowledgement tokens’ (JeVerson 1984a); and ‘newsmarkers’ (Heritage 1984b).
The most widely used term is probably ‘minimal responses’. In this book the generic term for the ‘acknowledging’ group (continuers, acknowledgement tokens and newsmarkers) will be ‘response tokens’, following the more recent conversation analysis tradition (e.g. Silverman 1998), as this term is semantically transparent, and best captures the nature of the restricted group that is the subject of this book. Response tokens are one class of conversational objects whose primary functions are not to make reference to the world, but to provide some information on the course the talk is taking. This distinction is not completely clear cut, but nevertheless useful. The broad class of words, phrases, particles and nonlexical vocalisations that do not make reference outside the emerging ‘text’ of the talk can accomplish functions such as linking utterances, adjacent or disjunct, in various ways (discourse markers), projecting a certain course for the ensuing talk, for example signaling an upcoming disagreement (dispreference markers), or contributing to the management of the turn-taking system (hesitation markers), expressing positive or negative aVect, judgement or attitude (assessment tokens), as well as simply acknowledging a prior utterance (acknowledgement tokens), indicating non-uptake of an opportunity to talk (continuers) or marking a heard utterance as news (newsmarkers). Such response tokens are usually brief, mono- or bisyllabic utterances. Amongst these discourse organising objects, which are not usually integrated into the syntax of an utterance, discourse markers are “elements which bracket units of talk” (SchiVrin 1987:31) , and speciWcally “function like a twoplace relation, one argument lying in the segment they introduce, the other lying in the prior discourse” (Fraser 1999:938). They are typically conjunctions, adverbs and prepositional phrases (p. 943), and can be used to relate messages, for example contrastively, (e.g. In comparison), in a quasi-parallel manner, (e.g. Furthermore), or as a conclusion, (e.g. So), or they can be used to relate topics (e.g. Incidentally as a marker of digression, As I was saying as a reintroduction). They have procedural meaning, in the sense that they contribute to the organisation of propositional meaning in the talk, and they are locally, contextually negotiated (p. 950). They are also typically used to link
A review of response tokens
arguments by the same speaker. A less lexis-like group is the hesitation markers, such as Um or Er, whose primary use appears to be as a turn-holding device, saying something like ‘I’m (still) here, I’m (still) talking, I’m (still) in my turn’, and they are typically used in the middle of a current speaker’s turn. They can, however, also be used at the beginning of a speaker’s turn, which is the typical position for a response token. Other items that function to help set the course of talk include ones which are not spoken by the current main speaker, but by a recipient of the talk, for example markers of dispreference, including Well or Yes but. These are frequently used to project disagreement (cf. Levinson 1983; Pomerantz 1984). Assessments, which are spoken by current speaker or recipient, evaluate some prior talk, include Wow, Oh dear or Great and many other expressions (cf. Goodwin 1986). When response tokens as a generic group are discussed in the literature, it is often diYcult to know which ones are being referred to. Frequently authors list two or three ‘minimal responses’ followed by a vague ‘etcetera’. Dittman and Llewellyn, for example, call their ‘listener responses’ “brief responses (‘mmhmm’ ‘I see,’ and the like)” (1968:79); Kendon (1967) includes nonvocal responses such as head nods; Bublitz (1988) takes a more action-oriented position, his ‘hearer signals’ being “speech acts such as agreeing, supporting, approving, doubting, inquiring etc” (p. 161), which can, on this deWnition, be a longer response; for Fishman minimal responses are utterings such as Yeah, Umm, Huh (1983:95); ‘backchannels’, a larger variety of response types, include for Yngve (1970) all utterances that are primarily displays of recipiency or listenership, including some clause-length utterances such as brief questions; for Duncan and Fiske (1977), ‘backchannel utterances’ cover collaborative completions (completion by a speaker other than the one who began the utterance), some types of repair, repetitions, and some kinesic responses such as head nods, as well as ‘minimal responses’ such as Yeah and Mm hm. In the conversation analysis tradition, various types of response tokens have been distinguished from one another, including ‘continuers’, typically Uh huh, Mm hm and Yeah (e.g. Sacks 1992a, 1992b; SchegloV 1982), ‘acknowledgement tokens’ such as Yeah3 (e.g. Drummond and Hopper 1993a) and Mm (Gardner 1997), and ‘newsmarkers’ such as Really, I see, and Oh (e.g. Heritage 1984b). Other studies that refer to these items also often use their terms (most commonly ‘minimal responses’) inconsistently or vaguely.4 In the conversation analysis tradition, Sacks (1992b:410) appears to have coined the term ‘continuer’ for items such as Uh huh, Mm hm and Yes, whilst
15
16
When Listeners Talk
SchegloV (1972) used this term around the same time. JeVerson (1981) was probably the Wrst to use the term ‘newsmark’ for utterances such as Yer kidding, Really? and Did you?, whilst Heritage (1984b) distinguished Oh from these as a particular kind of newsmark, a ‘change-of-state’ token, which is used to say something like ‘I now know something that I didn’t know before’, whereas JeVerson described the eVect of Oh as a ‘sudden remembering’ (1978a:221–222). The term ‘acknowledgement’ appears to be used particularly, though not exclusively, for Yeah, whose primary function is retrospective receipt, claiming understanding, agreement, or simply hearing. The primary function of a continuer (such as Uh huh), in contrast, is the prospective and immediate handing back of the Xoor to the prior speaker (cf. JeVerson 1984a). It should be noted, though, that this is a distinction concerning the action of a particular type of token on a particular occasion, rather than a way of distinguishing categorically between tokens. That is, Yeah may be seen to be doing acknowledging work on one occasion, and continuer work on another (cf. Chapter 6), depending on its sequential position (e.g. what it is responding to, and the way in which it is responded to in turn by other speakers), any silence that may surround it, and its prosodic shape (e.g. its intonation contour, pitch). A further type of response token is Okay, one of the major uses of which Beach (1993:341) characterises as “both closure-relevant and continuative”. He says that Okay is activity-shift implicative, that is, one conversational action is completed, and its speaker is ready to move on to a next one. This action may have been an adjacency pair, as in a question and answer in a series in an interview in which information is being gathered (cf. Heritage and Sorjonen 1994), or a longer sequence of turns, or even a series of turn sequences. A recipient’s use of Okay upon apparent completion of this action or set of actions is typically saying that participants can now negotiate moving on to a next action, or to a new action series. This may be a new question in the interview agenda, a change of topic, or even a pre-closing move to the whole conversation (cf. SchegloV and Sacks 1973). It can be said, then, that the literature is far from consistent in the way in which brief recipient responses are treated. The marginal status for language researchers of many of these vocalisations is also reXected in their graphological representation, which is marked by considerable inconsistency seen in the citations above, e.g. Mm versus M versus Hmm versus Umm; Mm hm versus Mhm versus Mmhmm versus Um hmm; Yeh versus Yeah; Uh huh versus Uhhuh versus Unh-hunh.5 All of this suggests that ‘minimal responses’ are not so
A review of response tokens
“readily identiWable” as Roger and Schumacher (1983:700) claim. However, there does appear to be a wide consensus that at the core of this group on the side of vocalised rather than non-vocalised responses are Mm hm, Uh huh, Yeah and perhaps Mm, in that they are included in virtually all lists. It can be seen that there is no widespread agreement in the literature about what constitutes a ‘minimal response’ or ‘response token’. This in itself is not a problem, though it does suggest that there is a great deal that requires further study.
What do response tokens do? In the Wrst section of this chapter, it has been argued that there is a lack of consensus concerning what does or does not count as a response token or minimal response. In this section, I shall discuss the literature in terms of claims that are made concerning the types of actions these items appear to be doing in conversation and other forms of talk, and their contribution to talk as an interactive event. Again, it will be seen that there is a lack of consensus, but also it is suggested that this is, at least in part, because these diverse and highly variable utterance types are frequently treated as a homogenous and undiVerentiated group, lumped together through a premature coding, with accompanying claims that they display, for example, attention, agreement or understanding. Zimmerman (1993) objects to this process of coding and lumping, with a concomitant obscuring of diVerences in their prosodic shape and intonation contours, and their sequential environment. He cautions that such coding must be based on a close observation of the details of the talk and its environment, and not on analysts’ intuitions. Coding obscures complexity and diVerence, leading to generalisations that are insensitive to subtle diVerences dependent on sequential position in the Xow of the interaction and individual speaker diVerences. Response tokens (as many other conversational phenomena) can then be treated as ‘denominators’, as though they were stable, number-like phenomena. As SchegloV (1993) reminds us, there are stretches of talk, particularly associated with extended turns with a single main speaker, such as in storytellings, in which many such tokens will be found, and other stretches in which participants produce mainly short, single-unit turns, with frequent speaker change, with fewer such tokens. So, as he says, “continuers have to be understood not relative to minutes, but relative to the environment of their relevant possible occurrence” (p. 106). However, response tokens and
17
18
When Listeners Talk
other ‘backchannels’ are still treated by many researchers as stable, unchanging and undiVerentiated phenomena, as if all tokens do more or less the same conversational work. In the early stages of research into a phenomenon such as minimal listener responses, such a failure to distinguish between diVerent types is perhaps quite normal. In one of the earliest modern references in the linguistics literature to these small tokens, Fries (1952:49) considered utterances such as Unh hunh, Yeah, I see and Oh, as a group, to be “signals of continued attention” by the participant who is listening at that point of the talk, an interpretation that is very similar to many more recent treatments. There was little subsequent interest in brief listener responses amongst scholars of conversation for nearly twenty years, until an inXuential paper by Yngve (1970) appeared, which gave currency to the term ‘backchannel’. This term covers all utterances that are primarily, and simply, displays of recipiency or listenership. Duncan and Fiske (1977), drawing from Yngve, adopted this view of the functions of backchannels, which contributed to their modeling of turn-taking. Around the same time, Zimmerman and West (1975:108) considered these ‘minimal responses’ to be serving “to display continuing interest and co-participation in topic development”. Such notions of ‘continued attention’, ‘displays of listenership’ or ‘displays of interest and participation’ set a tone which can still be found in studies of response tokens. Thus Roger and Nesshoever (1987:248) say that ‘backchannel’ responses “are used primarily to indicate to the speaker that the listener is attending to what is being said”, and Mott and Petrie (1995:328) state they “are usually considered to signal support for or attention to what the speaker is saying”, whilst Mulac et al. (1998:647) say that “backchannels signal attention to, support or encouragement for, or even acceptance of the speaker’s message”. Not all writers focus on these cooperative or constructive uses of response tokens. Bublitz (1988), for example, claims that because minimal responses such as Mm can be placed almost anywhere in the talk, they can be used by their speaker merely to pretend that she or he is listening. There is, however, considerable evidence that speakers place these tokens overwhelmingly at transition relevance places6 (cf. Sacks et al. 1974; Fellagy 1995, and the data used for the main study reported in this book), and that it would not take long for an interlocutor to notice that a speaker was not attending if their Mms were placed almost anywhere. More recently, some writers have begun to recognise the varied work that response tokens accomplish. Stubbe (1998:258) says of these listener responses
A review of response tokens
that they are used to construct a general “sharing of a frame of reference” between speaker and listener, but that they: also provide a sophisticated means of indicating the listener’s attitude towards both the speaker and what is being said, and can convey a wide range of meanings from relative indiVerence or doubt, through simple aYrmation to enthusiastic interest and agreement.
She proposes a continuum of facilitative interactional feedback, from low involvement, neutral aVect (minimal responses such as Mm hm or Yeah) through to the high involvement, positive aVect of cooperative overlaps (cf. Coates 1988). The more neutral minimal responses, she says, “are prosodically and lexically unmarked … and are characterised by mid to low pitch, fairly level intonation and relatively low volume” (p. 266). However, response tokens are more Xexible than she suggests, and can vary greatly in their import according to intonation contour, so that a supposedly neutral, minimal token such as Mm that is, for example, lengthened, uttered loudly, and rises to high pitch can, given an appropriate placement in a sequence, convey a high involvement, positive aVect message (see Chapter 6). Thus it would appear that there is more at issue here than some default phonetic shape that makes these items ‘neutral’ or more ‘supportive’. In other words, there is still an issue about the distinctive nature of the work that each of these tokens does. What is it that makes each diVerent from the others? How can intonation and prosody or their placement within a sequence and their timing aVect their impact in terms, for example, of the development of ideas or aVect in the talk? Most of the authors mentioned so far pay scant attention to the role of prosody and intonation, Stubbe (1998) being a notable exception. Another exception is Müller (1996:133). He discusses the importance of prosody in giving continuers and acknowledgement tokens their particular character, as they “acquire speciWc meaning locally, not only by their precise sequential placement, but also by the particular ‘Wt’ they show in relation to the prosodic features of their immediate environment”. Thus prosodically unobtrusive weak tokens tend to be used prevailingly as neutral monitoring responses and ‘generalized acknowledgers’ … displaying active listenership but acknowledging a recognition of the emergent speech object only and thus remaining limited to a ‘de dicto’ reading (‘Yes I hear you and follow what you are saying’) Müller (1996:136)
In contrast,
19
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When Listeners Talk
by making acknowledgements ‘prosodically salient’, a recipient may then signal an understanding that goes beyond a display of ‘de dicto’ recognition and assume a more diVerentiated stance, e.g. a ‘de re’ recognition of the object, place, person or event current speaker is talking about (‘Yes, I know what/whom you are talking about’), an aYliation with an evaluative judgement or with the appropriateness and truth of what has been said Müller (1996:136)
He goes on to say that the more aYliative, supportive tokens “are more varied — in intonation, in lexical selection and also in length” (p. 163), whilst disaYliative tokens do not display these features. The diVerence in Müller’s study from most of those cited above is his insistence that prosody can change the impact of even the most minimal or ‘neutral’ of responses into aYliative conversational actions, and that the mere fact that someone utters an Mm hm or a Yeah is not indicative of lower involvement or lack of interest. The intensity of the display of interest depends on how it is said. A diVerent attempt to describe these tokens as each doing something distinctive is found in Gerhardt and Beyerle (1997), who examined the use of these tokens in a psychotherapy setting. They propose a hierarchical set of increasing aYrmative intensity for the acknowledgement tokens, which they call a “scale of speaker 2 alignment with speaker 1” (p. 384). They ascribe semantic meanings to the tokens, based on dictionary deWnitions, suggesting that Mm-hm and Uh-huh have positive valence, Yeah and Yes show aYrmation or agreement, Sure indicates certainty, Right means “exactly” or “precisely”, and I bet means “to stake a bet that something is so”. Whilst these authors avoid the tendency found in many other studies to see these responses as a homogenous set, their classiWcation is a mix of intuition and dictionary deWnitions, rather than a close, case by case unraveling of the use of these tokens in the context of the talk in which they occur. Response tokens are indeed more complex than most of the research reported here suggests. Each, on the evidence that has been accumulated so far, has its core interactional meaning. Each has to be interpreted according to its placement within a sequence of talk, i.e. what they respond to, how they in turn are responded to by the next speaker. This will involve an interpretation according to intonation contour and other prosodic features, for example duration, pitch height and amplitude. There is also a need to take into account the timing of these tokens and the silence that may surround them. In the next section, eight common response tokens will be examined. The characterisations of these are by no means comprehensive. Instead, there will be an attempt to describe some the their most typical uses, with some reference
A review of response tokens
to the most frequent prosodic shape found in talk, and to their sequential environments. Research into these tokens is continuing, and some questions researchers might address in trying to understand them are: –
– – –
– –
– –
–
How can one establish what a token is doing at a particular point in the talk (e.g. whether a Yeah is acknowledging, agreeing, answering, asking the other to continue, disagreeing (as in Yeah but), or a combination of these, and perhaps other, actions)? Why has one token rather than another been chosen by a speaker at a particular point in the talk? What eVect do intonation and other prosodic features have on the way in which the token is meant or interpreted or understood by participants? Does the token occur as an ‘only’ in its turn, or is it followed by other tokens, or more substantial talk, and what eVect does this have on how the token is taken up by participants? How can it be established whether an instance of one of these tokens in a stream of talk is appropriate or not? Is it possible to establish whether a token is relevant or ‘due’ at a particular point, whether or not it appears when relevant, and whether or not it is replaced by a non-verbal response? What eVect do preferred or dispreferred environments (including agreeing or disagreeing, or stronger conXict) have on the use of these tokens? What eVect do, for example, topic attrition environments or delicate topics have on the use of these tokens, and what is the signiWcance of any associated silence, before or after production of a token? If speakers are doing a non-talk activity (such as cooking, decorating, working at a computer), what eVect does that have on the production and possibly delay of these tokens?
There are no doubt many other questions that could be asked, and in our current state of knowledge, some of these questions would be very diYcult to answer satisfactorily. The point, however, is that it is particularly diYcult to make deWnitive pronouncements on the uses of response tokens. There is a need to diVerentiate the actions performed by these diVerent response tokens, rather than lump them together as if they were a homogenous groups of items.
21
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When Listeners Talk
A brief survey of eight response tokens In this section, some of the core uses of eight mono- or bi-syllabic response tokens will be surveyed, each of which can take up the whole of a speaker’s turn at talk. Four of these,7 in their most typical uses, constitute a core minimal response token group, namely the continuers Mm hm and Uh huh, the acknowledgement token Yeah (with its variants, such as Yes and Yep) and Mm, which typically express a more minimal acknowledgement than Yeah. Also included in this survey are Oh, Right, Okay and Alright. It could also have included Sure, Really, Righto, Ah and No,8 as well as some clausal responses such as I see, I know, That’s right or I bet. Some of these are most usually used as newsmarkers (e.g. Really), or markers of prior knowledge (e.g. I know), or of agreement (e.g. That’s right, Sure). It has been decided, however, to focus attention in this review on the eight tokens mentioned above, as these are also the ones that have received most attention by researchers, and they are also the most frequently occurring in the data examined for this book. As has already be stated, response tokens are extremely Xexible, and are interpreted by participants according to, crucially, their placement in a sequence and their intonational and prosodic features. The survey in this section will not delve deeply into intonational or prosodic factors, as this would complicate the survey immensely. Instead, the most characteristic intonational shapes are examined. For continuers, this is a fall-rise (sometimes a rise), and for the rest most typically the contour is Xat (or a slight rise or fall) or falling. The issue of intonational shape is taken up in more detail in Chapter 6 with reference to Mm.
Early work on response tokens in Conversation Analysis Studies that have diVerentiated between response tokens have come mostly from Conversation Analysts. The earliest references to response tokens in the published CA literature are in Harvey Sacks’ lectures on conversation in the 1960s and 1970s (Sacks 1992a; 1992b). In contrast to many later researchers, Sacks assumed very little about the way in which they are used. In a lecture in which he discusses Uh huh, for example, he notes that “it would be diYcult to say that ‘uh huh’ exhibits understanding” (1992a:746), though he does observe that Uh huhs are overwhelmingly placed at grammatical completion points, (thus invoking the notion of transition relevance places and points of possible grammatical completion, which was expounded more fully in Sacks et al.
A review of response tokens
1974). He also points to the role that these tokens have in storytelling, noting that stories in conversations are interpolated with tokens such as Uh huh, Mm hm, Yes, etc. “placed ‘within’ the story” and that they are “utterances recognising that the story is yet going on” (1992a:766). On Mm hm, he says (1992b:9) that what it does “is at least this: It says, ‘The story is not yet over, I know that’.” He also appears to have coined the term continuer for tokens like Uh huh and Mm hm (1992b:410), and he notes the phonetic aYnity between the ‘Wller’ or hesitation marker Uh and the continuer Uh huh, saying that Uh Wlls a pause in a speaker’s own talk, whilst Uh huh Wlls a pause in another speaker’s talk, i.e. Uh huh is typically uttered at a point at which there would be a silence between units of talk in the other’s talk if the Uh huh had not been uttered. The next substantial treatment of response tokens in the CA tradition9 is SchegloV (1982), in which he gave wider currency to the term continuer for vocalisations such as Uh huh, Mm hm and Yeah (as well as some gestures and head nods). He says, Perhaps the most common usage of ‘uh huh’, etc. (in environments other than after yes/no questions) is to exhibit on the part of its producer an understanding that an extended unit of talk is underway by another, and that it is not yet, or may not yet be (even ought not yet be), complete. It takes the stance that the speaker of that extended unit should continue talking, and in that continued talking should continue that extended unit. (1982:81)
SchegloV criticises the claim made by some researchers that utterances such as Uh huh exhibit ‘attention’ or ‘understanding’, because, as he points out, Uh huh, Mm hm or, for that matter, Yeah/Yes do not have a semantic component denoting ‘understanding’. However, it can be claimed that Uh huh and other response tokens are used when there is an opportunity to do repair work, and thus indicate a lack of any claims to problems of understanding in the talk. Repairs are a virtually unique phenomenon in talk in that they can occur at any point in a conversation to indicate some problem of articulation, understanding or hearing (cf. SchegloV et al. 1977). This provides participants in conversations with a sense that things are proceeding smoothly, including that current speaker is being understood. Thus a more sound claim about response tokens is not that they show understanding, but that their presence can be taken to indicate a lack of any claim by their utterer that there is a problem of understanding in the talk of the other. As well as a lack of repair work when a response token is used, there is an absence of anything that may have portended disagreement, such as protracted
23
24
When Listeners Talk
inter-turn silences, or Well, or Yes but, or other markers of dispreference. SchegloV argues that it is because of what they are not doing that Uh huh etc. can be taken as indications of agreement. This negative characterisation of continuers strongly suggests that they are not showing disagreement nor a lack of understanding.10 What then are they doing? One approach to answering this question is to see how they cluster together, i.e. when they occur, as they often do, in a series of transition relevance slots during another’s extended turn. According to SchegloV, this may diVerentiate between them. For example, producing several Uh huhs (and nothing else) in response to another’s extended turn “may then be used to hint incipient disinterest, while varying the tokens across the series … may mark a baseline of interest” (1982:85), such as surprise, special interest, assessment etc. Not producing a variety of tokens shows the recipient to be Wnding in the talk uninteresting, not newsworthy, or not warranting a more involved response such as an assessment. At the time SchegloV wrote this paper, there had been very little attempt to describe the range of work that continuers, acknowledgement tokens and newsmarkers do. In the twenty years or so since then, there has been a growing body of research which has examined these tokens very closely in their sequential environments, and this does indicate that speakers make very Wne distinctions between them. As JeVerson (1984a) noted, she has found herself surprised by the Wne organisation of even the smallest perceptible bits of conversational material. In the following section, there is a brief survey of our current understanding of some of the most frequently used response tokens, and their archetypical uses.
Eight response tokens The response tokens examined here are: continuers (most typically Mm hm and Uh huh), acknowledgement tokens (typically Yeah and the weaker acknowledgement token Mm), the newsmarker group (‘change-of-state’ token Oh, the ‘idea connector’ Right), and the ‘change-of-activity’ tokens (Okay and Alright). It is, though, important to remember that these tokens all exhibit great Xexibility and multifunctionality of use.
A review of response tokens
Typical Uses of Eight Response Tokens Continuer uses The archetypical continuers are Mm hm and Uh huh, which are used to pass up the opportunity to take a more substantial turn at talk. There is some evidence from a perusal of published materials and available transcriptions that Uh huh is more frequent in American English than in British or Australian English.11 Continuers have no apparent meaning, and, as Müller says, “given their size and their scant lexical content, [they] are highly indexical contingent achievements” (1996:133). These two continuers appear to work in very similar ways in conversation. I know of no studies that have found any signiWcant diVerences between them, apart from the obvious articulatory ones. However, Drummond & Hopper (1993a) posited, without presenting any real evidence, that “Uh huh signals a sort of midrange speakership incipiency” (p. 165) between Mm hm and Yeah. Their data, however, showed a very similar rate of speakership incipiency between Uh huh and Mm hm. An alternative view is that it may be that a reiWcation of spelling conventions, such as they are, has led to these tokens being seen as diVerent, and that they are perhaps variants of the same token, with a third variant, Nn hn - produced nasally, but with lips parted - somewhere in the middle phonetically between the two. The most closed of the set in terms of articulation, Mm hm, is a bilabial nasal, with aspiration in the second syllable (the h), Nn hn is a alveolar nasal with similar aspiration, and Uh huh is an low mid vowel with aspiration terminally on the Wrst syllable and in the second syllable. The reason that Nn hn is so rarely seen in transcriptions may be partly the transcription conventions noted above, but also that in audio recordings it is very diYcult to distinguish [m] from [n], though in video recordings it is often possible to see whether or not the lips are closed. Note, however, that there is an apparent possible iconicity between phonetic-visual-physiological salience (e.g. how much ‘muscle’ work needs to be done to produce a sound, and how much of this work is visible to others) and the interactional work that these tokens do: so perhaps Uh huh is indeed, as Drummond and Hopper (1993a) suggest, more interactionally involved than Mm hm (though without this translating into greater speakership incipiency), with Nn hn somewhere in between. Continuers are used by recipients to show “that he or she understands that [a unit of talk] is in progress but is not yet complete”, and their use has “less to do with the sociability of the participants than it has to do most proximately with the sequential structure of the turns into which the talk is organised”
25
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When Listeners Talk
(SchegloV 1993:105). As would be expected, given that they are used to pass up an opportunity to speak, Mm hm and Uh huh are most typically found as the only utterances in their turn, and they are rarely found with further talk by their producers, either additional brief utterances (such as Uh huh, Okay), or with more substantial, topical same-speaker talk. Indeed this is one way in which they diVer from Yeah or Mm, two further tokens which can, in particular environments, be used as continuers,12 but which are more typically used as more retrospective acknowledgement tokens (see below). As Drummond and Hopper (1993a) claim, Yeah shows a greater degree of speakership incipiency than Mm hm/Uh huh, that is, there is a greater likelihood that the speaker of the Yeah will very soon say something substantial. Indeed, Yeah initiates turn bids nearly 50% of the time, whereas Mm hm/Uh huh do so rarely (5% and 4% of the time respectively). Similar Wndings were made by JeVerson (1984a) and in the study reported in Chapter 4 below. Fragments (1a) to (1f) show typical uses of Mm hm as a continuer, (1a) and (1b) from Australian data, (1c) and 1d) from British, and (1e) and (1f) from American. (1a)
MH:8:A&BD4a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Bob: Ann:
Bob:→ Ann:
Bob: Ann:
O↓:h;= right-,= ‘n’ howdja ↑go:? (0.2) We:ll-, (.) I couldn’ get- thee exa:ct h (.) colour? (0.2) M:m hm? a:n:d; (.) the problem woz;= it- wz a:ll th’ sa:me bra:n:d,= I wennto a numbera diffren pla:ces,= en[:d em:]; (0.2) [mYea:h.] ·hh it wz th’ sa:me bra:n
(1b)
MH:L&MC2a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Mel: Liz:→ Mel: Liz:→ Mel:
Ya know tha- (0.1) that- e:r:,= extror:dinry:, (0.4) e:r, (0.1) thing called cyberspa[ce:. [Mm: hm? (2.0) There’s a video::? of thee inve:nter.= o:r the (.) the person:, et Carodisk;= wo:rking on et. °Mm hm°? A:nd (1.5) he would- (1.5) the gu:y wud-;= fid inta that categry, (0.4) totally. (0.6)
A review of response tokens
(1c)
Field: 1988 Undated:1:8
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Dan: Gor:
(1d)
Field:1988 Undated:2:2
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Les:
(1e)
Auto Discussion
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Cur:
(1f)
Chicken Dinner
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Mic: Viv: Sha: Viv: Sha: Viv:→ Mic: Sha:
Dan:→ Gor:
Kev: Les:→ Kev: Les:
Mik: Gar: Mik: Gar: Cur:→ Mik: Gar:
Viv: Sha:
Thank you so m’ch Right Carry on .tch.hhhhhh Uh: I managed to get home in ti:me? .hh for my music lesson at five .hh thirty? ·h[hhhh [Mm hm?= =hu- uh dashing back at (.) at a gra(h)nd sixty (h)miles ‘n hour in:: .t Malcolm’s car it nearly shook itself to pieces. ·hhhhhh He wz zipping round the roads:- (0.3) didn’t slow down for a corner
↓No. So she’s u-she’s:: h she’s dreasonably sure everything’s okay, Yes I think so (0.7) ↓Mm hm, hh .hhhh Quite happy .t Jolly ↓goo:d,h Oh ↓goo:d,h (0.2)
=How come he’s r- what’s:: izze tryina move up¿ (1.0) No he just fo[und out iz ca r] works a whole= [heh-heh-heh eh! eh!] =lot better on asphalt then it [does (h)on di(h)rt. [They’re afraid of the camera. Mm hm (0.3) So, Sit out in the su:n, (0.5)
Wiz it a whole lobster?= =Th w[z a h_a:lf. ] [A half a lobs]ter. But it wz a:ll (.) yihknow, One claw en then: half’v[: yihkno]w,= [ Mm hm, ] =How m-How mu:c[h. [th’body (0.4) Si[x ni]nedy ]five.]= [Six ]ninedy ]five.]=
27
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When Listeners Talk
In each of these fragments, the Mm hms are placed at or close to transition relevance spaces (though Les’ Mm hm in (1d) comes after a silence of 0.7 seconds), and none are followed by same speaker talk. In each the Mm hm speaker does not ask a question, as they might have done, nor do they embark up a repair, or object to an extension of the prior speaker’s turn. By uttering an Mm hm, they are expressing ‘no problem’ with the prior speaker’s turn, and declining the Xoor and an opportunity for more substantial talk. In most of these cases, the speaker after the Mm hm continues with an extension or increment of the talk so far. For example, in (1a) Ann continues after the continuer with an explanation of why she couldn’t get the right colour. In (1c) Danny goes on to explain how he managed to get home on time for his music lesson. In (1e), Curtis’ third position comes after his question appears to be adequately answered, but he still elicits incremental talk, albeit brief, from Gary and Mike, who had both answered his question. (1f) is slightly diVerent, in that the next turn after Viv’s Mm hm is not an increment by Shane to his talk, but a Wrst pair part of a new sequence — a question — by Michael. In all cases, though, the Mm hm utterer cedes the Xoor to another speaker. On other occasions, the Mm hm is placed at points that are incomplete in terms of the grammar. In (2), Curtis’ Mm hm is placed after an initial if-clause, if you need a spring, and close to the start of the main clause. (2)
Auto Discussion
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Mik:
Mik: Cur:→ Mik:
They use to uh, y’know they use thee. (0.5) fer (0.4) ‘f you needed a
(0.4) .hh make’m any way to go up’n get’em fer the stock cars out there.
spring, yo[u wannid a certain= [Mm-hm? =type a’ spring °you c’go out’n get it made.
It has already been noted that Uh huh is much more frequent in the American data examined that in the British or Australian. However, there is little evidence that it is used in any substantially diVerent way from Mm hm. Two examples are shown from American data in (3a) and (3b). (3a)
Chicken Dinner
1 2 3 4 5
Nan: Sha: Nan:→
( ) fr’m ^work you called im?^ (0.3) No: ah wz on muh lunch (.) Uh huh,
A review of response tokens
6 7 8 9 10
Sha:
(3b)
Chinese Dinner
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Ann:
Bet:→ Ann: Bet: Ann: Bet:
I been (0.6) I- ruh- r’member I calledju up the other night (.) Toosday n-uh la- uh: ^las’©night. (0.2) I called you up. From work? en I wz on the’phone f’r a long ti:me? (0.5) Muh boss says ju know (1.2) watch thosse: (.) pers’nal phone cal[ls
Karen has this new hou:se. en it’s got all this like- (0.2) ssilvery:: g-go:ld wwa:llpaper, ·hh (h)en B(h)o(h)b sa(h)ys. y’know this’s th’firs’time we’ve seen this house. Fifty five thousn dollars, in Cherry Hill.Right? (0.4) Uh hu:h? Do(h)n said.(0.3) dih-did they ma:ke you take= hh! =this wa(h)llpa(h)p(h)er? er (h)di [dju pi(h)ck i(h)t ou(h)t] [Ahh huh huh huh huh huh ]huh
Yeah and Mm are prototypically acknowledgement tokens, with a falling intonation contour. They can, though, also be treated by participants as continuers, and when they are, they carry a rising terminal intonation contour. In fragment (4) Nik is talking about the young son of friends of theirs. (4)
P&QT3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Nik: Mat: Nik: Nik:
Mat:→ Nik:
Mat:
He:’s: a s::low learner. (0.8) °Wha’°; an anoxic bi:rth? I don’ kno::w. (0.5) B’t- (.) .= just a:fta the bi:r- (.) ↓o:r not- long: a:fta the bi:rth;= et ↑Bi:ll’s induc↑tion? Yea:h, (0.3) A:n:::: sh::- (0.5) <she w’s sa::ying;= how wo:nderful thi:rd chi:ldren we::re,= ‘n th’s no:: (wai-) (.) problem:s¿= ‘s so:: goo:d>¿ OH;= THE’VE ONLY J’S RE:ALISED EE’S ↓a slo:w lea:rn[er.
Nik begins this sequence with an announcement that the child they are talking about is a slow learner. Mat, note, chooses here not to use a response token, but takes up another available conversational resource, namely a question, to establish the reason for him being a slow learner. After expressing her inability
29
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When Listeners Talk
to answer this question, Nik proceeds to elaborate on her announcement with a classic pre-story turn (cf. JeVerson 1978a; Sacks 1992a, 1992b), in which she characterises some of the circumstances of the story: a time frames (not long after the birth), and two protagonists (Joan and Bill), as well as I remember, which is indicative here of an upcoming recall and recount of what it was that she remembers. She encounters some trouble in the articulation of this orientation to the news, and therefore has to self-repair a name and a time. Pragmatically the turn ends on a note of incompletion, and Ben responds with a classic go-ahead to Nik to start her story: the fall-rising, continuer Yeah in line 10. It may be that he chose a Yeah in preference to an Uh huh/Mm hm because it shows more involvement in the talk. as Yeah carries implications of incipient topical speakership (cf. JeVerson 1984a), and speaking topically shows more involvement than not speaking. Not speaking topically is what Uh huh/Mm hm overwhelmingly do. An example to illustrate the continuer use of prototypical weak acknowledgement token Mm is found in fragment (5). Marilyn is providing Mal with an update on the death of the teenage daughter of friends of theirs. (5) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
L&MH3a Mar:
Mal:→ Mal:
(1.7) An’ there’s jes’ this little ba:re no:tice;= in the pah:per t’da:y:, hh y’know;= Miche[:lle;] die:d unex:pectedly in her slee:p. [°M:m°], (0.4) °Mm:°.=
In this fragment the non-completion of Marilyn’s news at the point of Mal’s Mm in line 5 is apparent in a number of ways. The most recently completed turn constructional unit includes a Wrst mention of a notice in the paper, which can be construed as a topic proVer. There is also intonational incompletion (a slightly rising, continuative terminal contour to the intonation unit in line 3 after today). Finally there is the ‘appeal’ of the Y’know with its slightly falling, continuative contour (line 3), looking for hearer support and drawing attention to upcoming important information (cf. He and Lindsey 1998), which turns out to be the immediately following announcement of the content of the notice. There is thus, at the point at which the continuer Mm is uttered, a strong sense of pragmatic incompletion. This can be contrasted with Mal’s acknowledging, intonationally falling Mm in line 7, which comes after the announcement of the content of the notice, so at a point at which the talk is not
A review of response tokens
only grammatically and intonationally, but also pragmatically complete. There is also the question as to why Mm rather than Uh huh/Mm hm or Yeah has been chosen. This may reXect the delicate and sensitive nature of the topic — death. As will be explicated more fully in later chapters, an important characteristic of Mm is that it is weak and minimal, arguably the most minimal of all vocalisations in conversation. Mm can be seen as a non-intrusive, reserved response to a delicate topic. Speakers display great skill in their use of these tokens. Hopper and Drummond (1990) report on a conversation in which the use of continuers can be seen to be not merely passing up an opportunity to talk, but also to achieve broader interactional goals. In this case, the conversation is between a young couple in the process of breaking up, and the girl uses continuers to get her soon to be ex-partner, Gordon, to give his extended perspective on the relationship before she gives hers. The card mentioned in line 1 was one in which Denise had been the Wrst to suggest they terminate the romance. (6)
G&D II: Break up
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Gor:
Gor:
Den:→ Gor:
Den:→ Gor:
Den:→ Gor: Den: Gor: Den:→ Gor:
We:ll. I got your card. . . . I’ve- actually w’d rather talk to you in person but I don’t think I’m gonna be able make a meeting cuz I (0.2) now have a headache and[fever and everything ·hhhhhhhhh Bu:t u:m hhh [Yeah hh I think maybe u- u I w- (0.2) um would like tuh- stop really goin ou:t at least for right no:w Yeah. ·hhh U::m I jus- ·hhhhhh (0.5) u::h hh I feel really ba:d because I- u:m (1.0) ·snff I wishI think I just we don’t have as much in common as: I think we both tho:ught (0.3) Ye:ah Bu:t- u:m cause I know sometimes we’re both at just a lapse for words and huh [huh ·hhh [·hh I’m a speech major I [juh(h)] [Mm : :] hm: U:m (0.3) ·hhhh bu:t- (0.2) and I wish I had more time- and tu:h even to get- to know you better (0.4)
31
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When Listeners Talk
29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49
Den:→ Gor:
Den:→ Gor: Den: Gor: Den: Gor: Den:→ Den: Gor: Den:
°Yeah° U:m but I mean I’m- so busy and you’re so busy and I feel ba:d that I can’t do anything and so I’ll ·hhh M[m [feel bad when I can’t call you and ·hhhhh and whatever and uh °I know° Or go out and do anything with you even like tha:t. °Yeah I know what chyou me:an.° (1.2) But uh (1.2) I still wanna be in good frien:d with ya hhh Yeah (1.2) [I just[C’z I mea(0.7) I think part of it- (0.2) I think part of the problem . . .
Hopper and Drummond do not distinguish here between continuers and the more retrospective acknowledgers, lumping all the Yeahs and Mms and Mm hms together as continuers, though as far as can be gleaned from the transcription, the lack of punctuation to indicate terminal pitch direction suggests that all of the arrowed response tokens except the terminally falling Yeah in line 12 have ‘Xat’, continuatively marked contours. Be that as it may, the authors argue that Denise, by passing up her opportunities to talk whilst Gordon is presenting his position on why they should not continue to see each other, may be pressuring Gordon to continue, and thereby reveal more of his reasoning (1990:48), before she gives hers. There is a long sequence in which Denise is being listener, using almost exclusively response tokens and thereby avoiding any evaluation of what Gordon is saying, which she could have done through the use of assessment tokens or more extended topical talk, (cf. SchegloV 1982). It is not until line 48 of this extract that she launches into her own long, substantial turn, in which she provides her own perspective. With this skilful use of continuers she can remain neutral and uncommitted (at this point, relatively speaking), and also, it can be noted that most of her response tokens are Yeahs rather than Mm hms/Uh huhs or Mms. Yeah is more speakership oriented, which will be indicating more involvement in what is going on, and also saying that, although she is currently very much in a recipient role, there is a good chance that she will have something to say on the matter later.
A review of response tokens
There is an institutional setting that deserves special mention, namely therapy, and in particular psychotherapy (see Gerhardt and Beyerle 1997). In many types of this kind of discourse, the therapist’s role is non-intrusive, which frequently leads to a very high incidence of the use of response tokens. In this context, the authors say that while there is an “ever-ready acknowledgement of the therapist’s need to be ‘empathetic’ in the Weld, little is said about the therapist’s presence when in a nonactive, relatively more receptive role, nor about the importance of the therapist’s own prereXective subjectivity” (p. 369) (emphasis in the original). They also claim that “a crucial type of therapeutic work is accomplished through [the use of response tokens], but that this work has gone unrecognized due to the … bias toward verbal interventions” (p. 378). Czyzewski (1995) examined Mm hm in psychotherapeutic intake interviews. She distinguished four types of Mm hm, three of which were variants of the ‘passive recipiency’ token identiWed by JeVerson (1984a). Some were similar to Mm hms in ordinary conversation, but others, she claims, are speciWc to therapy, for example what she calls the analytic Mm hm, uttered by the therapist with a fairly Xat intonation contour, which is followed by a lengthy pause before the patient speaks again. This Mm hm followed by a pause, she says, is used to encourage the patient to open out with their talk. As her data are Polish, there may be diVerences from English, and it may also be that her categories are premature, as what she is describing, albeit for Polish, is a set of uses that can be found in ordinary conversational English, as in the following extract from an Australian conversation, where a continuer Mm hm is followed by a long pause. (7)
P&QT2a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Mat:
Mat:
Nik:→ → Mat:
‘m ge- (.) ‘m slopping th’ sa:rdi:nes oi:l;= all over th’ ta:ble. (3.9) ↓I’m (o:verkeen) like that-. (.) o↑r *I’m:* (0.5) making an:guish’d noi:ses;= es I do et. Mm: ↑hm¿ (4.0) ↓The resta thee oi:l;= (I’ll clean et)↓. (0.7)
As so often, it may be that what appear to be speciWc and common institutional uses draw on resources available in ordinary conversation, often relatively unusually in the latter form of talk. Their relative frequency in therapeutic talk
33
34
When Listeners Talk
may meet the special needs of that setting, which in the case of such interviews would be to provide space for a patient to open out with her tellings. Buttny (1996) reports on another way in which continuers are used in therapy, where a technique used by therapists is to elicit clients’ views on some topic by giving their own views Wrst, and then inviting clients to conWrm and disconWrm or elaborate. One regular response that Buttny found was that clients withheld a response by providing a continuer such as Uh huh to avoid such actions, as in the following example. (8)
Buttny 11
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Ther:
Jenny:→ Ther: Ther:
. . . so it reproduces a bit what may be ah: ahm a stylistic issue in your: (.) couple (0.8) Uh huh Yeah? (1.6) You don’t like what I’m saying yeah?
Note Wrst the delay of 0.8 seconds, and the bare continuer Uh huh. This is followed by a pursuit by the therapist of a response beyond the continuer, with his own, stronger continuer, the rising Yeah, and then a considerable space of about a second and a half, before directly addressing the non response of the client.
Acknowledgement uses The most frequently used of all response tokens in ordinary conversation is Yeah, the archetypical acknowledgement token in English. In some varieties of English, Mm is also very common, and is a weaker acknowledgement than Yeah. An examination of the sequential environments of these tokens indicates that because of the lack of repair or of dispreference in the response, they are, like continuers, claiming ‘no problem’ in understanding or agreement, (cf. SchegloV 1982). A diVerence from continuers is that they are not, primarily, in the business of handing the Xoor back to the prior speaker, but of making a claim to adequate receipt of the prior turn. In other words, they are more retrospective than continuers. The acknowledgement token Yeah typically carries a falling terminal intonation. It has already been noted that JeVerson (1984a) identiWed an important diVerence between typical Mm hms and Yeahs, namely the greater speakership incipiency of the latter. This point is also discussed by Drummond and Hopper (1993a:158–9), who suggest that, compared to Uh huh and Mm hm, “the token
A review of response tokens
yeah shows a … probability that its speaker is moving out of a recipient role and projecting further speaking”. They say that Yeah initiates immediate turn bids on about half of its occurrences, whilst Mm hm and Uh huh generally do not. As they put it, “Mm hm and uh huh take only the turn, not the Xoor” (1993a:159).13 JeVerson also noted that individual speakers vary in the frequency of their use of these tokens, one of her speakers producing both Yeah and Mm hm consistently, another using very few Mm hms, but frequent Yeahs. In another paper (JeVerson 1993), she also notes that Yeah is regularly followed by a shift in topic by its producer, i.e. it is a kind of “preshift token” (p. 8).14 Yeah is not only the archetypical acknowledging token. From the data used for this study, it appears that it is also the most common response token of any kind in ordinary conversation in English, sometimes occurring hundreds of times in an hour of conversation. It is also complex and multifunctional. Apart from being an answer to a polar (yes-no) question, it can be engaged to do varying kinds of acknowledging, aYrming or agreeing work, as well as showing, for example, surprise, appreciation, assessment and so on, which is similar to what SchegloV (1982) observes for Uh huh. Indeed, Yeah must be one of the words in English that covers the greatest interactional ground. How great this can be is shown in an extreme case study by Goodwin (1995) of an aphasic man who had suVered a major stroke, and whose productive vocabulary was restricted to Yes, No and And. Although his vocabulary was extraordinarily limited, he was able to “visibly take a stance toward what he is saying, through both the detailed way in which he says a word (e.g., through intonation, sound stretches) and through body behavior” (p. 241), and Yes and No were able to function in a very wide range of ways. Goodwin goes on to say that although “Rob is using what is semantically the same word, Yes, through variation in the way that he speaks it he is able to construct consequentially diVerent objects that project alternative trajectories of future action” (p. 242). More typically, though, Yeah is used as an aYrming or acknowledging object, as in the following fragments from Australian data, in the Wrst of which a repair sequence is acknowledged with Bob’s reconWrmation of Ann’s game player. (9a)
A&BD3a
1 2 3 4 5
Bob:
Ann: Bob:
°eh ‘n° David w’z up to ‘iz ole ↑tri:cks too:↑. hhh (0.5) Iz o:ld ↑tri:cks:?= =Ga:me pla:yer¿
35
36
When Listeners Talk
6 7 8 9 10 11
Ann: Bob:→ Ann: Bob:
Oh;= ga:me player. Yea:h. [(Ris) [Nick ‘n’ I:;= ‘re both ev thee op↑inion;= tha’ t’da:y’s v↑isit;= ‘as godda hh (0.2) hidden ag~enda~.
Note that Bob follows the Yeah immediately with further talk. In (9b), the speakership incipiency of Yeah is also apparent, with Ben complying with Ann’s request, albeit delayed. He follows his Yeah with a sniV and an assessment, Good, it’s a nice walk. (9b)
A&BF3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Ben: Ann: Ben:→ Ben: Ann:
↑Oh;= c’n I: ‘ave th’ ca:r↑ Monday. (2.0) >Y’na I: gotta go ta< Hy:de Street;= b’t wi c’n wa:lk there¿= =↑°Yeah°↑. ((sniff)) (0.2) >°Good. ‘t’s a n[ice wa:lk]°<. [↑°M:m:°. ] °M:m:. ‘(ka:y)°.
(9a) and (9b) are from Australian data. Yeah is used in a very similar way in British and American talk as in Australian. In (9c) and (9d), which are from British conversations, the speakers use Yes as well as Yeah. Yes appears to be used in the same way as Yeah, but further research may tease out some diVerences. (9e) and (9f) are from American data. (9c)
Heritage:01:Call3
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Jan:
Jer:→ Jan: Jer: Jer:
(9d)
Rahman:B:1:IDJ(13)
1
Ann:
Jer:→ Jan: Jer: Jan:
.hhhh Yi:ss well that was the implication this[‘s why I got so very ↑angry. ah= [Ye:s. =I[: really got very ↑an]gry. I: I said I= [I don’t ↑blame (you).] =think thet we ought to get in touch with ahr ↑lawyers.I d- I think this is .hhh these implications ahr .hhh completely unfou:nded en[I don’t think you c’n pro::ve, .hhh thet= [Yeah. =you sent this lit’rature to u:s:[end uh:::-u= [(Wu:l.) =They cah:n’t.
Oh well that’s lovely.
A review of response tokens
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Jen: Ann: Jen: Ann: Jen:→ Jen: Ann:→ Ann: Jen:
Sa[turday Sundee Monday. ] [Well if I: c’n get the]ri [ng (t’) him:. [Mm (.) an’- an’ the new si:(ze).that would be lovely he c’p [‘raps bring it back with im. [Ye:s. Yeh well p’raps you c’d give Jano a ring en, and [find out when uh::,h [Ye:s. wh[en- when he *( )* [it’ll be best for uh you to take it out.
Note how the falling Yeahs and Yeses (9c) and (9d) are aligning, agreeing and conWrming. They occur as what can be taken as relevant agreements after claims by the other speaker, That was the implication and These implications are completely unfounded in (9c), and The new size, that would be lovely in (9d), and as a relevant compliance after a proposal, Perhaps you could give Jano a ring, in (9d). The falling Yeahs in the following two examples from American data are similarly claimed agreements, Well specially we had to drink that last one so fast in (9e), and That was a long time ago in (9f). (9e)
Chicken Dinner
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Sha: Viv: Sha: Nan: Viv:
Sha:→ Sha:
Those ice teas were hitt’n me I wz like (0.4) Ye:ah= =°hhh^Hi::[::,° [I wz fall’n asl [eep in t h e chai:r. ] [W’l specially we edtuh] drink that last one so fa:st, (0.3) Yeah. (0.2) Yih got you got three minutes:. (0.7)
(9f)
Auto Discussion
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Gar: Pam: Mik: Gar: Gar: Mik:→
Sam’s from Bellview. °He had a, Oh Two. lh wz a, modified. [Six cylinder::¿ [( [ ) [Oh yeah th[at’s goin way ba:ck. [°(That’s a lo:ng time ago). Tha wz a lo:ng time a [go. [Yeah. (1.0)
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When Listeners Talk
10 11 12 13 14
Gar: Mik: Gar:
I usetuh go over there the:[n ‘n, no:w, Rich Hawkins= [((clears throat)) =from Bellview drives one, fer some guys frm up’t Bellview. (0.4)
Yeahs are often accompanied by further talk, as in (10), in which the Yeah is a response to an assessment (cf. Pomerantz 1984): (10)
JS:II:28
1 2
J: L:→
T’s- tsuh beautiful day out isn’t it? Yeh it’s just gorgeous . . .
They can also be used for qualiWed agreements, heralding disagreements (cf. Pomerantz 1984): (11)
SBL:2.1.7.-15
1 2 3 4 5
A:
B:→
Well, oh uh I think Alice has uh:: I- may- and maybe as you say, slightly different, but I think she has a good sense [of humor [Yeh, I think she does too but she has a different type.
Yeah can also be used as a response to negative utterances (cf. JeVerson 1996), as in the following example. (12)
NB:II:3:R:6
1 2 3 4 5
Lottie:
I thought well maybe the people were still → there or something so I didn’t ca:ll. Emma: → eeYah Lottie: ·t I didn’t know what time yhou were gonna get do:wn so I went out sho:pping . . .
Further examples of Yeah will be discussed in Chapter 4. Mm can accomplish similar acknowledging work, as in the following example, in which Bob utters a falling Mm. Ann, a divorcee, is telling him about how she has to calculate the time she spends with the children of her Wrst marriage. (13)
F:I:A:3.2 A&BD4a
1 2 3 4 5
Ann:
I keep it down ta the hou- (.) dropped off a:t, (0.9) ·hheh b’t I min-, (0.4) the calcula:tion;= et thirdy percent,= is done on ↑n:i:ghts:. <et’s done (.) on ni:ghts-; (.) o:nly>.
A review of response tokens
6 7
Bob:→ Ann:
[M : m . ] [That’s no]t- (.) a:ll thee otha ti:me¿
The main diVerence from Yeah is that Mm is a weaker, less involved acknowledgement token when uttered in this way. The evidence for this claim is presented mainly in Chapter 5. An acknowledging Mm is also seen in fragment (14), from a dietetic interview. Here the dietician (D) is asking about the client’s (Cl) alcohol consumption. SuYce it to say for the purposes of this analysis that she asks a question about how frequently he drinks, he begins his answer with an Ehm, and then she interjects a brief insertion sequence on the diYculty of providing an adequate answer to the question. (14)
Diet/29.7.96/3A/5.00p
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
D: Cl: D: Cl:→ D: Cl:
W’d that- be very ↑offen?= or j’st (0.3) E:::: [HM; [It’s harda say: exackly¿= isn’ [et. [Mm:. (.) b’t- (0.2) b’t- u::h; (.) oo:h. (0.7) °maybe- (.) yihkno:w°; (0.3) Fri:day nigh’- Sadurday nights,= I’d prob’ly have yihknow;= more th’n: two: uh two gla:sses¿
D’s inserted question is not the main business of this sequence, which is to Wnd out the frequency of alcohol consumption. As such, this more minimal response, the Mm rather than a more involved Yeah, Wts the parenthetical and peripheral nature of acknowledging the aside in lines 3 and 4. Mm hm can also be used as an acknowledgement token, though much less commonly than Yeah or Mm. In the following fragment, Bob has been telling Ann his ‘news-of-the-day’, relating a series of events. He comes to the end with his coda/formulation in lines 6 to 7, before Ann launches into her reciprocal news. (15)
A&BD4a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Bob:
Ann: Bob:
an::’ j’st all o’ the things;= >I wanneda< getdo:ne,= I didn’ get- do:ne¿ (1.1) Yea:h; ehhh (0.4) °en:d ehrhh° (0.2) so o↑h:nhh.= so that’s been the da:yhh.
39
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When Listeners Talk
8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Ann:→ Bob: Ann:
Bob:
Mm: h↑m:.= =‘n’ ow ‘bout y↑ou:. (0.9) Good-. (0.2) I w’s quite- busy this afternoon,= I went ou:- (.) te:m; hh (0.5) ta do a few thi:ngs¿=one: ev which wes:;= to: try: en:d e:m; (1.5) o:r; wa:s. ta get- the t~i:le grou:t~ en tha:t? O↓:wh;= right-;= ‘n’ howdja ↑go:¿
Ann’s Mm hm in line 8 is terminal to a long news sequence from Bob, and carries an unusual shape for this token, namely a marked rise-fall, rising to high pitch on the second syllable. There are too few examples of Mm hm with this shape in the data to make any strong claims about it, but a possible reason for Ann’s choice here is that when partners tell their news at the end of the day, as here, it is a regular occurrence that when one has told his story, the other will then tell hers (cf. Sacks 1992a; Ryave 1978 on ‘second stories’). In the extract here, there is a great deal to suggest that Bob’s news is coming to an end: Wrst there is a formulation (lines 1–2) about his failure to achieve what he had wanted to during the day, which receives an acknowledging Yeah, and then his coda and formulation, and so on, so that’s been the day. This can be recognised as a termination, and one way to show that Ann has recognised it as such is to do a falling, retrospective acknowledgement. But she may also be showing that she knows there is something else that is relevant as a next sequence, namely her news, and as such an acknowledging intonation contour on what is normally a continuer can do both the job of closure of the prior sequence, and opening up of a new sequence. Bob’s And how about you lends credence to this interpretation, as he does the job of handing the main Xoor over to Ann.
Newsmarking uses The next group of response tokens is the newsmarkers or newsmarker-like tokens, which respond to a turn that is, in some sense, new to the recipient of the turn. This is a more open group than the continuer or acknowledgement groups, but at the core are a few tokens that regularly stand as sole utterances in a speaker’s turn. These include Oh, Right, Really, as well as ‘minimal questions’, such as Did they? Two of these are discussed here: Oh, which has been the subject of ongoing research in particular by Heritage (e.g. 1984b, 1996), and Right (Gardner, in prep). In an early reference to Oh, JeVerson (1978a) characterises it as a ‘disjunct marker’, which is to say that its utterer has suddenly remembered a story, and
A review of response tokens
wishes to embark on its telling, this being ‘disjunct’ because the story that follows “is not topically coherent with the adjacent prior talk: (p. 221). Heritage (1984b) took the examination of Oh further, and has characterised it as a ‘change-of-state’ token, one “which is used to propose that its producer has undergone some kind of change in his or her locally current state of knowledge, information, orientation or awareness” (p. 299). In a not dissimilar vein, SchiVrin (1987) claimed that Oh’s overall role is to mark transitions in information states of speakers. One characteristic of Oh is that it is usually followed by further talk by its speaker, and this often develops the talk topically. This is not surprising, since there is a higher likelihood that a speaker will have comments to make on something new than on something already known. On occasion, though, Oh does stand alone in its turn, or with further minimal, often repetitive talk. In (16a), it comes in third position of a repair sequence, in which Liz asks for the identity of the we. (16a) L&MC2ai 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Mel:→
Liz: Mel: Mel: Liz:→ Mel:
>A:nyway;= we wen-< (.) went ho:me, en went ↓ho:me;= en wr:ote- (1.0) a routi:ne fer o:vercoming the problem:; (1.1) th’t we h[ad ]= [Who]. =yesterday afternoon. Tom. Oh. Did this ama:zing sordev (1.7) routi:ne fer extracting th’ inferma:tion.
This Oh marks as new information the identiWcation of Tom as the second person in the we. This Oh in the minimal third turn expansion (cf. SchegloV 1995; SchiVrin 1987) marks “a change in its producer’s state of knowledge or information” (Heritage 1984b), as a closing move to a question-answer repair sequence In (16b) (already discussed as fragment (9a) above), Ann has initiated a repair sequence, requesting clariWcation of the phrase his old tricks. Bob provides an alternative characterisation, which gets an Oh plus repetition of Bob’s repair. (16b) A&BD3a 1 2 3
Bob:
°eh ‘n° David w’z up to ‘iz ole ↑tri:cks too:↑. hhh (0.5)
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When Listeners Talk
4 5 6 7
Ann: Bob: Ann:→ Bob:
Iz o:ld ↑tri:cks:?= =Ga:me pla:yer¿ Oh;= ga:me player. Yea:h.
It is, of course, diYcult to demonstrate empirically that a ‘change-of-knowledge-state’ has occurred when the Oh stands alone, as in (16a), or without adding anything substantially new, as in (16b). In fragment (17), however, there is more evidence available. Here Mal and Lyn are exchanging news, Mal’s being that he has received an education cheque, and Lyn’s that his VBAL expenses (also a cheque for educational services) had arrived. (17)
L&MH3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Mal: Lyn:→ Mal: Lyn: Lyn: Mal: Mal:→ Lyn: Mal: Lyn:
·hhh (0.2) W:e:ll, (0.3) u:m:; (0.2) my education cheque w’s there this mo:rning¿ ri:ght, ↑Oh;= goo:d↑.= =en:- I’ve pud et in th’ bank;= et w’s fi:ve hundred dollars. Goo:d. (0.3) [<end you]r V:[B↓AL la:st] expe:nses ca:me? [(°°Okay¿] [ °°)] °Oh; goo:d°. it sh’d be a hundred ‘n’ ni:nety or something.= =Ye[a:h. [>hundred ‘n’ ei:ghty.= something< li[ke tha:t]. [Y e a: h].
Lyn’s Oh good in line 3 comes as a response to the announcement of the arrival of the cheque. The Oh occurs together with an assessment Good, but it also occurs before the elaboration of the news, which is about what she did with the cheque and the amount it was drawn for. After this there is a stand-alone assessment, i.e. without an Oh or any other talk. What receives the newsmarker is the main news, and not the elaboration. A similar pattern occurs in the next part of the sequence, when Lyn announces the arrival of a second cheque in line 8. This announcement receives a more extended response from Mal, an Oh plus Good plus his estimate of the amount. Apart from changes in information or knowledge state, Oh can also be used to register a ‘noticing’, as in (18), from JeVerson (1978a). (18)
JeVerson 1978:222
1
N:
Oh that teeshirt reminded me [STORY]
A review of response tokens
A more extended example of this phenomenon is found in (19), in which Ann and Ben are discussing a video tape of their children’s. Here Ann makes explicit that she notices that she had misidentiWed the tape they were talking about. She makes her ‘change-of-state’ and ‘noticing’ explicit in this case, by saying that she had thought that it was a diVerent videotape, namely a Disney one. (19)
A&BF3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Ann:
Ben: Ann:→
Ben:
ah hah hah ·hh Oh we(h)ll, at lea(h)st it’s that tape, I(h) ne(h)ver could stand that one, ·hh huh [huh huh ] [(I like it)] ( [ )]. [O↑:h it’s ] ↓Pino:cchio.= I↑: thought it wz that- (0.9) Disney o:ne. (0.3) thee u:m (1.1) Mickey Mou:se at wo:rk hhh huh huh hh huh huh huh hih [huh [Don’ think I’ve had th’ pleasure.
A more extended example of this phenomenon is found in (20), in which Ike and Jan are driving along a country road when they notice an animal in a paddock next to the road. The noticing that is prefaced by an Oh is of the animal’s tail. (20) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
I&JW4a Jan: Jan: Jan:→ Jan: Ike:
(2.2) ‘ma:zing how they turn arou:nd like that. (2.6) Makes me wanna take a °phohhdagrahhph°. (0.4) ↑O:h;= lookeda t↑ai::l. (0.5) >Izz’[n et ama::zing]. [ M : m : : : .] (1.3)
These Ohs are momentary indicators of a speaker’s state of mind, providing other participants with evidence of the alignment that their utterance shows to what has just been said. Heritage (1998) identiWes another environment for the ‘change-of-state’ nature of Oh, namely as a preface to a response to an inquiry. Such Ohs occur only in second position in an adjacency pair,15 and are invariably followed by further turn components. In other words, they are not third position Ohs, as in (16), neither are they responses to announcements, as in (17), neither are they ‘noticings’, as in (18), (19) and (20). There is something
43
44
When Listeners Talk
initially puzzling about the ‘response-to-inquiry’ Ohs, namely that they do not appear to be expressing ‘surprise’ or ‘newness’ or something contrary to the expectations of the Oh-producer. However, what is new is that the responder to the inquiry is expressing that there is something inapposite, and thus unexpected, in the inquiry itself. Such oh-prefacing can ‘indicate that the inquiry being responded to is problematic as to its relevance, presuppostitions, or context’, or may ‘foreshadow reluctance to advance the conversational topic invoked by the inquiry’ (Heritage 1998:296). In fragment (21), Mal is telling his wife about mechanical problems he’s been having with his motorbike. His mechanic had told him that if it did break down, it was not going to go with a bang. (21)
L&MH3b:408
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Mal:
Lyn:
Mal: Lyn: Mal:→ Lyn: Mal:
[b’t thee otha thing he says;= is bicoz ev the wa:y it’s wo::rn,= >he said it’s not gonna go with a ba:ng:<. (0.4) . . . Look;= ↑what- w’d h:appen ta you:;= ‘f it ↑did go: with a ba:ng. (0.4) With a ↑ba:ng:? Mm [::. [Oh;= ↓*yer moderbike’d jess gri:nd ta a >↑halt*¿= ‘n: (·)y [’d j’s:] [. ↑N↓o:↑¿ (·) >Ah no;= it wouln’ explo:de. (0.1) jess ↓gri:nd to a ha[lt↓.
Lyn, doing being the worried wife, asks him what would happen to him if his bike did go with a bang. The inappositeness of this question is that the answer is already implicit in the idea that it would not go with a bang, but would slowly, and safely, grind to a halt. This is a case in which the relevant information needed to answer the question has already been provided in prior talk. In fragment (22) there is a case where the Oh-prefaced response is not to an inquiry in the form of a question, but to an observation by Ben in line 15 which is designed to show his concern for the safety of his wife and their two daughters, namely that they will not have to walk around the streets in the dark, and thus be exposed to danger.
A review of response tokens
(22)
A&BF3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Ann:→ Ben: Ann: Ben: Ben: Ann: Ben: Ben: Ann: Ben: Ann: Ann:→ Ben:
[ ‘cept] I go- my medic’l on Monda:y mo:rning. [(Mm:),] °I hafta do summing with th’m the:n°. Where ye going? (1.0) ↑Oh;= c’n I: ‘ave th’ ca:r↑ Monday. (2.0) >y’na I: gotta go ta< Bly:the Street;= b’t wi c’n wa:lk there¿= =↑°Yeah°↑. ((sniff)) (0.2) >°Good. ‘t’s a n [ice wa:lk]°<. [↑°M:m:°. ] ↑°M:m:. [’(ka:y)°]. [’s long ]’s et’ during the da:y. °O:h°. (1.0) ·hh (0.4) ↑OH it i:s.= I mean my medical’s eleven thirdy or twe [:lve. [↑Oh that’s great;=
Ben’s as long as it’s during the day is a Wrst pair part that could relevantly expect an acknowledging, agreeing response. In fact Ann produces an Oh, some silence, and then an Oh-prefaced response that not only agrees, but also adds the time when she will be out on the streets. The reason for the Oh here, following Heritage (1998), would be that this information was already available to Ben, as she’d said some moments earlier that the medical appointment was on Monday morning (line 1). Fragment (23) is similar to (22), but the inquiry is in the form of a joke. Liz is asking Mel about a colleague of his whose appearance she Wnds risible. (23)
L&MC2ai
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Liz: Mel: Liz: Mel: Mel: Liz:
Mel:→ Liz:
Az ee godda bea:rd¿= I ‘aven’t seen a front- angle on him ye[:t, [Yeah;= eez godda liddle:: e:r (moutu:[che). [W- hai:r down the front ez w↑e:ll. Mousta:che. (1.3) an:d u:h (0.8) ↑think↑ ee mighd ‘ave a little nn goa↑tee:¿ ez we:ll. >’ve you-¿< (.) sai:d ta him,= he’s goddanimage¿ (.) ↑problem? (0.3) °*O:h*. (.) cohme ↑off et°¿ uhn heh °hehh° (0.6) *·huhh* (0.6) ·hu[hh
45
46
When Listeners Talk
Mel’s recognition of the joke leads him to a response that is dismissive of Liz’s inquiry, as not requiring a real answer. The Oh with which his come oV it is prefaced is suggesting that she ought to know that he could not ask his colleague such a question. Note that this time it is not the prior talk that makes the question inapposite, but general knowledge about what is appropriate to ask colleagues. Heritage’s studies of Oh over nearly twenty years have unraveled many of the complexities of this response token. It is used to accomplish many diVerent tasks in talk, but what links them all is that something in the talk to which they respond is unexpected, whether it be information, knowledge, noticing something, or presuppositions about what is being said. All the response tokens discussed so far have received considerable attention from researchers. Right, on the other hand, has been largely unexamined (but see Stenström 1987), though it is a very common token in some forms of talk (cf. Gardner, in prep). There are, of course, many meanings and uses of Right in English; indeed it is one of the most polysemous words in English. In particular, it should be noted that what we are dealing with here is not the ‘checking’ Right, as in (24). (24)
R.50.L&MH3b
1 2 3
Mal: Lyn:
(0.1) well, (0.3) look, they ↑didn’ allo:w fer a c’mpu:ter in their bi:ll.= ↑ri:ght? ← Yea:h¿
Neither is the Right in question a synonym for ‘That’s correct’, as in (25). (25)
TR.1.Diet/29.7.96
1 2 3 4 5
D:
Cl:→ D:
So jus’ ta s:tart with,= i(m): thee triglyceride level;= yer got here it wz three po:int fou:r.= [iz that ri]gh-? [That’s righ’,] °’kay°¿
Further, this Right needs to be distinguished from a truncated Alright, i.e. an Alright without the Al-. (26)
Rahman:B:1:VMJ(10)
1 2 3 4 5
Jen: Ver: Ver: Ver Jen:
*Well thaht’s nice. [(Vera).* [Yes. .h Anyway ah’ll tell y’all the news. [when u[h [when yuh c o m e by.] [Ye:s. [Ye[s. Ah’ll see you inna fe]w minutes then
A review of response tokens
6 7 8 9 10 11
Ver: Jen: Ver:→ Jen:
ah’ll [jis comb mah haiu: [uh,[an’ I’ll be on]the= [O: [k a y t h e n] [Yes. =way. O [kay the[n, [Right. [Bah bye: lu[v [Chee(h)rio Vera< - - - - - - - - end call - - - - - - - - - -
The Right in line 10 occurs in a typical environment for Alright, namely as a pre-closing token similar to Okay. This occurrence is discussed further in the section on Alright below. In contrast to the three Rights in the fragments above, the response token Right is related to the newsmarker group, but it shows some very distinctive characteristics in British and Australian English, and it is these, rather than American uses, that will be discussed here. This idea connecting Right is, on the evidence to hand, much less common in American than in British or Australian English, and may even be used in a markedly diVerent way, though a thorough analysis is lacking. Indications so far suggest that the most frequent use of Right in American English is as a kind of agreement marker. The British/ Australian token in question is the one found in the following fragment. (27)
R.11/12.A&BD3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Bob:
Ann: Bob:
Ann:→ Bob:
·hh (.) So::;= er we went to:: u-liddle Italian pla:ce;= in:: Paddington Para:de;= ca::lled Guiseppe::s. Mm hm¿ ( ),= en: sordev frequents:; (.) a liddle bit pe:rs’nelly:_= en:d er:m also wo:rkwi:se. Ri:ght-?= =Kno:ws the gu:ys the:re >priddy we:ll¿ (0.2)
Such Rights are used to accomplish a recognition on the part of the utterer that the unit of talk to which it is responding, or an idea from that unit of talk, has been understood to be connected to another unit from earlier in the talk. This earlier unit (or idea) may be the penultimate one, or it may be from two or more turns back in the same local sequence, or it may be from much earlier in the conversation, or indeed even from an earlier conversation. The connection may be to something the other speaker has said, or to something the Right producer him- or herself has said. In (27), Bob is telling about a visit he made with workmates to a restaurant. After setting up an extended telling, he says in his next turn (lines 5 to 7) that someone, presumably a colleague, frequents
47
48
When Listeners Talk
this restaurant a little bit personally and also workwise. Here we have, immediately prior to this Right, two ideas that have been juxtaposed: personally and workwise. This is, typically, the type of connection that such Rights are employed to recognise, though it should be stressed that in this case the two ideas are as locally connected as possible, namely two elements in the immediately prior turn. The basic use of Right as an ‘idea connector’ is seen again in the following fragment, in which an international telephone number is being dictated. (28)
R35-UK-HERITAGE OI-7
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Gay: Jer: Jer: Gay: Jer:→ Gay: Jer: Gay: Jer: Gay:
So the ↑nahmber is (0.2) eoh: one eoh::. Oh one oh:, (1.0) Yeup, ↑Four ni:ne, (0.5) Ri:ght? Sev’n three,u-six o:ne?hh (0.6) Sev’n three: six o:ne? (0.3) Ei:ght ni:ne, °Gosh° it goe:s (.) goes on’n on Oh it doe:s Ger[many doe:s.
In this sequence, Gay has segmented the very long telephone number into separate turns for the purposes of the dictation. The Wrst segment, oh one oh, gets a echoic repetition, and a rising, go-ahead Yeup. The second segment, the country code four nine, gets the Right. With its placement after the second segment of an emerging sequence of turns, this token is marks the connectedness between the international code and the country code as part of the projected dictation of the full number. In (27) and (28), the connections made by the Rights are between contiguous turn units. Rights are also found in environments in which the Right makes connections across intervening stretches of talk, as in the next fragment. Fragments (29a/b)16 are from the same dietetic interview as in fragment (14). The client is attending this dietetic consultation because he has a high count of triglycerides, a body fat that can lead to diabetes. In this phase of the interview, the dietician is gathering information about Cl’s dietary intake, speciWcally here about desserts.
A review of response tokens
(29a) Diet 29.7.96 533 534 535 536 537 538 539 540 541
D: Cl:→ D: Cl: D: Cl:
↑Grea:’;= ·hhhh an’ you mentioned;= ↓sometimes having a disse:rt-¿ Righ’, en’ if yuh were ‘aving disser*t;= w’d it- u-mean ·hh w’t sord’v combina:[tion uh yuh likely] [E:::::::::::::HHH;] [tuh have,]=or- ·hhh[h [nhhhhhhhh] [Probably:: something with ice cream:,=
D is asking Cl here about desserts, and you mentioned sometimes having desserts (line 533–4). This reference to a previous mention was in fact to something Cl had said some minutes earlier, which is reproduced in (29b). (29b) Diet 29.7.96 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285
Cl:
Cl: D: Cl: Cl:→
E::rm; (1.2) fer dinnuh, (1.3) °w’d have e:h-um°; (0.4) ·fhhhhhhhh °I d’nno whether it’d be° usua(.) usa’lly it’d be:ay: e::::r (.) a mea:l’d be either; (.) meat or chi:ckin:¿= or fi:sh:¿ (0.5) °withuh° (0.3) coupla ve:gtubles¿ °Mm ↑hm°? o::::r (0.3) salud¿ (1.4) °e::hm° hh ma:ybe a dissert,= after that¿ (2.8)
In this case Right can be seen to be recognising a connection between the immediately prior turn (lines 533–4 in 29a) and an earlier mention, when he had said that he had maybe a dessert with his dinner (line 284 in 29b). His Right can thus be understood as a claim to recognition of the connection between her current and his earlier mentions. Sometimes the connections appear to be more complex, being simultaneously traceable both between two adjacent, immediately prior turns, and also across longer stretches of talk, as in (30a). In other words, this may be a making of connections between more than just two mentions, that is, between various mentionings in an emerging complex set of related ideas in the talk. In this extract, from early in the dietetic interview, Cl asks D about the level of his triglyceride count. (30a) Diet 29.7.96 76 77
Cl:
·hhhh but- (0.2) thee: three point f:our;= on thee: um triglycerides;= now I don’ know; (.) where
49
50
When Listeners Talk
78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92
D: Cl: D: Cl: D:
Cl: Cl:→ D:
that stan:ds;= iz that- (.) extre:mely hi::gh¿ [·h h h h [e:::::::::hm [·h h h h ] [uh ↑li’l [↓bit hi:gh’r [th’n we’d ] li::ke¿ ·hh [h g’nuh] talk ‘bout that with you in m↑omen’;= [Ri:ght,]= =if you don’t ↑mind?= ‘v [got s’m] (.) u-thing:s= [Mm hm, ] =th’t I c’n talk t’you abo:ut¿ en’ see ‘ow we c’n modify that-; (.) when I’ve found ou [t what y]ou’re (.) having to e:a:t¿ [O k a y,] Ri:gh, (0.3) It is a bit high’r tha(n) wi’d ↑like; (3.4)
It is the second of the two Rights here, in line 89, that is the concern of this analysis. The dietician provides a brief answer to Cl’s question about his triglyceride level at this point: it’s a bit higher than we’d like (line 80). A reason for her not providing a fuller answer here is that she is following an agenda of questions and topics within routine stages in the interview, and she postpones a fuller answer to his question to a point in the interview that has been scheduled to deal with it, which Wnally occurs around line 900 of the transcription (about twenty minutes after this talk). She provides an account for her delay by saying that she Wrst intends to Wnd out what he eats before she deals with the triglyceride level question and how to modify it. If we skip over the Mm hm and the Okay in lines 84 and 88 for this analysis, the Right in line 89 is a response to when I’ve found out what you’re having to eat (lines 86–7). The Wrst connection that is being made between this utterance and some prior utterance(s) is to the extended turn by D which is emerging within this sequence, namely a mapping out of plan of the interview and the diVerent focuses of each stages, and the place of the question he has asked within these stages. There is, though, a second possible connection that Cl may have made here, namely between the utterance immediately prior to this Right, and something she’d said a few minutes earlier, seen in fragment (30b), namely that one part of her plan for the interview is her intention to Wnd out what he eats, his usual sort of intake (lines 45–6). (30b) Diet 29.7.96 37 38 39 40
D:
Cl:
‘kay,= well ↑whad I’ll do ↓today.= jus’ to outline the session;= is ↑jess ↓fin:e a liddle bit ebou’ yer↑self¿= eb [out- ] ·hhh things like y’know= [Righ’],
A review of response tokens
41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51
D: Cl: Cl: D: → → Cl: D: Cl: D:
=cooking ev the mea:ls, who duz tha:t¿= wuh do ] dur’ng th’ da:y¿ y [a [Mm hm, ] [Righ’;] [·h h h] (.) bidda ‘bout- what you ea:t,hh (.) uthe usual sord’v in:ta:ke¿= =M[m hm, ] [·hhh ] an’ ↑then we’ll talk about;= y’know triglyceride le↑vel:s¿[·hhhh ] an’ the wa:y th’t= [Mm hm,] =we c’n (.) modify the ↑di:et? (.) p’haps
Although it does not appear possible to say which of these connections is being made (i.e. locally or more remotely) — or indeed whether both connections are being made simultaneously — the main point is that Rights are found in environments in which connections between ideas such as these can be traced, and the connections that are being traced can be compounded to a whole series of interconnected ideas. It is a consistent characteristic of response token/idea connecting Rights that speciWc connections of these types are being made. A Wnal, compelling instance in which Right can be seen to be connecting old, remote information with an immediately prior turn is found in fragment (31a). In this case, the information to which it is responding is something which had been mentioned in an earlier telephone conversation between these two, namely an itchy eye (line 7). In these British data, Danny and Gordon, a romantically involved teenage couple, are talking on the telephone. (31a) R2-UK-Field-U/88-1-5-SimpliWed 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Dan:
Gor: Dan:
Gor:→ Dan:
I’m just about to eat my din dins, .hh then I’m going to the chemist hhh .hhh hh An’ then I shall come over. (0.4) Good.h (0.5) Becuz (0.3) I’m g’nna go see nice Mister Chemist ‘n ask im what ‘ee c’n do about my eye. Becuz it itches a lot. .hhhh aarRight u [h i s i t- ] [An I’m tryin ]a keep my fingers out of it ‘n I keep on gettin’ smacked by Mu(h)m because she tells me o(h)ff.=
Gordon’s Right in line 10 responds to a turn in which Danni it telling him what she has to do before she comes over to visit him, namely to go to eat her dinner and then go to the pharmacy to get something for her itchy eye. This is an extended turn, with several components that can be seen to be connected. In
51
52
When Listeners Talk
this respect this is not dissimilar to (30a). However, there has also already been a mention of an itchy eye, this time in a previous conversation between the two held one or two days earlier. (31b) Field U/88-1-4-Simplifed 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Gor: Dan: → → Gor:
[.hhh.hh[hhhhhhh [-(0.5)-[But um (0.7) all mu- this morning (0.3) uh:m (0.5) I: (0.2) my eye’s been really itching badly ‘n .hh we’ve been (0.2) throwing boiling water in it ‘n stuff[ën it (.) itches a lot. .hh [Oh dear (0.3)
So here again there is evidence that Right is used when a connection can be made to a prior mentioning, and these connections can even be across diVerent conversations.
Change-of-activity uses The Wnal pair of response tokens discussed here, Okay and Alright, can be glossed as ‘change-of-activity’ tokens. As Beach (1993) puts it, “‘Okay’ signals varying degrees of on-topic/activity shift” and “can be identiWed as momentary, ‘on hold’ preWgurings of movements toward next matters” (p. 341). In other words, Beach claims that Okays are used to propose a readiness to move out of the current topic or activity in the conversation into another, or indeed to move out of the conversation altogether. This latter use of Okay had already been noted by SchegloV and Sacks (1973), in what they called a pre-closing environment. (32)
SDCL: Drkscls:21
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
D:→ C:→ D: C:→ D: C: D:→ C: D:
Ahkay um (0.2) how bout if I give you call like around seven thirty Akay And we’ll figure out exa:ctly whenum (0.2) to >come get me or whatever< Okay At seven thirty I’ll probably have eaten and be show:ered and stuff sounds good? Okay a I’ll talk to you then Alright b[ye ] [Bye]
These pre-closing Okays (and the Alright in line 11) are used to do what SchegloV and Sacks (1973) characterise as a readiness to terminate the conver-
A review of response tokens
sation. It can be noted that the Alright appears to be used in an identical way to the Okays. Indeed Beach (1993) claims that Alright is a functional equivalent of Okay in pre-closings. Recent work (Turner 1999), though, provides strong evidence that these two tokens do subtly diVerent work, which will be discussed below. SchegloV (1986) noted that Okays can also be found at the openings of conversations, as in the following fragment. (33)
#250a; SchegloV 1986:139
1 2 3 4 5 6
Marlene: Bonnie: Marlene: Bonnie: Marlene:→
Hi. This is Marlene. Hi, How are you, I’m fine, Okay. ·hh D’you have Marina’s telephone number?
Clearly this is not heralding a closing of the conversation, coming as it does immediately between the opening sequence and the Wrst topic initiation. That is to say, the position of the Okay is at a juncture in the conversation, after the opening, in contrast to the pre-closing environment of the Okays in (32). In (33) the Okay occurs in a position at which regularly a return how are you occurs. Instead this Okay is followed immediately by an inbreath, which is hearable as preparatory to further talk. Thus Okays can be seen as turn components used to move towards termination of a call or of an opening sequence and to a Wrst topic. They can also be used in the middle of a conversation, as in the following example from the dietetic interview. (34)
DIET, 29.7.96/2A/5.00p
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Cl: D: Cl:
D: Cl: D: → D: Cl: D:
AHH NO [:,= u-’s th’ ] ↓still surfing [(No; ↑O::R) ] =during- (.) the- (0.2) thee::::: (.) wintuh but uh::m (0.6) moreso in summuh [then in wintuh,] [°moreso in the] summuh°;= =[Yea:h.] =[Ohkay,] (0.5) ·khhhh a:nd- (.) we ↑done yuh weight ↓an’ yer ↑height t’da:y¿ ·hh [is yer ]= [°Mm hm°,] =weigh’ (.) hhow w’d yuh describe yer weighd;= has it bin sta:ble?
53
54
When Listeners Talk
Before this fragment, which occurs about 10 minutes into the interview, the dietician has been gathering information from the client about his Wtness regime. The sequence terminates with the dietician conWrming that the client does more surWng in summer than in winter, which the client reconWrms with his Yeah (line 7). The dietician simultaneously produces an Okay, pauses, breathes in audibly, and moves to a new topic on the agenda, namely the client’s physical attributes, beginning with a reference to height and weight. Again we have a juncture environment, though in this case in the middle of an extended talk encounter rather than at the beginning or end. The nature of the juncture here is a shift between phases of the interview, and of the focus of their attention from client’s physical activity to his physical data. One major function of Okay thus appears to be the marking of junctures in the talk, and it proposes a move from one topic, activity or phase to another. As such, it is not surprising that Okays are commonly prefaces to further talk by the same speaker, as whatever it is that is new will need to be introduced into the talk. However, it can be noted that they are not simply indicators of readiness to assume primary speakership, as has been proposed for Yeah (cf. JeVerson 1984a; Drummond and Hopper 1993a). Okays appear to go one step further, namely to propose the next talk to be on a new topic or activity in the conversation, whether it be a new or Wrst topic, a new phase, or the good-byes at the end of the conversation. Movement to next topic/activity is, of course, a manoeuvre jointly negotiated by participants, and may occur over several turns at talk. An example of such manoeuvring is shown in the following fragment (from Turner 1999). Here Les is talking about Kat’s troubled Wnances. (35)
LKA3 1.5.1 Turner (modiWed)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Kat: Les: Kat:→ Les: Kat:→ Les: Kat: Les: Kat:→ Les:
You don’t- you want it on the water? necessarily? or do you j’st w- it- ‘r downto:wn or what. ↑We::ll it doesn’t hafta be on the water (0.6) O [:kay ] [See I] c’n afford either way Okay. Bud it’s your mother an’ an them that I c’ncern myself with.= Right. (0.5) You ↑kno:w [I thi]nk Gramma’s gonna offer to= [Okay ] =help them out.
A review of response tokens
15 16 17 18 19 20 21
Kat:→ Les: Kat: Les: Kat:
Okay With some financ [es] [Ye]ah cuz they’re havin’ a bit of problem I think (h) I think so:: hu[h huh heh] [Well I m]ean as you would so. ·h well I k- ki- sortev want Chris to stay with me.
In this sequence Kat produces six response tokens, four of which are Okays (with one Right and one Yeah), and only one substantial on-topic turn (lines 17–18), before moving to shift topic in lines (20–21). A Wrst observation is that they are talking about a delicate topic, namely Kat’s parents’ lack of money. A second is that Kat contributes very little to the topical development of talk. Her ‘on-topic’ contribution, because they’re having a bit of a problem I think is a summary formulation of the ‘problem’. Formulations are conversational objects that tend to occur at topic terminal or topic attrition places (cf. Heritage and Watson 1980), which constitutes supporting evidence that she is moving towards topic closure, and indeed, after this series of minimal Okay responses, Kat does in fact move to a new topic in lines 20 to 21. Beach (1995) suggests that such series of Okays are indicative of interactional diYculties, including troubling topics or activities. In this sequence, Kat can be seen to be resisting the ‘current topic’, and unilaterally attempting to terminate the discussion, with Les in her turn not responding to these attempts, as she maintains ‘current topic’ over several turns. Okays, then, are used to pre-Wgure, or negotiate towards, changes in topic or activity. They can occur after openings, before closings, and in transitional environments in the middle phases of talk. How do they diVer from Alrights? It has already been mentioned that some authors suggest that Alright appears to be a functional equivalent of Okay in many environments, notably as a preclosing (e.g. extract 32 above). Jensen (cited in Beach 1995) claims that the Alright is apparently equivalent to Okay, though with the possibility that Alright is a stronger ‘signal’ and/or marks more major transitions. Beach (1995) examines an environment in a medical interview in which an Okay is quickly followed by an Alright. He suggests that the Okay treats the immediately prior response as an adequate response to a query, whereas the following Alright, also by the Okay speaker, closes a more encompassing activity, namely the whole of the phase of diagnostic medical history, before moving on to the immediately subsequent physical examination. In a study of telephone conversations, involving mainly Americans (though recorded in Sydney, Australia), Turner (1999) provides conWrmation of this
55
56
When Listeners Talk
view. She found that Okays most frequently occurred to close oV short topical sequences within larger topics, or put another way, Okays are used in more locally transitional environments. A typical case is found in the following telephone conference, in which the predominant topic of the talk for most of the conversation is Jak and Bet’s planned vacation visit to Kat. The current concern in (36) is the travel arrangements. (36)
JBKT3:1.2.2 Turner (modiWed)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Kat: Jak: Bet: Jak: Jak: Kat:→
Okay. Are you guys- are you guys coming- you comin on the plane with Lesley and Gramma:? U::h (0.2) I don’t kn [o:w (if we can ]or no:t) [I don’t know w’] I think we kinda ar::e. Okay. Are you- are you- uhm (0.6) are you guys staying in the same hotel as them or °what°,
Within the sequence concerning various aspects of the arrangements for their trip, Kat asks them about their Xight (lines 1 to 7), before moving on to talk about hotel (lines 8–9). The transition here is marked by the Okay in line 8, and it is at this local, on-topic shift that Turner found 62% of 77 Okays in her data. Alright, on the other hand, occurred mainly at more major shifts in topic, as in the following example. (37)
KCT2 1.3.1 Turner (modiWed)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
Kat: Col: Kat: Col: Kat:
Col: Kat: Col: Kat: Col: Kat:→
Isn’ it j’st a piece uh pa::↑per? (1.5) Du:de no:, it’s matted now an’ stuff:. A::h it i::s. (0.2) Yeah big painting and (stuff)= =O:h okay.=alrigh’ I didn’t realise that,= I thought you could roll it up and put it in a tyube sorta thing. (0.7) No:: no.= =Ah o:kay. That’s fine the [n. [( ) got some cardboard backing A::h:. Put it in an art show ( ) That’s good. Alright, anywa:y::. Um:::: (.) so the thing you need to do::? ·h is you’re priddy sure about which- which school you’re wantin’ go to.
A review of response tokens
In this fragment, the Alright in line 17 comes where there is a major shift in the focus of their talk, from Col’s art to the planning of Col’s university application process. In Turner’s data, 74% of the 47 Alrights occurred at such boundaries. She had no instances of Okay being used in major shifts at these boundaries. So what she has found here is a clear trend for Alright to occur at major topic boundaries, and Okay to occur at minor topic boundaries. There are, though, types of phase boundaries in the talk where either of these two tokens can be found, particularly at an ‘intermediate’ topic or activity shift level,17 where a number of Alrights were used. Alright also occurred occasionally at the most local shift level. A closer examination by Turner (1999) explains some of this functional overlap. Sometimes speakers will attempt to backtrack and pick up a topic thread after a digression, that is, there will be a kind of re-focusing of the topic. She found that Okay is used more frequently when the digression is minor, and Alright after a more extensive digression. In other words, the local shift in topic after the digression may be at either the ‘topic’ or ‘sub-topic’ (rather than the ‘macro-topic’) level, but if the digression has been a brief or minor one, an Okay is more likely to be used, but if the digression has been long, an Alright is much more likely. The notion of Alright being used for more major shifts was also found in pre-closing environments, where 85% of Alrights were followed by actual closing of the conversation, whilst only 66% of Okays were. Also more Alrights are Wnal pre-closing components (i.e. before the good-byes) than Okays. In other words, there is a great deal of evidence in Turner’s study that Alright functions at a more macro-level than Okay, and as a stronger pre-Wgurer of a change in topic or activity.
Summary: Eight Response Tokens The response tokens discussed here have much in common. They all occur as minimal responses to another’s talk, and all are semantically weak, if not empty: it is diYcult to say what they ‘mean’. They are all also very Xexible, and many of them can be used to accomplish the more typical work of another token, particularly through the intonation contour they carry, and their placement within a sequence, so that, for example, the typical acknowledgement tokens, Yeah and Mm, can be used as continuers. However, each has a characteristic or archetypical use, and as such can be used to propose, to move towards, to pre-Wgure, or to achieve diVerent ends. Mm hm and Uh huh are used by their producers to move towards prior speaker continuing as next
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speaker, most commonly in the midst of an extended turn by that other speaker. Mm is used to retrospectively acknowledge the prior speaker’s talk, though the Mm producer is simultaneously declining an opportunity to talk on the topic of the prior talk. Mm shows similarities to Yeah, in that it is typically an acknowledgement token, rather than a continuer, but it is also diVerent from Yeah, in that Mm shows considerably lower speakership incipiency than Yeah (though higher than Mm hm/Uh huh). Ohs most typically constitute a claim that their producers know something they did not know before, and have undergone a ‘change-of-state’ in their knowledge or understanding of what is being talked about, whilst Rights are claims to understanding that the immediately prior talk has been produced as connectable to, or building on, some earlier talk. Okay is used to display a pre-Wguring of a shift towards a new topic, phase or activity in the conversation, including exiting from a conversation. Alright is similar, but appears to be proposing a stronger, ‘higher level’ movement to a new topic or activity.
Tokens-in-a-series It is one thing to describe ways in which diVerent response tokens are used. It is another to explain speaker choices when tokens are produced in a series, either as a bunch of tokens in a single speaker turn, or as a series of single tokens in their turns responding to a series of turns by another speaker. In this Wnal section, some observations will be made on the latter of these two phenomena. Examples are taken from the dietetic interview.
The Dietetic Interview This dietetic interview took place in a hospital in Australia. Clients attending the clinic have problems with their diet and nutrition, resulting in conditions such as high cholesterol or triglyceride levels or diabetes. The interview used here took place in the mid nineties, and was the Wrst meeting between this dietician (D) and client (Cl), so it represents the entire discourse-history-so-far between these two speakers. The phases of the interview, in broad terms, are (Tapsell 1997): initial Greetings and Opening of the interview, after which the dietician makes a Statement of Purpose of the interview, before going on to the Wrst major phase, which is Information Gathering of the physical attributes, Wtness regime and dietary habits of the client. This is followed by the second major phase, which is Advice Giving by the dietician, with the aim of persuading the client to follow a
A review of response tokens
healthier diet, which includes some medical information. At the end of the interview there is a Wrap-up phase, including arrangements for a subsequent meeting, before the terminating Leave-taking. The Wrst example in which sequences of response tokens are examined is taken from the Information Gathering phase. This is a fairly typical sequence in this phase of the interview, with D asking a set of pre-arranged, ‘agenda’ questions, to enter the information on a form she has in front of her. There are thus short, often three part sequences of question and answer with a brief third position post-expansion, though these three parts are often expanded beyond this basic format. The main response tokens used are Okays from D and Mm hm from Cl. In the Wrst extract, the dietician is asking the client about his desserts. (38)
DIET, 29.7.96/2A/5.00p
539 540 541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 549 550 551 552 553 554 555 556
D:
Cl: D: → D: Cl: D: Cl:→ D: → D:
‘d you estimate- (.) °yihknow; approximately how offen in a wee:k¿= yuh’d ↑have something like tha:t? yuh’ve said- (.) someti [:mes [I: w’d ha:ve it probably:: (1.6) no more th’n three times a week, °°Ohkayh,°° (1.0) an’ is thee ice cream a: perticuler ty:pe¿= or jest [a regular ice cr [eam¿] [U:::::::::::::h [jest] regular ice [cream.] [a regu]lar i:ce [cream¿]= [Mm hm,] =↑°Oh:kay°? ·hhh (1.5) ↑en’ th↓en you said p’haps one to two glasses uh wi:ne with dinner¿
This fragment opens with D asking Cl how often he has ice-cream, Cl’s answer, with D following the answer with an Okay in third position in the sequence. This local level Okay is followed by another question about ice-cream, this time about the type. The Okay is marking transition between two related sequences, (a question-answer Wrst about the frequency of consumption of icecream and second about the type of ice-cream consumed) with the topic of icecream in his diet. The ‘type of ice-cream’ sequence is expanded beyond the basic three parts, with D echoing a part of Cl’s answer to her question, a regular ice-cream, which
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Cl reconWrms with a continuer Mm hm, which is a handing back of the Xoor to D. That is, Cl does not add to the information he has already given. D then ends this sequence with another Okay, and moves on to the next topic in the series of questions, which is wine consumption. The next fragment (39) is from early in the advice giving phase of the interview, in which D is giving Cl information about cholesterol. Shortly before this sequence, Cl had talked about what he already knew about this fat, and now D is expanding in more detail on the nature and eVects of the substance. We Wnd in this extract a predominance of Rights and Mm hms rather than the Okays and Mm hms found in the information gathering phase of the interview, as in (38) above. These Rights are produced overwhelmingly by Cl, whereas the Okays in the information-gathering stage were produced overwhelmingly by D. There are two issues here. The Wrst is why Cl as main recipient in the advice-giving phase produced so many Rights (and few Okays), whereas D produced so many Okays (and few Rights) when she was main recipient in the information-gathering phase. It will be remembered that Okay is used to shift topic/activity. In (38) there was a series of topic-shifting, agenda questions, and after Cl’s answers, D marks the shift to a new question and a new topic with an Okay. The extract in (39) is an extended explanation of cholesterol, i.e. it maintains a single topic over a long stretch of talk, so Okay (or indeed Alright) would not be appropriate, as there are no ‘shifts’ of topic or activity. The second issue to be addressed here is why Cl, in the extract below, sometimes produce Rights and sometimes Mm hms. This question is addressed after the extract. (39)
DIET, 29.7.96/2A/5.00p
897 898 899 900 901 902 903 904 905 906 907 908 909 910 911
D: Cl:→ D: Cl: D: Cl:→ D: Cl:→ D:
So w’re good predu(hn)ce(h)rs ev chelest’rol. [·hhhhh] ↑WE DO: NEE:D,= ↓u-cert’n amoun’ -though?= [Mm hm,] =cz it does have functions,= in our bo:dy:¿ ‘s im [por’nt] for some ho:rmones¿ ‘n some= [Righ’;] =bodily functi:ons¿ ·hhhh bud obvi’sly we don’ wan’ too much. [Coz too] much= [Ri:gh’.] =[ev it¿ ] ·hhh as I say,= it’s a type uh= [Mm; hm,] =fat in thuh bloo:d¿= it’s trav’ling aro:un’¿ ·hh too much ev it- (.) °um° (.) °starts to:° ·hh °um::° (0.2) go inside our a:rt’ries¿= like [you ment]ioned;= our blood vessels¿=
A review of response tokens
912 913 914 915 916 917 918 919 920 921 922 923 924 925
Cl:→ D:
Cl:→ D: Cl:→ D: Cl:→ D: Cl:→ D:
[Mm; hm,] =·hhh an: ‘f we get ↑too ↓high u-level,= it c’n acsh’lly build up an’ ·hhh an’ narrow those,= [an’ make] it harder fuh thuh blood tuh flo:w.= [Mm ↓hm; ] =[(.)[s o:] uh cou:rse, ·hhh yuh heart disease;= [ Ri[gh’;] =like you men:[tion:ed;] ·hh so ↑that’s= [Y e: s:.] =cert’nly the reason;= why we need it tuh be on a good level; ·hh [‘bout f]i:ve point= [Mm hm¿] =↑fi::ve. (1.0)
It will be recalled that Mm hm is a continuer, used to pass the Xoor back to prior speaker without any comment (or topical talk), whilst Right is used to claim that a connection between two (or more) ideas that have been mentioned has been recognised. The Wrst point to note in this sequence is that D is engaged in a multi-unit turn at talk, in which she is explaining a complex phenomenon (in the sense that there is a range of features, aspects and relationships about cholesterol that she is engaged in telling about). As such, Cl as recipient needs to see how the diVerent components of the explanation relate to each other, and to what he has heard or said himself about cholesterol in the interview-so-far. The Wrst Mm hm in 899 responds to so we’re good producers of cholesterol, a formulation that provides the gist of the passage prior to this one. As such, D is saying something that she has already — and just — told Cl, so there is no new connection to be made between the idea she has just stated and some earlier, diVerent idea. Cl’s Mm hm, then, is a continuer, which passes up the opportunity to take the Xoor, and also passes up the opportunity to produce a less ‘neutral’ response token such as a Right. He is, in eVect, saying ‘I’m here, I’m attending, I have no need to tell you how I have received this information, except that I have nothing to add to or comment on what you have said, nor to particularise the stance I am taking on what you have said, except that I pass the Xoor back to you to continue’. The next response token is a Right in line 902, and the question here is why Cl chooses a Right and not another Mm hm (or indeed one of the other response tokens, or a more substantial turn, or a repair). The placement of this Right is after We do need a certain amount, though, because it does have functions in our body (898/900). Neither of the two ideas expressed in this turn has been
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mentioned before in the interview, either by Cl or by D (remembering also that this is the Wrst encounter between these two, so there is no larger ‘discourse history’). So there is evidence that a new connection is being made, within the emerging complex explanation of cholesterol, between the need for a certain amount of it, and the reason for the need. The next response token is another Right in line 905. This follows D’s it’s important for some hormones, and some bodily functions, but obviously we don’t want too much. She is expanding here on her previous utterance by mentioning cholesterol’s importance for some hormones, as well as repeating that it is important for some (unspeciWed) bodily functions, and then adds that too much is not good. Her obviously appears to be claiming that this news is a given, and thus in eVect redundant — so why state the obvious? But there is a new connection being made here between two ideas: whilst we need some cholesterol, we still have to keep the level in check. Cl had shown that he knew that the level needs to be kept in check: if it builds up it could be sort of a- lead up to possible heart problems (lines 876–7). So a connection is being made between what he has already spoken about, namely that high cholesterol levels are bad, and a just mentioned idea, that some cholesterol in our bodies is necessary. Hot on the heals of this Right comes an Mm hm in line 907. All that has emerged since the Right is ‘cause too much (line 904). This is fragmentary, and insuYcient to have contributed a new idea to the emerging explanation. So this Mm hm can be understood as a continuer, indicating a readiness on the part of Cl to continue in the role of recipient. The next response token is the Mm hm in line 912, responding to as I say, it’s a type of fat in the blood, it’s travelling around, too much of it starts to go inside our arteries, like you mentioned. This is a series of ideas that have all already been mentioned, so this series of utterances is a recapitulation, which she has pre-Wgured with her as I say, in line 906. There is a reinforcement of the lack of newness in the development of this explanation also in her like you mentioned in line 911 (the last two words of which are overlapped by the Mm hm). There are thus no ‘new connections’ to be made by Cl between any of the ideas expressed in this turn and any other ideas, and thus a Right would not ‘Wt’, whereas a continuer Mm hm would, as there is also no indication that D has come to an end of her explanation — no formulation or summarising. In line 916 there is another Mm hm by Cl. This responds to D’s and if we get too high a level [i.e. of cholesterol], it can actually build up and narrow those [i.e. blood vessels/ arteries]. This, again, is an connection that had already been made explicit in the emerging talk on cholesterol. Evidence for this is found in
A review of response tokens
Cl’s summary a few minutes earlier of what he knew about cholesterol, during which he said (lines 876–882) ‘if it [i.e. cholesterol] builds up, it could be sort of a- lead up to possible heart problems, and problems with veins, artery blockage, and things like that. So once again, there are no new ‘idea connections’ to be made here, and a continuer Mm hm is a more neutral handing back of the Xoor to D, without Cl indicating any stance from his response token about how he has understood what she has said; indeed his lack of a more marked response token is telling her that he is not taking what she has said as anything worth commenting on. Next, in line 918, we Wnd another Right, this one responding to and make it harder for the blood to Xow (915). At Wrst sight, this looks like information that he had already incorporated, as it might seem obvious that if arteries were blocked, then blood would not Xow so easily. However, this is a Wrst mention of blood Xow, so a new idea has been introduced into the description. In other words, it is not so much a case of whether or not obvious logical connections have been made, however ‘obvious’ they may be, but about an aspect of the description that is being made explicit for the Wrst time here. Thus the ‘new connection’ being made here is between ‘vein/blood vessel/artery narrowing’ and ‘reduced blood Xow’. The Wnal response token in this extract is the Mm hm in line 923, which responds to so that’s certainly the reason why we need it to be on a good level. This is now a formulation, or upshot, of the explanation-so-far (cf. Heritage and Watson 1980), and as such is again introducing no new ideas that need to be integrated into an emerging, complex set of related ideas. The Mm hm is again a minimal, neutral handing back of the Xoor to D. There is one other response token in this sequence, namely the Yes in line 920, and it is reasonable to ask why this ‘vagrant’ token suddenly makes an appearance here. It is beyond the scope of this analysis to provide a full answer to this question, so suYce it to note that Yeah and its variants (Yes, Yup, Yep and others) are very common in ordinary conversation, but scarce in this dietetic interview (and in many other forms of institutional talk). Where Yeah/ Yes does occur in this interview, it tends to be at points such as this, where Cl’s own direct experience has been mentioned by D. Here his Yes responds to like you mentioned, that is, a mention by her that is about something over which he is the primary authority, which includes biographical or experiential aspects of his own life. This contrasts with most of what he responds to in this interview, which is information about matters that D, as the medical expert, has authority over, namely medical/dietetic information.
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The passages in the two Wnal extracts in the last section were relatively simple examples of how the speakers in the dietetic interview used ‘tokens-ina-series’. In some other passages the mix of tokens is more complex and varied, and currently it is beyond the scope of current knowledge to explain all the choices speakers make. This will provide a challenge to further understanding of response tokens in future research, for example how to track series of response tokens and attempt to unravel why participants choose a particular token at a certain point in the talk rather than another (or indeed another kind of minimal response, such as an assessment, or a more substantial topical turn). There are, of course, limitations to this line of research, as there are unlikely to be compelling reasons at all points for a particular token. Such an understanding of talk-in-interaction would presuppose something deterministic about the unfolding of the talk, whereas in fact speakers are constantly making local choices about how to respond, and these choices are jointly negotiated by participants. Nevertheless, as the examples in this segment show, it is at least at times possible to indicate some reasons for particular choices at particular points in the talk.
Conclusion There has also been little discussion in this chapter of the very important role of intonation and other prosodic features. This is highly complex, as prosody and intonation contribute very strongly to the functional variability of response tokens. The role of intonation is examined in some detail with respect to Mm in Chapter 6. Furthermore, the descriptions of each of the response tokens discussed in this chapter have been very partial. It has been the purpose of these descriptions to characterise the core functions, the most common uses, and the most typical ways in which they are used. The remainder of this book will focus on Mm, both as a response token in its own right, and in contrast to the most similar response tokens, Mm hm (and Uh huh) and Yeah. In these next chapters, there will be the in-depth examination of Mm that has been lacking for the surveys of response tokens in this chapter.
Chapter 3
Five types of Mm: The non-response tokens
Introduction Eight major types of Mm have been identiWed in the study of this response token, Wve of which are discussed in this chapter. The other three are types of response tokens, with three variants: weak acknowledgement, continuer, and assessment. These will be the major focus of Chapters 4 to 6. The weak acknowledgement token Mm is the most frequently occurring of the eight, and it is the most complex in terms of the environments in which it occurs and the actions it accomplishes. Therefore more attention is paid to this form than to the others. The eight types of Mm all have prototypical prosodic shapes. Some are unique to their type, making them identiWable on this criterion alone. The lapse terminator is a very long glissando (occasionally rise-falling). The degustatory Mm is a long, rise-falling token. The repair initiator rises. The ‘hesitation marker’ is Xat, either level or slightly rising or slightly falling. The answer and the response tokens are typically of medium length with a falling tone, although, as mentioned above, a signiWcant number of response token Mms do a rise-fall or a fall-rise. These last two can be distinguished by paying attention to their sequential position. The precise relationship (and etymology) of the eight Mms is not clear, but some preliminary grouping is possible. The Wrst to be discussed in this chapter occurs after a silence of at least several seconds: the lapse terminator token.1 This is used to re-engage in a conversation after a lapse.2 Unlike most Mms, this one is similar to a Wrst pair part in an adjacency pair in that it is not a response to an utterance in a conversation, although it could be argued that it is a response to silence. The second, the degustatory Mm, is a prosodically drawn out (drawled) token with a strongly rise-falling intonational shape, and is usually a response to a non-talk stimulus, most typically as an expression of pleasure in eating, or the prospect of eating,3 although it can also be a response
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to talk about some other pleasure evoking experience.4 These two tokens occur most typically in initial position, but in response to, or at least following, some action or event other than talk. The third, the repair initiator, also occurs in initial position in the adjacency pair, and does the same kind of work as Huh? or What?, namely it initiates repair (draws attention to some problem of understanding or hearing) in the turn after a trouble source turn. This one is rare in the data set. It has characteristics of a Wrst pair part in an adjacency pair, but, like all repair initiations, is also a response to some other talk. The fourth Mm, the ‘hesitation marker’, is very diVerent from the Wrst three, in that it cannot stand as a full turn in its own right, but is a kind of placeholder, Wlling what would otherwise be a silence. It appears to be saying something like, ‘I may not be saying anything topical at this point in my turn, but I am still in my turn, and shortly I will say something’. It appears to be a clipped form of Erm or Um, with the initial vowel missing, as it occurs in the same environments. The Wfth type, the answering Mm, shares with the response token Mm that it is a second pair part. The main diVerence is that the answering Mm is a response to a question (in a similar way to Yes or Yeah when they are used to answer questions), whereas the response token Mm is a response to some other action of talk, typically an informing or aYrmation or an expression of opinion. Apart from this diVerence, the answer and the response token are very similar in most respects, not least in their prosodic shape. These Wve are discussed in this chapter. They proved relatively easy to characterise quite brieXy. The response token Mm with its variants is treated separately in the following three chapters because it is not only by far the most frequently occurring of the diVerent Mms in the data set, but also the type about which there is most to be said. Any talk following an Mm is not criterial in identifying the token, apart from the ‘hesitation marker’ Mm, which is reserving the next ‘space’ in a conversation for its utterer. All the other Mms can be followed either by the same or by another speaker, although the response token, the answer, and the repair initiator are most typically followed by talk by another. Mm as a sound, as the phone [m], has some characteristics that make it distinctive in certain respects in English (and in many other languages). As a bilabial nasal continuant, it is the only sound in English which has the mouth closed from onset to termination. Further, there is no lip, tongue or jaw movement during the production of the sound, i.e. there is essentially no movement of the mouth and jaws associated with its production. The low prominence of the auditory production is thus complemented by a visual
Five types of Mm
message that the producer of these tokens is presenting minimal vocal activity and labial closure. The sound [m] is the only one in English that carries all these minimal characteristics. That is, there is an iconicity between the minimal message picked up in the auditory and visual channels, and the low level of active involvement in the conversation. In addition, this token (together with Mm hm, Uh huh and some other sounds such as Hm, Erm, and Uh) is amongst the semantically most reduced objects found in English conversation. It displays no understanding of a prior utterance in the way that a recipient inquiry Does she? or an acknowledging Yeah can do, though it can be argued that it claims such understanding. It is perhaps then not surprising that a minimal token such as Mm will have multiple uses. The problem of classiWcation, however, is not to be underestimated. There are a number of cases for which it has not been possible to assign a particular instance of an Mm to any one discrete category. This is partly a function of the fuzziness of lexical items in general, but the item Mm, with its inherent semantic emptiness, is particularly dependent on its environment for the work it does. In the overwhelming majority of cases, though, it was possible to make a more or less conWdent decision on the type of Mm that is being dealt with. The eight types identiWed are unlikely to constitute the whole ‘set’ of Mms that exist in English conversation and talk-in-interaction. Nevertheless, a description of many of the major types of actions that Mm accomplishes can be undertaken with some conWdence.
The Lapse Terminator Mm The lapse terminating Mm, as its name suggests, occurs after a lapse in the conversation, or a silence approaching a lapse, which means more than about three seconds or so of silence in the conversation (see Sacks et al. 1974). This Mm is, in all cases in the collection, prosodically a protracted glissando, that is, a very long, stretched out token. It falls from mostly high pitch to low pitch, and in some cases rises before it falls. This makes it prosodically a very distinctive variant. Speakers regularly do not simply launch into new topical talk after a lapse, but produce a token such as Mm, Ah, Yeah, Right, or also throat clearing, or loud, strong inbreaths. This can be seen as an action in place of a summonsanswer sequence, as in:
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(1) 1 2 3 4 5
Chinese Dinner Jer: → Ann: Jer:
(4.0) Momm[y? [ Well- ((clears throat)) (0.4) Uhdih[you know avry single color
On some occasions at least, after a silence, a speaker will Wrst need to ensure that a co-present speaker is paying attention, before doing the Wrst substantial turn at talk. Mm and other lapse terminators appear to be doing summonsing work akin to the work done in a summons-answer sequence exempliWed in fragment (1). The lapse terminator marks a re-engagement in the talk in this way, as in all cases discovered it is followed by further talk, in most cases by the same speaker, but sometimes by another. One striking characteristic of this type of Mm is that the talk that follows it in all cases picks up the topic of the talk from before the lapse, generally as a formulation of that prior talk. Other objects that follow a lapse do not share this characteristic. There is a striking similarity here with the weak acknowledging token Mm. In the relatively low number of cases in which the acknowledging Mm is followed by same speaker talk, that talk is either on a brand new topic, or it recycles an aspect of the topic from before the immediately prior turn constructional unit, i.e. from before the one to which it is oriented. In this sense, the lapse terminator Mm can be seen to be recycling the topic from before the lapse, whereby the lapse, rather than immediately prior talk by another speaker, can be seen as coming between the Mm and the topical talk that it is picking up. In cases where tokens other than Mm are used in post-lapse position, the topic of the pre-lapse talk is not recycled. There is also a sense, as with a number of other type of Mm, in which the token is being used to close and terminate a prior action in the talk — in the case of the post-lapse Mm as a terminator of protracted conversational silence, and in the case of the acknowledging Mm to propose that its speaker has nothing to add to the immediately prior turn. A further characteristic shared with the response token Mm is that next speaker is not selected. Sometimes, as in fragment (2), another participant goes on to talk, whilst on other occasions, as in fragment (4), the same speaker continues, but in all cases the talk that follows it is a formulation of the talk preceding the lapse. It is also probably signiWcant that none of the lapses is extreme (the longest being 9.1 seconds). This constitutes some evidence that the topic has not been fully abandoned by the participants during the lapse (i.e. the topic may still
Five types of Mm
have held their attention during the lapse, at least part of the time). In this sense these Mms ‘repair’ the lapse: they put aside the silence to reconstitute the topic from before the lapse as the topic for the ensuing sequence. This would appear to be one way in which the use of this token diVers from some other ways in which lapse-type silences are broken. In (2), a lapse terminator Mm occurs after a silence of over nine seconds. The talk following this Mm, which is by a speaker other than the Mm producer, concerns an upshot of the previous stretch of talk: Mal suggests they help their relatives, who have been going through diYcult times, as much as they can. (2)
L&MH3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Mal: Mar: Mar:
Mal: Mar: → Mar:→ Mal: Mal:
°Th’t’s nodda [problem°.= [·hh =w’ll it’s ↑jest↑ I’ve got- my le:c↑Yeh I j’s:t-< hh o::h hh. (9.1) ↑*°Mm:::::°*.= =↑#°Wi’ll help th’m ez much ez we ca:n°#. (0.4) #°Ye:h[s:°#]?
In fragment (3), two lapse terminator Mms occur, the Wrst after a 5.5 second gap (line 7). This one is less stretched than the other lapse terminator Mms in the data set, but is nevertheless longer than typical examples of other Mms (with the exception of the degustatory Mm). Again, it is followed by a formulation of the talk before the Mm. The second one (line 16) is diVerent from the examples so far, in that it is not followed by a further short silence, but by immediate continuation by the Mm producer. Otherwise it is typical, being another formulation of the prior talk. Here Bob has been talking about his parents, in particular about his father, who has an alcohol problem. (3)
A&BD3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Bob:
Bob: → Ann:→
I said look if you ring me up, en I know alcohol’s been involved, (0.5) I’m not prepared to listen to anything, an’ I’m not prepared ta say anything. (.) e:m , there won’t be any point talking. (5.5) Mm::.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
Bob:
Bob:
→ Ann:→ Bob: Ann: Bob:
(0.2) Yeh-, (.) no:, I pulled that one withoud any (.) problems whatsoever. (3.0) I said I’m quite prepared ta talk ta ya, about↑anything an’ ev’rything, if you’re stone cold so:ber. (7.8) Mm::::. hh well you hadd’n eventful da:y, did’n you. nhh= =mah:,= ‘t’s a busy da[:y, ‘n’ th’n as I]sa:y, I= [°nhhh huh huh° ] =spoke to a woman by the name of Jo:y,= ad AA:,5= fer a liddle while¿ (1.3)
Not all lapse terminator Mms have a straight falling contour. In (4), which is from the same stretch of talk as fragment (3), the contour is a rise-fall, although otherwise the prosodic features of the token are similar to the ones shown so far: a stretched, very long Mm terminating at low pitch. There is evidence in this sequence that the topic has been running down in the talk leading to the lapse (viz. the pauses and minimal responses in lines 8 to 11). A brief lapse follows, which is broken by the rise-falling, long Mm in line 13. In this case it is the Mm producer herself, Ann, who follows the Mm with talk, which again is a formulation of the previous stretch of talk, this time as both gist (That’s done) and an assessment (Thank goodness for that). (4)
A&BD3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
Bob:
Ann:
Bob: Bob: → Ann:→ Ann:
Ann:
Neither of them was comf’table talking to me, or being spoken to the way I woz (0.5) (or I) say I woz quite stern aboud it¿ I js- (.) stuck ta the facts as much as I could¿ (0.9) It’s like the roles ‘ve been reversed, don’t you think¿ (0.5) Mm. (0.4) Yeh(6.7) Mm::*:*. (1.9) Yeah well¿ (.) That’s done. Thank goodness fer that. nhh (0.4) ·hh ‘n’ I gather you said ta them th’t you weren’t
Five types of Mm
20 21
gonna speak ta them if: (0.2)
Here the diVerent shapes of two kinds of Mm are apparent: the Wrst, in line 9, is an acknowledging Mm that is short and falls; the second, in line 13, has the typical glissando shape, albeit with some rise before the fall, of the lapse terminator Mm. In (5), a lapse terminator Mm occurs after a 5.1 second silence (in line 9). It starts at high pitch, and, after rising a little, drops through a glissando to low. This one is followed by other speaker talk on an aspect of the topic that has just run down. In this case, the talk following the Mm is the upshot of the previous stretch of talk (cf. Heritage and Watson 1979). This is not apparent from the fragment, but for about three hundred lines of transcript leading up to this point, an underlying theme has been running through their conversation, namely to ascertain what each will be doing for the next few days, so that arrangements for the care of their daughters can be made. The ‘upshot’ in lines 11–12 is that Ben commits himself to Wnding time on the following Wednesday to look after the children. (5)
A&BF3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Ben:
Ann: Ben: Ann: → Ann:→ Ben:
Ann: Ben:
((clears throat)) ↑Yea:h; it’s ackshly; (.) good way e- (.) ev being honoured;= ‘n a wa:y¿ ↑’t’s nice. ↑°Mm:°. a:fter the debarcle ev th’ end ev la:st yea:r,= (w[ith ),] (° °) [(That’s ri::ght), ] (5.1) ↑Mm:::::. (0.4) We:ll-; (.) >I mi:gh- >s’t’v< see ‘f I c’n gets’me< ti:me Wen:sde:e¿ (1.2) T’ go↓:¿ ((clears throat)) Yep-_ hh
The next example in fragment (6) has a delayed acknowledging Mm in line 10, which is a response to Bob’s talk in lines 6 and 8, i.e. a second pair part receipt of that talk. This Mm comes before a long silence of 4.6 seconds, which in turn is followed by another Mm, which has many of the characteristics of a lapse terminator.
71
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When Listeners Talk
(6)
A&BD3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Ann: Bob: Bob: Ann: Bob: Bob: → Ann:→ → Ann:→ Ann:
Yea [:h, I like the ]sound ev that one¿ hh ·hh= [then I’ll do it.] =Well I gave ‘em both options¿= =·hh hhhn (3.0) Though I said (.) I am prepared ta do it. (0.9) ‘t’s up to you:. (2.1) °Mm:°. (4.6) Mm:::. (0.5) Did you actually speak (.) much with your mother? or was it all (.) virtually with your father. (0.6)
This second Mm comes after a shorter silence than any other lapse terminator Mm in the data set, and in addition it is shorter than others of its type that were found. There appears to be a relationship here between the relative shortness of the preceding silence and the relative shortness of the token, which comes at a point that appears to be temporally at the boundary between the a (very) delayed, and typically shorter response token, and the lapse terminator, with its typically longer shape. Apart from its shape, this appears to be being used as a lapse terminator token in so far as the talk that follows it resumes the topic from before the silence (and before the other Mm). The eVect of these two Mms in tandem in this fragment is, amongst others, to keep the conversation from lapsing. Note that if they had been absent, there would have been a gap of about eight seconds, and at this point the parties would be likely to have disengaged from the conversation (cf. Goodwin 1981). An Mm with many of the characteristics of a lapse terminator, but which follows an even shorter silence, is found in fragment (7). This one is prosodically indistinguishable from an acknowledging Mm, and the silence it follows is well short of lapse length. However, there are sequential aspects of this Mm that suggest it is plausibly a lapse- (or more accurately an silence-) terminator type. Sally announces news of the death of an acquaintance which, it turns out, Ron has already heard. She then goes on to announce the location of the funeral, which appears to be real news for Ron: his use of the change-of-state token Oh (cf. Heritage 1984b) is evidence for this. He then utters the short Mm after 1.2 seconds.
Five types of Mm
(7)
R&SB3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Sal:
Sal: Ron: Sal: Ron: → Ron:→ Ron:
Did I tell you that Herbert Ba:rstow wes: (1.4) <was die::d>¿ (1.1) A:n: [d (hi-) ] [>I: knew] that<. (0.2) A:nd his- (0.3) his funeral service w’s at St Peter’s. tk↑O:h↑_ °yes°. (1.2) °Mm:°. (1.9) Oka:y, ((clears throat)) b’t ho((cough))w about the next weekend. (0.8)
After Ron’s Oh yes, there is a gap of 1.2 seconds and the Mm, which is sequentially in a position where there is no requirement for such a token, as he has already responded to Sally’s news with tokens that are more replete with inherent response information than the Mm: the Oh with its ‘change-of-state’ and the Yeah with its positive alignment. In fact, an Mm in any other than Wrst position in a turn, unless it follows another Mm, is exceedingly rare in the data examined: Mms occur overwhelmingly as the Wrst (or only) unit of talk in their speakers turn. The suggestion then is that if, as has already been argued above, one takes the silence as the conversational phenomenon to which the lapse terminator is responding, then this Mm is, like almost all other Mms, the Wrst unit of talk in its speaker’s turn. In other words, it is hard to argue that this Mm is a response token responding to Sally’s turn. It is also followed by a resumption of an activity from before the silence, namely the planning of activities on the following weekends. So this Mm is best interpreted as a token that is responding to a growing, albeit relatively short, silence, and resuming the activity of talk from before the silence. Further, its shortness is iconic to the shortness of the silence before the Mm, in a similar way to the very lengthened post-lapse Mms above being iconic to the long silences that they terminate. For comparison, a few examples of other ways in which protracted silences can be terminated are examined next. In fragment (8) there is a long stretch of nearly 40 seconds (lines 4 to 11) without any topical talk. There is an isolated, quiet Yeah in line 6, and an audible outbreath in line 8, neither of which is apparently responding to any talk, and neither of which is further analysed here. About 17 seconds after the outbreath there is a ‘lax token’ (cf. JeVerson
73
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When Listeners Talk
1978b), transcribed as ·Mgh articulated on an inbreath gutturally and nasally, and a very breathy hhahh. (8)
L&MC2ai
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Liz:
Mel: → Mel:→ → Mel:→ → Mel:→ → → Mel:→
Well I think I’d rather- (0.1) listen anyway;= bicoz if you- (0.1) watch it;= you ca:n’ d’anything e:lse. ((blows nose)) (8.0) °Yea:hh°. (9.4) hhh (17.1) ·Mgh hhahh (3.7) ((background noises: clearing dishes etc)) °What ti:me d’ya hafta be et wo:rk temorra°, Liz: E:rhm, wehll;= ‘m teaching et ni:ne.
This ·Mgh hhahh comes at a position where a lapse terminator Mm might occur, except that the topic of the talk that follows it is not on the topic of the talk prior to this long stretch of (mainly) non-talk. It appears that this utterance is signalling non-disengagement in the conversation, as it is followed within less than four seconds, that is, at a point of incipient lapse, by more talk, in the form of a question. It should also be noted that the participants appear, from the audible background noises, to be clearing dishes after a meal, which in part explains the protracted stretch of non-talk. In fragment (9) another token, an Ah,6 is used in post-lapse position. Again, this lapse-breaking token comes not before a formulation of the talk before the lapse, but before a completely new topic to the conversation. (9)
I&JW3a
1 Jan: 2 3 Ike: 4 Jan: 5 → 6 Jan:→ 7 8 Ike: 9 Jan: 10 11 Ike:
Wi don’ >have any-< (0.2) ↓dips:: left;= °do w [e°, [He:y? WI DON’ HAVE ANY DI:PS LEFT. (22.8) A:::h;= I sh’d ring Melinda ‘n sa:y; (1.2) no: fer [t’ m o: rr o:w.]= [‘bout tomorrow;]= =Yea:h. (2.2) Dju think shi ↓mi:ght come t’mo:rrow¿
Five types of Mm
In (10) the re-engagement in talk after a substantial lapse in the talk is heralded by a particularly loud inbreath followed by a loud outbreath. It may be that this is another resource that participants have to let other parties know that talk is about to resume, as audible inbreaths are one ‘signal’ of an incipient turn (in pre-onset position). In this case, however, as it is at the very beginning of the recording of this conversation, it is not possible to say what talk had been going on prior to this talk. (10) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
A&BD3a/2
Bob:→
Ann:
(17.2) ((banging and sawing noises)) ·HH HH >Whad am I:n do;= I mi- j’s stick iz: ca::hr awa:y? ‘n’ get- that- do:ne¿ (0.7) O:wh;= right-. hh (0.3)
Inbreaths are noticeable pre-onset phenomena before talk, but the talk has lapsed in this sequence, so he may be doing extra work — markedly loud inbreath and loud outbreath — to get Ann’s attention and to re-engage in the talk. In (11) another device is used to break the lapse and to get the attention of the interlocutor: a throat clearing, which is a way to prepare the vocal tract for speaking. Not long after this, Mel, the throat clearer, resumes talk on a collateral branch of the topic from before the lapse, namely gambling, and some possible objects for the disbursement of any winnings he may accrue from the gambling. (11)
L&MC2aii
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Mel:
Mel: Mel: Liz: Mel: → Mel:→ → Mel:→ Liz:
I c’n tell you no:w;= I didn’ wi:n. ·hh I didn’ ged anythenk-; °th’ fi:rst horse°¿ (1.4) ↓°*sec’nd horse*° . (0.4) ↑I ↓w’s= =( -) [(et the ] top). [() ] (7.1) ((clears throat)) (1.0) ·hh en I w’z thinking:-; (0.4) I deserve a new ca:r¿ °so that w’d be;= the fi:rst thi:ng°. uh huh (.) °heh heh°
75
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When Listeners Talk
Parties can also launch straight into talk after a lapse, as in fragment (12), where a non-speciWc formulation, so there we are, comes as part of a sequence in which topic attrition is occurring, with two assessments (very good), and other formulations (that was Wednesday, didn’t do any work) co-occurring. (12)
L&MC2ai
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Liz:
Liz: Mel: Liz: Mel: → Liz:→ Mel: Liz: Mel: Liz:
↓huh huh↓ (0.1) huh huh (0.7) huh huh huh ·HHH O:h_ dea:r. (0.7) °↓huh huh↓ huh huh° Mi:ght be someone you do:n’t kno:w. (0.5) Mm:. (0.1) ea:sil[y. [((clears throat)) (7.7) >So the’ wi a:re<. (1.0) >Very good<.= =That w’z We:nsda:y. (0.6) ↓°(Very good)°↓. Didn’ do any wo:rk, (10.4)
An even more abrupt lapse termination is found in fragment (13), in which a nine second lapse is followed by an oVer, done very minimally as wanna drink. The fact that there is nothing detectable done to support this bald oVer may help explain why it gets no response, and needs to be redone more speciWcally (as the kind of drink Jan is oVering). (13) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
I&JW3a Ike: Ike: Jan: → Jan:→ Jan: Ike: Jan:
(0.7) ↓Don’t thro:w et, (0.2) We need it for meters. (0.8) I denno:,= sloppy work↓manship, (9.2) Wanna drin:k? (2.2) Scotch er ↑sunning? (0.4) ((sniff) Yeh-, (5.2) Or a G an’ T:? (1.5)
Five types of Mm
16 17
Ike:
((clears throat)) (2.4)
A Wnal example of getting out of lapses is found in fragment (14), which, like fragment (13), is unsupported by any lapse-terminating signalling. In this case Matt, after a lapse of nearly ten seconds, asks Nik to remind him of something. It may be signiWcant, as in fragment (11), that this unmitigated post-lapse request is followed by a repair, this time initiated by the other speaker. Nik has not been prepared in any way — neither by a pre-request, nor by a post-lapse token — to re-engage in the talk. (14)
P&QT2a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Nik:
Mat: Nik: Mat: → Mat:→
Nik: Mat:
[Only in the la:h- (.) we::ll. he’s been a problem; ·nhhhh (0.4) >sordev-< (0.3) very slo::w, (0.2) th’t they’re;= s:ordev ecknowledging no:w, (0.8) [Oh;= yes:,] [Coz he’s;] (.) ↓needing special: treatment↓. (0.2) Ye:h. (9.5) Do ↑not- let me ferget-;= ta- (.) ta:hke th’ padlock up- ta my luggage. (.) °thad I used f’r the Phillapi:nes°. (0.4) ↑What- ↓padlock. (0.2) M:y bi:ke padlock. (1.1)
It seems then that some indication that talk is to resume after a lapse, i.e. some kind of re-engagement marker or summons, is the norm. This could be a naming (summons), an Mm or other minimal token, including a lax token, or a marked inbreath. Its absence may, as in these last two fragments, lead to a need for repair work. From these examples of post-lapse talk, it appears that Mm is one resource that is used regularly to terminate a lapse. What makes the Mm distinctive from other resources that can terminate a protracted silence is that the talk following the lapse is a formulation of the topic of the talk preceding the lapse, so it reconstitutes (or, broadly speaking, repairs) what has been abandoned. In this sense, the lapse terminator Mm has some of the force of the response token Mm, namely it is saying that the action preceding the Mm, in this case silence (and presumably non-verbalised thoughts), can be terminated, with no further
77
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When Listeners Talk
talk on what was going on during that activity (the silence), though there is some talk on what had been going on before the lapse. This Mm also has a very characteristic prosodic shape, in that it is invariably very stretched, and moves from high pitch to low pitch, sometimes with a rise in pitch before the fall. The only other Mm type that is so long is the degustatory Mm. The lapse repair Mm is thus one of the most distinctive Mms in terms of its prosody.
The Degustatory Mm A second type of Mm is the degustatory token, which can be considered a subtype of the assessment Mm discussed in Chapter 6. It may well be that the etymology of this Mm is diVerent from the other Mms. It appears to be prototypically associated with pleasurable ingestion of food. It also appears to have acquired a metaphorical use, so that it is also used in anticipation of the pleasure of eating, or when talking of eating, or even with non-gastronomical pleasure, for example sexual or smoking,7 evidence for all of which were found in the data. The degustatory Mm is usually a very long Mm with a strongly rise-falling shape. The most similar token is the lapse terminator Mm, which is also very long, but which usually does a straight fall, and most frequently falls from mid rather than high pitch. The latter is also typically a Xatter token, even when it takes on a rise-falling shape. The degustatory Mm is not common in the core Australian data. The richest source for this type has been two American conversations, Chicken Dinner and Chinese Dinner. The titles of these two transcripts provide the clue that they are eating events, where it is to be expected that some of the talk and activity will concern food, and the guests would produce a more than usual number of degustatory Mms to express appreciation of the food. The Wnding that the degustatory Mm is relatively common in these two conversations has further implications that concern the distribution of Mm in three major ‘dialects’ of English: Australian, British and US. It has been found that overall Mm is most frequent in the Australian data, also frequent in the British data, but infrequent in the American data, except in the two transcripts Chicken Dinner and Chinese Dinner. A signiWcant number of the Mms in these two dinner party conversations were degustatory Mms, and not response
Five types of Mm
Mms that form the bulk of the occurrences of Mm in both the Australian and British data. One way in which the degustatory Mm can sometimes be formally distinguished from the lapse terminator Mm is that whilst the former is often (and the latter always) preceded by a lapse, the degustatory Mm is not necessarily followed by talk. It can also be identiWed by reference to the activities with which it occurs, at least when that activity, namely eating or some talk about food, can be heard on the audiotape (or seen and heard on the videotape). The Wrst example of a degustatory Mm is from the author’s own Australian data, with an Anglo-Australian husband, and a Japanese wife who had been in Australia for about three years when the recording was made. It is the Japanese wife who produces the Mms in this fragment.8 Keiko and her husband are preparing their evening meal, and at this section of the conversation the talk has lapsed. Keiko appears to be tasting some of the food that she is preparing. (15) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
K&LM4b
Kei:→
Kei:→
(31.0) ((munching sounds)) Mm:::. ((glissando)) (69.0) ((munching sounds, running water)) Mm::::. ((glissando)) (44.5) ((munching and chopping sounds))
Why should it be that Mm can be used as an expression of gastronomic pleasure? The point was made at the beginning of this chapter that the most common use of this token is as a minimal response token, and that the sound [m] is particularly suited to doing this receipt work, as there is an iconicity between the initial, medial and terminal labial closure and a lack of movement of the jaws on the one hand, and the most minimal interactional work that this token generally accomplishes. A similar argument can be put forward for the use of the same sound, though with a much more marked prosody, to express gastronomic pleasure. If the behavioural derivation of this token is to express pleasure whilst eating, then [m], as the only sound in English (and in most other languages) with labial closure throughout its production, is fundamentally suited to the task as being the sound that allows some vocal expression whilst avoiding egestion of food. The most frequent choice of the rise-fall contour provides this sound with an intonational overlay that expresses heightened involvement in the activity, in this case the expression of a particu-
79
80
When Listeners Talk
lar pleasure (see Chapter 6). In the core Australian data used for this book, there is only one clear example of a degustatory Mm, which is reproduced in fragment (16). This comes from a sequence in which Nik and her husband Matt are preparing food for their evening meal. At the point in question, Nik has just tried a marinade they have been making. (16) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
P&QT2a Nik:
Nik: ?: Nik:→
Nik: Nik:
(3.8) ↑The’re a wie::rd thi:ng:,= the’re n↑ot rilly ↓m:eaty. (0.4) w’n ya see:;= j’s this lid’l brocc’↑lee? (0.8) tsk (0.5) ↑Mm:::↑. (.) ↓oo:h,= ni:ce marina:de, (1.9) ((slurping sound)) ‘cept- ‘t’s ↓*in a (crack)*↓. (1.3) (↑Hang ↓on,) (1.2)
Matt is not contributing to the talk during this sequence, although he is copresent. In the silence leading up to line 9, Nik must have tried the marinade, and her response is a long, rise-falling Mm at high pitch, which is followed by an assessment of the marinade. She then audibly tries some more, as the slurping sounds that follow this talk testify. The remainder of the examples in this section come from American data, all but one from Chicken Dinner and Chinese Dinner. In the Wrst of these fragments, the guests have begun to eat the eponymous chicken, and Nan makes a complimentary comment on its quality in lines 1 and 3. (17)
Chicken Dinner
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Nan: Viv: Nan: Viv: Sha: Nan:→ Sha:
[(Viv)-] [The chicken is rilly goo:d. You li [ke it? [Very very good. °O©kay[good.©° [Yuwuh (.) g’ss I g’d say ih same abaht p’t [atoes. [↑Mm::. (0.8) whhh-hh huh-hh-hh-hh-hh
Five types of Mm
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
Viv: Mic:→ Nan:→ Mic: Viv: Viv: Mic:
↑Fine I’ll nevuh cook f’you again. Mm:. (0.6) Mm:. It is good. (0.7) Like it? (0.6) (G’d.) Yeh
Very soon after this, in line 7, she produces an Mm that has the characteristic shape of the degustatory token, stretched, and with a punched up contour from a high pitch onset. The two other Mms in this sequence, Michael’s in line 11 and another by Nancy in line 13, are less clearly degustatory, being relatively short, but they nevertheless occur in the environment of talk about food, and both are loud and quite long. The next fragment (18) also occurs around talk about and ingestion of food, this time from the Chinese Dinner conversation. Beth has just brought in some duck sauce and mustard and oVered it to the dinner guests. A few seconds later Don utters a longish and loud Mm, and a few seconds after that John does two Mms, the Wrst long and with a rise-falling contour, the second quite loud and with very animated intonation. (18)
Chinese Dinner
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
Bet: Bet: Bet: Joh: Bet: Jer: Don:→ Jer: Joh: Ann: Don: Joh:→ Joh:→ Jo?:
Here’s the duck sauce. (1.0) ((Beth sits, then John sits.)) En here’s the mustard. (0.7) Oh:: there’s one more thing. Hnh! An that i:s, here kitty, hh! (1.5) ((Beth leaves with kitten)) °( ). Mmm. °( ) How’r you folks doing? °Oka:y? ‘Kay, (2.3) Mmm. (1.0) Mm! (2.8) °( ). (0.8)
81
82
When Listeners Talk
22 23 24 25 26
Bet:
Don:
Hnhehhhhhhh, ((Sitting down at table)) (0.7) Don they have any:, (0.7) uhm, (0.3) duck, (0.4) (Wuddyuhcallit) duck[(sauce).
The position of these two Mms in the discourse so soon after the sauce (and the mustard) have been placed on the table suggests that it is most likely that they are responding to the food. They have had a few seconds to look at, smell and perhaps even taste the sauce. In fragment (19), from the same conversation, Beth is commenting on how good the soup is, in the present tense, indicating that she is imbibing, or has just imbibed, the soup. In this case it must have been done between mouthfuls, as she could not have made the comment the soup is goo:d without spluttering some of it audibly. (19) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Chinese Dinner Bet: Bet: Bet:→ Jer: T?J: Ter:
Bet: Bet: Ter:
(1.5) =Maybe she would be more gentle with us if we were That’s true ( ) [Mmm:: the soup is goo:d, [De::::n, even if we try tuh pet ‘er. .hh duh more gentle with her. [( )] One two [t h r e e f o u r, ] whack out ‘er a::nd maybe then we, (0.3) (0.7) Terry y’wanna have some? [Here Terry [five!
A Wnal example of the degustatory Mm and the concurrent enjoyment of the taste is fragment (20), where the Mm is much shorter than typical ones, but where the juxtaposition of the Mm and the assessment of the quality of the food, together with the Mm coming after an 8.8 second lapse in the conversation, means this cannot be a response token Mm. It comes in what could be a lapse terminator Mm position, which it may in part be, but the association with the positive assessment of the chicken suggests that the Mm has at least some degustatory quality to it. Note that all lapse terminator Mms in the data have a glissando shape and fall much more markedly to low than the token in this fragment. However, it is also quite likely that this Mm is doubling up as a degustatory Mm and a lapse terminator Mm.
Five types of Mm
(20)
Chicken Dinner
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Mic: Sha: Mic: Sha: Mic:→ Viv: Sha: Nan:
He dzn’ (.) He doesn’ ca:re (0.6) Mm hm, (0.2) Yihknuh? ih, (0.6) °Right,° (8.8) Mm chick’wz so guhd (1.3) °Oh guhd° (Good ^boy [©yee) [I wz hungry (0.9)
These Wrst six examples of degustatory Mms are all ones in which their speaker is tasting or has just, or at least appears to have just tasted some food, or is still, in some way, experiencing the taste. In the next batch, the speaker of the degustatory Mm does not appear to have actually tasted food, but is uttering the Mm in anticipation of tasting, but without the direct taste of the food in the mouth. This use of the degustatory Mm is indexical of the direct, concurrent association of its utterance and the ingestion of food, at one remove, so to speak, from the actual experience. Typically, as in fragments (15), (16), (19) and (20), and in the second and third Mms in (17) above, the Mm is the Wrst element in a Wrst pair part of an adjacency pair9 (though they do not always get their second pair parts). This is because such Mms are not responses to some talk, but comments on the food they are tasting.10 In fragment (21) the temporal dislocation of the utterance of the Mm from the primary site of tasting and verbal response to tasting is further underlined by the fact that the Mm in line 15, which has some of the characteristics of the degustatory Mm, is a second pair part to Don’s assessment of the bean curd. (21)
Chinese Dinner
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Don: ???: Ter: Don: Don:
[I guess I’ll[sit over here. ((Moving towards seat)) [( ), [( [ ).] [( [ ).] ((At his place,phone hung up.)) [(en all th [at). ((Beth leaves, Don sits.))
83
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When Listeners Talk
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Ann: Don: Jer: Don:→ Ann:→
Ron: Bet: Bet:
[That’s a won ton. Hey that [bean sprout[(I don’ even want that!)/(What is a won ton!) That bean curd thing looks pretty good, Mmm. (4.0) ((John and Beth return)) ((Whistling)) la ti la[ti la ti ] do [O:kay. ] ‘Kay whydnche[sit-
Don’s comment on the bean curd dish as looking pretty good, responded to by Ann’s long Mm in second position, has some of the characteristics of a response token Mm, but its length, and the positioning immediately after an assessment of food, suggests it has blended some degustatory element to the response token. Again, a certain aYnity with the rise-falling assessment Mm discussed in Chapter 6 is evident. A very similar example is presented in fragment (22), where Beth has just commented that the Beef Peking is very good, and Don prefaces his proVering of the knives with an Mm, which has characteristics of a response token Mm again, but which may have been indexically pushed toward the Mm by this talk of food. (22)
Chinese Dinner
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Ann:
Bet: Ann: Bet: Don:→ Bet: Ann:
[Hey waitaminnit. They told us (0.6) Don said get something hot’n spicy en thisthey said this was and it isn’t. ( ). The, Beef Pek [ing? [Yeah! It’s very good. Mm. Here’r the knives, °Okay gimme two [maybe three [( ). [Mm hm [( ).
Two Wnal food examples are fragments (23) and (24), which represent instances in which the association with food ingestion is less direct, but the talk is about food, and as such this may be pushing the speaker’s choice towards an Mm, and in particular a degustatory Mm, rather than one of the other members of the set of possible brief responses in positions such as these. Other possible choices of tokens here might be Mm hm, Uh huh or Yeah. In (23) the Mm is longer than a typical response token Mm would be, whereas in (24) the Mm is indistinguishable from such an Mm.
Five types of Mm
(23)
Chinese Dinner
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Bet:
(24)
Chinese Dinner
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Don:
Jer: Don: Bet: Don: Joh:→ Jer: Bet:
Bet: Don: Bet: Don: Bet:→ Joh: Bet: Joh:
It looks like beef’n bean curd. (1.0) Well I wan’ lots of beef I think it’s pork. Oh. Pork. Mm hm. (0.5) Mmm. (0.4) Okay that’s enough. °Okay.
=[I think it’s duck sauce [°(thet you got) [Yeh that’s du [ck sah]ss.= [( )] =[Right. =[(You know,) (0.4) Mm. This course’ll be given at Jef [ferson Hospital nex’ week er ]= [But I mean people who’r no:t ,] =something like[that,=
The point to make here is that with Mms being relatively scarce in the American data, the ones that do occur appear to skew towards the degustatory type and are associated with the ingestion of food, or with talk about food. Two Wnal examples are included to suggest that the degustatory Mm can be used metaphorically, in the Wrst instance not terribly far removed from eating, in relation to ‘pleasure in smoking’, and in the second instance arguably also not terribly far removed, in relation to ‘pleasure associated with sex’. Fragment (25) is from Chicken Dinner. (25)
Chicken Dinner
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Nan: Nan: Nan: Mi?: Sha:
Thi(h)it guy wz °( )° (0.2) ?he::hh (0.3) That wz (cra:zy). nhh hn . (1.1) °( )° (0.5) ehh heh hn
85
86
When Listeners Talk
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
Mic:→ ???:→ Sha: Nan: Mi?: Sha: Mic: Viv: Nan:
(0.4) (Like) this cigarette huh? (0.7) °°Mm:: [:.°° [hmh hmh hm (0.5) Kin I hev ye [r ligh [t? [(hhh) [ [hn ^hnh °(My li[ght)° [eh heh-heh-huh ^hu [h h u h huh] they do[n’t like smo:k [ e.
Michael appears to oVer some unidentiWed party a cigarette in line 11, the response to which (line 13) is a quiet, very extended, punched up Mm that has all the hallmarks of a degustatory Mm, except for its low amplitude. Note that the transference from degustation is not very far removed at all: from one oral activity to another. The Wnal example, fragment (26), is from a dirty story in the Auto Discussion conversation told by Mike. (26)
Auto Discussion
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
Gar: Mik: Gar: Cur: Mik: Gar: Mik: Gar: Mik: Gar: Mik: Cur: Mik:→ → → Gar:→ Kid: Cur: Mik: Cur: Mik: Cur:
[All the other girls,] [settin around in the,] [Ra:stus bought imself] a new s[ports c a r ]y’kno:w¿ ] [grass somewhere ]’n ta ]lkin’n,= =eh::¿ ‘n eez drivin downa stree[t’n passes Li:za.’n ‘e s’z,] [( )],= =( gets up) b’hind e [r ‘e s’z [( ). ehh-eh eh:: [: heh. plot pl]ots, [stops y’know en-] eh-e[h-e::h. [C’mohh:n Liza lemme take yih fo’a rahd in dee ca::h. ‘e says. ehh::::huh ehhuh So, (0.5) Liza gets in en they go buzzin aroun town for awhile’n, (1.0) pretty soon Liza’s playin with him y’know? (0.4) Mm[mm:::h= [°( [ ). = [I’m all f [er Liza pla(h)y(h)in with ]= [°ya-a-ayehhhah hah hah hah]= =him(h)hih ha[h ?hnhhhh [A:lraht,
Five types of Mm
27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34
Mik: Cur: Mik: Mik: Gar: Cur: Mik:
Lits heah i [t one tahm fe [r L i : : z a !] [Mm, [eh-huh rilly ya]::[:::y! [heh-uh hah-u h hu [::h [eh-heh[huh= [.hhhh!= = [he:h [he:h [he:h he:h
In his turn starting in line 16, Mike starts to tell how Liza starts to ‘play’ with Rastus whilst they are driving around. In response to this, Gary produces a very long, rise-falling Mm that has all the characteristics of the degustatory Mm, albeit in the non-typical position of responding to talk, rather than an activity such as eating or appreciating food. In this case, Gary is responding to a narrated sexual activity, which is aYliative to Mike’s story, and provides a way in for Curt’s escalation of appreciation in lines 22/24. This is, then, a case of a metaphorical dislocation of the Mm from expression of gastronomic pleasure to expression of sexual pleasure, removed from the actual occurrence into the imagined realm by the narration. Degustatory Mms have a very distinctive prosodic shape: they are typically very long, and have markedly punched up contours. In the data examined, they have been found to be most common in the environment of the ingestion of food, but they also occur regularly in the environment of talk about food. In addition it seems this variant of Mm can be transferred to activities other than eating to express some pleasure or anticipation of pleasure or imagination of pleasure in that activity, for example smoking or sex.
The ‘Hesitation Marker’ Mm The third type of Mm again appears unrelated to the response token Mm: the ‘hesitation marker’,11 a token that appears to be Wlling a pause in its speaker’s turn. This is most likely a clipped Erm or Uhm, uttered as a kind of turn-holder, with the initial vowel sound truncated. It most frequently occurs medially in a turn constructional unit, but there is evidence that at least some of the turninitial Mms are ‘hesitation markers’. This evidence is discussed below. This token is quite diVerent from the others discussed here in that it is a truncated or clipped form of another token that has a diVerent shape. Its inclusion here is on purely formal grounds, in that its sound is indistinguishable from other Mms.
87
88
When Listeners Talk
The ‘hesitation marker’ Mm, usually has a Xat, often level, continuative intonation contour, and does not in any of the cases identiWed in the data have a full falling contour that is characteristic of the acknowledging Mm. One way of identifying the ‘hesitation marker’ Mm is by its position in a turn: it occurs most frequently turn-medially, or, more accurately, medially within a turnconstructional unit. No other Mm occurs within a turn-constructional unit. If this variant of Mm occurs turn-initially, as it sometimes does, it needs to be distinguished from a response token Mm. This can be done partially on the prosodic grounds indicated above, that is, by its Xat, ‘continuative’ contour, especially as very few receptor Mms in the data set (see mainly Chapter 6) have a Xat, near level intonation Wnal pitch direction. However, ‘hesitation’ Mms can be most decisively identiWed through an analysis of their sequential position (see, for example, fragment (30) below). There is, though, a residue of cases of turn-initial Mms that cannot be conWdently ascribed either to the response or to the ‘hesitation marker’ Mm. As a ‘hesitation marker’, this Mm, when it occurs turn-initially, will overwhelmingly be followed by further talk, because a reason for its utterance is to signal that its utterer is taking a turn, and at this moment in the emerging talk has nothing substantial to say, but is, so to speak, reserving the current turn at talk and using the ‘hesitation marker’ to Wll a gap in the talk until whatever it is that its utterer is going to say can be said. It may, of course, happen that a party who uses a ‘hesitation marker’ will abandon the turn before the substantial talk emerges, so it is possible that an isolated Mm in someone’s turn at talk (i.e. one not accompanied by any same speaker talk) could be a ‘hesitation marker’. Perhaps the most likely environment for such a free-standing ‘hesitation marker’ would be in the face of competition for the Xoor, for example in a simultaneous start of a turn with another speaker, whereby the speaker of the ‘hesitation marker’ Mm drops out in the face of the competition. However, none of these free-standing ‘hesitation markers’ has been identiWed in the data, and their existence remains hypothetical. Before looking at some speciWc instances of this variant of Mm, it should be noted that it is in fact rare in the data. The nine cases below (not all of which are conWdently claimed as ‘hesitation markers’) are the sum total of instances of this token found in the extended data set, which runs to about 28,000 lines of transcription. In the Wrst example of Mm as a ‘hesitation marker’, the token comes at line 5 as an initiator of a self repair (cf. SchegloV et al. 1977). The couple are discussing children’s videos. Ben begins a turn constructional unit, and then
Five types of Mm
appears to completely abandon it and do something quite diVerent. Note that the ‘hesitation marker’ comes between two silences, and is lengthened and falls slightly, but not fully. (27)
A&BF3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Ann: Ben: Ann: Ben:→
Ann: Ben: Ann:
The Discovering S:eries:,= I think it’s ↑ca(h)l(h)led, huh huh huh huh huh Discovering (how ta ), HUH (.) huh huh (.) huh huh huh= =I l:ike the one where you (0.4) mm:; (0.8) ‘t’s rilly f:unny how they d o: that,= they- they ged all this (.) o:ld stuff;= they useta d↑o:,= when they ha- (.) ne (.) when they w’re origin’l, Mm:. [↑Yea:h]. an’ then reha [:sh] et. [end] re:hash et. (0.3) [M m: .]
The turn-medial Mm in fragment (28) is also an initiator of a same turn repair. Mel and Liz are going through their accounts, and Mel estimates how much they have spent on certain items: he revises his initial calculation from six to seven hundred dollars, the Mm coming after a pause of 0.4 seconds again, but this Mm, which is quiet and level, runs straight on to the repair itself without an ensuing pause. (28)
L&MC2aii
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Mel: Liz: Mel: → Liz: Liz: Mel:
°(Here’s) jest a hundrid en fordy ni:ne;= ( )= =[( )°°] =[tsk An: (.) put that] in the- [(box). [so the- (.) to:tal amount;= is: e:r, what- ↑six:h (0.4) ↓°mm:° ↑’bout seven hundred dollars.= (already next [yea:r)], [seven ] fordy on:e-; ‘t says et the boddem ev- (.) [( ) [O↑:h;= seven fiftee:n;= °(how ‘bout that)°.
A third example of a turn-medial ‘hesitation marker’, in fragment (29), is not in the environment of a repair, but appears to be a hesitation as Mel prepares what he is about to say (the continuation of the turn-constructional unit in progress). He is providing an account of why he has decided not to listen to the news regularly. This Mm comes after a long pause of two seconds at a point of maximum grammatical control,12 and is broken into two parts, spoken softly, the second part rising from a lower pitch than the Wrst part.
89
90
When Listeners Talk
(29)
L&MC2ai
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Liz:
Liz: Mel: Liz: Mel: → Liz: Mel: Liz:
Thee a:vid list’ner ta the ne:ws person. ↑You:↑ listenta: th’ beginning a the ne:ws? (0.1) before ↑dinner↑? ↑Yeh↑; °Ow:h°. I’m not sa:ying;= I:’m: (0.6) going to:;= ba:n et-; (.) tot’lly¿ (0.1) b’d I:’m, (2.0) °mm ↓m:°, j’ss breakin the habit °a liddle°. When did you decide that. (1.1) °O:h. (.) a long: tih:me ago°, (0.5) °°Mm-°°. (3.5)
Fragment (30) is an example from American data. This is an instance where a ‘hesitation marker’ Mm comes in initial position in the turn. It is part of a response to Gary’s oVer to fetch her a drink, with Carrie prefacing her answer with an Mm that runs into the refusal. (30)
Automobile Discussion
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Cur:
Cur: Mik: Cur: Gar: Cur: Car:→ Gar: Cur: Mik: Car: Mik: Car: Mik:
[°Oh Christ fifteen thou]san dollars wuunt touch a Co:rd, (0.7) That guy wz (dreaming). [Fifteen thousan dollars= [(heh) =[fer an original C o : r d ,] =[(°He) figured eed impress im,] Wuhyih wan me t’go mix y’a dri:nk? Shh [it [Mm I already got one. Now don’t sit on my [k n e e a [gain (I get-) [(He)/(You)could’n [: [I guess he’s got ]= [Don’t worry don’t]= =some, = wor[ry, [some other,[ old cars too eez go[t
This Mm cannot be an acknowledging or answering Mm, as it would be taken as a positive, preferred and accepting response, such as Mm, I’d like one. This does not happen. This Mm is in fact a preface to a dispreferred, declining response, in a position that Well as a delayer and dispreference marker, or Yeah as an ostensible agreement, would typically occupy, so that the ‘disagreeing’
Five types of Mm
response is not contiguous to the turn constructional unit with which it is disagreeing. The Mm here, then, is apparently doing some delaying work that pushes the response deeper into its turn and away from its Wrst pair part (cf. Sacks 1987). Note that in (30) the Mm in line 10 could not be construed as a substitute for a Yeah, in which case it would be an acceptance of the oVer of a drink, but in fact it is a rejection of the oVer. This, together with the Xat (sightly falling) contour of this Mm provides evidence that this is a ‘hesitation marker’. In (31), in contrast, the turn-initial Mm in line 10 could be construed as a weaker form of Yeah, which is later upgraded with a ‘real’ Yeah. This Mm, though, has a very similar intonation contour to the one in (30), which is slightly falling and Xat. In fact the evidence for this being a ‘hesitation marker’ rather than an acknowledgement token is slightly diVerent. (31) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
P&QT2a Mat:
Nik:→ Mat: Nik: Mat:
(0.2) Wi c’n::: re:u:se that tomado juice sli:ces¿= carn’- we. (0.8) °Mm::; ↓>ah° ↑YEA:H↑<¿ (1.3) Yeah;= cert’nly. (2.5) °hhm::h[h°. ((sighing)) [°Em:::°_ (5.8)
A diVerence of this Mm from the one in (30) is in its being very stretched and soft, as well as being Xat. The main evidence that this is a ‘hesitation marker’ is that the turn is a response to Matt’s request for conWrmation in lines 2 to 3. The response is preferred, in that it has the positive polarity projected by the falling, negative tag question. A typical acknowledging Mm would fall to low pitch, especially as there is no evidence of hurried production leading to a truncation of the token and termination at mid pitch. Finally, the actual response is the Yeah that comes in third position in this turn. The Mm here comes close to the one second ‘standard maximum silence’ described by JeVerson (1989), so some response is becoming necessary if the speaker wants to ensure that the Xoor will remain hers. This Mm does the work of turn holding whilst a response is on the way.13 A slightly less clear example, fragment (32) from the British corpus, has a short, clipped turn-initial Mm that runs into the topical part of the turn.
91
92
When Listeners Talk
(32)
Rahman B:1:JMA(13)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Jen:
Ann: Ann: Jen:
Ann: Jen: Jen:→
Ann: Jen: Ann:
I haven’ noticed yeh .h buh- cz ah kno- I think she’s got a- uh-m: one a’those: uh permanent caravahns. up in: Grozeda: [le. [A:oh. Well that’s prob- yes[that ( ) [An’ she musta got rid’v the trailuh cuz I know she use to ih- yihknow extoll its virtues but that- then thaht’s Nahncy isn’it when y- hih hih hnhh [.hunhh [I’m sure it’s m[uch easiuh f’towing. [.hhh Mm- well that’s w’t she sai:d ih-it’s better th’n a caravahn because you c’n see:: (0.2) yihknow you c’n you’ve got all yer vision= =[Ye:s. =[sohrt o:f. Ye:s.
Ann and Jenny are talking here about how useful their friend’s trailer is. Jenny’s turn starting line 13 appears to begin with a ‘hesitation marker’ Mm rather than a response token, though the grounds for this claim are somewhat circumstantial. First, its prosodic shape resembles that of a ‘hesitation marker’, though it could be a clipped response token. However, clipped response Mms are not common in the data. A further, stronger piece of evidence is that when a response token Mm is followed by same speaker talk, that talk is on a topic other than the topic of the immediately preceding turn (cf. Chapter 5). Here the topic of the same speaker talk following the Mm is on the topic of the talk to which the Mm is oriented. Thus the evidence of the shape of this token of Mm together with its placement within the topical sequence points toward it being a ‘hesitation marker’, and not a response token Mm. The ‘hesitation marker’ Mm can usually be distinguished on a number of grounds. First, it is the only Mm that can occur medially within a turn constructional unit (though other Mms occur very occasionally after other response tokens in non-initial position in a turn). Second, its shape is usually short, even clipped, and consequently it does not have a falling intonation contour to low pitch. Third, when it occurs turn-initially, further supporting evidence that can help distinguish it from other Mms (in particular the response token Mm), apart from its prosodic shape, is its co-occurrence with other tokens that do the responding (i.e. other tokens which are the second pair part in the adjacency pair). This then excludes that role for the Mm.
Five types of Mm
The Repair Initiator Mm The fourth type of Mm is a repair initiator, and in all cases recorded in the data it occurs as a next turn repair initiator (cf. SchegloV et al. 1977). It appears to be an alternative to repair initiators such as Huh? or What?, that is, it is a weak repair initiator in terms of locating the source of the trouble, unlike a partial repetition of the prior turn, or an utterance such as ‘she went where?’, which locate the trouble source. This type of Mm also invariably has rising intonation, a shape that is rare amongst response token Mms. The repair initiator is even scarcer in the data than the ‘hesitation marker’ Mm. In fragment (33) the Mm appears to be one of these non-speciWc repair initiators, but is the only example that has been identiWed in the wider data set of about 28,000 lines of transcription. It has a strongly rising intonation contour, and is perhaps being used here as a request for conWrmation, as in Did I hear you right? However, the fact is that it does not get a repair, as it is Guy himself who produces the next turn constructional unit after the Mm. This may underline that repair initiation is not a typical action for this token. (33)
NB Comp 1
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Jon: Guy: Jon: Guy: Jon: Guy:→ Guy: Jon: Guy: Jon: Guy:
.khh I think so They ↑cha:rge too much Gu: [y [Oh doh they? Yeh ↑I↓ think so:, W’t a’they cherge. (0.3) f:Uh:: I think they cha:rge six ↑dollars ↓on Satur’ees’n Sundees. °Mm:?° (0.2) °mWell thet’s a° dollar too ↑much. Ye:ah.hhh [U h : ] [(Fergi]t th[et) [How about Hunningtin ↑Sea↓cli:ffs. ↑A:↓art? Dat’s fi[↑: : ne.
The use of Mm as a repair initiator here serves to underline the point that Mm is a very Xexible token that can be called upon to do a wide variety of interactional jobs, including some only rarely. It may even be that the token in line 9 is a clipped version of a nasal Huhn, or a Huhn with labial closure, or even another of the ‘lax tokens’ that JeVerson (1978b) discusses, whereby the speaker is ‘hedging bets’ about the most appropriate token for the work at
93
94
When Listeners Talk
hand. Some evidence for this is found in fragment (34), where a few moments of overlapping talk and confusion are terminated with Ron’s repair initiating rising Hm in line 8. It is like a hybrid between Huhn and Mm. Again, as in fragment (33), it gets no response. (34)
R&SB3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Sal: Ron: Ron: Sal: Ron: Ron:→ Sal: Sal: Sal:
Ron:
=>-f ‘t’s a< problem [I c’d] ↓cahncel et.= [↑No-_] =°Not a probl’m°. °Ri:ght. I do:n’t want it to be a problem°. (0.3) °Shut yer mouth°. (1.4) eRi:ght. [H m : . ] (.) [Wha]t- (.) H:m?= [I thou’- ] [we-] =Ehrn. (2.4) You know our pla:n ev going to E:vensong an then:; (1.3) for Wi- (.) ta the Windso:r, (2.7) ↑What ↓plan.
On the other hand, in fragment (35), which is from American data, there is a repair following a Hm repair initiation. (35)
Chicken Dinner
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Nan: Sha: Nan: Sha: Mic:→ Sha: Sh?: Viv:
[‘S gitting t’mah:shy I don’know, (0.7) Wha’. (1.2) Winds’v War, (0.6) I don’like that crap, (0.7) Hm? ·hh Ih wz a piece a’shit. (2.3) [mghhm [I couldn’t be ↑ho:me evry night. (0.6)
The repair initiating Mm appears, then, to be unusual, an exceptional use of Mm rather than a regular one. It may be a clipped or labially closed version of Huhn.
Five types of Mm
The Answering Mm The Wfth and Wnal Mm in this chapter is the answering Mm. It is most closely related to the response token Mm, which will be the focus of the next four chapters. In fact it is not altogether clear that it is distinct from that Mm. This token occurs as an answer to a question, more precisely a polar question, in which the Mm takes the place of a Yeah or a No. In (36) Ann initiates a repair sequence in line 6 to disambiguate Ben’s turn in lines 1–2. The second pair part to this question is an Mm rather than a Yeah. This can be seen perhaps as closing down the repair sequence rather than asking Ann to continue, and it may be the ‘closure’ aspect that has led to the choice of Mm over Yeah. (36)
A&BF3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Ben:
Ann: Ann: Ben:→ Ann: Ben: Ann:
Bert’s goin’ off te do a c’mpuder trai:ning course. ·hh (0.6) Ou:*h:. (1.9) Training hi:m:¿ ↑°M:m°. ↑O:h;= g(k)ood↑. ↑°Yeah°↑. (0.4) So yer going Mon:da:y,
In fragment (37) Liz asks Mel which of them is going to take their son to school the next day. (37) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
L&MC2ai
Mel: Liz: Liz:
Liz: Mel: Liz: Mel:→ Liz:
(3.7) ((background noises: clearing dishes etc)) °What ti:me d’ya hafta be et wo:rk temorra°, E:rhm, wehll;= ‘m teaching et ni:ne. (3.0) >Well I-<, (0.3) °I guess I need ta be there a bit ea:rlier th’n that°,= Who’s taking A:rnold. (1.6) temorrow.= =(Eh-) (.) I: am. Are ↑you? Mm.= =Oh;= that’s good. (4.7)
95
96
When Listeners Talk
Mel’s response elicits a repair initiation from Liz in the form of a brief question requesting conWrmation that she has heard correctly. In this case Mel’s choice of the most minimal response Mm rather than a Yeah can be explained by the fact that Mel has already provided a response that has been heard correctly. A Yeah might be heard here as defensive. In fragment (38), where Liz and Mel are discussing their domestic budget, there are no such obvious grounds for explaining Mel’s choice of Mm instead of Yeah as a response to Liz’s question in line 8. It does, though, illustrate the lower, downgraded feel of an Mm in contrast to a Yeah. (38)
L&MC2aii
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Liz: Liz: Liz:
Liz: Mel:→ Liz:
Liz:
Th’ (cheap) pa:nts¿ the te:e shirt¿ (1.8) tk thee; ↑↑I wond’r wha’t wa:s↑↑. (0.5) ↑↑sevendy: two dollars.= Oh;= ↑that’s cos we’ve got the video:;= en ev’rything:↑. (0.8) ↑Rimember it↑? Mm:. ·hh ( ),= w’ll a↑y: though’- ‘t wa’ S:an Fr’n↑cisco:, (0.3) °( ;=what w’s tha:t-)° (2.3)
As they are going through their domestic budget records, Mel demonstrates his low involvement in the conversation in this stretch by his lack of any vocalisations at all, as Liz makes comments on what they are reading. It is not till she makes a direct appeal to Mel for a response with her question, remember it?, that she gets a response from him in keeping with his lack of involvement to this point, which is as minimal as possible: a low falling Mm.
Conclusion In this chapter a range of uses of Mm has been examined. These are the lapse terminator, the degustatory token, the ‘hesitation marker’, the repair initiator and the answering Mms. Each of these was shown to have a speciWable and distinct use which in the overwhelming majority of cases could be identiWed on the basis of a combination of the sequential position of the Mm (i.e. what it responds to, both in terms of the turn-taking and the sequence organisation,
Five types of Mm
and what follows it) and its prosodic shape (in particular, the intonation contour). The degree to which sequential position and prosodic shape contribute towards the identiWcation varies from type to type. The speciWc work done by each of these Mm types has been illustrated and described. The following chapters will examine in more detail the most frequent type of Mm, the weak acknowledging token. Chapter 4 will compare Mm with the two most closely related response tokens, Mm hm and Yeah. In Chapter 5, there is an examination of Mm as an acknowledging token, either free-standing or in the company of other brief reactive talk. This is a weaker acknowledgement token than Yeah, with some aYnities, though one major distinction is that it is disaligning, in the sense that its speaker does extend the current talk on the topic of the previous turn, and may indeed project topic shift. In Chapter 6, the role of the intonational shape of the response token Mm, in particular of the falling, the fall-rising, and the rise-falling contours in helping determine whether the token is more acknowledger-like, more continuer-like, or more assessment-like respectively.
97
Chapter 4
From continuer to acknowledgement token Mm as a token between Mm hm and Yeah
Introduction Mm often has a very Xat, shallow, weak intonation contour, and when it has this shape, it is the most neutral of all response tokens. This ‘most neutral response’ use of Mm is iconic with the object’s semantic emptiness and phonetic unobtrusiveness, even virtual invisibility. It is, though, also found to occur with a stronger intonation contour, covering more range and movement in pitch. In such instances, its Xexibility shifts it to a greater aYnity to Mm hm (and Uh huh) as a continuer on the one hand, and to Yeah as an aYrming and acknowledging token on the other. It is nevertheless a token with its own distinctive uses. The crucial formal distinction between these roles as continuer and acknowledger is intonational, or more speciWcally relates to terminal pitch direction and the internal pitch contour. Mm with a falling terminal pitch direction is a more Yeah-like object, and Mm with a rising terminal pitch direction is a more Mm hm-like object. Mm is also, semantically speaking, one of the emptiest of tokens in talk. That may be the very reason it is called upon to do such a wide range of activities in conversation. It cannot be pinned down easily to any speciWc meaning, apart from a rather negative characterisation such as ‘I have nothing to add at this point to the topic of the talk that this Mm is oriented to’. This gives it a vague sense of ‘completing’, or ‘moving on without comment’. However, its particular action on any given occasion may be identiWable by its environment, through analysis of the action and, in particular, the results of the action that the Mm performs. This semantic emptiness may also make it available for accomplishing some environmentally sensitive action in the sense that it is adaptable for doing work that is complementary to the sequence of actions it is associated with. This is not only in the sense that it can respond to a wide range of actions, but also that it can become imbued with the meaning
100 When Listeners Talk
of a prior action (or actions) as an object within that sequence of actions. An example is fragment (1). (1)
F:SS:A:2.11 R&SB4a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Ron: Sal: Ron:
Sal: Sal:→ Ron: Sal: Sal: Ron: Ron:
>↑Well it sounds like< (0.5) a-ppha::hhling timing, It’s ↑not goo:d;= ↑is it. Anyway; (.) >that’s quite a bonanza (fer Hugh),= he got th’ severence pay<; ·hh ↑a:nd >a bettpaid< jo:b;= [some]where e:lse.= [↑Mm.] =Mm. that’s e:xcellent.= ↑Mm. ↑Well it’s like To:hm leaving. (0.4) )] [Tom Scu]tt leaving Hu:m:e [‘s. ( [Ye::s:.] [>↑W’l ↓pr’ps th’s] a lot’be< said fer this; (.) re:trenchment >bus’ness,= ‘t see:ms to ev< ·hhh seems to’ve benefitted Ka:rl as we(h)ll. hh (1.2)
The Mm in line 8 is doing agreement here (as well as its core function of ‘closing’ the sequence without comment). This is not so much because it comes with an agreement (which in itself is no argument, as contiguous response utterances regularly do quite diVerent things), but because what it is responding to is something that sets up expectations for an agreement or disagreement response as the conditionally relevant second pair part (cf. SchegloV 1972a). It thus becomes imbued with that ‘meaning’ through the environment in which it Wnds itself. In this chapter the scene will be set for the explication of Mm as a Xexible response token by presenting evidence for its amenability to diVerent environments. It can be treated as a continuer, with a fall-rising intonation contour, most typically transcribed M:m,, and as an acknowledgement token, with a falling intonation contour, most typically transcribed Mm:..1 Note that the comma indicates a slightly rising terminal contour, and the full-stop a falling contour to low pitch. First, however, a brief consideration of the distribution and frequency of the response tokens Mm, Mm hm, Uh huh and Yeah is presented.
From continuer to acknowledgement token 101
Distribution of Mm, Mm hm/Uh huh and Yeah In this section, a brief review is presented of the distribution of Mm in the Australian, North American and British data sets used in the main study in this book. This review covers both the variation in distribution across the three broad ‘dialects’2 in these regions, and in the frequency of occurrence of the four tokens Mm, Mm hm, Uh huh and Yeah, both within and across the diVerent region data sets. It should be stressed that the primary focus of the study is a detailed qualitative analysis of the tokens, and this chapter should be considered as a brief orientation to their domains of occurrence. The sizes of the data bases used in the wider study can be seen in Table 1, measured in numbers of turns per transcript.3 The primary database used was the Australian of a little below 4,000 turns at talk (comprising about 8,000 lines of transcription). These were transcribed by the author. The others are from corpora held at UCLA, California, and the University of York, UK. The American and British data were used mainly to supplement the core Australian data, and to compare uses of response tokens across these broad ‘speech communities’. Table 1. Numbers of turns in transcripts: Australia, US, UK Australia
No. of turns
Melbourne 3876 Couples (14 conversations)
Total Turns: Australian
3876
United States
No. of turns
United Kingdom
Newport Beach (11 conversations)
1989
Rahman 2143 (20 conversations)
Santa Barbara Ladies (11 conversations) Chicken Dinner Chinese Dinner Auto Discussion
1940
Heritage 1660 (18 conversations)
Total turns: United States
No. of turns
1843 1621 2031 9424
Total Turns: United Kingdom
3803
In the core Australian database, a distinction was made between three circumstances in which receipt tokens occurred. First, there were those which were the only tokens in their turn (isolated or free-standing tokens). Second, there were those that were accompanied by further brief reactive talk in the form of other response tokens, assessments or discourse markers of various kinds, brief
102 When Listeners Talk
clariWcation questions, collaborative completions, and one or two other brief types of primarily responsive talk. Third, there were those that were followed by some substantial topical talk by the producer of the token. In Table 2, the distribution of Mm, Mm hm and Yeah in part of the core Australian data set is presented, from a total of about four and a half hours of talk by the seven couples. It can be seen that, of the three tokens, Mm hm is the least frequently followed by same speaker talk, at 9% (N=3). About a quarter of Mms and about two-thirds of the Yeahs, on the other hand, were followed by same speaker talk of some kind. Table 2. Distribution of receipt tokens Mm, Yeah and Mm hm: in three talk environments in the core Australian data base Mm
Free-standing With Brief Talk With Substantial Talk
Yeah
Mm hm
N
%
N
%
N
%
176 24 36
75 10 15
105 71 149
32 22 46
30 0 3
91 0 9
In Table 3, the distributions of the intonation contours fall, fall-rise, rise-fall, rise and level are summarised for the Australian data. (Similar information for the US and UK data sets was not available due to variations in the transcription notation used.) Table 3. The distributions of Mm, Yeah and Mm hm according to intonation contour in the core Australian database Mm
Yeah
Mm hm
N
%
N
%
N
%
Fall Fall-rise Rise-fall Rise Level
199 44 40 7 0
69 15 14 2 0
331 37 58 31 17
70 8 12 7 4
3 28 1 0 0
9 88 3 0 0
Total
290
474
32
As can be seen from table 3, Mm and Yeah have a very similar distribution of intonational shapes, with falling tones being much the most frequent for both. These two tokens are most typically acknowledgment tokens. Mm hm, in
From continuer to acknowledgement token 103
contrast, which is a continuer predominantly, most usually has a fall-rising contour, which is the typical continuer contour. Yeah has more simple rises than Mm, and also a number of level tones, which none of the Mms have. Mm also took on about twice as many fall-rises as Yeah, which reXects its more frequent use as a continuer. If a simpler distinction is taken from Table 3, contrasting only terminal contours, then Mm and Yeah are even more similar: 82% of each of these tokens has a falling terminal contour (ie. the falls and rise-falls together), and 18% of Mms and 15% of Yeahs have a rising terminal contour (ie. the fall-rises and rises together). The remaining 3% of Yeahs have level terminal contour. Although Yeah is not examined in depth in this study, the distribution of these contours does suggest some considerable aYnity between Yeah and Mm, with Mm hm being quite diVerent on this count from both. To turn to a comparison of these three tokens, together with Uh huh, across the three regions, the USA, the UK and Australia, the distribution of the four tokens can be seen. These Wgures, however, need to be read with great caution, as the type of data in these tables is diVerent. All are from ordinary conversations, but the UK and the US data4 in this table are from telephone recordings, whilst the Australian data are from face-to-face interaction. This makes a valid comparison of rates of use between Australia and the other two regions dubious, but the notably higher rate of use of response tokens in the British data compared to the American suggests an interesting diVerence. Table 4. The distribution of Uh huh, Mm hm, Mm and Yeah in corpora from three ‘Englishes’: US, UK and Australian UH HUH
US UK AUS
MM HM
MM
YEAH
TOTAL
Raw
%
Raw
%
Raw
%
Raw
%
Raw
111 4 0
14 1 0
129 34 32
17 4 4
22 142 290
3 15 36
506 740 491
66 80 60
768 920 813
US: N= 3929 turns at talk (197 tokens/1000 turns at talk) UK: N= 3803 turns at talk (242 tokens/1000 turns at talk) AUS: N= 3876 turns at talk (210 tokens/1000 turns at talk)
The main points to note are, Wrst, that Uh huh is rare and Mm hm relatively scarce in both the Australian and the British corpora, whereas Uh huh and Mm hm are both frequent in the American data. In contrast, Mm is scarce in the
104 When Listeners Talk
American corpus but much more frequent in the Australian corpus, taking an intermediate position in the British corpus. Yeah, on the other hand, is common in all three corpora (and also for all speakers), but appears to be relied on most of all, at 80%, by the British speakers.
Terminal pitch direction and the response token Mm In this and the following sections, there is a brief review of the literature on intonation concerning falling or rising terminal contours in naturally occurring conversation, with examples of Mm as continuer and Mm as acknowledger, which are the canonical Mm hm and Yeah uses respectively. There appears to be widespread agreement in studies on intonation that a terminal fall in an intonation unit is associated with a sense of completion, and a terminal rise with a sense of continuation or incompletion. McLemore (1991:116) concludes that “phrase-Wnal rises connect … and phrase-Wnal falls segment”.5 According to McLemore, the connecting force of rises and the segmenting force of falls can be between textual structures, across types of textual content, or across turns. A corresponding distinction made by Brazil (1985) and Brazil et al. (1980) is between proclaiming and referring tones. As Brazil (1985:65) says, “the central opposition in the part of the meaning system realised by tone is that associated with end-falling tones on the one hand and end-rising tones on the other”. Brazil et al. (1980) claim that where what is said is being marked as part of the common ground, a proclaiming, that is falling end-tone, is chosen, and where what is said is being marked as an expansion of the common ground, a referring, that is a rising end-tone, is chosen. That common ground can be from the domains of ideas or of emotions. Whilst the focus of the Birmingham group is diVerent from McLemore’s, one can nevertheless see that ‘marking common ground’ is doing something that need not be developed further. It can thus terminate (or segment), whereas ‘marking expansion’ is going to need more talk, and would therefore project forward to further talk. In a similar fashion, Cruttenden (1986) talks about rises being ‘open’ and falls being ‘closed’. These ideas of ‘closed’ and ‘open’ associations with terminal falls and rises are supported in the current study. A falling tone on the Mm closes oV the sequence or the prior turn, whilst a rising tone leaves things open, in this case for continuation by the other. The focus in these and other studies (e.g. Du Bois et al. 1992) appears implicitly (and primarily) to be focused on local
From continuer to acknowledgement token 105
interactional work, across adjacent utterances (though McLemore (1991) does refer to higher level ‘structures’). It will not be surprising, on the basis of these claims, that continuers such as Mm hm and Uh huh have Wnal pitch direction that rises, which is associated with a request for more talk from the current speaker, whilst the more retrospective and acknowledging Yeah will typically have a falling terminal contour claiming adequate receipt of what has been said up-to-now, thereby completing that segment of talk, and clearing the way for movement on to next matters. In the remainder of this chapter, some classic uses of Mm as a continuer with rising terminal pitch direction (M:m,), and some classic uses of Mm as an acknowledger with falling terminal pitch direction (Mm:.), will be presented. For comparison, typical uses of the archetypal continuer Mm hm, and of the archetypal acknowledger Yeah, are also presented.6
Mm as a weaker, more neutral acknowledger than Yeah Mm as an acknowledgement token typically has an overall falling pitch contour, and with a relatively narrow pitch range, overwhelmingly mid to low. There is a number of basic claims which can be made for Mm with a falling contour (cf. Gardner 1997), which will be demonstrated more fully in the examples analysed below. For now, suYce it to say that typical, falling Mms occur in positions in which no repair occurs, so there is no problem of understanding or hearing that the Mm producer addresses. Also the semantic emptiness of the Mm, its lack even of positive or negative valency, are all suggestive of a neutral stance. Overwhelmingly, then, it can be claimed that the turn constructional unit to which the falling Mm is oriented: i.
is articulated clearly and can be clearly heard (i.e. there are no problems associated with the production or reception of the turn constructional unit); ii. is conceptually not diYcult to understand (which means ‘diYcult’ conceptually for the recipient, the evidence being the smooth receipt and movement on to next matters, generally without any hitches); iii. is relatively neutral in terms of emotional, evaluative, surprised or otherwise remarkable content;7 iv. is, in terms of its position in the emerging sequence structure, in a sequentially relevant or predictable position (e.g. where an expected second pair part to a Wrst pair part would occur);
106 When Listeners Talk
v. occurs in a topically coherent position in the development of the topic (e.g. there is nothing topically disjunctive in the topic of the prior turn constructional unit to the unit before that, or in the positioning of the Mm); vi. has come to (or is about to come to8) possible full grammatical completion (i.e. completion of a simple clause or a clause complex with all its subordinate clauses); vii. has come to (or is about to come to) possible full pragmatic completion (i.e. the action being undertaken by that utterance is a completed action, and not part of an action, although that action may be part of a series of actions within a larger action sequence such as a story, or an explanation, or a description). However, it should be noted that the very neutrality of an Mm means that it can be used to defuse a potentially conXictual situation by treating a prior turn as unproblematic. For instance, in response to a turn with which one disagrees, one could express that disagreement, and embark on a dispreferred sequence, with the extra interactional work that that entails (cf. Levinson 1983), and with potential for an escalation of the disagreement. One could ‘back down’ and agree, but that would mean lying or being untrue to one’s beliefs, principles or values. A neat way to avoid the horns of this dilemma is to use an Mm, which is claiming no problem with the prior turn, but which is simultaneously ducking the choice of agreement or disagreement by being as neutral as one can. It should also be noted that ‘full intonational completion’ of the turn constructional unit to which the Mm is oriented is not included amongst the above points, as it was not found to be a signiWcant factor for a choice of falling contour on the Mm. There are two levels of intonational completion that can be distinguished, which I shall call type one and type two completion. Type one completion occurs when the intonation unit has come to an audible physical completion, whatever the Wnal pitch direction. The overwhelming majority of falling Mms were oriented to this type of intonational completion. Fragment (1) is an example of this, where the Mm comes after a slightly rising, continuative terminal contour, at the end of an intonation unit. Ben, however, has not Wnished his piece of talk, as the slight rise suggests (together with the emerging meanings derived from the lexis, syntax and turn-so-far), and he does in fact continue. Ann’s Mm here is oriented to a unit that is grammatically possibly complete, pragmatically too, but intonationally complete only in this ‘type one’ sense.
From continuer to acknowledgement token 107
(1)
A&BD3a
1 2 3 4 5
Ben:
Ann: Ben:
The problem w’z;= that th’t ya needed someone who kne:w;= a:bout compu:ders, ← °Mm:°. en’ about- the in:dustry:,
Type two completion occurs when the intonation unit has a terminal contour that falls to low pitch (marked by a full stop) or a strongly rising terminal contour (marked by a question mark). Some falling Mms were found to be oriented to this type of (full) intonational completion, as in fragments (2) and (3). (2)
R&SB3b
1 2 3
Ron: Sal: Ron:
(3)
L&MH3a
1 2 3 4
Mar:
Mal:
Take a diff:r’n’ sla:nt. Y:es. ← Mm:
[You know; (.) >I mean< (0.2) ;= >b’t my: f:a:mily’s th’ mai:n thing fer m↓[e :? ← [°°Mm:°°,
This suggests that parties regularly choose the falling contour on the Mm where there is type one intonational completion. This means they are orienting to intonation unit completion per se (as well as grammatical and pragmatic completion), not to some intonational, type two Wnality that would typically be marking the end of the turn at talk. There is thus some suggestion here that the main orientation is to the syntactic structures and meanings of the talk, as expressed through syntactic and pragmatic units, and that terminal contour type plays only an incidental role in the choice of contour for the Mm. It is true that intonation units, grammatical units and pragmatic units regularly coincide, as reported by Schuetze-Coburn (1994), Eggins (1990) and Ford and Thompson (1996). However, with the current data set, the picture in relation to orientation of Mm to various types of completion is complex. Only 60% of turn constructional units to which the Mms are oriented were complete in the type two sense: i.e. had falling or strongly rising intonation, were complete pragmatic actions, and were complete minor, simple or complex clauses (i.e. not at sub-clause boundaries). In no less than 31% of cases, the talk to which the Mm was oriented was intonationally complete in the type one sense (in practice a ‘continuative’ terminal contour), or was at some point in the
108 When Listeners Talk
middle of an intonation unit (e.g. at a point of possible, but not actual, grammatical completion). (The other 9% were late Mms, or the other types of Mm discussed in Chapter 3.) In addition, 19% of these continuative units were pragmatically incomplete, in the sense that the pragmatic action they were part of was incomplete. The majority of pragmatically incomplete units were followed by Mms with fall-rising intonation (22 out of 27 instances) rather than one of the terminally falling contours. (This is discussed further in Chapter 6.) Finally, orientation of Mms to grammatically incomplete units was much less frequent: just 6%. It seems, then, that orientation of Mms to grammatical completion is the norm, whatever the other circumstances. Mms with a terminal falling contour are rarely oriented to pragmatically incomplete units, but such units frequently attract rise-falling Mms. The orientation of Mms to intonation units per se is the norm. Whether these are continuative or completive appears to be less relevant or, on the evidence here, systematic, except that the proportion of fall-rising Mms oriented to continuative rather than completive units is signiWcantly higher than that for terminally falling Mms. In summary, the response token Mm with falling intonation claims for the Mm onto which it is mapped that the turn constructional unit to which it is oriented has been fully, adequately and suYciently received. It is the unmarked case, in which there is no trouble in the receipt of the talk that it addresses. This Mm says something like, ‘I have heard adequately what you have said, and we can move on to next matters. I have nothing to add to what you have said’. There is thus a contrast with terminally rising Mms, which ask the party to which they are addressed to continue talking. Terminally falling Mms are more purely retrospective than terminally rising Mms. The former are merely claiming that the turn constructional unit to which they are oriented has been completely and adequately received, and no further comment or elaboration of the action that that turn constructional unit is doing is necessary.
Response tokens Mm, Yeah and Mm hm with falling terminal pitch direction In this section, there is a description of the nature of the environment of the talk where falling Mm, Yeah or Mm hm are found. For Mm and Yeah, a falling terminal contour is by far the most frequent.
From continuer to acknowledgement token 109
Canonical cases of Mm as acknowledgement token with falling contour Fragment (4) shows a canonical case of the falling acknowledging Mm. In this phase of the conversation, Ann is telling Bob about the very accurate records she keeps of her contact with the children from her Wrst marriage. (4)
F:I:A:3.2 A&BD4a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Ann:
Bob:→ Ann: Bob:
I keep it down ta the hou- (.) dropped off a:t, (0.9) ·hheh b’t I min-, (0.4) the calcula:tion;= et thirdy percent,= is done on ↑n:i:ghts:. <et’s done (.) on ni:ghts-; (.) o:nly>. [M : m . ] [That’s no]t- (.) a:ll thee otha ti:me¿ (0.2) Yea:h,
Bob’s Mm in line 5 has a low falling contour, and is oriented to Ann’s turn constructional unit that comes to full intonational, grammatical and pragmatic completion in line 4.9 It is the second point of full intonational, grammatical and pragmatic completion, the Wrst being after the nights in line 3. This Mm is positioned immediately following a turn which can be characterised along the lines noted above, namely, it is articulated clearly, it is conceptually easy to understand, it is relatively neutral in terms of emotional involvement, it is sequentially (in terms of sequence structure) positioned in a relevant and expected position, it is topically coherent in its position in the topical sequence, it has come to full grammatical completion, and it has come to full pragmatic completion. It also happens to have come to full intonational completion, and it is positioned immediately after completion in these terms. In other words, this is a falling Mm which claims adequate and suYcient receipt, the unmarked case, in which there is no trouble in the turn constructional unit to which it is oriented. Fragments (5) to (7) are further similar cases, which fulWl the conditions for canonical use of the falling Mm. In each of these, the Mms have low, falling contours. (5)
F:I:A:3.27 L&MH3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Mar: Mal: Mar:
=an’ yet-; n’ (.) it w’ld be a t: ↑eh:rrible ti:me;= ta ↓s [ell et Ry ]:e [:. [Yes et ↓would. ] [I kn↑o [:w, [I mean it wasn’t worth a lodev money-; anywa:y,= I’m ↑s:ure it’s ↓decli:ning. (0.4)
110 When Listeners Talk
8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Mal:→ Mar:
Mal: Mar: Mal:
Mm:. (1.0) an- (.) and also;= ↓Ma:lcolm-, (.) ↑that holiday ↓house;= was their secu:rity.= ↑Dihck hasn’t(0.2) ever b[ee:n] on a s [:u per annua:]tion= [Ye:s]. [Yes;= I kno:w]. =↓s:che:me. >↓I know;= I min< *i-* (.) in o:ne level,= it w’d bi m:a:dness te sell et<. (0.5)
In fragment (5), the ‘news’ about the declining value of the in-laws’ property was probably not fresh news to Mal, as the corpus has earlier conversations on this topic, so a ‘neutral’ response token is appropriate. Also Mal had very recently already shown strong agreement with the thrust of Marilyn’s talk, with his Yes it would, I know in line 3. Marilyn’s incremental talk on the low and declining value of the property (lines 4 to 6) has added little to the point she is making. Mal’s weak acknowledgement is also slightly delayed, 0.4 seconds after Marilyn’s completion. Further evidence that Mal himself has nothing more to say on the topic is the one second silence following his Mm. Note also that the talk that follows (lines 10 to 12) expands the topic (that holiday house was their security, Dick hasn’t ever been on a superannuation scheme) towards a new and more urgent matter. This now gets a more aYliative response than the an Mm, namely Yes, yes I know, I know, followed by a substantial on-topic contribution. The Mm in fragment (6) again has the typical shape and prosody for an acknowledgement token. The couple has been talking about which school subjects are important to their son, who had been complaining about not getting enough support from teachers in these. (6)
F:I:A:3.53 R&SB4a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Sal: Ron: Sal:
Ron:→ Sal: Ron: Sal:
an’ ↑F:rench matters to ‘im;= too:. ↑Yeuh-. He thought th’t he w’z (0.1) °he w’z (0.1) y’know° a bit short cha:nged in Fr↑ench. (0.2) °M[m:°. [Now-; ·hhh hhh= =>da:rling<;= I ↑thin:k↑ ; (0.2) it w’z a pity about English;=
Sally mentions French as one of the subjects that is important to their son. This gets an acknowledgement with positive alignment, the Yeah in line 2. Sally’s
From continuer to acknowledgement token
next turn, he thought he was a bit short-changed in French, is similar to Marilyn’s increment in lines 4 to 6 in fragment (5), in that it adds relatively little to the claim that French matters to him. Sally’s news is thus low in topical novelty, and the response it gets is a downgrading of Ron’s previous response, from a Yeah falling from high pitch, which Selting (1994) has shown to be associated with high involvement, to a quiet Mm falling from mid pitch. The Wrst of the two arrowed Mms in fragment (7) is another falling Mm, which comes after Mel, a teacher, has proposed a way of keeping normally rambunctious year seven students quiet. The second follows shortly, after an incremental unit to the prior talk. (7)
F:I:A:3.100/101 L&MC2aii
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
Liz: Liz: Mel: Liz: Mel: Liz: Mel:
Mel: Liz:→ Liz:→ Mel: Liz:
[Have ↑you ever tau:ght ¿ (0.3) year eight hist’ry? (1.1) *A::w:h*. ↑It’s all about;= Ro:man Br↑i:tain:. ‘t’s [all a lau:gh¿ [it’s: ↑↑DR:EAD↓ FUL ↓I mean↓. AH-; W’LL WHAT YA DO↓:,= y’kn’w;= what ya do:;= is ta te:ll ‘m a:ll those;= er thing:s abou:t-; (·) ↑ya kno:w,= er-; (·) how they (wr:ite their poems).= en things like tha:t= [(en:d e:]rm);= =(0.2) > ↑kids ↓love >that= [ °M:m:° ]. =sortev thing<¿= =°M:m:°. (°ahhh°) (1.8) ↑Have ya ever ↓trie:d et¿
In this sequence, Liz produces two low key Mms in response to Mel’s proposal on how to deal with diYcult adolescents in school (lines 9 to 13/15). Both are latched to possible completion points, and both are quiet and long. In the sequence leading up to this, Liz expresses her antipathy to the year eight syllabus, with her its DREADFUL in line 8. Mel’s positive proposal following this is disaligning, an implicit disagreement with Liz. She now has to make a choice. If she agrees with him, she will be backing down from her position, so she needs to avoid a turn or a token that can be taken as agreeing and aYrming, such as a Yeah, That’s right or Sure. She could disagree overtly, but what she chooses instead is a much more downtoned and quiet Mm in line 14, which is neutral, and not agreeing in any demonstrable way. However, her ‘problem’ is
111
112
When Listeners Talk
not over, as in his increment, Mel makes matters even worse for Liz by suggesting that the ‘kids’ love doing what he has suggested. Liz deftly produces another downgraded, soft and neutral Mm, thus avoiding either agreement or disagreement. The Mms in fragments (5) to (7) all occur in positions where an acknowledgement is due, but where there are reasons for avoiding a stronger token such as Yeah. In contrast to another option, the continuer Mm hm, the falling Mm is not addressing the turn-taking organisation, but is a simple and weak acknowledgement. An Mm hm would be selecting next speaker, as would a fallrising Mm. Mm also occurs with other response tokens or brief fragments of talk, overwhelmingly as the Wrst token if there are more than one. In fragment (8), Mal’s Mm in line 9, which is very quiet, cuts slightly into Marilyn’s turn in terminal overlap before the Wrst point of possible completion after way.10 What the Mm is orienting to is her proposal to cook a meal for the parents of a teenage girl who had recently died. (8)
F:SS:A:2.24 L&MH3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Mar: Mal: Mar: Mal: Mar: Mal: Mar: Mal:→ Mal: Mar: Mar:
[·hh] I thoughdev (0.2) ↑u:mhn↑ tsk (0.2) [seeing if I cn:- ] [cook th’m:,] (0.2)= [cook th’m a mea:l] er [↓something.] =sortev th’m:, (0.3) a big mea: [:l on= [tk = [Thu:rs]da:y,= n’= tahke et o:ver on the= [°Mm:°.] =wa:y [:. (.) [ou:t. [°Mm°.= [we c’d ↓do that ea:sily. (0.2) °Th’t’s nodda [problem°.= [·hh =w’ll it’s ↑jest↑ I’ve got- my le:c<↑tu:res¿= Tue:sday an’ We:nsda:y,= b’t- (.) I- c’dcook afta °the:m°? (0.2)
In some senses the Mm and what follows it in lines 9 to 11 present an intermediate case between brief and substantial11 same speaker talk. However, it is counted as brief here because it does not develop talk topically, but refers retrospectively to the prior turn constructional unit, doing agreement with it, albeit elaborate, amounting to acceptance of Marilyn’s proposal. The Mm that initiates this turn, if the analysis presented so far is right, claims that Mal has understood Marilyn’s turn, with nothing topical to add to her turn. At Wrst
From continuer to acknowledgement token
sight it might appear that such a strong agreement would not sit happily with a weak acknowledging Mm. However, Marilyn had proposed (between lines 1 and 6) to help their bereaved friends, and in the course of this suggestion, Mal produces a turn that appears almost telepathic, as he pre-empts Marilyn’s suggestion to go and cook a meal for their bereaved friends. This is not so much a collaborative completion (cf. Lerner 1989) as a pre-onset completion. Mal begins this utterance before it is even apparent that Marilyn is going to make a proposal — she might have been reporting something, such as I thought of uhm tsk what might have happened if…. Mal’s unusually high degree of alignment pre-dicting (in the etymological sense, too) what Marilyn is going to propose can be seen as suYciently aligning for there to be no pressing need to realign so quickly once Marilyn comes to the end of her turn. Marilyn is more speciWc than Mal, suggesting a big meal, as well as a time, Thursday night, and that they should deliver it to them. Mal’s two Mms in lines 7 and 9 are placed at two points of possible completion: the Wrst12 after the a big meal, and the second at a beat after the Wrst, and after and take it over on the way out. After the second of these minimal acknowledging Mms, Mal returns to doing stronger alignment work by producing one of the most elaborate purely responsive turns (i.e. turns that do not primarily develop the topic) in the whole data set.
Canonical cases of Yeah as acknowledgement token with falling contour For comparison, some canonical instances of Yeah as an acknowledgement token are presented in this section. Over 80% of Yeahs (including its variants Yes, Yep and others) were found in the core data set to be acknowledgement tokens with this terminal pitch direction.13 Although we do not yet have a thorough treatment of Yeah in English conversation, some studies, notably JeVerson (1981, 1984a, 1993) and Drummond and Hopper (1993a, 1993b, 1993c) suggest a typically acknowledging or aYrming role for this token. The following fragments show some of these typical uses, uses which are in many ways similar to the uses of Mm in the fragments above. In fact it would not be hard to imagine each of these tokens substituting for the other in these cases, though with a diVerent import.14 One point to bear in mind, however, which has been made by JeVerson and by Drummond and Hopper in the papers cited above, is that Yeah shows greater speakership incipiency than Mm hm (or Uh huh). This Wnding has been supported in the current study for the use of Yeah and Mm hm, with Mm showing a degree of speakership incipiency between the other two tokens. Beyond this, the positive polarity of Yeah, with certain implications of agreement or aYrmation, makes it a semantically fuller object
113
114
When Listeners Talk
than Mm, which in this sense is empty. Fragment (9) shows a typical case of a free-standing, acknowledging Yeah. It occurs immediately after fragment (8) in the conversation from which it is taken. (9)
L&MH3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Mar: Mal: Mar: Mal: Mar: Mal:
Mal: Mar: Mar:
Mal:→ Mar:
thoughdev (0.2) ↑u:mhn↑ tsk (0.2) cn:-] [cook th’m:,] (0.2) cook= mea:l] er [↓something.] a big mea: [:l on [Thu:rs]da:y,= [tk [°Mm:°.] =n’= tahke et o:ver on the wa:y [:. (.) [ou:t. [°Mm°.= [we c’d ↓do that ea:sily. (0.2) °Th’t’s nodda [problem°.= [·hh =w’ll it’s ↑jest↑ I’ve got- my le:c<↑tu:res¿= Tue:sday an’ We:nsda:y,= b’t- (.) I- c’d- cook afta °the:m°? (0.2) °Yea:h-°. ·hhhh >Yeh I j’s:t-< hh o::h hh. (9.1)
[·hh] I [seeing if I [cook th’m a th’m:, (0.3)
Mal and Marilyn have just decided to help their friends by cooking them a meal. After Mal strongly conWrms his commitment (lines 7 to 10), Marilyn explains why she can’t cook the meal earlier than Thursday (i.e. Tuesday or Wednesday). Mal’s response to this is a sub-minimal Yeah, which expresses some alignment with Marilyn’s reasons (or perhaps excuse) for not doing it earlier. An acknowledging Mm might not have been out of place here. However, it would have been more neutral, less aligning, and perhaps less appropriate, given that an excuse (if that’s what it is) is an action that one would expect to be pressing quite strongly for a quick, preferred, and aligning response. Fragments (10) and (11) show similar uses. In (10), Bob is about to launch into an extended recount of his day at work. (10)
A&BD3a
1 2 3 4 5 6
Bob:
Ann: Bob: Ann:
°eh ‘n° David w’z up to iz o:le ↑tri:cks too:↑. hhh (0.5) Iz o:ld ↑tri:cks:?= =Ga:me pla:yer¿ Oh;= ga:me player.
From continuer to acknowledgement token
7 8 9 10 11
Bob:→ Ann: Bob:
Yea:h-. (Ris) Nick ‘n’ I:;= ‘re both ev thee op↑inion;= tha’ t’da:y’s v↑isit;= ‘as godda hh, (0.2) hidden ag~enda~.
This Yeah comes at the end of a repair sequence, as a second pair part in a postexpansion adjacency pair to the base adjacency pair repair itself. The need for this repair arose from Bob apparent assumption that Ann knew what David’s old tricks were. The occurrence of a Yeah in a position that is often left empty, that is, after a single utterance third part expansion of an adjacency pair that is an acceptance or acknowledgement of the second pair part, needs some explaining. The notion of speakership incipiency helps here, as this Yeah occurs as the last15 ‘move’ in the repair sequence before Bob resumes the recount of the day’s events that the repair sequence had interrupted. In fragment (11) Ron and Sally are discussing his application for a teaching position in the Middle East. Sally makes a suggestion in lines 9–10 that Ron contact the prospective employers to Wnd out why the decision on the application is taking so long. (11)
R&SB3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Ron:
Ron:
Sal: Ron:→ Sal: Ron:
>They jes haft’ bear us in mi:nd;= ‘f there are any°-< (.) th:ing°- anything go:ing; (0.9) (2.0) anything-; (0.8) >if there’s a- anything- any p’sition b’c’mes avai:lable<. (1.1) >f’r th’ ne-< (0.1) ne:xt school year or therea:fta. (0.8) ↑B’T THERE IS N↑O: ↓HA:RM IN RINGING UP- (.) Dubaih¿ Yea:h s. as lo:ng: es- (.) ↑ya ↓know;= we don’t mi:nd, (.) looking: too humble:, -UHHH
Ron’s response in line 11 is a Yeahs which acknowledges Sally’s suggestion. Again its intonation falls away from mid to low pitch. It concurs with Sally’s suggestion, which achieves a positive alignment that Mm, with its ‘inherently’ neutral polarity, would have had more diYculty in achieving. In a similar way to Mm, Yeah can occur as an acknowledgement token with further brief responsive talk. Fragment (12) shows such a case. Here Bob has been recounting the contact he is having with his children in the current week.
115
116
When Listeners Talk
(12)
A&BD4a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Bob:
Ann:→ Bob: Ann:
[>W’l you know ‘f] you look ed it<;= ¿ °I mea:n;° (0.5) >y’know I picked ‘em up Monday ni:ght,= I took ‘em ba:ck toni:ghd,= I >pick’n ‘em up-< tomorrow ni:ghd, take ‘em back< Thu:rsda:y ni:ght-¿ (0.5) ern: the:n;= >pickin’ ‘em up< on th’ F:ri:day ni:ght-;= >‘n’ takin’ ‘em back< ↑Su:nda:y↑. (0.3) °Yea:h;= well th’t’s r↑i::ght°. ↑°So::°. W’ll we needed that;= fer this month though;= ack↑shally:? hh
Ann aligns with her aYrming Yeah, which occurs immediately prior the conWrming well that’s right, which is marked for heightened involvement with what is being acknowledged through the high pitch and the punched up right, with its strongly rise-falling intonation. The Yeah does the typical fall, but note that it does not fall to low, but only to mid, probably because she rushes through to the next unit of her talk, thus cutting oV the end part of the falling contour. Ann is, through this response, expressing strong alignment, perhaps sympathy, with Bob’s busy week with the children, and this is plausibly the reason for pulling out a Yeah rather than a weaker acknowledging Mm.
Non-canonical case of Mm hm with falling contour Mm hm is archetypically a continuer, overwhelmingly with a rising terminal pitch direction and a fall-rising contour. However, even this token can change its interactional import to an acknowledgement by mapping a falling terminal pitch onto it. In fragment (13), Bob is just coming to the end of his recount of the days events, and he marks the end of his story with the formulation so that’s been the day in lines 6 to 7. (13)
A&BD4a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Bob:
Ann: Bob: Ann:→ Bob: Ann:
an::’ j’st all a the things;= >I wanneda< getdo:ne,= I didn’ get- do:ne¿ (1.1) Yea:h; -ehhh (0.4) °en:d ehrhh° (0.2) so o↑h:nhh.= s’ that’s been the da:yhh. Mm: h↑m:.= =‘n’ ow ‘bout y↑ou:. (0.9) Good-. (0.2) I w’s quite- busy this afternoon,=
From continuer to acknowledgement token
This formulation gets an unusual response, the Mm hm in line 8, which has a strongly rise-falling contour on the second syllable, and which falls terminally to low pitch, one of only four cases in the core Australian data set which do this. Thus even Mm hm is suYciently Xexible to be used to mark the end of a sequence of talk, but when it is, it takes on a more ‘acknowledging’ intonation, and Wnishes with this falling pitch direction to low pitch. The switch here in main speaker is underlined by Bob’s overt invitation to Ann to tell the story of her day, which she then does. In this case it would appear that an Mm with falling contour and terminal pitch direction (or a rise-falling one to indicate heightened involvement similar to the token here) would have served the same function as an Mm hm. In this section some instances of typical Mms and Yeahs as acknowledgers, and one case of an atypical Mm hm, have been shown. It has been argued that a falling terminal pitch direction is associated with an acknowledging force in these tokens.
Response tokens Mm, Yeah and Mm hm with rising terminal pitch direction Rising terminal pitch direction, most typically following a fall-rising intonational contour in all three of these tokens, is associated with continuers. For Mm hm this can be described as the canonical intonational shape. For Mm and Yeah this is a regular, but not typical, intonational shape. In the core data set, about 15% of both Mms and Yeahs are continuers, with a fall-rising contour (and sometimes a straight rising contour for Yeah). In Chapter 6 the continuer variant of Mm is discussed more fully. At this point it is be useful to lay out the conditions under which one Wnds a continuer (with particular reference in this list to Mm as a continuer).16 A continuer Mm is oriented to a turn in which at least one of the conditions set out below is met. Note the formulation for the set of conditions for fall-rising, continuer Mms is diVerent from that for the set of conditions for falling, acknowledging Mms. In the latter all the conditions are generally met, whereas in the former it suYces for one of the conditions to be met.17 The diVerent overall characterisation of the fall-rising Mm is because a continuer occurs where there is some actual or incipient trouble in the talk, and any one of these conditions can account for a trouble, and thus the need for a continuer. This notion is expanded further in Chapter 6.
117
118
When Listeners Talk
Turns to which fall-rising, continuer Mms are oriented: i.
are regularly articulated unclearly or cannot be clearly heard (i.e. there are regularly problems associated with the production or reception of the turn constructional unit); ii. are regularly conceptually diYcult to understand (which means ‘diYcult’ conceptually for the recipient, the evidence being the lack of smooth receipt or quick movement on to next matters, or presence of further clariWcation or expansion following the token); iii. are relatively neutral in terms of emotional, evaluative, surprised or otherwise remarkable content (a feature it shares with the types of turn to which falling Mms are oriented); iv. are frequently, in terms of its position in the emerging sequence structure, in a sequentially incomplete position (e.g. before the completion of a Wrst pair part, or in the midst of a multi-unit turn-in-progress). In addition, in terms of completion of the turn constructional unit to which it is oriented, a continuer Mm is usually placed at what Lerner (1996) calls an opportunity space, that is, a place where the turn constructional unit is not complete in all senses, so that it v. generally has not come to possible full type two intonational completion (i.e. completion of an intonation unit with a terminal contour that falls to low pitch or rises strongly); AND/OR vi. sometimes has not come to possible full grammatical completion (i.e. completion of a simple clause or a clause complex with all the attached dependent clauses); AND/OR vii. generally has not come to possible full pragmatic completion (i.e. the action being undertaken by that utterance is an incomplete action, or is part of an action). With regard to points (v) to (vii), it should be stressed that the continuer variant of Mm (or the continuer Mm hm or continuer variant Yeah) do not simply occur anywhere, but orient to partial completion. For example, they orient to the termination of intonation units with a continuative terminal contour (type one completion), to grammatical sub-units, such as dependent clauses preceding independent clauses, or noun or verb phrases within emerg-
From continuer to acknowledgement token
ing simple clauses, or to the ends of stages in partially completed complex pragmatic actions. It should also be noted that what is meant by the formulation ‘at least one of the following conditions is met’ is that the continuer variant of Mm is typically used where one of the possible sources of trouble listed under points (i) to (vii) above occurs. In the next section some canonical uses of Mm hm are presented, and then some instances of the more marked uses of Mm and Yeah as continuers.
Canonical cases of Mm hm as continuer with rising terminal pitch direction In fragment (14), the Mm hm in line 17 is an archetypical continuer. Mal is telling Marilyn about the repairs he has arranged to have done to his motorbike. (14)
MH:22/23:L&MH3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
Mal:
Mar: Mal: Mar: Mal: Mar: Mal:
Mar:→ Mal:
Seven e’clock;= temorrow >morning;= I get< the motorbike. (0.5) What’s happened with it. (0.3) ↑°Right°¿ ·hh There’s three: things th’ta godda be fixed;= fer th’ roadwo:rthy? Ye:ah. They’re ha:lf fixed et the mo:ment¿ [Ri:ght],= [°M:m°,] =·hh I pick id up-; ↑from hiz pla:ce;= et seven e’clock t’morrow >morn’ng-; I take it- down d’< Moder Italia:na; ·hh THE:Y fix thee other things-; (0.3) which nee:d do:ing, ·hh becuz they’re things which (.) I↑ : w’z genna cha:nge anywa:y, Mm h:m,= =or envo:lved with th’ work which I: w’z genna get >done anyway<; ·hh then (.) I hafta take it ↑backh, (0.2) ¿ (0.5)
Mal sets up his multi-unit turn using resources for reserving such a turn. First, he announces that he will be getting his motorbike back the next morning, which is a pre-story Wrst pair part, in which certain circumstances have been mentioned to which elaboration can be expected. Second, he states that three things need to be done to the bike, thus projecting a list. Once he begins this turn, Marilyn begins to produce a series of response tokens, which include the fall-rising continuer Mm in line 10, as well as an Mm hm in line 17. On a
119
120 When Listeners Talk
pragmatic level, Mal is in the midst of, and not yet Wnished with, the news about the motorbike. This is because the expectations of an exposition of circumstances arising from his announcement about picking up the motorbike have not yet been fulWlled, so there is also a sense of incompletion at the pragmatic level, which is point (vii) above. Fragments (15) and (16) show two further instances of canonical Mm hms with a rising terminal contour. In (15), which follows on from fragment (13) above, Ann has just begun a multi-unit turn, which in this case is to recount the events of her day. She has been invited to do this by Bob’s and how about you in line 1, which comes at the end of a sequence in which he has recounted events from his day. (15)
MH:8:A&BD4a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Bob: Ann:
Bob: Ann:
Bob:→ Ann:
Bob:
=‘n’ ow ‘bout y↑ou:. (0.9) Good-. (0.2) I w’s quite- busy this afternoon,= I went ou:- (.) te:m; hh (0.5) ta do a few thi:ngs¿= one: ev which wes:;= to: try: en:d e:m; (1.5) o:r; wa:s. ta get- the t~i:le grou:t~ en tha:t? O↓:wh;= right-;= ‘n’ howdja ↑go:¿ (0.2) We:ll-, (.) I couldn’ get- thee igza:ct h (.) colour? (0.2) M:m hm¿ a:n:d; (.) the problem woz;= it- wz a:ll th’ sa:me bra:n:d,= I wennto a numbera diff’ren pla:ces,= [en:d em:]; (0.2) ·hh it w’z th’= [mYea:h.] =sa:me bra:nd;=
She begins in lines 3 to 7 by introducing one of her activities, buying grout for some tiles. This receives quite an elaborate go-ahead from Bob in line 8: Oh, right, and how did you go. She then begins to elaborate her story. Following this, at a point of grammatical and intonational completion, but pragmatic incompletion with her I couldn’t get the exact colour, Bob produces a typical fall-rising Mm hm with a strongly rising terminal contour. With reference to the seven conditions for continuers above, Ann is in the midst of a multi-unit turn, an example of the incompletion noted in point (iv); the turn constructional unit to which the Mm hm is oriented has a rising terminal contour, in this environment suggesting non-completion, noted in point (v); and the unit is part of an extended turn at talk that pragmatically is not yet complete, noted
From continuer to acknowledgement token
in point (vii). Again, this is an instance of the use of the unmarked continuer in a canonical position, and here the conditions noted for Mm appear to apply equally well to Mm hm. In (16), the Mm hms in lines 8 and 19 come in the midst of another as yet incomplete multi-unit turn by Bob in which he is telling a story with multiple characters. (16)
MH:4:A&BD3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Bob: Ann: Bob:
Ann:→ Bob:
Ann: Bob: Ann:→ Bob:
Ann: Bob:
=Et we::s a woman by the name a Mandy Lang:man;= fr’m: Telecom i [n : [Sydney:]¿ [Yea:h; [I knew ] ‘bout he:r.= ye [a:h. [an:d >another woman by the name a Pa:m McInto:sh;= who:: wo:rks wi:th Mandy Langman,= b’d is in based in Me:lbern. Mm [hm, [pt·hh (.) en he:r ro:le;= is go:ing ta be::; ca:lled, CPE↓:-, Coordina:der, which i:s; Customer Premise Equipment Coordinader, ·hh which i::s;= thee equipment thet w- I se:ll. an thet Nick’s selling.= That’s ca:lled customer premise equipment;= b’cez it gets insta:lled in customer premises. Ah;= right-, ·hh So they’re gonna be: thee; or she’s goinda be their coordinader; [Mm hm]¿ [·hhh] ‘n: whad I bou:ghd i↑:n was;= we GODDA MANual: from them¿ (1.9) an what- they ga:ve es w’s: e:r;= s’m stuff: with na:mes_= phone ↑num:bers,= en a:ll ev tha:t-, telling es:: abou:t-;= what- (.) γthe prece:dures a:re;= th’t a- we’ve godda go: throu:gh,= da get(0.2) a::h;= things ap↑pro:ved, Ri:ght; U:m: all about e::n appl’ca:tions wo:rkshop-,
The Mm hm in line 8 comes soon after the beginning of this recount of the days events. Bob has been introducing some characters for the story which has not yet begun, that is, he is still orienting to the story itself by providing necessary background information in the form of characters in the story: so a multi-unit turn has just got underway, and is not yet complete — point (iv) above. The Mm hm in line 19 also comes at a point at which the orientation to the story is still underway, though this time Bob is just completing this orientation stage before embarking on the story itself. This Mm hm is thus in a similar position
121
122 When Listeners Talk
to the one in line 8. The story is also emerging as a complex one, requiring explanation of technical terms (CPE coordinator) and reference to procedures. So it also seems to be the case that the conditions for point (ii) above are fulWlled here: the sequence can be seen as conceptually diYcult to sort out, so supplementary information is needed. The main upshot of this, however, is that Ann is asking for more talk from Bob, and the rising terminal pitch direction underlines this. Most commonly Mm hm occurs in the midst of some other party’s multiunit turn, because recognition that another is talking for an extended period can be shown by asking them to carry on talking. The next fragment shows a series of three Mm hm continuers in a non-multi-unit turn environment. Ron and Sally are making plans for the following weekends, and neither has claimed rights for a multi-unit turn. (17)
MH:28/29/30:R&SB3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
Ron: Ron: Sal: Ron: Sal: Ron:→ Ron: Sal: Ron:→ Sal: Ron:→ Sal: Ron:
Now then. (1.3) This is where >w’ll bi th’< weekend. °°uhhhh°° [huhhn] [Good.] ·hh Fri:da:y, (1.0) Colleen en °Mm hm, (0.4) ptk (.) Saturda:y; (1.3) M:usic ↓S’ci:ety dinner-;= >music-c-c [ya kno:w], [Mm hm,] Co:dy:, Mm hm, (0.2) Colebrooke O’Do:rk bu:siness. ↑*Mmh:m↑; i↑s it*. (0.5)
The Wrst of these Mm hms, in line 8, comes after Ron has proposed Friday as the next day for which they should discuss arrangements. Sally mentions the Wrst partner of a couple (Colleen and). This is an incomplete unit requiring at least one more naming, that of Colleen’s partner. This makes the continuer Mm hm a token that Wts this environment, fulWlling point (iv) above, which is that the sequence or part of the sequence is not yet Wnished. Here, it is Sally’s turn constructional unit in line 7 that is not Wnished. Indeed it never gets Wnished, perhaps because there is no pressing need for it to be, as the name of the second
From continuer to acknowledgement token 123
member of this couple is shared information: in Labov and Fanshel’s (1977) terms this is an AB event. The second Mm hm comes in line 13. They have now moved on to Saturday’s plans, and Sally is in the middle of formulating her turn constructional unit when Ron’s continuer Mm hm occurs. Again, it comes before completion of the unit — point (iv) above. In addition Sally is having trouble with the production of her turn, as the stuttering sic-c-c at the end of music testify — point (i) above. The third Mm hm in line 15 is very like the second, not only in form, but also by virtue of its placement before completion of the same turn constructional unit. This unit is still in progress, and is still encountering diYculty in terms of the lack of clear and trouble-free articulation. Fragment (18) is another instance of an Mm hm that does not occur in the midst of a multi-unit turn in progress, but during turn-by-turn talk. Liz and Mel are discussing a colleague of his. Up to this point they had been talking about his ponytail, which is what Liz’s have you said to him he’s got an image problem is referring to. (18)
MH:17:L&MC2ai
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
Liz:
Mel: Liz: Mel: Liz: Mel:
Liz: Mel: Liz:→ Mel: Liz: Mel:
>‘ve you-¿< (.) sai:d ta him,= he’s goddanimage¿ (.) ↑problem? (0.3) °*O:h*. (.) cohme ↑off et°¿ uhn heh °hehh° (0.6) *·huhh* (0.6) ·hu[hh [((blows nose)) (0.2) t’huh hih (0.9) °·huh ·hh° (0.9) He:- (.) he wen- (0.1) went ho:me last night;= en ee- (0.1) took his:; compu:der ho:me¿ (0.7) Ya mean he hasn’t go:t one et ho:me, (0.5) He’s- he:; (0.1) carries one a the:m e:r; (1.7) laptop- (0.1) aroun:’ with ‘im. °Mm hm°¿ (0.8) An:’ the:: (.) ↑book. (1.8) ↑C’n ya do: all that↑ ↓stuff on the laptop. (0.5) ↑Oh;= ↑yea:h. (0.5)
124 When Listeners Talk
26 27 28 29 30
Liz: Mel: Liz:
↑°Hmh°; (0.5) That’s my: (0.7) my ai:m. (0.4) What-; (0.3) >having a laptop<;=
In this stretch of talk, they are discussing Mel’s colleague’s computers, with Mel saying in lines 16 to 17 that he has a laptop computer. Liz’s response to this is not a substantial turn, but a handing back of the Xoor with her continuer Mm hm, as she has nothing to say on the topic. It is an invitation to Mel to continue with the line of the conversation as it has been unfolding. In fact Mel’s response is an increment to the turn before Liz’s continuer.18
Non-canonical cases of Mm as continuer with rising terminal pitch direction Where Mm has a terminally rising contour, it takes on the characteristics of a continuer. Almost invariably in the core data set, these Mms had a fall-rising internal pitch contour. In fragment (19) such an Mm is found. The prompt for a continuer Mm in line 9 is the ongoing and as yet unWnished multi-unit turn that Ann is in the midst of. She is talking about a promotional video that a department at her work had produced. (19)
A&BF3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Ann:
Ben:→ Ann:
Ben:
. There’s a list- there’s ↑three of th’m. ?hh an they sponsored this vide↓o:¿ (0.5) ; (0.4) six hundred ↓or-; ↑had six hun:dred or something of th’m;= ↑distribuded ta ↑all: p-p- .·hh They also sent; a fe:w intersta:te, ·hh u:m:;= an ‘if you wannid it;= fr’m an- ‘nyou kno:w;= if the intersta:te schools;= wan:tid it-; (0.4) then: um:; ((sniffs)) (0.3) tsk *u::m:*; °they c’d geddit sent ta th’m°.=
Not only is Ann’s turn in lines 1 to 8 an emerging multi-unit turn — point (vii) above — but she is also encountering a great deal of diYculty in producing a coherent turn at talk — point (i) above. There are a word search (ah she told me), abandoned beginnings and restarts of turn constructional units (e.g. there’s a list, there’s three of them), hesitation markers (e.g. the creaky e in line 4),
From continuer to acknowledgement token
and a number of pauses. Ben’s continuer Mm, then, in line 9 is a response to something both incomplete and in diYculty, which makes the continuer shape appropriate.19 Fragment (20) shows another case of a continuer Mm. Mal is talking again about the repairs that have been necessary to his motorbike, during which he manages to alarm his wife by talking about an extreme scenario. (20)
L&MH3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Mal:
Mar: Mar: Mar: Mal: Mar: Mal: Mar: Mal: Mar:→ Mal: Mar:
·hh I had another talk ta the michanic;= ↓en ee said;= whad ee’d told me yesterday;= ee said;= w’s this quide ex- sordev extre:me ·hh [s c e n a : ]rio. [Oh-;= (yeh,)] Yeah;= b’t we don’ wannen extre:me scen [a: r i > o(h)¿] [>No;= I know<.] ·i(h)hh [So;] (0.2) I a:sked him-; (·) ho:w w’d it= [hhh] =go:; over three: mo:nths. (0.3) M:m,= =°An ee said-; (·) ee said,= *o↑h you:: said y’d°- ↑y’d* ↓prob’ly servi:ve,= =↑Ohhnh; tha:nks↑.
After Marilyn has made her point that she does not want Mal to be involved in an extreme scenario with his motorbike (lines 6 to 7), a reassurance, or at least some elaboration, would be relevant as a next action. What comes, however, is a continuation of the recount of the conversation Mal had with his mechanic, so I asked him, how would it go over three months. As this is not the reassurance she is likely to be looking for, the evidence for this claim being lines 6 to 7, and the subsequent, ironic oh thanks, Marilyn pushes him to say more, which she achieves by using a fall-rising Mm in line 14, the continuer contour. She then does get some attempt at a reassurance from Mal with his report of what the mechanic had said to him: he said you’d probably survive. Marilyn thanks him ironically for this. The point, though, is that the Mm with a rising terminal contour is designed to elicit more talk. In terms of the conditions listed above for the use of continuers, two are pertinent here. First, on point (iv), that the expected sequence has not been completed, Marilyn has set up expectations for a second pair part that is something like a reassurance. This is her but we don’t want an extreme scenario in lines 6 to 7, and a ‘reassuring’ second pair part has
125
126 When Listeners Talk
not yet been forthcoming. From another perspective, with reference to point (vii), pragmatic completion of the sequence has not been achieved.20 A Wnal example to illustrate the continuer use of Mm is found in fragment (21). Marilyn is telling Mal the latest news on the death of their friends’ daughter. (21) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
L&MH3a Mar: Mal:→ Mar: Mal:
(1.7) An’ there’s jes’ this little ba:re no:tice;= in the pah:per t’da:y:, hh y’know;= Miche [:lle;]= [°M:m°], =die:d unex:pectedly in her slee:p. (0.4) °Mm:°.=
In this fragment the non-completion of Marilyn’s news at the point of Mal’s Mm in line 4 is apparent in a number of ways. The most recently completed turn constructional unit, and there’s just this little bare notice in the paper today, seems to require some elaboration (this is the Wrst mention of this notice in this conversation): for example, what did the notice say? This is incompletion in the sense of point (vii) above. There is also intonational incompletion in the sense of point (v) above (a slightly rising, continuative terminal contour to the intonation unit in line 3 after today). Finally there is the ‘appeal’ of the y’know looking for hearer support with its slightly falling, continuative contour (line 3). This is again a sign of pragmatic incompletion. Thus with all these indications of non-completion, Mal’s continuer Mm in line 4 comes in a very expectable position. This can be contrasted with Mal’s acknowledging Mm in line 7, which comes after the news, namely is the content of the bare notice, has been announced, so at a point that is not only grammatically and intonationally, but also pragmatically complete. Further examples and analysis of terminally rising pitch and the fall-rising contour on Mm are discussed in Chapter 6.
Non-canonical cases of Yeah as continuer with rising terminal pitch direction The token Yeah, too, can be transformed into a continuer. In fragment (22) Nik is talking about the young son of friends of theirs. (22)
P&QT3b
1 2
Nik:
He:’s: e s::low learner. (0.8)
From continuer to acknowledgement token 127
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Mat: Nik: Nik:
Mat:→ Nik:
Mat:
°Wha’°; an anoxic bi:rth? I don’ kno::w. (0.5) B’t- (.) .= just a:fta the bi:r- (.) ↓o:r not- long: a:fta the bi:rth;= et ↑Bi:ll’s induc↑tion? Yea:h, (0.3) A:n:::: sh::- (0.5) <shi w’s sa::ying;= how wo:nderful thi:rd chi:ldren we::re,= ‘n th’s no:: (wai-) (.) problem:s¿= ‘s so:: goo:d>¿ OH;= THE’VE ONLY J’S RE:ALISED EE’S a slo:w lea:rn[er.
First Nik announces that the child in question is a slow learner (line 1), which gets an inadequately heard (by the transcriber) response. Nik then goes on to elaborate on the announcement with a classic pre-story unit, in which she mentions some characterisation of the circumstances surrounding the story. These include a time frame (not long after the birth), and two protagonists (Joan and Bill), as well as a classic I remember, which is indicative here of an upcoming recall and recount of what it was that she remembers. However, she encounters some trouble in the articulation of this orientation to the news, getting not only one of the characters (Joan), but also the time frame wrong at Wrst try. She therefore has to self-repair both of these points. So pragmatically the turn ends on a note of acute incompletion, and the response that is then forthcoming from Ben is a classic go-ahead to Nik to start her story: the fallrising Yeah in line 10, upon which Nik continues the story. In fragment (23) Mal and Marilyn are talking about motorbikes again, this time about a 500 cc bike he wants to buy. (23)
L&MH3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Mal: Mar: Mal: Mar: Mal: Mar: Mal: Mar:→ Mal:
=E:rm; (0.4) >No.= it’s- it’s a very good liddle c’mu:der bi:ke. (0.1) Right? ↑↑I don’ see;= fi:ve h undred c: c:s es little¿ ?hh >Alrigh’<. No:;= it’s ↑not (.) ↓little. Mm [:h. [°s:° (0.2) ↑Me:dium↑°. (0.3) ↑Ye:s.= ↑It’s a middle wei:ght-; mo:derbi:ke. [ Yea:h, ] [↑Ri:ght↑]?
128 When Listeners Talk
13 14 15 16 17 18
Mal:
Mar:
(0.2) E:rm; (0.3) b’d ↑of: th’ f:ive hundred c c mo:derbi:kes,= id is ph:↑ysic’ly; the sma:llest. (0.2) Mm::. (0.2)
In lines 1 and 2 he characterises it as a very good little commuter bike, upon which Marilyn objects that she does not consider a 500 cc machine to be a small bike. Mal concedes the point, and this receives a falling, acknowledging Mm from Marilyn. She then increments her turn with her characterisation of the bike as medium sized, to which again Mal concurs, with it’s a middle weight motorbike. It is at this point in line 11 that Marilyn places a continuer Yeah, with a fall-rising contour with a slight terminal rise in pitch. This Yeah is both an acknowledgement of the successful negotiation of agreement about the size of the bike, but at the same time, through its intonational shape, an encouragement to Mal to leave the repair sequence behind and return to telling about the motorbike. (This Yeah comes in overlap with his intonationally rising Right, as a request for an acknowledgement of understanding.) Mal then returns to a further characterisation of the motorbike. This gets a more acknowledging token, an Mm with a falling contour, at a point at which a satisfactory resolution (in the sense of fulWlling structural and pragmatic completion conditions) to her I don’t see 500 ccs as little has been provided. A Wnal fragment showing continuer Yeahs is (24), in which Ben is telling Ann about the computer system at his work. (24)
A&BD3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Ben:
Ben:
Ann:→ Ben: Ann: Ben: Ann:→ Ann:→ Ben: Ben:
tsk so th’ Da:daflex stuff;= w’z al- (0.2) ‘part fr’m not wo:rking, (0.8) we:z u:m:; (0.2) four hundr’d dollars more expen:sive. (0.3) pe:rh single user cli:ent. (.) tha:n: (0.8) >s-single us’r;= like stand alo:ne<,= like if: your [Mac’ntosh,]= wasn’t connect’= [°Yea:h° ], =t’ a network- (.) sordev th [ing:, jest] on= [Oh okay:, ] =its [o w :]n, [ye:up], [ye:up], [·hhhh] (0.2) W’ll (.) it wz four hundre’ dollars more
From continuer to acknowledgement token 129
17 18 19 20
Ann:
expensive,= than et shoulda been.= coz ya hadta pay four hundr’d BUCKS te Da:daflex Co:rporation. Hhn hhn=
The Yeah in line 8, with its continuer contour, comes at a type of position that regularly also attracts continuer Mms, namely after hitches and perturbations. This is a locus in which both JeVerson (1983) and Lerner (1996) have noticed that other speakers come in, even though a transition relevance place has not been reached. In this case Ann comes in minimally, with a continuer Yeah, to encourage Ben to continue speaking despite the problems in production, which are type (i) conditions for continuer Mms above, referred to there as problems of articulation or hearing. This fragment is also notable for the series of utterances by Ann which all show primary recipiency, and which all end with rising pitch: apart from the Yeah in line 8, there is an Oh okay in 10, and two variants of Yeah, two Yeups, in lines 12 and 13. These latter two, like the prior Yeah, both have a continuer shape, a fall-rising contour ending with a slight rise in pitch. As so regularly occurs with these continuer contours, the other speaker continues with an extended turn.21
Conclusion In this chapter a brief characterisation of typical uses of the three response tokens, Mm, Mm hm and Yeah has been presented, to show how the intonational shape of these tokens diVers systematically with the way they are used and responded to by parties in conversation. It also shows how the tokens appear to be related to one another. Mm hm is a classic continuer, handing the Xoor straight back to the speaker to whose turn the Mm hm is oriented. Yeah typically does acknowledging or aYrming work, that is, one important task it has is to claim adequate receipt of the turn to which it is oriented. An Mm hm overwhelmingly has a fall-rising contour with terminal slight rise in pitch, whilst Yeah overwhelmingly has an overall falling contour, with terminal fall to low pitch, or less frequently to mid pitch in a speaker’s range. Both can, however, be transformed into the other, so to speak, by acquiring the typical intonational shape of the other. Thus an Mm hm that falls terminally in pitch, which it appears to do only rarely, becomes more of an acknowledging token. A Yeah that rises terminally in pitch, most
130 When Listeners Talk
regularly after a fall-rising contour, but sometimes at the end of a straight rise, becomes more of a continuer, handing the Xoor back to the prior speaker. The position of the response token Mm in relation to these two is not entirely simple, and some of its characteristics are explicated more fully in the next three chapters. For the moment, though, its position can be seen, at least in some respects, to be intermediate between Mm hm and Yeah, leaning more towards the latter than the former. First, the typical terminal pitch direction of Mm is the same as the typical terminal pitch direction of Yeah, namely falling to low pitch. The marked case for both, in terms of the much lower frequency of occurrence, is to have rising terminal pitch, which is most frequently associated with a continuer. Phonetically, of course, Mm is more like Mm hm than Yeah, being identical to the Wrst syllable of Mm hm.22 This might lead one to expect that Mm would be closer to Mm hm, which has not turned out to be the case. In fact, Mm might be characterised in one respect as a weaker, less committed and less aYrming version of Yeah, a point that will be taken up further in the next chapter. There is another respect in which Mm is intermediate between these two tokens, which is related to the continuer versus acknowledgement contrast. Yeah shows much more speakership incipiency than Mm hm. In the current data set well over 50% of Yeahs are followed by immediate same speaker talk of some kind, whereas for Mm hm the corresponding Wgure is less than 10%. Mm reveals a tendency to speakership incipiency that lies midway between these two tokens, with about 25% of Mms followed by same speaker talk in the core data set. What it is that makes Mm hm typically a continuer, and Mm most typically a kind of weak acknowledgement token can only be speculated. However, the obvious diVerence between the two tokens is the second syllable of the former, the hm. This is a sound that is just as semantically empty as Mm. However, its uses in English as a token in its own right (which, as far as I can ascertain have not been systematically studied), would appear to include repair initiation, particularly in the next turn after the trouble source turn. It would have a similar use to Huh or What in such a position. Repair initiators, of course, return the Xoor to the prior speaker, and it would appear that the terminal pitch rise is crucial in signalling a relinquishing of the next turn. Thus Mm hm would appear to be made up of an Mm, which acknowledges receipt of the prior turn, and a hm which passes the next turn back to the prior speaker. In the following two chapters, speciWc uses and characteristics of Mm will
From continuer to acknowledgement token
be discussed in greater detail. Most of the discussion in Chapter 5 will refer to the acknowledging Mm, whilst in Chapter 6 both the continuer and the acknowledging token will be discussed. A further variant of the response Mm, the assessment Mm with a rise-falling internal contour, will also be examined in Chapter 6.
131
Chapter 5
The Weakness of Mm Topic disalignment and zero projection
Introduction The response token Mm typically shows low involvement in the current talk on the part of its speaker with its archetypical shape with falling intonation. Most commonly, the Mm stands alone in its turn, and it is followed either by another speaker talking or by silence. On a fairly regular basis, though, the Mm speaker does continue talking immediately, much more often than occurs with the archetypical continuers, Mm hm and Uh huh. When Mm speakers continue talking there is topic disalignment, that is, the topic of the talk shifts from the topic in the turn to which the Mm responds. Thus an Mm projects nothing as a next action, except that if its speaker continues to talk immediately, she or he will not add anything to the current topic. It is in this sense that Mm can be seen as a uniquely weak conversational object. In contrast, a Yeah speaker frequently develops the current topic of the talk, whilst an Mm hm/Uh huh speaker overwhelmingly hands back the Xoor to the prior speaker, which is not a necessary function of the typical Mm. This is not to say that Mm does not occur in very similar environments to these other response tokens. Indeed they often seem interchangeable. However, the work that they do is subtly, and sometimes not so subtly, diVerent. In fact, the diVerences provide speakers with a resource to undertake conversational actions that can have signiWcant and distinct consequences. In the core data for this study, with just over 700 instances of Mm, almost one in four Mms was followed by same speaker talk. Of these, about 15% (more than 100 instances) are followed by substantial topical talk. There are also about 10% (nearly 70 instances) of Mms followed by further brief responsive talk by the same speaker, e.g. other acknowledgement tokens, continuers or assessments. This contrasts with Wndings for Mm hm and Uh huh by JeVerson (1993, 1984a) and Drummond and Hopper (1993a), who report a far lower incidence of these continuers being followed by same speaker talk, or as
134 When Listeners Talk
JeVerson refers to it, a higher incidence of passive recipiency. Although not discussed in detail here, well over 50% of Yeahs in the corpus to hand are followed by same speaker talk. This Wnding is somewhat higher than JeVerson’s (1984a) and Drummond and Hopper’s (1993a) Wndings for American and British English. In the current study it was similarly found that only three of the 70 Mm hms in the core data set were followed by substantial same speaker talk, and two by minimal same speaker talk. It appears, then, that Mm lies, in terms of speakership incipiency, somewhere between Yeah and Uh huh/Mm hm. Furthermore, JeVerson (1984a) reported from her study of Mm hm and Yeah that some people tend to use only Yeah, whilst others use both tokens. In the current data set it was similarly found that some couples used both Yeahs and Mms frequently, others used virtually no Mms at all. However, all couples used Yeah frequently. There are environments in which Yeah and Mm appear interchangeable. However, it does not follow that they are doing identical work. Mm is the more neutral token and more purely a recipient action, in the sense that it lacks the positive polarity of Yeah, and therefore is not inherently an aYrming or aligning token in the way that Yeah is. It has a more purely retrospective aspect, as well as closure implicativeness for the sequence (i.e. for the base adjacency pair with any expansions) in which it is, most usually, a second pair part, or less often in third or fourth position. Its semantic emptiness, however, allows for greater Xexibility than Yeah. For example, as a second pair part to a question it will have the same polarity as the question, without any of the ambiguity (depending on prosody) that a Yeah response to negative polarity question can have. Even when Mm comes most obviously in a Yeah position, for example as a positive polarity answer to a yes-no question, there can be a sense of a position of greater neutrality and less commitment towards the question. Mm also occurs in environments in which Mm hm/Uh huh occur, and then these three tokens too can appear to be working in very similar ways, most typically as continuers with terminal rising pitch direction. Mm becomes continuer-like when it carries a fall-rising intonation. In sum, Mm allows for any subsequent action bar alignment to and support of the current topic of the talk. Otherwise it has zero projection: no speakership continuation or change, no activity change, no topic change, though all of these consequences can occur. It could be argued that the continuers Mm hm and Uh huh can also be seen as ‘most minimal tokens’. However the two continuers are more restricted functionally, in the sense that they are overwhelmingly used to pass the turn back to the speaker of the talk to
The weakness of Mm
which they are oriented, and only rarely to do other work, such as acknowledgement and sequence closure. Mm is the more Xexible, ‘uninvolved’ token, and is used to do more varied work, as described in Chapter 3. In the data examined for this study, the Mms have been placed into two major groups to illustrate the weak, disaligning nature of the token. The Wrst is same-speaker continuation, with topical disalignment. The second has two sub-categories: the free-standing Mms and the Mms followed by further brief recipiency talk.1 1. Use in association with topic disalignment by the Mm speaker. In this Wrst group of examples, the Mm is followed by substantial same speaker talk, but that talk is overwhelmingly on a topic other than the topic of the immediately prior talk. Thus Mm can regularly be used to do what Drummond and Hopper (1993a) found to be happening occasionally with Mm hm, and JeVerson (1993) found to be happening regularly with Yeah, namely topic change, shift or distancing. 2a. Prototypical free-standing use. This illustrates the case where the Mm is free standing, and in most cases the immediately prior speaker continues speaking, though they are also regularly followed by silence. In many instances, but not the majority, the use of Mm here appears to show some similarities to Mm hm and Uh huh. 2b. Use in association with other brief response objects. This is where the Mm occurs with other responsive, non-topical talk, such as other acknowledgement tokens, continuers, assessments, collaborative completions, brief questions, and is found in the environment of an on-going extended turn by another speaker who is, for example telling a story, recounting news of the day, or making plans.
Mm and topic disalignment The Wrst way in which Mm can be shown to be a weak, disaligning token is through an examination of its use together with continuation of the turn by its speaker with substantial, topical talk.
135
136 When Listeners Talk
Mm plus substantial same speaker talk Most of the examples that follow are ones in which the Mm is followed without intervening silence by same speaker talk, and where the Mm, as well as doing receipt of the prior turn, is completing the sequence, and preparing the ground for the Mm producer to disalign in various ways from the topic. These examples have been selected to illustrate how the Mm utterer uses Mm as the last unit in the current sequence before the introduction of a new topic and sequence. This means topic change occurs, or some topical talk from earlier in the interaction is recycled or reintroduced (cf. Gardner 1986), sometimes just two turns earlier, and sometimes much earlier in the conversation, and in one case this could even be traced to a previous conversation.
Topic change The Wrst batch of examples are cases in which a brand new topic is introduced to the conversation by the Mm utterer and immediately following the Mm. In fragment (1), line 11, the change of topic comes at the end of a lengthy sequence of talk in which Marilyn has been talking about her diYculties in concentrating on writing a conference paper whilst family and friends have been experiencing major adversities in their lives. (1)
L&MH3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Mar:
Mal: Mar: Mal: Mal: Mar:→
Mar:
°M::m:°, ·hh b’d I’ve deferred pahnic fer the la:st two days,= I keep- (.) th:inking about·hhh life en dea:th,= ‘n’ peohple losing jo:bs,= e[ n : ] [Ye:s:]. ·hh en then confrence papers,= en pahnic see:m very mi:ld. ↑Mmmhhhh. (0.4) *I: kno:w*. °*Mm*°. ·hh Now listen,= ebout- temorro:w¿ The Astor starts et seven thi:rty¿ (0.2) [What d’you wanta do fer din]ner.
After Mal’s extended and breathy Mm (line 8), a gap of 0.4 seconds, and an agreeing I know, Marilyn responds with a third position Mm (line 11), which closes that sequence. In this case the Mm is not the only marker of the shift to a new topic, as her Now listen focuses attention on the talk that follows, a new topic about going to a movie (the Astor is a movie house). Indeed Mm does not
The weakness of Mm 137
in itself say that topic is going to change, as it projects nothing, but Marilyn’s immediate topic shift demonstrates that she has no more to say on the old topic. It is also a regular phenomenon that these kinds of Mm are articulated more softly than the talk that follows them (in this case, it is also spoken in creaky voice). This accords nicely with Goldberg’s (1978) observations about amplitude shift, which occurs when the talk disaYliates from the immediately prior talk. In this fragment the Mm in line 11 ends one topic, and the talk that begins at a greater amplitude (and with pitch reset) immediately after the Mm is on a new topic. This example also provides good evidence of how Mm does not project next speaker, as the next speaker is in this case the Mm producer. She moves without any pause from her Mm to an inbreath that marks the pre-onset to her next turn constructional unit. This contrasts, of course, with classic continuer Mm hms and with free-standing Mms, which are followed by another speaker taking the Xoor (or by silence). Fragment (2) is another very obvious example of topic change following a closing Mm (in line 8), with additional force given to the change by Mal’s shift implicative Anyway in line 7. (2)
264–L&MH3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Mal: Mar: Mal: Mar: Mal: Mar:→ Mal: Mar:
·hh Well ‘at’s what thee Israelis di:d¿ ↑YES:. When they took out- (·) thei:r nuclear power station before it became operab [le. [↑M:m. (1.5) Anywa:y, M:m, ·hh I think- (·) Michelle must’ve died ev asthma Ma:lcolm¿ ↑A:sthma↑¿ Ye:s. She wz a v:ery very mild asthmatic.
The two speakers have been discussing Middle Eastern politics, with Marilyn in a primary listener role. She responds to his Wnal comment in line 4 with an Mm, which is followed by a longish gap in the talk of 1.5 seconds. Mal then reinforces the end of this topical sequence with his Anyway in line 7, which is followed by Marilyn’s Mm in line 8. As in fragment (1), her Mm is followed immediately by an audible inbreath, and then a new turn constructional unit on a topic which is unrelated to the immediately prior topic. Such radical changes in topic as demonstrated in fragments (1) and (2) are relatively unusual occurrences in the conversations studied. It is much more
138 When Listeners Talk
common for there to be at least some semantic link between prior and next topics, as the topics drift gradually and stepwise (cf. Sacks 1992a). The next group of fragments are examples where the Mm precedes a major shift in topic, but where some link between the prior and the next topic exists. At the beginning of fragment (3), Mal is introducing a third argument in a series (the C in line 1) on why he should not accept a job he has applied for at the salary that has been oVered him. (3)
L&MH3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Mal: Mar: Mal: Mar:→ Mal: Mar:
an: C::, they advertised the bloody job et ↑up ta fordy ↑three thousan [d. [↑That’s right↑. Which means they should have the money ta pahy me. °Mm°, ·hhhh [Well th-] (.) well the other thing is[ E m : :] (0.3) that I’ve bin thinking of, (.) e:m with this new factor,= if Bob does have an extended period ev unemplo[:yment, ·hhhh]
Marilyn aligns with Mal’s point C with her That’s right in line 3, and responds with an Mm to the relative clause in line 4, which has incremented his turn. This is followed by a strong inbreath as she starts a new turn constructional unit, which, whilst remaining generally on the topic of ‘work’, nevertheless shifts the topic substantially from Mal’s new job to her brother-in-law’s lack of a job. It is worth noting, too, that in line 6, Mal produces an Em, in overlap with Marilyn’s new topic shifting unit, this vocalisation being regularly used at the beginning of a turn to show that one has something to say (i.e. the speaker is indicating a readiness to take a turn at talk), but that at this moment in the unfolding of the talk he or she has as yet nothing substantial to say. This glitch in the smooth progression of the talk may be because Mal is taking Marilyn’s Mm in line 5 to be only a second pair part, a free-standing minimal receipt to his turn in line 4, and the token is saying something about the prior turn, and not the next turn. Mal is about to produce his own next turn, providing some further evidence that Mm is neutral with regard to selection of next speaker: it appears that they are both, in diVerent ways, because of diVerent interpretations of what is going on at this point, following rule 1b of the turn allocation rules: if current speaker does not select next speaker, then any other speaker can claim rights to speaking (cf. Sacks et al. 1974). First, Marilyn self-selects according to this rule. Mal, meanwhile, is following the same rule, but in the mistaken belief that Marilyn’s Mm is an ‘only’, that is, a free-standing token, so
The weakness of Mm 139
that he can now self-select after her ‘turn’ in which she hasn’t selected next speaker. The reason Mm is so frequently followed by speaker change, and why simultaneous starts such as this can and regularly do occur after an Mm, is precisely because Mm makes no selection of next speaker, nor does it necessarily pass up the opportunity to take the next turn or overtly make claims on the part of the Mm producer for the next turn. At the start of fragment (4), Marilyn and Mal are talking about the Government transport minister and his initiatives on public transport. (4)
L&MH3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Mar: Mal: Mar:
Mal: Mal:→
Mar: Mal:
=↑I think ↓ee’s do:ing;= a l:ot-; thet’s [ v:e:ry ] good. ·hh en when I ta:hlked= [°Ye:hs°.] =ta him on F:riday ni:ght¿ ·hh (.) it’s obvious thet a la:rge-, (.) -amou:nt-; ev this cleaning up ev the sta:tions, ·hh ↑is ↓done;= by local c’mmunity [grou:ps]. [↑°Mm:°.] °Yeah°, (0.9) ·hh °Mm°. D’d ya rea:d (.) o:h;= n↓o:, ysorry;= not rea:d, ·hh (0.2) no: it’s:; I hea:rd ‘n interview;= this: morning,= with the ·hh Roa:d Tra:nsport ↓*Fed’ration;=or whadever they ca:ll themse:lves[:*¿ [°M:mhh°, risponding ta the Government’s what the Government’s sa:ying. ·hh >ebou’ what the’re goinna do;= with< ↑roa:d tra:nspo[:rt¿
In this fragment, the Mm in line 10 comes as a third response token in a single turn: an Mm and a Yeah in line 8, followed by a substantial silence of 0.9 seconds, then this next Mm, and then talk on a new, though related, topic. This is a third story in the series, still on transport, a new story about road rather than rail transport this time. Here the transition to the new topic is not achieved simply. The Mm on its own is, again, not enough to bridge this shift to a next story. The Mm in line 10 closes the previous storytelling sequence. How can this shift from Mm to Yeah and then back to Mm be explained? It appears that Mal upgrades his Wrst response, a receptor Mm to a more agreeing Yeah in line 8, after which the silence grows out to 0.9 seconds. It is plausible that at this point the silence, which has reached the critical standard maximum silence of about one second (cf. JeVerson 1989), provides Mal with some evidence that no more talk on this topic will be forthcoming from Marilyn. This leads to the next Mm in line 10 serving to signal a close of the larger sequence of talk that
140 When Listeners Talk
the Yeah had left open, and allow for the transition to the new topic. What follows next is another pre-announcement question preparing for a shift to a new story by asking Marilyn whether she had read about the news in question. A Wnal example in this section, fragment (5), is from a British telephone conversation. In this fragment Vera has been the main speaker, talking about returning some books to the library. (5)
RAH-14
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Ver: Jen: Ver: Jen: Ver: Jen: Ver: Jen: Jen:→ Ver: Jen: Ver:
=Oh no- it dzn mattuh Jeh-ah actually ah think it’s one on Vera’s ticket any ra [te ah think it’s]= [O h : : : .] =in the name a’ Mannuhs [b’t ah’m not= [Oh ye- hhhh =sha[w, but one a’them ahr: [you know,] = [heh heh .eh:-: [·hhhhhhhh] This i [s th’ [So- ah’ll take them oll in, [‘n:d uh:m [Ye:s::. Mm, (0.3) [check’em [I’m’nna do s’m spaghetti’n: (.) n-eh::m meatballs f’tea fuh this lot now, Oh lovely.
Vera gets to the end of the topic, which comes to a conclusion with a hesitant Uhm (line 9) and a pause of 0.3 seconds before her closing check ‘em in line 13. Jenny has already responded early with a recognitional Yes (line 10) and an Mm (line 11) before the check ‘em. The Mm in line 11 has already marked for Jenny the end of the sequence. She then begins a new turn constructional unit after the 0.3 seconds and in overlap with the tail end of Vera’s turn. The topic of Jenny’s talk is quite new and unrelated to the talk that had gone before, namely what she is going to cook for her family, which provides the topic for the ensuing sequence of talk. Thus the same speaker talk that follows this Mm is a full-blown change of topic, as in the Wrst two fragments above. These Wve instances of full blown change or major shift in topic indicate powerfully a topical caesura between a sequence completing Mm and the substantial same speaker talk that follows it. The same break in topic continuity can also be observed with less radical shifts in topic, which are shown in the following section.
The weakness of Mm
Topic recycling The next set of examples is similar to the topic change set, in that following the Mm, its utterer shifts the topic away from the immediately prior topic. However, the diVerence to the previous set is that the topic is not new to the conversation, but the Mm utterer picks up something from a sequence of talk earlier in the conversation. In the Wrst examples in this set, the recycled topic occurred several minutes earlier in the conversation. In the later of these examples, what is recycled occurred very recently in the talk. Fragment (6) is an instance where the recycled topic is from considerably earlier in the conversation. Mal has recently applied for a job, and Marilyn asks him how he would feel if he were not oVered it, and then asking him to elaborate on his answer, which he does in some considerable detail. (6)
L&MH3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32
Mar: Mal: Mal: Mar: Mal: Mar:→ → Mal: Mal:
Mal:
Mar: Mal: Mar: Mal:
Mar:→ Mar:→
·hhh So-; how ya go:nna feel as thisf- (.) if [this ] job;= doesn’ ring you ba:ck. [e:rm;] (1.0) °Disappointid¿= ↑ev course↑¿ (0.3) >I min:<= would you wanta ta:ke it,= et what they’ve o:ffered it? ↑No [:oo. [Would you want- the cha:nce;= ev nego:tia: [ding? [·hh Yes;= I’d li:ke th’ chance ev nego:tiading¿ (0.5) . . ((77 lines of transcription omitted)) . >I min ev course-<; (0.3) thee otha thing the:y c’d be doing;= is going back ta th’ °Health Pr’mo:tion Foun*da:tio[n*°.= ‘n say’n l:]ook-; [ Y e : s : ° ; ] .hh *y’kno:w:*, .hh wi’ve got this t’rific; <↓gu:y li:ned ↑up>¿ Yea:h. pt Er:m:,= >y’know;= ‘n all we nee:d;= is another:< (·) fi:ve thou:sand dollars;= ↑e[n wi c’em]plo:y ‘im.= [°M m: h°.] =>I min:<; (·) my: gut- fee:ling is;= it would be a big mista:hke;= fer you: to- (·) go in;= ‘n: drop what you w’re sa:ying¿ (0.6)
141
142 When Listeners Talk
Marilyn’s Mm in line 28 comes at the end of a sequence in which Mal has been putting forward for consideration some of the ways in which his prospective employers could be making it easier to hire him. After this, and following her sequence closing Mm, Marilyn picks up the idea again that had set oV this whole topical sequence, namely negotiating with the potential employers (lines 10–11). Here she suggests (again) that Mal should not drop the bargaining position he had taken up. Whilst this is clearly of direct relevance to Mal’s line of talk so far, in that there is no sharp break in the topic, she does not refer after her Mm to what Mal had just been saying, which had been about what more the prospective employers could be doing to hire him, but to what Marilyn herself had brought up some ninety lines earlier at the start of this topical sequence, namely about Mal keeping to his bargaining position. Fragment (7) is an example from British telephone data of the recycling of a topic from some way back in the conversation. Here Vera and Jenny are talking about neighbours who are moving house. (7)
RAH-001
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
Jen: Ver: Jen:→ → Ver:
Jen: Ver: Jen: Ver: Ver: Jen:→ Ver: Jen:
M[m, [No. Ye:s ·h What’s happ’ning nex ↑doo:r they moving in or moving out I couldn’ de [ci:de, ↑heh heh] [(Oh: |no. ) u-e]h::m . . ((26 lines of transcript omitted)) . Anyway some wen’ tihday obviously bec’z the lorry wz thah this mohrnin[g. [Yeh. Well that’s k- uthatwould be: (.) Missiz Mahrsh’s ah should thin [k. [Yeh w’l maybe I [don’t kno:w, [Yeh. Yeh. Mm, e I jis wondid if theh w’nei:ghbors in uhr not yet·hh An[yway= [Yes =·hh I’m jus gunnoo have a cuppa tea en then ah wanna go shoppin:[g.]
After they have been discussing the neighbours’ move for some time, the topic is winding down with Jenny’s yeh well maybe I don’t know (lines 13–14), which in turn gets two Yehs from Vera. Then Jenny follows with a third position Mm (line 17). This Mm is followed by I just wondered if there were neighbours in or not yet (lines 17–18), which is talk that returns to what had started oV this
The weakness of Mm 143
sequence of talk, what’s happening next door, they moving in or moving out (lines 3–4). In the following examples, what occurs after the Mm is essentially the same as in the last two fragments, but the recycled topic is from much more recently in the conversation. Fragment (8) is from a short stretch of talk in which Liz and Mel are talking about what to do with the leftovers of their meal. (8)
545–L&MC2b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
Liz: Mel:→ → Liz: Mel: Liz:
Mel: Mel: Liz:→ Mel: Liz:→ Mel: Liz:→ Liz:
Make up yer ↓mind. [( ) ] [W’ll all right,] no:, th’re’s(·) look w’ll have- (·) sausages. °Ok [ay°. [An: he c’n cook- e:r (0.5) something er: o [n Thursday night]. [on Thursday ni]:ght. ((loud rustling noises)) (0.9) Well I:’ll end up- (·) doing et °(probably)°, (0.5) Standing over him ent (0.9) °Mm:°. So I [think what you ca:n do,]= [saying w’ll that’s what you do,]= =[ is ] ta have er- (·) er- there’ll be a lot= =[en ( )] =ev this meat left over, (2.7) I spose you woan wannit two nights running,
Mel is suggesting that he and their son can have the left over sausages on Thursday night, which Liz accepts with her Okay (line 4) and her collaborative completion (line 7). Mal then goes on to a complaint that he will have to closely supervise the boy. Liz responds to this (before it is actually complete) with a second pair part Mm at low amplitude, and she then diverts the talk from Mel’s complaint back to the talk before that, namely planning Thursday night’s meal, with a suggestion that they could also have the left over meat. This is a powerful instance of how Mm is used to close the immediately prior topic and prepare the way to shift topic, in this case the topic that Mel’s complaint is beginning to move away from. It is also of interest in that it is an example of such a shift not proceeding smoothly, as Mel does not immediately drop the activity he is engaged in, but continues his complaint (line 14, and possibly even line 16). This Mm plus topic shift temporarily threatens a breakdown in intersubjectivity, though this doesn’t last, as Mel abandons his line of talk in line 16.
144 When Listeners Talk
Another example of the very local valency of Mm occurs in fragment (9). Here Ron and Sally are contemplating how good it would be if he did get the job in the Middle East, which would be symmetrical or cyclical, because they had been there before to work, and liked it. (9)
185–R&SB3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Ron: Sal: Ron: Sal: Ron: Sal:→ Ron: Sal:→
[No;= b’t this sh’d be ] wonderful,= this would be::; A:whhhh.= =this would be::; (0.6) uhh huh huh huh [↑huh [juss::s::tunningly. symmetrical. ·ehhh Fortun’tel [y it’s] [ cycli]cal; whichever.= =Mm::. Fortunately th’ Bo:w:den hasn’t- (.) the: Buntings hasn’ yet come out in print¿ (1.3)
The use of Mm prior to topic disalignment is particularly compelling in this fragment. In line 8 Ron comes to a point of possible completion with symmetrical, and Sally begins a new turn in the transition space in line 9. However, it turns out that Ron repairs symmetrical with cyclical, and an ambiguating whichever, which together have the eVect of Sally abandoning the turn she had just begun. On completion of Ron’s repair, Sally responds with an Mm which has the eVect of terminating the repair sequence with an acknowledging second pair part. She then recycles her abandoned turn (cf. SchegloV 1987a), thus leaping back over Ron’s repair, so to speak, to the talk she had begun in the turn before the turn to which the Mm is oriented. Here again, the Mm is followed not by talk on the topic of the turn to which it is oriented, Ron’s tailend repair, but to the topic of the turn before last, Sally’s own abandoned turn beginning. Fragment (10) is a further case of a topic from the turn-before-last being revived. Mal and Marilyn are talking about the eVect of their brother-in-law’s unemployment on Marilyn’s sister. (10)
24–L&MH3a
1 2 3 4
Mar:
Mal:
Yeah,= she’ll get a good honours degree:, and (0.4) she’s goinda be facing ‘nuff problems anyway,= with employment[ be:ing], (.) y’know= [°Yea:h°],
The weakness of Mm 145
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Mar:
Mal: Mal: Mar:→
Mal:
=forty-fi:ve, when she looks fer a- (.) well forty- fou:r she’ll be:, ·hhh when she looks fer her [first] professional jo:b. [°Mm:°], (0.2) °Yea:h, (0.2) [↑Su:re°]. [°M m °.] Cos she ca:n’t piggyback, on (.) any ev that work she did in- (0.4) at- (0.1) °th’° secreta:rial con [te:xt,] [°M m°.]
In the previous two fragments, the Mms in question were responding to substantial turns at talk. A cursory examination of this fragment would suggest that in line 11 Marilyn is merely continuing her prior turn, which terminates on job in line 7, linked by the conjunction cos in line 11. So what is the Mm before the cos in line 11 doing? In the intervening talk (bridging the two parts of Marilyn’s turn), Mal has uttered a series of brief response tokens, the Mm, Yeah, and Sure (lines 8/10), the Sure in overlap with Marilyn’s Mm. Mal’s three response tokens are a compound second pair part receipt of Marilyn’s turn, in particular from with employment being in line 3 up to 7.2 Then the Mm in line 11 can be seen as a third position post expansion to that sequence, before she returns to her own prior turn. Again her Mm can be understood as a token in Wnal, closing position in a sequence. It should also be noted that there is once again amplitude shift here between Marilyn’s Mm and the rest of that turn, further evidence that the two utterances are not aligned, and are undertaking diVerent actions (cf. Goldberg 1978). A British telephone example is seen in fragment (11), which initially looks as if it is a counter-example, as it appears that the Mm in line 12 is immediately followed by same speaker on-topic talk. Jenny and Vera are talking about the weather at this point in the conversation. (11)
RAH-001
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Ver: Jen: Jen: Ver: Jen:→
[Ah ↑think it’s thaht little bit wah:rmuh tuhni:gh [t i:sn’t it] [Oh ih tis i]t’s not= =s’ [bad iss:: rilly ] n o t. ] [It’s not qui:te] ez suh]veah[t’ni:ght, n]o [:. [M m : . ] [No, b’t it’s it’s e (.) melted. B’t ah th- if it free:zes t’night it’ll be wo:rse t’mor[ro [w moh:rning]I think,]
146 When Listeners Talk
10 11 12 13
Ver: Jen: Ver:
[·h [ t’m o rrow,] thaht’s] the only thing, y[e:s, [Ye:h, W’[ah think a]h’ll stay in bed in the moh:[ning
The impression that the Mm in line 6 looks as if it precedes same speaker talk turns out on closer examination not to be correct. The talk at this point is tumbling out with a lot of overlapping talk that is well aligned: there are few perturbations in the talk, and each beginning is Wne tuned in its orientation to points of possible completion: in line 3 Jenny’s Oh just overlaps Vera’s tonight at a point of possible completion, followed, however, by a tag question. Vera’s It’s in line 5 comes in recognitional overlap (cf. JeVerson 1983) with bad, which could have ended that turn constructional unit. Jenny, though, goes on to reiterate her previous turn unit, with it’s really not. Next comes Jenny’s Mm in line 6, positioned at the very next point of possible completion after severe (‘suhveah’). All this precision timing and the ability of speakers to react in tiny fractions of a second to what is going on in a conversation has been commented on extensively in the CA literature (e.g. Goodwin 1979, 1981; JeVerson 1973, 1983; JeVerson and SchegloV 1975; Sacks et al. 1974; SchegloV 1987b). The severe in line 5, to which the Mm is oriented, turns out not to be the actual end of the unit, as it is followed by the time adverbial tonight, and then Vera increments her turn even further with a No. It is this No in line 5 to which Jenny’s agreeing No at the end of line 6 is oriented. Jenny’s No occurs in terminal overlap with Vera’s no, suYcient of which has emerged for it to be recognisable for what it is. In other words, Jenny’s no in line 6, and the talk that follows it, is not part of a turn begun with the Mm, but is a new and separate turn constructional unit built to respond to a Vera’s No, and not to severe, to which the Mm is oriented. Finally, an example from a third major English speaking community, the USA. Despite the relative scarcity of Mm in American data, in particular the response token, the same phenomenon has been located in fragment (12). It should be noted, however, that such instances where Mm is followed by same speaker talk were found to be extremely rare in the American data, and even this one is not entirely clear. (12)
NB II:2:R
1 2 3 4
Emm: Nan: Emm:
[Wanna c’m] do:wn ‘av [a bah:ta] lu:nch w]ith me?= [°It’s js] ( )°] =Ah gut s’m beer’n stu:ff, (0.3)
The weakness of Mm 147
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
Nan: Emm: Nan:
Emm: Nan: Nan:
Emm: Nan: Nan: Emm:→ Nan: Nan: Nan:
↑Wul yer ril sweet hon: uh:m (.) [Or d’y]ou’av] sup’n [else °( )° [L e t-] I : ] hu. [n:No: i haf to: uh callo Roul’s mother,h I told’er I:’d call’er this morning I [gotta letter] from’er en [°(Uh huh.)° ] ·hhhhhh A:nd uhm (1.0) .tch u.-So: she in the letter she said if you ca:n why (.) yihknow call me Saturday morning en I jst haven’t. h [·hhhh] [°Mm h]m:°= =‘T’s like takin a beating. (0.2) kh[hh ↑hnhh hnh]-hnh- [hnh [°M m : : :,°] [No on e heard a wo:rd hah, >Not a word,< (0.2) Hah ah, (0.2) n:Not (.) not a word,h (.)
Emma invites Nan to lunch with her, which Nan declines in a classic and elaborate dispreferred response (lines 5, 8–10, 12, 14–16, 18). After a delay and a compliment, she goes into an account of why she can’t come (she has to call Roul’s mother), and then she says of this in line 18 it’s like taking a beating. Emma responds to this with an Mm in line 21 as a response token (albeit a very long one that would be untypical in the Australian or British data) that closes the sequence in second position, and follows this up with no-one heard a word, hah, which appears to be alluding to Nan not calling her mother-in-law. What it does not do is build upon the topic of the turn to which the Mm is responding, it’s like taking a beating.
Mm plus substantial same speaker talk in dispreferred environments As has been demonstrated so far in this chapter, one of the features of Mm that distinguishes it from Yeah is the nature of any same speaker talk that follows it. In this chapter so far, it has been seen that where Mm is followed by substantial same speaker talk, that talk is on a topic other than the topic of the turn to which that Mm is oriented. A notable, though very small, subset of Mms followed by substantial same speaker talk consists of ones that occur with talk that maintains topic, albeit in a disaYliative way. What occurs in these cases is not topical disalignment from
148 When Listeners Talk
the talk to which the Mm is oriented, but some kind of disagreement with or other dispreferred response to the talk to which the Mm is oriented. Whilst superWcially it appears that the Mm is once again being used in a Yeah-like way, and occurs in an archetypical Yeah environment of ostensible agreement projecting disagreement, the Yes, but environment (cf. Pomerantz 1984), a contrast with Yeah plus substantial same speaker talk is maintained. Yeah is a token that is overwhelmingly used to claim agreement or some other kind of alignment with the talk to which it is oriented, even when it is used for ostensible agreement before an actual disagreement. Mm, it has been argued, is used to claim topical disalignment, and the parties in the conversation can now move on to a new topic, or away from the topic-so-far. In the fragments examined in this section, Mm is also used as a token to move on from what has been said so far, but in these cases at a more pragmatic level, in the sense of distancing the force of the same speaker talk that follows the Mm from the force of the prior speaker’s talk, whilst maintaining topical continuity. That is, the disalignment in these cases is in terms of disagreement rather than topic. In the Wrst of these examples, in fragment (13), Marilyn and Mal are talking about an asthma attack she had suVered on a camping holiday. Two Mms occur in this sequence of talk which appear to be in what are prototypical Yeah environment (lines 16 and 20). A Yeah in such an environment, especially when contiguous with a Well (as both Mms are here), would classically be used to preface a disagreeing sequence with an ostensible agreement (cf. Pomerantz 1984; Sacks 1987). So what are the Mms up to here? (13)
270–L&MH3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Mar:
Mal: Mar: Mal: Mar: Mal: Mar: Mal: Mar: Mal: Mar:→ Mal:
I min I s:pose it c’d come on suddenly:¿= ah you know that night we w’re camping at Malacoo [:ta, an- I: ] got so distressed,= [Yes::,= I know]. =[.hhh] y’kn litrally within a ten minute= =[Yes:]. =period,= I- .hh I went fr’m being quite normal [.hhh ta fee]ling I c’d juss= [Yeah, I know], =quietly ↑die. Yes. .hh hhh (0.5) That’s what galvanised me inta believing th’t this time et camp,= wi had ta have a big tent. M:m,= well wi’ve gotta bigger te:nt¿ [I kno:w]. >W’ll I m’n that- that- wz what-<=
The weakness of Mm 149
18 19 20 21
Mar: Mal: Mar:→
[.h h h ] =(1.3) ga:lvanised me into et. °M:m,= we:ll°,= I don’t know how much’t wz the te:nt,= I think it wz the slee:ping ba:gs,
Initially in this stretch of talk the alignment and agreement is very strong, with Mal’s responses to Marilyn’s talk, especially lines 4 and 9, and then more substantially in 14–15, being sympathetic and strongly aYliative. A Wrst point to notice is that the same speaker talk that follows Marilyn’s Mm in line 16 maintains topic. Her we’ve got a bigger tent is in the immediately subsequent turn to Mal’s we had to have a big tent. In itself there appears to be no reason for Marilyn’s statement, as it seems to align with Mal’s talk, disagrees with nothing and adds little: both would have known that they have a bigger tent, so why say it, unless to set up something else? As emerges in the next couple of turns, it is being used as part of what might be termed a ‘pre-disagreement’. It is signiWcant that between the Mm and the topic-bearing part of the utterance there is a Well, a token frequently used to preface dispreferred, disagreeing responses (cf. Sacks 1987). Indeed Mal does appear to be picking up on something, as his response (lines 17/19) to Marilyn’s turn is punctuated with hitches and perturbations — the cut-oVs, repetition and long pause — in the course of a resaying of the substance of what he had said in his previous turn (a repeat of the Wrst part of that turn, with the anaphoric pronoun it substituting for the rest of that turn, believing that this time at camp we had to have a big tent). This is, in eVect, a third saying of the same idea. What comes next is a full disagreement in lines 20–1, when Marilyn says I don’t know how much it was the tent, I think it was the sleeping bags. So her Mm, well, we’ve got a bigger tent had occurred at a point of incipient disagreement, hinting rather than being overt. Marilyn’s overtly disagreeing turn (lines 20–1) is also prefaced by an Mm, again one that does not break with the topic of the talk to which the Mm is oriented (which is present in Mal’s immediately prior turn through the anaphoric pronoun it linking it to his turn in lines 14–15). So twice here an Mm is used to preface same speaker talk that does not disaYliate topically, as has been the case in the examples so far in this chapter, but to preface same speaker talk that disaYliates pragmatically, through disagreement with the talk to which the Mm is oriented. It would seem that Marilyn’s Mm at the beginning of her turn in 16 is a signiWcant choice. The eVect of the more positive Yeah instead of a more neutral Mm might be to make her turn seem like an agreement, Yeah, well, we’ve got a bigger tent. The diVerence would appear to be that a Yeah in
150 When Listeners Talk
dispreferred environments pushes the talk towards an initial, ostensible agreement, before pulling back with a disagreement. The eVect of the Mm here is to distance and disalign its speaker from the prior turn (reinforced here by the well). It appears to be a more ‘non-committal’ move at this point, but then after Mal’s turn, she redoes her Mm, well, and does the actual disagreement that the Wrst turn seems to have set up. It thus appears that Mm is another resource available to preface dispreferred responses, as occurs here, without the ostensible agreement, but with a more neutral receipt of the talk, before moving toward a dispreferred response. This kind of example is rare in the data. An Mm may be being used rather than a Yeah where there is a more subtle, less abrupt lead up to a disagreement, and/or when its speaker does not wish to ostensibly agree before disagreeing. This would Wt the more general characterisation of Mm as a weaker, more neutral version of Yeah.3 Fragment (14) is the third and only other instance identiWed from the core Australian data set which also has an Mm followed by substantial same speaker talk on the topic of the turn to which the Mm is oriented, and again it is one where the talk following the Mm is a dispreferred response to the talk to which it is oriented. Sally and Ron are in the middle of a sequence of talk in which they are disagreeing about their son’s reactions to a music lesson he has attended. Note that Ron’s response in line 5 is already displaying many of the markers of dispreference (cf., for example, Levinson 1983:334–5), such as delays, a Well, and an inbreath followed by a further delay. Then in line 13 Sally produces another dispreferred response. (14)
R&SB4a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Sal:
Ron: Sal: Ron: Ron:
Sal:→
Ron:→
·hh ↑Well you know ‘f you have a good lesson in a↑nything;= it’s em; (1.5) ‘ts very thrilling¿= ↑izzen it? (1.5) ↑We:ll:. (0.8) ·hh (0.3) A bid overst↑atement;= ↓t’say it’s thr:illing:, thhh *·huh huh ·huh huh* °Mm::°. (4.6) tsk He cl↑ai:ms thet they- (.) >spend mosta th’ time;= talking ‘bout the o:rg’n;= anyway<. (2.7) ↑M:m.= ↑I think something else must’ve happened,= becoz:- I ↑don’ think;= you get absolutely thrill:ed about a ↑cha:ht. (0.7) ↑°Mm:°↑.= ee’s s’posed ta played- (.) played the
The weakness of Mm
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Sal: Ron: Ron: Ron: Ron: Ron:
piece fr’m (the Sydney wa:lt [z )°. ] [He li:kes] to be prai:sed. Mm::. (1.5) °Hm-°. (1.5) °Yeah-°. (0.6) ↑Oh;= we::ll↑, (1.3) (I spose a bedda read this article). (0.9)
Ron reports in line 10–11 that their son has claimed that they had spent most of the music lesson talking about the organ. After a very long delay, Sally responds with an Mm followed by same speaker talk that Wrst distances her from what Ron has said by expressing her belief that something else must have happened, because a simple chat would not be enough to explain why their son had reported the music lesson as being thrilling. The disaYliation that occurs here has similarities to fragment (13), in that the dispreference is relatively mildly expressed. Sally’s turn is linked to Ron’s turn through the lexical cohesion of his talk to her chat (i.e. two kinds of spoken language), as well as a linking back to thrill three and four turns back, so there is complex cohesion here to more than one prior turn. The disjunction here again appears to be more in terms of pragmatic force than topic. Disagreement is in the air, and Sally’s I think something else must have happened is also moving the talk onto another topical tack, though without any sharp break. The second Mm here, in line 17, displays topical disalignment that is more like the Mms reported above in the section on topic recycling, although the topical disjunction is not very marked. Ron does minimal receipt of Sally’s turn with his Mm, but then goes back to the preceding topic of music, which he develops here along a slightly diVerent line. There is one similar example from the supplementary US data used in this study, in a discussion about cars. (15)
Auto Discussion (simpliWed)
1 2 3 4 5 6
Cur:
Cur: Mik:
[He:y. Where c’n I get a::, uh, ‘member the old twenny three Model T spring, (0.5) Backspring’t came up like that, Dju know what I’m [ talk ]what I’m talkin a[bout,] [ Ye:h,] [I thi]nk- I know
151
152 When Listeners Talk
7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Cur: Gar: Cur:→ Gar: Mik: Gar:
whatchu mean, Wh’r c’n I get o:ne. (1.2) Just use a regular one. (0.7) Mmm I’d like t’get a, high one if I cou:ld. (0.7) [I know uh-] [Lemme ask ] a guy at work. He’s gotta bunch a’ old clu [nkers. [Y’know Marlon Liddle? (0.2)
This Mm in line 12 is followed by substantial same speaker talk, which is ontopic. However, this one too occurs in a dispreferred position, with Curtis rejecting Gary’s advice to use a regular one. This is a typical Well position, following a delay of 0.7 seconds. It should be noted, though, that it is still saying, typically for an Mm, something like ‘I don’t want to talk about your suggestion, (I do not agree with the force of what you are saying), and I am disaligning from the intentions I understand you to be expressing through the action you are performing’. In summary, Mm is rarely followed by on-topic same speaker talk in the data examined, but when this occurs, the talk that follows is in all cases in the data to hand a dispreferred response to the talk to which the Mm is oriented. In this section, instances of Mm followed by substantial same speaker talk have been examined. It has been found that the talk that follows an Mm is overwhelmingly not on the topic of the talk to which the Mm is oriented, but either on a topic that is new to the conversation (topic change), or on a collateral topic that has been dropped, or from which the conversation has drifted away, step-by-step (cf. JeVerson 1984b; Sacks 1992b), and which is now revived through topic recycling (cf. Gardner 1986). A small but signiWcant subset of Mms in these environments (the remainder) were found to be disaligning not topically, but pragmatically, that is, the talk that followed the Mm was a dispreferred response to the talk to which the Mm was oriented, such as a disagreement or a warning.
Free-standing Mm and contiguous silence Mm followed by silence Good evidence that Mm is a weak token that disaligns from current talk can be found in cases where the Mm is followed by silence. On occasion, a speaker will
The weakness of Mm
produce an Mm in response to another speaker, and then no-one will take the opportunity to talk further. This is one of the options provided by the turntaking rules, namely rule 1c: if the current speaker has not selected a next speaker, and no other party self-selects, then the current speaker may, but need not, continue (Sacks et al. 1974). An example of an Mm preceding a lapse in found in the following example. (16)
L&MC2ai
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Mel:
Liz: Mel: Liz:→ → Mel: → Liz:
I’m not sa:ying;= I:’m: (0.6) going to:;= ba:n et-; (.) tot’lly¿ (0.1) b’d I:’m, (2.0) °mm ↓m:°, j’ss breakin the habit °a liddle°. When did you decide that. (1.1) °O:h. (.) a long: tih:me ago°, (0.5) °Mm-°. (3.5) ((clears throat)) (3.6) Well I think I’d rather- (0.1) listen anyway;= bicoz if you- (0.1) watch it;= you ca:n’ d’anything e:lse.
Liz’s Mm in line 8 comes as a minimal post-expansion, following Mel’s answer to her question in line 4. Neither Liz nor Mel takes the opportunity at this point to talk, and a lapse of over seven seconds in the conversation ensues. When Liz re-engages, the topic has not been abandoned, but the talk does not build directly on the question-answer sequence from immediately before the lapse. On other occasions, the silences are shorter. In fragment (17), the topic has entered a state of attrition, and what follows the silence after Ron’s Mm in line 11 is a topic change. This is similar in many ways to examples (1) to (5), where Mm is followed by same-speaker talk with a change of topic. The diVerence is that the Mm speaker does not talk immediately after the Mm. (17)
R&SB3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Sal:
Sal: Ron: Sal: Ron:
Did I tell you that Herbert Ba:rstow wes: (1.4) <was die::d>¿ (1.1) A:n:[d (hi-) ] [>I: knew] that<. (0.2) A:nd his- (0.3) his funeral service w’s at St Peter’s. tk↑O:h↑_ °yes°. (1.2)
153
154 When Listeners Talk
11 Ron:→ 12 13 Ron: 14 15 16 Ron: 17 Sal: 18 (0.5)
°Mm:°. (1.9) Oka:y, ((clears throat)) b’t ho((cough))w about the next weekend. (0.8) (at the ). Mm:.
Fragment (18) is rather diVerent. Here Marilyn and Mal are talking about the suicide of the daughter of friends. (18)
L&MH3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Mal: Mar:
Mal:
Mal: Mar: Mal: Mar:→ Mar: Mal:
Y [e :: hh s.] [yo:u kno:w]¿ (0.2) jess •see:ing a •s:eventeen = year old •daughter;= •dead in her •be:d¿ (0.2) ptk ·hh Oh-; -i:t’s:: (0.2) ya’d get- en en:o↑::r↓mous shock.= ya r↑ea:lly ↓wou:ld. (0.6) >Yes I mean; y’k ya< [↑go da t]ahp ‘er on th’= [°M m :°.] =shou:lde:r e*n:*; (.) ↑no-↓thi[ng:. [°Mm:h°. (1.0) ↑Y’know-;=↑all the tihme our ↓ba:bies [w’re lidd]le, , [°E r : :°,]
The Mm in line 11 is followed by a silence of 1.0 second, and then by a shift in the topic by the Mm producer, Marilyn. Here the new topic is related to the old by the notion of ‘death’, with the old topic on the death of a teenage girl, the new one on the imagined cot death of her own babies. The fact that this Mm is followed by nearly a second of silence reinforces the argument that the Mm belongs to the preceding rather than the following talk, that it in fact has no direct bearing on what follows, with Marilyn not building on the topic of Mal’s talk in lines 5 to 10. When the next turn constructional unit begins after the silence, it comes without any other markers of the shift. Instead Marilyn goes straight into the substantive part of the new topic. This may have been facilitated by the silence, which has placed temporal distance between the previous and the new talk, making the new topic less contingent on the prior. It can also be the other speaker who re-engages talk after a silence following an Mm. In (19), where Liz is doing virtually all of the interactional work, there is a long silence after Mel’s Mm, before the topic recycling by the Liz.
The weakness of Mm
(19)
L&MC2ai
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Liz:
Liz: Liz: Liz: Liz: Mel:→ Liz:→
((clears throat)) °~I have~ a °li’l° problem with the:se.= got ta be a bit sa:lty; didn’ et° (2.6) °cs it’s bee:n re:hea:ted°. (1.0) °(No wonder it was) sa:lty°. (2.9) Yahhh::. (3.0) °Pota:does are ni:ce°¿ °Mm°. (2.7) So:h. (0.1) Tohm Bahrry with the po:hnytai:l, (6.7)
Similarly, in (20) a very quiet Mm is followed by an other speaker topic shift after a much shorter gap. It is not surprising that topic shifts by another speaker after an Mm should occur, given that Mm is a retrospective, acknowledging token that does not project a next speaker. (20) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
L&MH3a Mar:
Mal:→ Mar:→
(0.2) ↑°Ye:s°↑, ·hh there is n:o: ↓ho:pe;= fer Neo:my, e↑what- can ya ↓gi:ve, ·hh nu:-thi:ng¿ (0.4) °°Mm:°°. (0.4) ↑Y’kn*o:w*↑,= *ri*member how I fe:lt- afta Mummy *die:d¿=
Mm following a silence Further evidence that Mm is a low involvement token is found when an Mm follows a long silence. Sometimes Mms in this position appear to be inhibiting an incipient lapse. In other words, some may be akin to the lapse terminators discussed in Chapter 3, in that they appeared to be designed to follow silences rather than talk. At other times there may simply be contingent reasons for the delay in its production which would require a video recording to explain. JeVerson noticed in her data that there appeared to be “some sort of interactional ‘metric’ in which ‘approximately one second’ operates, where that metric has as one artefact a ‘standard maximum tolerance’ for silence of more or less one second” (1989:170). She noted 951 occurrences of silences of between 0.9 seconds and 1.2 seconds, after which there was a very marked
155
156 When Listeners Talk
drop-oV to only 92 occurrences of silences between 1.3 seconds and 1.8 seconds. She cites a psychological study by Butterworth (1980) involving reading aloud, and reports that this researcher also found that pauses in the reading tended to be about the same length, namely 1.00–1.24 seconds.4 In a run through of some of the Australian data (approximately four hours of talk) used for this study, the distribution of the lengths of silences beyond the normal transition relevance space preceding any Mms was noted. The data sample is not large (n=73), but a deWnite trend not dissimilar to that found by JeVerson emerged. Most of the silences preceding the Mms were of 0.3 to 0.5 seconds (n=33), after which there was a dramatic drop, with only one silence of 0.6 or 0.7 seconds. The instances then rose between 0.8 and 1.3 seconds (n=18), that is, the range was slightly larger than JeVerson reported. After 1.3 seconds, the number of occurrences dropped away dramatically again (only 17 were more than 1.4 seconds). The preponderance of short silences of up to half a second is not surprising, given the observation that “overwhelmingly one party talks at a time” (Sacks et al. 1974:700), that is, neither none nor more than one, so there is a strong tendency to keep silences short. Why, on the other hand, there should be a noticeable rise in the occurrence of silences around one second is not so intuitively evident, but it does appear that silences up to around one second are tolerated, after which either talk tends to resume or the conversation gears down further and eventually, around 3 seconds, lapses and there is disengagement from the conversation. That there is a cluster of Mms after silences of around one second is, therefore, consistent with Wndings in the literature, few as these are. After the ‘one second metric’ cluster, the length of pauses preceding the Mm falls away to seven between 2.0 and 2.9 seconds, three between 3.0 and 3.9 seconds, and two between 4.0 and 4.9 seconds. Any Mms that occur after this are lapse terminator Mms: the shape of the token changes dramatically to a very long glissando with a falling or rise-falling contour. The longest gap before an acknowledging Mm is 4.4 seconds, which is quite short with a falling contour. The shortest gap before a lapse terminator is 5.1 seconds (see fragment (5) in Chapter 3). The primary observable eVect of the following set of Mms is that they prevent the conversation from lapsing. They are excellent objects to achieve this goal as, on the one hand, they show presence in the conversation by the production of a recognisable contribution to it. On the other hand, they are semantically empty, so if no party has any substantial contribution to make to
The weakness of Mm 157
the conversation, then Mm can Wll the topically empty gap. Its contribution can be understood to be something like: ‘I’m here, I’m engaged, I’m not moving out of the conversation at this moment, but I have nothing to say right now’. In the Wrst fragment in this section, Ron and Sally are discussing plans for an upcoming weekend. Sally’s response in line 4 to Ron’s question is very delayed. After another gap of 2.4 seconds, thus approaching the critical point for a conversational lapse, Ron utters an Mm in third position. That is, once again there is no necessity arising from sequence structural constraints (such as a conditionally relevant second pair part to a Wrst pair part) for a response token at this point, but the conversation is moving towards the point of lapsing. (21)
R&SB3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Ron:
Sal: → Ron:→ Sal:
>Y’ don’ know wha’ time E↑:vensong is,= ↑d’juWi c’n find ou:t-<. (2.4) °Mm:°. (0.5) Did I tell you that Herbert Ba:rstow wes: (1.4) <was die::d>¿ (1.1)
Another fragment in which an Mm is delayed is in (22). Mel is reporting how a computer company’s employees and management say that it is not their unconventional attitude to business attire that is important, but what they produce for sale. (22)
L&MC2aii
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Mel:
Liz: Mel: → Liz:→ Mel:
an’ what we’re do:ing; (.) y’know;= ta:ke es or lea:ve es; (.) °b’t-° (0.2) what we’re do:ing;= is preducing the ↑goods. °Mm:°. we don’ ca:hre. (2.6) °Mm:°. >B’t ↑they w’re ↓a:ll<, (·) ↑all ↓changing (sto:ries) ↑now¿
The Wrst turn constructional unit in this fragment gets an acknowledging Mm from Liz in line 4, which is then followed by an increment to Mel’s Wrst turn
158 When Listeners Talk
constructional unit, we don’t care. After this the silence grows out to 2.6 seconds, i.e. approaching a lapse, before Liz utters another Mm. The increment in line 5 is not a piece of talk that makes a strong call for a response. It has added little to what had been said in his prior turn. Then, as the talk is moving towards a lapse, Liz’s Mm keeps channels open. Of all the response tokens in English, it is Mm that appears to be most used in a delayed position. This can be explained by its relative neutrality and low commitment to the talk. Nevertheless it does show some commitment, as there is an option to show even lower commitment: no response whatsoever. There are a very few instances in the data set where other tokens appear to be used in this way. In fragment (23) it looks likely that the Yeah in line 9 is being used to stop the silence from growing towards a lapse, in particular as it is spoken by the same speaker as in the prior turn. However, unlike Mm, the token Yeah seems to be doing some further work, such as reaYrming what he had claimed in his turn in 6–7, and the typical higher speakership incipiency is of Yeah is also evident here, as Mel goes on to more talk. (23)
L&MC2ai
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Liz: Mel: Liz: Mel:
Mel:→ → Mel:
[Whad]da the women wea:r,= ↑Mel¿ (1.9) U::hh; (2.1) they- (.) the↓:y:, (0.3) They weara suit- ‘n tie:? (0.2) The- (.) N↓o:,= they- (.) g:enerally a h:ell ev a lot sma:rter th’n the me:hn. (1.9) °Yea:h°; (0.5) The ones I↑:’ve seen,=>anyway<.
It remains to be shown that Mms are also being used as weak acknowledgement tokens (rather than continuers) in the instances where Mm is neither preceded nor followed by a noticeable gap, or where the prior speaker continues to speak after the Mm. It needs to be shown that they have the force of retrospective items that are claiming adequate receipt of the talk to which they are oriented, and are moving toward closure of that sequence, in the sense that the Mm is a response that is clearing the way for a new adjacency pair.
The weakness of Mm 159
Free-standing Mm and other speaker continuation The largest group of free-standing Mms in the core Australian data set (143 instances) are unlike the overwhelming majority of Mm hms or Uh huhs, in that they do not have those tokens’ typical fall-rising or rising contours, but instead a falling (or less often rise-falling) intonation contour. They are like Mm hms and Uh huhs in that they very regularly occur in the middle of another’s extended turn. In this group there are free-standing Mms (generally falling ones) which in some way are passing up a more substantial turn and marking adequate receipt of the prior turn rather than asking the prior speaker to continue. This may seem a trivial distinction, but the point is that speakers seem to make systematic use of this distinction in the conversations examined here through a combination of choice of token (mainly between Mm, Yeah, Mm hm and Uh huh) and of intonation contour. JeVerson’s (1984a) remark that some speakers use both Yeah and Mm hm, whilst others use only Yeah suggests there are choices going on here of which not all speakers avail themselves. It also seems that not all speakers avail themselves of the choice of Mm, even in high Mm using communities such as the ones to which these Australian speakers belong. There may, of course, be other resources that parties in conversations use to make the kinds of distinctions that these tokens can make. However, the point is that these choices are available, and it does not mean the same thing to say ‘I have nothing to add to what you have just said’ as to say ‘Please continue talking’. Below is a range of instances of uses of free standing Mms for which the evidence points to them being used to pass up the opportunity to say something.
Mm at the end of a multi-unit turn In fragment (24) Ann is expounding her views on some recent behaviour of Bob’s ex-wife. She achieves her multi-unit turn by a combination of pausing at points of grammatical incompletion, and thus maximum control, and by ending intonation units with a continuing contour (cf. SchegloV 1996a). (24)
A&BD4a
1 2 3 4
Ann:
[Yea:h. (.) it wa:s.= ‘t w’s (0.2) y’know sumpin’ th’t ↑jes came out-= ‘t wasn:’-; (0.2) cahlcula:ded;= or anything;= et w’s j’s- (.)
160 When Listeners Talk
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
Ann:
Bob:→ Ann:
Bob:
ev; ·hh her o:wn belie:fs>, ·hh (0.3) an:’ (0.2) ↑j’st- (.) pudding that up agains:t the: o:ther stu:ff:, (.) the other ↑wee:k, (0.4) er:m; which (.) I think ws sord’v ↓sucking up stu:ff↓.= y’kno:w,= this ao:h-; (.) you kno:w;= you’re wonderful;= en::* °(tie-) >‘n’ so forth;= ‘n’ aren’t< you lucky to: ·hh have what- you’ve go:t;= en a:ll ev this sorda stuff, ·hh I think that w’s calculaded stu:ff°? (0.8) an:’- (.) I think-; (.) the since:re stuff w’s actually what she said toda:y. (0.2) Mm:.= =y’kno:w;= in te:rms ev: (1.1) what w’z (.) ↑what w’z it↑. ↑°y’kno:w°↑, (0.3) ↑Yep-↑_ nhh
Ann gets to the end of her multi-unit turn without a single vocalised interjection by Bob, before coming to a point of completion in intonational, grammatical and pragmatic terms after the second stuV in line 13. This occurs despite there being a number of points at which a minimal (e.g. supportive, agreeing) response of some kind could have legitimately have occurred, for example after beliefs in line 5, the two instances of y’know in line 9, and most saliently after the strongly rising intonation ending the unit with calculated stuV, which is followed by a 0.8 second gap before, in the absence of any vocalised action by Bob, she recycles her point with a prosodically punched up statement together with an actually, contrasting what Bob’s ex-wife had done in the past — the calculated stuV — with what she had done that day — the sincere stuV. It is only after this that Bob produces an Mm, a minimal, weak response to the hard conversational work that Ann had just been putting in. Even this Mm is slightly delayed, coming right at the end of the transition space, and as it follows an assessment, a more aYliative action could be expected (cf. Goodwin 1986; Pomerantz 1984). SigniWcantly, the end of the turn constructional unit in line 16, which gets the Mm response in line 18, is the Wrst point in this multi-unit turn that has a fully falling terminal pitch movement, without a rush-through or any other device to hold the turn. So it is at this point that we Wnd the strongest demands yet in this multi-unit turn for some kind of response. The crucial point here is that this Mm comes at the end of Ann’s exposition, and not during it, where she more obviously would be continuing. This suggests that the Mm is not being used to encourage Ann, the
The weakness of Mm
prior speaker, to continue, as it would plausibly have done had it come earlier in Ann’s turn, but to mark the end of her long turn, and to mark minimally and neutrally its adequate receipt. In fragment (25) Bob is talking favourably about a work colleague, and in the middle of an extended turn at talk. It can again be seen in this fragment that Ann does not produce a minimal response token at every point of possible completion, but only at those with marked prosodic completion, both Mms coming after marked terminal rises. (25)
A&BD3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Bob:
Ann:→ Bob:
Ann:→ Bob:
=I mea:n-, (0.4) I m’n she coulda jess sai:d nothi:ng,= b’t- (0.2) y’know she w’s: (.) fairly strai:ght,= >en we got- talk’n aboud a who:le lodda otha bits ‘n pieces;= en th’re w’s a who:le lotta pe:opl:e¿ °Mm°. thet- (.) she ed either ↑wo:rked with:↑_ or ha:d γeγ they ↓hed wo:rked fer ↑he:r;= en whadever in diff’ren’ pla:ces¿ ·hh over the ti:me; th’t Nick en I↑: kne:w¿ °Mm:°. e:hn en stuff like that-, ‘n: (0.4) >↑YEA:H I’d-< (0.8) I min:;= she w’s sti:ll-↑ (1.0) quide oka:hy.=
Bob is using mainly intonational resources to keep the turn going, namely continuative intonation and rush-throughs (speeding up before a transition space), but also pausing at points of maximum grammatical control. The two Mms in this extract come at points of full intonational, grammatical and pragmatic completion, with ‘appeal’ (rising) rather than ‘Wnal’ (falling) or ‘continuative’ (more or less level) terminal pitch direction. According to Du Bois et al. (1992), ‘appeal’ intonation more strongly seeks a response from interlocutors than the other two. Again the point is that these two Mms have been placed at points at which suYcient information has been provided for the recipient to be in a position to indicate ‘adequate receipt’, and not at points where there is obvious incompletion that would require more information for such adequate receipt, where a continuer would be more appropriate or expectable. Bob, however, goes on in each case to increment his turn in the face of the minimal commitment shown by Ann’s Mms, maybe even because of this. In particular after Ann’s second Mm in line 11, he says and stuV like that, which is not substantial, but rather like an empty list Wller (cf. JeVerson 1990).
161
162 When Listeners Talk
Mm in topic attrition environments Mm also occurs in environments of topic attrition, as in fragment (26). Ron and Sally have been talking about the diYculties that have arisen in his application for a job in the Middle East, and he is airing his frustrations. Sally aYliates with Ron by saying she is fed up too. (26)
R&SB3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Ron:
Sal: Ron: Sal:→ Ron: Ron: Ron:
AN IT’S: (.) AN’ I REA:LLY AM:;= F:ED UP ↓ABOUT IT. (0.5) Ye:s;= I↑’m ↓fed up about it too [:. [It’s R↑E::A::LLY S::THUPID. °Mm°. (0.5) °Da:hmn; dahmn;° (1.8) °-AHH::::::°. (1.5) This:- (.) ↓woman’s w- husband also works in (.) Qgh::ata:r.
It is signiWcant that Sally’s aYliation in line 4 is delayed by half a second, as what follows — her use of the neutral, low-involvement Mm — is less than aYliative. By withholding her supportive action in line 4, she may be providing the Wrst indication that she may be ‘doing being supportive’, but that she is less than wholly committed to this action, because when Ron goes on to reinforce his indignation (it’s really stupid, damn damn and ahhhh), Sally downgrades her responses Wrst to the neutral Mm in line 7, and then to no vocalisations at all. After going along with him with her Yes I’m fed up about it too, it seems that Sally gives up, and just lets Ron carry on venting till he runs out of steam. Indeed, Ron’s expletives in lines 9 and 11 are soft and devoiced, suggesting possibly self-directed talk. Meanwhile, the environment of Sally’s Mm suggests much more that it is a neutral, retrospective and weak second pair part than a token that is encouraging further talk from its recipient. Fragment (27) also occurs where the topic is running down. Ron and Sally have been talking about their son’s response to his music lessons. (27)
R&SB4a
1 2 3 4
Ron: Sal:
↑°Mm:↑.= ee’s s’posed ta played- (.) played the ↑piece fr’m (the Sydney wa:lt [ z ) ° . ] [He li:kes] to be prai:sed.
The weakness of Mm 163
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Ron:→ Ron: Ron: Ron:
Mm::. (1.5) °Hm-°. (1.5) °Yeah-°. (0.6) ↑Oh;= we::ll↑, (1.3)
Sally wraps up the sequence with her comment he likes to be praised. Ron’s Mm is a long, falling minimal response that provides acknowledgement, but is not designed as a continuer, an observation supported by Sally’s withdrawal from vocal participation at this point. Instead Ron himself produces a series of utterances that herald the end of this topical sequence, culminating in the oh well in line 11.
Mm at a point of completion, with falling intonation The next group of free standing Mms are ones that look very like continuers. However, they appear, again, to be uses by which a speaker taking a minimal turn at talk, rather than signaling to the other speaker to continue. The main reason for arguing in this way is that these Mms are placed after chunks of information that are complete in themselves. A continuer is a token that is archetypically placed after some talk that is taken by the participants to be incomplete (see Chapter 4), for example because a story or another multi-unit turn is still under way, or because a compound turn constructional unit (Lerner 1991, 1996) is only partially complete. In the following cases the Mms are placed where a turn constructional unit is complete, and there are no grounds discernible in the interaction to suggest that the turn constructional unit to which the Mm is oriented is to be continued. The Mm in these cases, then, is typically Wlling a second pair part slot in an adjacency pair, and not projecting anything. In fragment (28), for example, Marilyn announces that her brother-in-law has, as they had been expecting, lost his job. (28)
L&MH3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Mar: Mal: Mar: Mal:→ Mar: Mal:
[·hh]h So:. he’s two weeks:; (.) bifore °°M [m:°°. [yi- ah ee’s oudev °Mm [:°. [Harriet said;= he tada:y¿ Yes;= [I kno:w.]
got- (.) um::; (.) yeah;= he loses the ca:r? ·hhh th’ job n↑o:w. acksh’lly went i↑n:
164 When Listeners Talk
This news is, in itself, a complete piece of information, requiring no elaboration for its understanding. That is, of course, not to say that Mal is unlikely to show any further interest in the news: in fact this remains the topic of the conversation for some considerable time. However, the point is that, as a turn constructional unit within a sequence of talk, it comes to a point of completion, and the information itself is suYcient rather than deWcient. It appears that Mal understands it in this way, as he responds with a minimal and neutral Mm, rather than with a continuer, or with a request for elaboration on the broad topic of her brother-in-law’s loss of employment. But the talk that follows is not an elaboration or explication of the news in her prior turn: it is further news, and Mal’s Mm has simply done, in a minimal way, receipt of the news-so-far.5 In fragment (29) there is a series of three Mms that appear in a similar way to be oriented to completion of the immediately prior sequence, rather than to be acting as a series of classic continuers. Sally is talking about her fears of being perceived negatively at her son’s school for her advocacy of his interests. (29)
R&SB4a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Sal:
Ron:→ Sal: Ron:→ Sal:
Sal: Ron:→ Sal: Ron:
↑I don’- (0.1) <don’ wannto be see:n;= es somebody who:’s just h (.) n:uisance va:lue↓.= I feel that- (.) th↑at’s thee impression that I ge:ht. (.) ‘bout myse:lf>. (0.5) Mm:. (0.9) hh I min nobody (.) s:ortev takes what you sa:y very se:riousl [y:, [↓Mm:. (0.2) °till yer ↓jus sortev (.) shoo:ting yer mou:th off;= rea:lly¿ (0.2) °being difficult°.= =Mm:. (0.9) Which I think is prob’ly why:;= ya need ta talk ta someone like Millican. >↑YEHS-. (.) °w’l° (.) all right↑.
Each of Ron’s Mms comes after or at the end of a stretch of talk by Sally that is in itself a suYcient and complete turn at talk. The Wrst, in line 6, is not oriented to the Wrst point of possible completion: there have been intonational, grammatical and pragmatic completions after value in line 2 and after get in line 4. After the third full completion at myself in line 4, and a gap of half a second,
The weakness of Mm 165
Ron does produce an Mm that, in a similar way to the Mms above, acts as a second pair part to Sally’s compound turn. Ron’s next Mm in line 10 comes in terminal overlap with the last word in Sally’s next turn constructional unit, seriously, which is projectably grammatically and pragmatically possibly complete, though it happens to have continuing intonation, which Ron would not have been able to hear, as he comes in a moment too early. So for him this could have sounded like full completion when he uttered his Mm, and again this Mm can be understood to be doing receipt, which is a retrospective action, without any continuative valance. The third Mm in this series in line 16 comes latched to the next but one point of intonational, grammatical and pragmatic completion, after Sally’s being diYcult, which is a verbal adjectival phrase in predicate position that is an increment to her prior turn. Sally’s series of turns from line 8 to 19 is one long complex sentence that begins as a resaying of what she had begun to say back in line 1. The whole of this clause complex would look, in idealised form, something like I don’t want to be seen as somebody who’s just nuisance value: I feel that’s the impression I get about myself; I mean nobody sort of takes what you say very seriously till you’re just sort of shooting your mouth oV really, being diYcult, which I think is probably why you need to talk to someone like Millican. It is this long and complex utterance that is responded to with this series of acknowledging Mms, each at a point of possible completion. The fundamental point here is that none of these three Mms is placed at a point where Sally is producing any detectable evidence that she is going to continue. So here is a set of Mms, each of which is used as a minimal turn, and none of which appears, on the evidence to hand, to be signaling to the other speaker that she should continue speaking. Interestingly, Ron also withholds an oVer to talk to the school in his wife’s place. In this sequence of talk it is also interesting to note the way in which the Mm does some work that neither a Yeah nor an Mm hm (nor an Uh huh) could do in the same way. It has already been argued above that these three Mms are diVerent from Mm hms. If Ron had chosen Yeahs instead of the Mms the stronger aligning/agreeing valency of that token is likely to have been read as him agreeing with what is an elaborate self-criticism by Sally. By choosing the more neutral Mm Ron can be heard not as agreeing with Sally’s negative selfassessments, but as merely doing receipt of them in a much more neutral way. The majority of the Mms in the fragments in this section could conceivably have been Yeahs, or there could have been an aligning and agreeing No in the second Mm in (29). This is not to say that they would have had the same interactional import, or that these tokens are completely interchangeable, even
166 When Listeners Talk
in some circumstances. They are doubtless diVerent in sometimes quite obvious ways, as in fragment (29), and sometimes in subtle, but not necessarily insigniWcant ways in other circumstances. In a few of the other fragments above, it also seems that a Yeah would have had a very diVerent import from the chosen Mm. In fragment (28), for example, the Mm responds to what is a hard, straight bit of news, presented in a way to which a Yeah response would have sounded odd: it seems that Yeah is not a token that lends itself as a response to something that either is not a question or is not some news about which someone could express an opinion. In other words, if someone asks a question or makes a factual statement that the recipient also knows, an AB event in Labov and Fanshel’s (1977) terms, then a Yeah is appropriate, as is an Mm. If, however, someone says something that is truly news to the recipient, then a Yeah is not an appropriate response, but an Mm could be. This seems to be why a Yeah would sound decidedly odd in fragment (28). There remain to be discussed the cases where Mm appears to be truly a continuer. A few instances occur in the data with Mms with falling intonation contours at positions that are classically continuer position, that is, they occur after talk that is pragmatically or grammatically or intonationally incomplete. The intonation contour is crucial in establishing the particular sub-function of these Mms. For this reason the apparently anomalous uses of Mms with falling intonation contours in classic continuer positions will be discussed in Chapter 6. A couple of more typical continuer Mms are discussed in the next section.
Mm as a continuer, with fall-rising intonation A signiWcant number of the free-standing Mms in the data set (28 instances) are continuers, with fall-rising (punched down) intonation, such as those in fragments (30) and (31). Although typically Mm is not a continuer, it can be used as one, given certain sequential conditions and a characteristic continuer shape to the Mm. In all unambiguous instances of the use of Mm as a straightforward continuer, the Mm has a fall-rising (or in a handful of cases rising) intonation contour. These are also the intonation contours that Mm hm and Uh huh overwhelmingly have in the Australian data used for this study.6 In the Wrst example, in fragment (30), Mal is telling his wife what his mechanic had told him about some servicing work that needed to be done on his motorbike. (30)
L&MH3b
1 2
Mal:
I had another talk ta the michanic;= ↓en ee said;= whad ee’d told me yesterday;=
The weakness of Mm 167
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Mar: Mar: Mal: Mar: Mal: Mar: Mal: Mar:→ Mal:
ee said;= w’s this quide ex- sordev extre:me ·hh [s c e n a : ]rio. [Oh-;= (yeh,)] Yeah;= b’t we don’ wannen extre:me scen[a: r i > o(h)¿] [>No;= I know<.] ·i(h)hh [So;] (0.2) I a:sked him-; (·) ho:w w’d it go:;= [hhh] =over three: mo:nths. (0.3) M:m,= =°An ee said-; (·) ee said,= *o↑h you:: said y’d°- ↑y’d* ↓prob’ly servi:ve,=
Mal announces that his mechanic had mentioned an extreme scenario. He then prefaces the actual news in a pre-announcement (cf. Terasaki 1976) by saying I asked him how it would go over three months, and in anticipation of the actual announcement Marilyn produces an Mm with a fall-rising contour. Marilyn uses this continuer form to hand back the Xoor to Mal for the main news that he has set up with his reported question. In other words, the continuer shape is used because Mal has not come to the main point of what he is saying. An Uh huh or Mm hm with a similar contour would not have been an inappropriate alternative to the Mm at this point. Fragment (31) is in many ways similar, and in lines 3 to 7 Mal does a preannouncement in the manner of a shift to a new but related topic (in this case both the prior and the next topic are transport-related) in the manner in which this is regularly done with second stories (cf. Sacks 1992a). Possible responses to a pre-announcement are a go-ahead, a pre-empting or a blocking move (cf. SchegloV 1995). Here Marilyn provides a go-ahead in the form of a fall-rising Mm (line 8). (31)
L&MH3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Mal: Mal:
Lyn:→ Mal:
Lyn:
[↑°Mm:°.] °Yeah°, (0.9) ·hh °Mm°. D’d ya rea:d (.) o:h;= n↓o:, ysorry;= not rea:d, ·hh (0.2) no: it’s:; I hea:rd ‘n interview;= this: morning,= with ↓the ·hh Roa:d Tra:nsport ↓*Fed’ration;=or whadever they ca:ll themse:lves[ :*¿ [°M:mh°, risponding ta the Government’s what the Government’s sa:ying. ·hh >ebou’ what the’re goinna do;= with< ↑roa:d tra:nspo[:rt¿ [Mm:hh.
168 When Listeners Talk
13 14 15
Mal: Lyn:
the’re ganna mo:ve t’wards full cohst ric [overy;= by the] yea:r two thou:san:d¿ [That’s ri:ght.]
Mal does not immediately make the announcement, but elaborates on the preannouncement with more background. In fact this increment to the preannouncement does not get a continuer response from Marilyn, but a more prototypical Mm (line 12) that ends on a falling contour, with this being an expression of the adequacy of the reception of the talk so far, rather than a further go-ahead. This can be explained by the fact that Marilyn has already given her go-ahead with the Wrst Mm, so another would be redundant. Following this acknowledging Mm, the announcement that Mal has been building up to Wnally comes in lines 13–14. Further examples of continuer uses of Mm with this punched down intonation will be discussed in Chapter 6.
Mm plus brief same speaker reactive talk One of the puzzles in a study of response tokens is what is happening when a speaker uses a series of tokens in a single turn as a complex minimal response. One part of this puzzle is the question why, if Mm is a response token that is saying that its speaker has nothing to add topically to the current talk, its speaker sometimes continues responding. One reason has already been dealt with above, namely that the additional topical talk is not on the topic of the prior turn’s talk. The problem with cases such as those in fragments (32) and (33) is somewhat diVerent. Why does Mal produce an Mm, yeah, yeh, sure series in lines 7/9 of (32), and Ben an Mmnyeh that’s right in (33)? (32)
L&MH3A
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Lyn: Mal: Lyn:
Mal:→ Mal:→ Lyn:
tsk >y’know< I ↑s:aihd ta Hharriet et ↑Christmas;= look ‘f ↑you wannta mo:ve somewhere like ·hh= =Yea[h. [↑Quee:nsla:nd. b’t ·hh >so ‘f< ↑Dick gets= wo:rk;= ↑we:’ll mo:ve w↑ith: ↓you:;= I’d bi ↑qu [ite ha]ppy ta [do : th]at¿ [°Mm:°.] [Yea:h. ] (0.6) ↑Yeh;= su:[re↑. [You ↓know; (.) >I mean< (0.2) ;= >b’t my: f:a:mily’s th’ mai:n thing fer m↓e[:?
The weakness of Mm 169
(33)
A&BF3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Ben: Ann: Ann: Ben:→ Ann: Ben:
[W’ll I was] n’t very fa:r away;= fr’m gedding so [mething going.] [°That’s° R I:]:GH-!= En’ et wz ↑bi:g! (1.7) ‘t wz v↑e:ry big. °Mm:nyeh.= ‘at’s ri:gh-°. (0.6) So wz th’ commission. °hh huh hhn hhn hhn hhn [hhn hhn°] huh huh huh huh huh huh [huh hhm]
There is no single answer, but these two cases illustrate some of the contingencies that aVect speakers’ choices. Cases where Mm is followed by other brief responses are not very common in the data examined, for reasons that by now will be fairly obvious: Mm is a low involvement response token, saying that its speaker has ‘nothing to add’. But sometimes there appears to be an interactional need for a complex response, and a series of response tokens can be found in a single turn. In (32), for example, Mal’s four response tokens appear to be responding ‘on line’ as Lyn’s turn emerges, so that the Wrst Mm comes at a point at which not enough of I’d be quite happy to do that has come out to be recognisable, so this Mm must be responding to the previous part of Lyn’s turn, so if Dick gets work, we’ll move with you. The Yeah in line 7 comes quickly, but not before I’d be quite happy to has emerged, which, in juxtaposition with the rest of her turn, is now enough for him to be able to see where she is going, and he produces an upgrade showing solidarity with her proposal to help her sister’s family. Once this is Wnished, there is a further upgrade by Mal, his Yeh sure, with its more deWnite sure. This illustrates well how the production of these minimal responses are sensitive to the moment by moment emergence of the co-participant’s talk. Each, in this case, responds to a diVerent fragment of the emerging talk. The multiple response tokens in (33) show a slightly diVerent set of phenomena. First, Ben’s Mmnyeh appears to be a blend of at least two response tokens (Mm and Yeah), and possibly a third (No).7 JeVerson (1978b) calls such blends ‘lax tokens’, which reveal an equivocal response by their speaker. In this case one can see Ben upgrading his responses from the low commitment Mm through a Yeh to a Wrmly agreeing That’s right. This can be seen as evidence of an on-line modiWcation of the kind of response a speaker gives. A second major aspect of complex minimal responses is that they are indeed responses. They reveal the recipient’s perspective or stance on what
170 When Listeners Talk
another speaker has said, but do not add topically to the talk. It is clear that neither Mal in (32) nor Ben in (33) is developing topical talk, but instead they are acknowledging or agreeing with their interlocutor. This is a phenomenon that SchegloV (1990)8 has remarked on. What follows the Mms is one or more of those types of utterances that are sanctioned by ‘conditional access’ to the Xoor. This occurs when a main speaker has rights to an extended turn, and conditional access includes agreements, assessments, acknowledgement tokens, collaborative completions, or repairs in the form of brief clariWcation questions, as well as larger sequence boundary markers such as Anyway in the environment of topic attrition. What is distinctive about all of this ‘brief’ talk following an Mm is that it is retrospective, in the same way that the free standing Mms discussed in the last section are retrospective. They do not develop the topic in the sense of adding new information, but all do some acknowledging, evaluative or clariWcation work on the turn constructional unit to which they are oriented. Even in the most elaborate and substantial of the examples of this phenomenon found in the data, fragment (34), what is going on is retrospective rather than projective. This is an elaborate agreement by Mal in lines 7–8/10 of Marilyn’s proposal to help their bereaved friends. (34)
L&MH3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Mar: Mal: Mar: Mal: Mar: Mal:→ → Mal:→
·hh I thoughdev (0.1) e:m::hnhh (.) tsk ·hh [see:ing’f I c’n:- cook th’m:- ] (0.1) cook= [Cook th’m a mea:l er something], =th’m:, (0.2) ·hh a big mea::l on [Thu:rs]day,= [°M m:°], =‘n’ take it o:ver on the wa:y [:, ou:t,] [°Mm:° we] could do that ea:sily. (0.2) °Th’t’s not a [ problem°.]
This Mm and the talk that follows it provide an example that combines a number of elements of agreement strategies that are responsive, but not a substantial elaboration on what she has said. First, Mal’s easily shows that he considers her proposal to have no diYculties in being carried out. Second, there is cohesion (cf. Halliday and Hasan 1976) through substitution of cook by do. Third there is cohesion through pronominal reference, with that substituting for them a meal or something. Beyond that, Mal has substituted we for I, and by using the inclusive we rather than the mirroring, more repeat-like you, he is showing greater aYliation and involvement in Marilyn’s proposal. The second unit that Mal uses to show his strong aYliation with Marilyn’s suggestion,
The weakness of Mm
that’s not a problem in line 10, also uses cohesion, again pronominal reference, this time the that in line 10 stands for the whole of Marilyn’s sentence I can cook them a meal or something. This that takes subject position, which allows Mal to add the predicate is not a problem, which clears the way, so to speak, for the implementation of Marilyn’s proposal to help their friends. This is the most elaborate of all the ‘brief’ responses reported in this section, whether agreeing or other types. It does not develop the topic of the talk, or introduce any new talk. This is important because all the examples in the data of Mm plus ‘brief’ same speaker talk are ‘reactive’ in the sense that the associated talk is retrospective, without pushing the topic forward. The response token Mm occurs with a variety of other brief responses. Some of these are presented here. First, Mm can be followed by some kind of agreement, sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker, sometimes with positive polarity, sometimes with negative. These agreements are achieved through a number of linguistic resources. In (35) Bob is talking about how he fought alcoholism, and saying that he feels he is respected for that. Ann achieves strong agreement by adding exactly to her Mm. This agreement is achieved through a word that accepts the proposition expressed in the turn to which it oriented, without adding anything to that proposition. (35)
368–A&BD3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Bob:
Ann:→ Bob:
an’ jess said,= well ya kno:w this is whad I: di:d,= en:- (·) y’know thee end resuld i:s,= th’t(.) I belie:ve people no:w ho:ld me with re- in: ·hh estee:m,= en with respe:ct,= f’r whad I’ve do:ne,= =°M:m.= ex[ackly¿° ] [y’know- I]’m not looked do:wn upon:,= en fro:wned upon,= er anything like tha:t,
The resource used in fragment (36) is the cohesive device of substitution (cf. Halliday and Hasan 1976), whereby the subject of Mel’s utterance, it, is repeated, whilst the predicate, smells nice, is substituted by does. In this case agreement is achieved through a near-repetition device which again adds nothing to the proposition expressed in the turn to which it is oriented. (36) 1 2 3 4 5
547c-L&MC2b Mel: Liz:→ Mel:
(3.4) It smells ni:ce¿ (0.3) Mm:;= it does. Whe:re didja get this from.= This- (1.1) in here?
171
172 When Listeners Talk
Mm can also be followed by an assessment. In (37) this is brief, in (38) more extended. In the Wrst of these the Mm is followed by a simple assessment That’s good. This says something about the quality of the proposition in the turn to which it is a post-Mm response, and as such, in a similar way to the agreeing responses above, it does not add anything substantial to the proposition of the turn to which it is oriented. (37)
570–L&MH3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Mar:
Mal:→ Mal:→ Mar: Mal:
[·hh ] you c’n juss: you know,= en you get ti:red,= okay, hop on a bike, or you- p- oh sorry on a trai:n, ·hh all you do is pay fer yer own far [:e, [°Mm°. °That’s good°.= =I think ee’s doing a lot [th’ts very good. [°Ye:s°
In fragment (38) the assessment is more elaborate, with an assessment, it’s incredible, a qualiWer, really, and a tag question, isn’t it. However, as with the agreements, all components of Ann’s turn are retrospective, acknowledging Ben’s own assessment on the eVect of weddings and funerals on families, a second assessment to his that is qualiWed, and a pseudo-check with the tag.9 This Mm is also unusual, almost unique in the data set in fact, in its very animated and marked rise-falling tone (cf. Chapter 6). This is almost a contradiction of its lowered commitment sense, but can be seen as an example of the intonational overlay aVecting the nature of the token. This case can be seen as another example of the Xexibility of the token. (38) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
51–A&BF3a Ben: Ann:→ → Ben:
(3.0) °Weddings ‘n’ ↓funerals,= ↑bring out- th’ best ‘n’ worst in ↓fa:m’ [lies°]. [M↑m:!] ‘s incr↑edible.= really,= isn’t et. W’ll wa- ↓shi’s facing that-;= with her wedding no:w. (1.7)
Fragment (39) has an example of Mm preceding a collaborative completion. This is an Mm that acknowledges Jan’s turn-in-progress prior to Ike himself completing that turn, the Mm itself being oriented to the turn that started immediately before the Mm, though in this case it can be said that the Mm comes in the midst of that turn’s production, rather than at a point of possible completion after it.
The weakness of Mm 173
(39)
6S-I&JW1a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Jan: Ike: Jan:→ Ike:→ Jan: Ike:
What’s exackly is ee:,= de↑signing. (0.3) He:’s doing,= interior fidou:ts. (1.0) W↑o:w.= so ee’s (.) moved inta: Mm:. C’mercial interias:. (1.4) So he: (.) coordinaded something,= (an:d) (2.2) I don’ rilly know the detail of,= whether ee’s designing or:,= coordinading or,= I think ee’s coordinading
Jan’s turn in line 5 shows some lack of Xuency in its production: there is a micro pause after he, and then the lengthening of the second vowel of into. This shows some hesitancy in what Lerner (1996) calls ‘serial adjacency’, which proposes that talk should be continuous to a next transition-relevance place. Lerner argues that a disruption to serial adjacency opens up an opportunity space for another to come in. Ike appears to be taking his opportunity here on the evidence of Jan’s hesitancy, and in particular her sound stretch on into which suggests a word search, to come in to complete. What is of most interest here, though, is that on this occasion Ike’s completion of Jan’s turn is prefaced by the minimally receptive Mm, which appears to be marking receipt of what she has been intending to say. By doing explicit receipt and not just completing, he is, perhaps, allowing that he is claiming to understand what it was that she had wanted to say, which would remove any possible threat to face that might have arisen by him cutting across her turn without acknowledging in some way her contribution to it. On completion of the turn by Ike there is no objection forthcoming from Jan, so on the evidence it appears that he has done a successful completion.10 Sometimes an Mm is followed by another Mm. In fragments (40) and (41) the Mm is followed immediately by another Mm. It does not happen in the data that Mm hm is followed by another Mm hm, but it was found to be quite common with Yeah. Interestingly, the Mms in (40) both have the same shape, although the second is quieter, whilst the Mms in (41) diVer, the Wrst being intonationally a punched-up rise-fall, the second a fall, and also spoken with creaky voice. In (40) and (41) Ann and Ben are talking about their church community work.
174 When Listeners Talk
(40)
56–A&BF3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Ben:
Ann:→ Ben:
U:m (·) >anyway we pull up et< (0.4) one ev the students’ (0.5) h:ouse. (0.6) What the c’munidy house is a sep’rate issue,= °an go across ta those who didn’ talk about it°. Mm:. °Mm:°. Ra- *e* rather th’n a c’mitment (0.3) c’munity hou:se,
The second, quieter Mm interestingly aligns with the low amplitude of the Wnal utterance in Ben’s turn, after her initial, relatively loud Mm. It may be a case of a redoing by Ann to realign after she had done an Mm that could be heard as potentially disaligning through the contrastive amplitude. (41)
529–A&BF3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Ben:
Ann:→ Ben:
Ann:
En I sympathise,= th’ Press chu:rns ou:t thee:, (0.4) (brie:fing:), (0.4) >‘n stuff like that,= so it c’n< broa:den their ministry the:re, th’ (*tape’s) ministry:, en st[uff. [°Mm:. *Mm*°. >W’ll that’s their primary function,= en that’s why:, th’re’s an emphasis,= fr’m Graham_ (or I min)< (1.0) Jo:hn.
In (41), too, there may be a redoing to a more appropriate shape: the Wrst of these Mms, with its punched up shape, suggests heightened involvement (cf. Selting 1994), whilst the second is a more neutral acknowledgement. It is plausible that Ann, by doing more neutrality in her second go, is downgrading her response to what she perceives to be a more adequate-to-the-occasion doing of acknowledgement. In (42), the Mm is followed by a brief question, in what is a prototypical Oh environment - the only clear cut case in the data where Mm in an Oh environment has been found. It may be that Marilyn knows that Mal is teaching statistics, but is unaware what sort, so lines 2–3 do not constitute news, but she is looking for an elaboration of his comment, which makes the ‘continuer’ fallrising intonation of the Mm an ‘appropriate’ choice. (42)
651–L&MH3b
1 2 3
Mal:
(0.4) Oh we:ll, I’m currently teaching statistics et Spring*va:le*,
The weakness of Mm 175
4 5 6 7 8
Mar:→ Mal: Mar:
(0.4) *M:m*, what sort. Ta year elevens. (0.4) Give th’m Ma:nn Whhitney’s U:,
Fragment (43), in which the Mm in line 9 is also followed by a question, is more consistent with most of the above examples in that it occurs in a Yeah environment — note again the punched-down questioning shape of this token, giving it a more questioning, ‘handing over the Xoor’ shape. (43)
19S-P&QT3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Nik: Mat: Nik: Mat: Nik: Mat:→ Nik: Mat:
I:m seriously c’nsidering:¿ (0.4) Mm [:. [having: ay:: (0.2) <↑po:st (0.2) Chris:tmas (0.2) do:>. °nYeah°. (0.3) °all our friends,= th’t we rilly oughta see°. (1.1) °M:m°, tsk how clo:se? (1.1) Oh,= b’tween Christmas en New Yea:r. °Sounds like a wonderful idea°. (0.5)
Here is another case of a delayed, quiet Mm, suggesting low involvement, but it comes at a point where a resumption of talk is commonplace, after the ‘standard metric’ of about one second. An appropriate action in this environment is to ask the other party for further clariWcation if the conversation is not to move towards a lapse. Mm can also be followed by topic-shift-implicative items in an environment of topic attrition, such as the Anyway in (44). (44)
326–R&SB4a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Sal: Ron: Ron: Sal: Ron: Ron: Ron:→
.hh It’s a lo:w level =-uhh (0.9) °Mm:°. (0.7) [(Ya j’]st [(-uhh)] -uhh (0.8) °Mm:°. .hh
bit like nego:tiating cou:rses ‘t the o:ne plu:s,= isn’ it.=
hafta (.) like) do it.
↑ANYWA:Y↑,
176 When Listeners Talk
12 13
Ron:
(2.4) (°I mussn: (·) di:gress),
This example comes in an environment in which low involvement in the topic is evident. This is particularly strong because the speakers are showing that they have ‘nothing more to say’ on the topic, and a soft Mm is followed by markedly louder versions of the discourse boundary marker Anyway.
Yeah and Mm hm followed by substantial same speaker talk It has been shown in the preceding sections that any substantial same speaker talk following an Mm disaligns in various ways from the immediately prior talk. There is still a question about how Mm diVers from two related response tokens, Yeah and Mm hm, when they are followed by same speaker talk. It needs to be remembered that the Mm we are concerned with here is fundamentally and most centrally a token that acts as a response token, whether it is free-standing, followed by brief, reactive same speaker talk or by substantial same speaker talk. When Mm is followed by substantial same speaker talk, it is overwhelmingly followed by talk oV the topic of the immediately prior turn. When the talk that follows the Mm is by another speaker, that talk can also be oV the topic of the talk to which the Mm is oriented, though this occurs much less frequently than a continuation of on-topic talk by the other speaker. Yeah contrasts with Mm in this environment because Yeah is not constrained in terms of topic development in the way that Mm is, though most frequently if the same speaker continues talking after uttering a Yeah, then the talk that follows will be on the same topic as the turn to which the Yeah is oriented. This is not surprising, as Yeah is an aligning object, one frequently used to agree with or acknowledge what has just been said or done, rather then do more neutral receipt work in the manner of Mm. However, sometimes Yeah is followed by talk on a new topic. Yeahs, though, are regularly free-standing. Locally they appear in similar positions to Mm and Mm hm, as in (45), where it seems that an Mm or an Mm hm would have been equally appropriate to the Yeah (which does not, of course, mean that they would be doing the same work that this Yeah does). The Yeah in line 7 of the next fragment is followed by other speaker talk that continues on the same topic.
The weakness of Mm 177
(45)
L&MH3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Mal:
Lyn:→ Mal:
Lyn: Mal:
Ya kno:w;= en it’s:; (0.3) en:- the bloke fr’m the union;= >w’s saying;= w’ll the u:nion doesn’< wanta- (.) do: that-; b’t if the m:en wanta go ou:t-; (0.2) bicus they’ll no: longer >be able da make a< living:; (0.4) um-; the union will s’ ↑port- ↓them. Yea:h. (0.5) B’t- (.) w:hat they’re (.) >I m’n what they w’re sa:ying; ·hh w’z th’t ↑if they- ↑if it mo:ves t’wards;= full cost recovery; <M:m>, ↑Right? virt’ually ↑•ev’ry •owner •dri:ver;= w’ll go oudev bus’ness.
Yeah is also regularly followed by a change in topic by the same or, as in (46), by other speaker, though this occurs less regularly than with Mm, as Yeah shows greater commitment to the ongoing talk. (46)
L&MH3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Lyn:
Mal: Mal:→ Lyn:
·hh Yehs.= I min the’re really tahking this bus’nis ev cuhtting out ma:nageme:nt, [to en abs:u:rd degree:]:¿ [↑Ye:s;= to ↓en ex:tre:me.] ↑Yeah. (0.3) ·hhh So-; (.) whad about- that gu:y:-, who’d bin retren:ched befo:re;= ‘n was so te:hrrifie:d,= ↑es he lost the jo:b?
Yeah, like Mm, can be followed by other minimal response tokens. Unlike Mm in such environments, however, which is overwhelmingly the Wrst response token in a series of response tokens in a single turn, Yeah is regularly preceded by some other response token or minimal talk, most often by Oh, but also by some others. (47)
A&BD4a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Ann:
Bob:→ Ann:
=en- (0.2) I wenn to::= I ws pud on to: thee:: em:-; (1.0) a pla:ce.= the Werribee ti::le- (0.2) place; down nea:r; (0.4) ·hhh Toy:ota in Werri*bee:*?= an’ I went down the:re¿ (0.8) [tsk O↑h;= ↓yeah.] [e n : : d ] er::m-; (0.4) they w’re very h↑elpful;= in that- (.) I mean they still had th’ a sa:me bra:nd;=
178 When Listeners Talk
(48)
L&MH3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Lyn: Mal: Lyn:
Mal:→
(49)
R&SB3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Sal: Ron: Sal: Ron: Sal: Ron: Ron: Sal:→
=↑I think ↓ee’s do:ing;= a l:ot-; thet’s [ v:e:ry ] good. ·hh en when I ta:hlked= [°Ye:hs°.] =ta him on F:riday ni:ght¿ ·hh (.) it’s obvious thet a la:rge-, (.) -amou:nt-; ev this cleaning up ev the sta:tions, ·hh ↑is ↓done;= by local c’mmunity [grou:ps]. [↑°Mm:°.] °Yeah°, (0.9)
>The thing is;= th’t there w↑a:sn [’t a ]= [↑No:.] =previous bi:ll.= that w’z the f:irst an only acc↑ou:n [t. [↑Was it. (0.2) [Yeahh]. [°Mm°.] ↑>It w’s very high as well↑;= wasn’ it. [°that bi:]ll°, [It w↑a:::s]. yea:h. (0.2)
Yeah, though, is very frequently followed by more substantial same speaker talk, either on topic, as in (50) and (51), or, in a more Mm like way, with a change or shift in topic, often delayed, as can be seen in fragments (52) and (53). (50)
A&BD4a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Bob:
Ann:→ Bob:
(51)
I&JW3a
1 2 3 4 5
Ike: Jan:→ Jan:
°She cn:- (0.4) n-° y’know ‘SPESHLY a:fteh (0.7) yesterda:y (y’kno::wd), (0.7) ,= I mean: ↑un:↓be↑lie:v↓able.= ↑ho:w ↓many ↑clo:thes.= an: th’n (.) I WZ RI:GHT-, (0.4) too:.= she tu:rned up;= . (1.0) °Yea:h; *w’ll that was:*, (.) absalutely pred↑ictable;= wadn’ et°; °↑Yeh-↑°_ (1.5)
°That wood looks aw:ful°. ↑↑Yea::h↑↑. I mean et’s: all ↓oudev wha:ck. (0.3) >I m’n< that- whole li:ne is. (4.7)
The weakness of Mm 179
(52)
L&MC2aii
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Mel:
Liz: Mel: Liz: Mel:
Liz:→ Liz:→
(53)
L&MH3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Mal: Mar: Mal: Mar: Mal:→ Mal:→
an’ what we’re do:ing; (.) y’know;= ta:ke es or lea:ve es; (.) °b’t-° (0.2) what we’re do:ing;= is preducing the ↑goods. °Mm:°. we don’ ca:hre. (2.6) °Mm:°. >B’t ↑they w’re ↓a:ll<, (·) ↑all ↓changing (sto:ries) ↑now¿ ((loud scraping noise)) (0.3) Yea:hs. hhh (0.6) >Well listen;= I↑: thin:k;=
↑Yeh;= ↓that’s fi:ne. (0.5) [Yea:h, ] [Ahl jes] be relie:ved when it’s o:ver. ↑Ye:hs:. [·h h h ] [°↑Ye:s°]? (0.9) °No:w- tell mi about Richard°.=
Note that in (50) and (51) the talk that follows the Yeah adds something that is substantial and new to the topical development, namely the predictability of the behaviour referred to in line 8 of fragment (50), or the way in which the wood looks out of whack in (51). This contrasts with Mms is similar environments, where the topic is not developed. The examples so far come from the core Australian data set. Yeah appears to behave in a similar way in the American data. However, it has already been stated that Mms are relatively rare in the US data, in particular the response token Mms. So the question needs to be asked: if Mm does work that is distinctive from Yeah and Mm hm in Australian English, what takes its place, if anything, to do this work in US English? It is only possible to provide some tentative answers here, but examples have been found in the American data where the topic shifting work in same speaker talk following an Mm is done with Mm hm rather than Mm. In fragment (54) the parties are talking about medical matters.
180 When Listeners Talk
(54)
NB IV:13:R
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Emm:
Emm: Lot: Emm: Lot: Emm: Lot: Emm: Lot:
Emm: Lot: Emm:→ → Lot: Emm: Lot: Emm:
I really do::. I wz goina my doctor up there ah thought ah’ll go: en getta (.) yihknow let hi:m then ahl thought oh:: God ee’ll wan’take the othuh toenail off’n ah don’want that tih come ah:ff so::, (0.4) .t I wz a:ll set tih go do:wn here though, .t·hh We:ll you c’d go dow:n evry SA-er [THEY’RE O-uh he’s= [Yah. =dow:n there Sa:turda[y, ·hh]h [Ye:ah.] En yih only need s:ix::= =Ye:ah, (0.2) uh sho::ts en:: uh this: (.) uh I didn’ talk tih Do:ctor Nagle but I talk’ tuh iz hea:d nu:r’she’s a (0.2) ·hmhh.t Is THAT N-A-G-E-L:? (.) I guess it i: [s I don’] kno[w, [°Mm: hm°] [And it’s in the Lido huh? (0.7) Yeah yihknow back of uh:::: (0.3) W’l’f I’d look it up in th’pho:nebook I mean it w’d be: [in [W’l yih know whur BerkSHYRE’S is?= =YE:US,
In line 19 Emma initiates a repair with her question about the spelling of the doctor’s name: is that N-A-G-E-L, to which she gets an equivocal response, and in turn Emma, in third position, indicates receipt of that response with an Mm hm, which is followed up with same speaker talk within the transition space following the Mm hm. This continuation is another question, this time an andprefaced question as one in a series of questions (cf. Sorjonen and Heritage 1991), which links back past the second pair part in the repair sequence to which the Mm hm is oriented (in the same way as Mm can do) to pick up the topic of the talk of the turn-before-last. Fragment (55) has the same two speakers in a diVerent telephone conversation.
The weakness of Mm
(55)
NB II:3:R
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Lot:
Emm: Lot: Emm: Lot: Emm:→ Lot: Emm: Lot: Emm:
Uh-no:: Sa:m le:f’ °cut that fish up (.) fer th-the ca:t th’rest of it,° (0.4) Did’ee? (0.3) Eh yeah ‘e left Mondee. Oh:. Yeahm. (0.2) Mm hm O:kay honey well I know yer busy [I jst] [OH no] I’m no:t, ah wz jist. uh: Hadjer brekfiss? Ye:ah? hAh hah? (0.3) Oh it fe:lt ni:ce tih come down guess ih wz ho:t here yesterday wasn’t it.·h=
Here there is a more radical change of topic after the Mm hm, which appears to be a sequence closing token like Mm rather than a continuer, because Emma goes straight on without a pause to produce further talk of a pre-closing nature (cf. SchegloV and Sacks 1973) after the Mm hm. Another American example from a third telephone conversation involving these two speakers is found in fragment (56). (56)
NB IV:1:R
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Lot:
Emm: Lot: Emm:→ Lot: Emm: Lot:
[ God I see in the paper there’s sure lotta halibut bein cau:ght down thet coa:st, (0.3) Ye:ah. Bo:y well: it sure is goo::d, we had some ut wz rilly goo:d.= =Ye:ah:. °Mm hm:,° .p! You goan fishin? (0.3) *uOh::: gee I don’know. I’ave [n’decide[d ye:t] [°Mm hm° [Mm: h m]-m, Ah don’know what (.) yihknow, (0.2)
Emma’s Mm hm in line 7 is another in third position, as a response to Lottie’s Yeah, itself a second pair part to Emma’s assessments in lines 4–5 about how good the Wshing was. This Mm hm plus substantial same speaker talk is used in a very similar way to Mms in similar environments: it comes as a third position response token, and the talk that follows it resumes the line of talk from the
181
182 When Listeners Talk
turn immediately before the turn to which the Mm is oriented, which is the Yeah in second position. The intonation of this Mm hm also rises at the end, giving it a characteristic continuer shape.11 These three examples provide some evidence that Mm hm can be used in American English to accomplish the work typically accomplished by Mm in Australian and British English, namely sequence closure and the setting up of topic shift by the token utterer. However, such instances have been found to be very rare in the American data. It was also found that Mm hm is occasionally used to do this work in Australian and British English, though such uses are also very rare. One such instance can be seen in fragment (57). Liz is quizzing Mel about the sartorial habits of the employees of a computer company he does some business with. (57)
L&MC2ai
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
Liz: Mel:
Mel:
Mel: Liz:→ Liz:→ Mel: Liz:
D’they a:ll wear po:nytails the:re? (0.8) Well-; pa:rt ev thee: u:m: (0.5) philosophy ev the company;= ws: e:r:, (0.1) th’t- (1.1) the:t- (0.2) ni:nety percent ev th’ yea::r;= yev godda wear tho:ng:s:,= (in the fo:rce). . . ((16 lines of transcription omitted)) . (0.8) B’d a couhple of ‘em:;= do: get- (0.1) get dressed up with a; (0.9) suit n tie::, (0.3) when the’re: (1.2) er:m: (0.7) °d-d°-doing confrences en:, °Mm hm°¿ (1.0) En when the blokes come ou:t-; (1.0) fr’m Head O:ffice,= ↓in the States. °Mm:°. do the:y wear ↑thongs?
This is one of only three instances in the Australian data set where an Mm hm is followed by substantial same speaker talk, and there is evidence here that what has occurred is a misWring of what has been designed as a continuer, rather than a genuine case of Mm hm as acknowledgement token followed by substantial same speaker talk. The evidence is the following: Wrst, the intonation contour is a fall-rise, a classic contour for continuers, not only for Mm hm and Uh huh, but also for the non-archetypal continuers Mm and Yeah when they are used as continuers. This is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 6. The
The weakness of Mm 183
second piece of evidence that this is a misWre of a continuer is the silence which follows it.12 Liz waits for a second — JeVerson’s (1989) ‘standard maximum silence’ — before she goes on with some more talk, which is a question that revives another aspect of the topic: a question providing a new slant on her series of questions about these employees’ extraordinary ways of dressing. A third piece of evidence that Liz designed this Mm hm as a continuer is the talk to which it is oriented. Mel’s talk is evidently incomplete: when they’re doing erm conferences and. The conjunction in Wnal position in this turn suggests that there is more to come, as does the intonation contour of this stretch of talk (slightly rising at the end). Thus the evidence is that although the Mm hm was meant as a continuer by Liz, that intention was superseded by a new direction in the talk instantiated by Liz after she had waited until a second had elapsed for a continuation of the unit. A second instance from the Australian data, fragment (58), looks like another misWring continuer. Here Sally and Ron are together planning their next weekend. (58)
R&SB3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
Sal: Ron: Ron: Sal: Ron: Sal: Ron:→ Ron:→ Sal: Ron: Sal: Ron: Sal: Ron:
>W’ll it doesn’t do:;= ta dwe:ll on it<¿ (4.4) Now then. (1.3) This is where >w’ll bi th’< weekend. °°uhhhh°° [huhhn] [Good.] ·hh Fri:da:y, (1.0) Colleen en °Mm hm°, (0.4) ptk (.) Saturda:y; (1.3) M:usic ↓S’ci:ety dinner-;= >music-c-c [ya kno:w], [ Mm hm, ] Co:dy:, Mm hm, (0.2) Colebrooke O’Do:rk bu:siness. ↑*Mmh:m↑; i↑s it*. (0.5)
Ron’s Mm hm in line 10 bears many similarities to Liz’s Mm hm in line 16 of fragment (57). It has a punched down contour, it comes after what is clearly an incomplete turn constructional unit (Sally’s Colleen and in line 9), and it is
184 When Listeners Talk
followed by some silence, though this time considerably less than the one second in the previous example. Once again, though, the evidence is strong that this Mm hm was designed as a continuer, but in the absence of a continuation Ron himself moves the talk on to planning the next day of the weekend, though perhaps he is being somewhat hasty, given that Sally had less than half a second to resume her turn. A reason for this apparent impatience may be that the name of Colleen’s partner is known to both. This may have occurred to Ron after he has uttered his continuer Mm hm, which changed the circumstances and meant that there is no need for him to wait for the appearance of the second name. In this section it has been shown how Yeah and Mm hm can occur in similar environments to Mm, speciWcally when followed by same speaker talk, but that the ways in which these two tokens are used is rather diVerent from the way in which Mm is used when followed by substantial same speaker talk. Substantial same speaker talk that follows a Yeah tends to be on-topic (i.e. on the topic of the talk to which the Yeah is oriented), though it can also be oV topic. In the case of Mm hm, this token is rarely followed by substantial same speaker talk in the Australian data, and when it is, that appears to be as a result of some hitch in the conversation which requires a reorientation on the part of the speakers, and the abandonment of the Mm hm as designed, as such Mm hms appear to have been designed as a continuers, not sequence completing tokens allowing change or shift of topic. In American English there is some evidence that Mm hm can be used to do the archetypically Mm work of sequence completion and topic reorientation.
Conclusions In this chapter it has been shown how Mm is used as a response token in environments where it is doing retrospective work, either as a free-standing token, or with some other brief reactive talk, or with substantial same-speaker topical talk that does not build on the topic of the immediately prior talk in any substantial way. It thus does not exhibit any strong commitment to the topic. Mm itself can be seen as relatively neutral when it is being used as a response token, and it can co-occur with responsive talk such as agreements, assessments, collaborative completions, or requests for clariWcation, as well as with a new or markedly shifted topic. It almost invariably occurs turn initially when it co-occurs with other ‘brief’ talk, which that has the primary job of claiming
The weakness of Mm 185
receipt of some other talk. It is unlikely to occur after other talk such as an agreement or an assessment, as the production of this would already have marked adequate receipt of the talk to which it is oriented, thus rendering an Mm redundant.13 Mm is a neutral token that does not typically select next speaker (as a true continuer does), nor does it typically show the same degree of agreement or alignment with prior speaker, or show speakership incipiency to the extent that Yeah does, and characteristically and uniquely passes up the opportunity to say something about the topic of the turn to which it is addressed without necessarily passing up the opportunity to take a turn at talk. This can be demonstrated most clearly by a consideration of cases in which the Mm is followed by substantial same speaker talk. Mm has been found to have more in common with the acknowledgement token Yeah than with the continuers Mm hm and Uh huh. It can be used as a continuer (see Chapter 6 for a more extended discussion), but requires a particular intonational overlay for this transformation. Overall, however, it has been shown that Mm is a token that does work that is distinctive and diVerent from Yeah as well as from Mm hm and Uh huh. The way in which Mm is diVerent from Yeah will be demonstrated further in the next chapter. A low commitment to the topic of the prior turn has been demonstrated in a number of the fragments discussed in this chapter.
Chapter 6
Intonation contour and the use of Mm
Introduction This chapter explores the eVect that three intonational contours have on Mm as a response token: the falling contour, the fall-rising contour and the risefalling contour. These three contours account for the overwhelming majority of mappings on the Mms in the core data base.1 Of these three contours, the falling2 is the unmarked case, and is most neutral in the receipt of the turn to which it is oriented. It gives the token the force of an acknowledgement, probably the most neutral of all available to a speaker of English. This Mm accounts for over 70% of all contour types. Of the other two contours that are reviewed in this chapter, their eVect can be glossed in the following way. A fallrising contour turns the Mm into a continuer, with many similarities to the classic continuers Mm hm and Uh huh. A rise-falling contour turns the Mm into an assessment, a more semantically neutral, and therefore less highly involved version of tokens such as Great or Wow, which also typically have a rise-falling (or high falling) contour. In Chapter 4, the fundamental distinction between a terminal fall (to low) and a terminal (generally slight) rise in pitch was discussed in relation to Mm. In this chapter, the discussion goes into greater detail, including the identiWcation of intonation units and internal shapes or tunes of the token, and the range of work that the response token Mm can do. Intonation is widely considered to be an autonomous system that is mapped onto utterances (see for example Gibbon 1981; Bolinger 1986). Selting (1992a:317) says that prosody, including intonation, has to be conceived of as an autonomous signaling system which is used in conversation in co-occurrence with lexicosemantic and syntactic structures as a means of constituting and contextualizing particular interactively relevant activity types.
Intonation and other prosodic phenomena have been shown to be used as contextualization cues that contribute to our understanding of what is cur-
188 When Listeners Talk
rently (locally) relevant to conversational participants (cf. Gumperz 1982), and Mm, as any other token, is aVected or altered by intonation mappings to cue the local interactional import of the token beyond its core interactional use as a response token. Mm is particularly suited to a study of intonation as an interactional contextualization cue. It overwhelmingly occurs as the only token in its intonation unit and, because it is monosyllabic, the range of possible contour shapes in the intonation unit is restricted. This relative lack of complexity makes it easier to examine the context in which it occurs and the way in which it is treated by parties in a conversation. In fact in the core Australian corpus of just over 700 Mms,3 nearly 98% were simple, independent intonation units with contours that were either simple falls, fall-rises or rise-falls (i.e. not rises, levels or complex tones). They also overwhelmingly occurred without pre-heads and post-heads, (‘proclitic’ and ‘enclitic’ elements in Brazil et al.’s (1980) terms). In other words, Mms typically constitute a relatively unusual case in which the intonation unit corresponds to a single, simple, tonic syllable. In this chapter, the Wrst section is a brief review of the literature on intonation in ordinary conversation. This focuses on the identiWcation of intonation units, and on the function of intonation in conversation. The next three sections then look in detail at the eVect of falling, rise-falling and fallrising intonation on Mm.
Intonation in conversation: A review4 The main emphasis in this section is on research into intonation in natural, ordinary conversation. This means the focus is on the functions rather than the forms of intonation, though of course some reference to forms is necessary. Attention is also paid to what constitutes a prosodic or intonational unit. Following Schuetze-Coburn (1994:58), one of the purposes of this section is to describe the prosodic phrasing of natural, connected speech. A proper description entails an examination of the evidence motivating this phrasing, including the internal coherence of the resulting prosodic units, as well as phonetic cues to their boundaries. It may well be the case that not every unit is equally coherent, or that not every boundary percept has a clearly identiWable phonetic basis — given our current limited understanding of prosodic phenomena.
Nevertheless, if the eVect of prosody and intonation on Mm is to be examined,
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 189
then as clear an understanding as possible of the form of that prosody is required. It has been pointed out many times that relatively little attention has been paid to intonation and prosody in natural conversation or talk-in-interaction, although in recent years there have been an increase in research in this area. The main attention to intonation has generally either been on formal aspects, notably in the generative grammar tradition (e.g. Chomsky and Halle 1968; Pierrehumbert 1980), or to interpretations of attitudinal, emotional, interactional or discourse meaning derived from intuitive analysis of invented spoken sentences (e.g. Bolinger 1986, 1989; O’Connor and Arnold 1973). However, as Coulthard (1992:36) points out, “some, perhaps much, of the claimed attitudinal meaning is, in fact, being derived from the lexicogrammatical and contextual features of the examples themselves and not from the intonation contour”.
Identifying intonation units The Wrst problem in studying intonation is to establish what constitutes a meaningful or signiWcant prosodic ‘chunk’ of spoken language, and the relative roles of grammar, prosody and pragmatic meaning in these ‘chunks’ (see Ford and Thompson 1996, for a review of the issues). In the CA tradition, it has been recognised that intonation and prosody are important in the constitution of interactional units of talk, though most conversation analysts with a sociology background have preferred to leave such questions — or at least the more ‘linguistic’ aspects of such questions — to linguists. They point out that sociologists do not have the relevant expertise. SchegloV (1996a:53), for example, has said “[f]rom early on it seemed clear that some parts of the enterprise of understanding conversation would rest heavily on the contribution of linguists”. This point had been made some twenty years earlier in the seminal turn-taking paper of which he was co-author (Sacks et al. 1974). He expresses his disappointment, however, at linguists’ contributions, suggesting that “the point of articulation between language organisation and interaction has been insuYciently explicated on the interactional side” (SchegloV 1996a:53; see also SchegloV 1998). The collection by Couper-Kuhlen and Selting (1996) has, however, gone some way to redressing his disappointment. Whilst many scholars appear to agree that grammar, prosody and pragmatics all contribute to a natural chunking of talk-in-interaction, there is less than full agreement about the roles played by these three subsystems of language. Some focus on the intonation unit as the most important (e.g. Chafe
190 When Listeners Talk
1993; Du Bois et al. 1992; Du Bois et al. 1993), others on the perceived primacy of grammar (e.g. Sacks et al. 1974). Some see the issue as unresolved and requiring a great deal more research (e.g. SchegloV 1996a; Ford and Thompson 1996), whilst others see the issue of conversational units as more or less resolved (e.g. Eggins 1990). For the purposes of this chapter, however, it suYces to claim that intonation is a crucial factor in the chunking of the Xow of conversation, and the intonation contour in particular inXuences the way in which Mm is placed by participants in conversation. Intonation is, according to ’t Hart et al. (1990:2) “the ensemble of pitch variations in speech caused by the varying periodicity in the vibrations of the vocal cords”. Schuetze-Coburn (1994:53) says that “‘intonation’ may be said to encompass all aspects of the speech signal which involve fundamental frequency/pitch modulation”. Brazil et al. (1980:1) similarly state that “[d]escriptions of intonation are concerned almost entirely with the communicative signiWcance of variations in the pitch of the speaker’s voice” (emphasis in the original). However, it is not always easy to establish boundaries of intonation units in natural conversation. In fact the assumption used to be that auditory identiWcation of prosodic units is unreliable, in particular following inXuential papers by Lieberman (1965, 1967) in which it was claimed that auditory analysis is both unreliable and lacking in validity. However, in a more recent study Schuetze-Coburn et al. (1991), in an examination of acoustic declination units and auditory intonation units, found that 99% of their acoustic unit boundaries coincided with the auditory unit boundaries. The criteria of fundamental frequency reset, pause, and speaker change were used for the acoustic units. It was the beginnings of the declination units (i.e. the acoustic units) that coincided so highly with their auditory units following pitch reset, though there were more auditory units identiWed than acoustic units, because declination is a more spread out phenomenon than intonation phrase. These researchers used conversational data. What one can conclude is that it is quite possible to identify intonation units reliably on an auditory basis, as long as the transcriber is well trained in identifying the important prosodic criteria. There is an assumption in much of the literature that syntax is important in establishing such boundaries, and often the prosodic unit is taken to be dependent on grammatical unit. There still appears to be a scarcity of studies of prosody and intonation as autonomous systems in connected, natural, spontaneous speech. Chafe (1987:22) suggests that an intonation unit is a stretch of speech uttered by one speaker that comes under a “coherent intonation con-
Intonation contour and the use of Mm
tour”. Pierrehumbert (1980:19), on the other hand, says that the way in which an utterance is broken up into intonation phrases “is really a problem in the relation of syntax and semantics”. Selkirk (1981:134) states that the constituent elements of prosodic phrasing “refer directly to the syntax of the sentence”. Crystal (1975), too, states that tone unit boundaries are determined by syntactic structure, on the basis of post-hoc rules. In other words, there is a widespread assumption that syntax is prior and prosody is derivative. However, others emphasize the independence of intonation and prosody from the grammatical system. McLemore (1991:6), for example, says “the choice of [intonation] contour, or tune, is independent of syntax”. Ladd (1986:314) has claimed that what he calls intonation phrases are supposed to be delimited by boundary phenomena of some intuitively deWnable sort, but they are also supposed to have well-deWned internal phonological structure and to match up with the syntax in well-deWned ways. So any stretch of speech set oV by audible boundaries is assumed to be an intonational phrase, and at the same time any stretch of speech identiWable on structural grounds as an intonational phrase is assumed to be set oV by boundaries.
Ladd then goes on to argue for units of intonation to be determined through two levels: by the location of nuclear tones and by certain phonetic cues, that is by non-syntactic criteria. This, of course, is not to claim that there is no relationship between syntax and intonation, but if intonation is an autonomous system, then it is worth examining the extent to which prosodic features alone are suYcient to establish intonation unit boundaries. Prosodic or intonation units have been treated in many diVerent ways over the years (e.g. Pike 1945; Halliday 1967; Crystal 1969; Brazil et al. 1980; Pierrehumbert 1980; Gibbon and Selting 1983; Ladd 1986). Chafe (1987:22) says that an intonation unit “may be thought of as consisting of speech (by a single speaker) uttered with a ‘coherent intonation contour’”, and he says that probably the most important single identifying feature of an intonation unit is its “clause-Wnal rising or falling pitch” (Chafe 1980:14). What, then, are the other features that are signiWcant in delineating boundaries of intonation units? Cruttenden (1986) mentions a number of prosodic elements as signiWcant in identifying these. These include: – –
pitch accent (where there is pitch prominence in some form: step up or down, or intrasyllabic movement up or down); stress (where the syllable is louder and/or longer, but there is no pitch prominence, i.e. no accent), and
191
192 When Listeners Talk
–
nucleus (pitch accent with internal pitch movement: always the principal pitch prominence).
Schuetze-Coburn (1994) provides quite an exhaustive discussion of the problem. SigniWcant features for him are aspects of pitch and fundamental frequency, duration (timing), and speech rate (speed). The Wrst and most important criterion discussed by Schuetze-Coburn for identifying intonation units is pitch in its various aspects. Often the beginning of an intonation unit will be marked by pitch reset (a shift in pitch in relation to the termination pitch of the immediately prior unit). This is also one of the two primary cues for Crystal (1969) for his tone unit, and for Cruttenden (1986:41) “a change in pitch of unaccented syllables is a fairly clear boundary marker”. This is also one of Wve major cues for Du Bois et al. (1992). Another aspect of pitch that helps identify intonation unit boundaries is declination, which is the global pitch trend throughout the unit, and which is generally downwards in English (and in most other languages: in fact this may be a language universal). In other words, on the basis of other prosodic features, a boundary between intonation units can occur even though the general downward trend of pitch continues across the intonation unit boundaries. A third pitch feature that can mark boundaries is the presence of at least one syllable with tonic stress, that is, with internal pitch movement in the syllable (often accompanied by lengthening and increased amplitude). Finally, if there are any post-tonic weakly stressed syllables, they will carry a change in pitch from the tonic syllable. Pierrehumbert (1980:26) also noticed that the ends of intonation phrases (essentially equivalent to intonation units) have “distinctive tonal characteristics apart from those attributable to the pitch accents”. Crystal (1969) refers to such syllables as the tail, and Brazil et al. (1980) as the enclitic element. If these Wnal syllables end low, they suggest Wnality, if high, they suggest continuation in some sense (cf. Du Bois et al. 1992; Cruttenden 1986; McLemore 1991). Schuetze-Coburn (1994) suggests some other pitch features may be signiWcant in marking intonation unit boundaries, namely F0 (fundamental frequency) height, F0 movement, F0 peak shape, F0 peak alignment. However, these are often very subtle and diYcult to hear. The line that has been taken here is that what one can hear is probably what is functionally important. The second major set of crucial features in establishing boundaries is those features to do with timing, speciWcally duration of pauses. Pause (together with pitch contour) is the most frequently cited parameter in the literature for the
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 193
identiWcation of units. However, it should be noted that many intonation units lack boundary pauses. The third major set of criteria for marking intonation unit boundaries have to do with speech rate: sound stretches (drawls), accelerated speech, including anacrusis (the faster articulation of the initial unstressed syllables, if they are present, of an intonation unit), and deceleration (including prosodic lengthening), in particular of any unstressed syllables following the tonic syllable. Du Bois et al. (1992) and Cruttenden (1986) mark accelerando and decelerando with a three way distinction: accelerated, modal and lengthened. Accelerated occurs typically unit-initially; lengthened speech occurs typically unit-terminally. In considering the relevance of this discussion to the main focus of the chapter, namely the intonation of Mm in ordinary conversation, it should be noted that there is at most one tonic syllable on the Mm and nothing else, and at the least only one unaccented syllable. There is frequently pitch reset following it (if there is same speaker talk following). Mms also overwhelmingly occur as distinct intonation units, that is, not as part of a unit in any same speaker talk that might follow. Finally, the degree and direction of pitch movement can generally be determined auditorilly without diYculty.
Functions of intonation Once intonation units have been satisfactorily identiWed, aspects of the question of their role in conversation can be addressed. In the current study, limited as it is mainly to Mm and two other response tokens, Mm hm and Yeah, it is possible to ask how the interactional nature of these tokens is related to their intonation. An assumption in this is that they will be primarily used to manage the discourse Xow (the trajectory of the talk) rather than express attitudes or emotions. The type of discourse Xow management being attempted with Mm should be reXected in the choice of contour. This is not to say that, for example, an emotional or attitudinal overlay is not found on Mm. Indeed non-discourse management functions have been found in particular with the rise-falling contour in stretches of talk in which ‘heightened involvement’ is expressed. However, in what one might call the unmarked cases one can assume that discourse rather than attitudinal or social functions predominate. One feature of intonation has been dealt with in Chapter 4, namely terminal pitch movement. As was argued there, there appears to be a near consensus on the broad function of falling versus rising terminal pitch direction in an intonation unit: falling completes, segments, or claims common ground (about
194 When Listeners Talk
which no more need be said), whilst rising suggests non-completion, more to come, and connecting. In this section, some other aspects of the intonational and prosodic characteristics of prosodic units of talk are discussed. For example, SchegloV (1998) notes that the last pitch peak in a turn constructional unit is a place where turntransition becomes relevant without being turn competitive, and Goodwin (1986) notes that one of the orderly phenomena associated with this Wnal pitch peak is the interpolation of continuers. French and Local (1983) identiWed high pitch and loudness before this pitch peak to be associated with turn-competitiveness in conversation. Wells and Macfarlane (1998: 280) argued that the stretch of talk between a Wnal major accented syllable of the current turn and a point one or two beats following the onset of the next utterance (whether or not the next utterance is spoken by the same speaker or a new speaker)
is the extent of the transition space. At a higher level of organisation in discourse than the intonation unit, Gibbon and Selting (1983) found intonation being used to mark stages in generic structure in German radio broadcasts, the host using three diVerent contours to signal diVerent aspects of thematic development, as well as to establish diVerent relations with the diVerent addressees. Also in problemsolving sequences in gatekeeping encounters (Selting 1988) and in storytelling (Selting 1992b), she reports that intonation is one of the contextualization devices used to mark oV stages of the multi-unit turns (others being certain other prosodic features, lexis and syntax). In this case, she Wnds that stages in short stories are marked prosodically, and speciWcally by intonation, in ‘paratones’, a kind of prosodically marked spoken paragraph (cf. Yule 1980; Couper-Kuhlen 1983) which is a stretch of talk developing a single theme. In the telling of short stories, Selting found that paratones show a declination trend (which she calls ‘global falling in pitch’) from beginning to end. Selting claims that “the intonation in this case seems to signal the entire short story as one cohesive whole delimited by a high beginning and a low ending and a short pause before and after it” (Selting 1992b:248). This appears to coincide with what Couper-Kuhlen (1983) calls a ‘major paratone’. Within the story there are also ‘minor paratones’. For example, the initial stage of the story is about the complication from which the story ensues (cf. Labov and Waletzky 1967), and here the terminal pitch direction of intonation units is the rise. When the storyteller reaches the resolution (or culmination, as Selting calls it) of the story, the terminal pitch direction becomes falling. This appears to be rather
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 195
diVerent from McLemore’s (1991) claim that high pitch at unit Wnal position is connecting, and low at unit Wnal position is segmenting. Selting, however, is talking about entire generic stages showing a regular intonational pattern, which means that she is referring to discourse structure as opposed to utterance function and structuring across adjacency pairs. What Selting appears to be doing in these papers is to demonstrate some ways in which intonation and prosody are used as additional devices to lexis and syntax to signal turn-taking and discourse activity type. In this she addresses a problem that has plagued intonation studies. There is a whole range of functions that intonation achieves: staging in genres, emotional or attitudinal expression, pragmatic contrast between utterances (or ‘speech acts’), expression of participant roles and relations. This further suggests that decontextualized generalisations about, for example, falling versus rising terminal pitch direction, which are based on isolated clauses or utterances, may be impossible, or not very helpful beyond making the very general claim that falls are in some sense Wnal, and rises are in some sense non-Wnal. In terms of other aspects of intonation (i.e. apart from terminal pitch direction) and prosody, Cruttenden (1986) also reports a discourse level function of intonation in natural conversation that corresponds to paratones. The Wrst unit in a paratone has been found to have a wide pitch range, with a general tendency towards narrower range towards the end of the paratone. High pitch and a wide range elsewhere, that is, not at the beginning of paratones, he suggests, seem to be associated with emotional or social purposes, for example anger or deference. French and Local (1983) also examined high pitch and found it, together with increased loudness, to be associated with competitive overlap in conversation (where one speaker is trying to take the Xoor from another who is currently occupying the Xoor). In contrast, in the present study, in which the majority of Mms are low and soft, with high pitch and loudness occurring infrequently, Mm is rarely associated either with extended stretches of talk by its speaker at the level of ‘paratone’, or with competitive overlap.5 Such marked prosody is most likely to be either an indicator of emotional/social involvement or of some other, as yet undescribed function. In fact, most loud and high pitched Mms were found in the environment that French and Local’s study would predict, namely in conjunction with the rise-falling contour, constituting a marker of heightened involvement. There have been fewer studies on the role of other aspects of prosody in relation to intonation units or the functions of response tokens. A study by
196 When Listeners Talk
Koiso et al. (1998) on Japanese discourse (map task dialogues) identiWed a number of prosodic features that ‘discriminate’ the points at which response tokens and other backchannels in Japanese occur, which are towards the end of an intonation unit. The main factors they identiWed are high peak energy, a late decrease in energy, and a Xat fall or a rise-fall. They conclude that both prosody and syntax play a role in determining where backchannels occur. In particular certain syntactic features correlate strongly with the absence of backchannels, whilst the above mentioned prosodic features correlate with the occurrence of backchannels if syntactic correlates are also present. Many of the problems with establishing the role of intonation in ordinary conversation arise from its functional diversity. Intonation is used to accompany and contribute to a wide range of activities. Establishing these out of the context of natural conversation is particularly fraught with diYculty. It seems that one promising avenue open to the researcher is to examine closely actual instances of use in a restricted context. The response tokens Mm, Mm hm and Yeah appear to be suitable objects for a limited foray into the eVect of intonational overlays. They are short utterances, with a limited, if varied, set of functions, and they overwhelmingly occur as the only items in an intonation unit. In the following sections, I will be reporting on the evidence for the eVect of intonation on Mm and the other tokens drawing on the surrounding talk and how the participants deal with a particular tone. This includes what the tone is a reaction to, how the tone in turn is reacted to, and in relation to what the token is doing. It may be remembered that an Mm with a falling contour is associated with some sense of Wnality, one with a fall-rising contour with some sense of incompletion, and one with a rise-falling contour with some sense of heightened involvement in the talk. Any high-falling tone will imbue some sense of heightened involvement in the talk.
Mm with falling intonation Cruttenden (1986:100) states that both high falls and low falls “involve a sense of Wnality, of completeness, deWniteness and separateness when used with declaratives”. He also says that “the low fall is generally more uninterested, unexcited, and dispassionate whereas the high fall is more interested, more excited, more involved”. Whilst Mm is not a declarative, nor a sentence, it does have the kind of Wnality to which Cruttenden is referring when it has falling intonation. In the
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 197
data used for this study, the great majority of falling Mms fall from mid or low rather than high pitch. These have the ‘dispassionate’ or ‘unexcited’ contour that Cruttenden refers to, though for the claim that they are ‘uninterested’ there is insuYcient evidence in the Australian data set. These Mms need to be characterised to some extent in negative terms. They are found to respond to turn constructional units with nothing unusual or remarkable in their content. This supports a characterisation of this variant of Mm as the one that occurs in the most ‘neutral’ environments. It was argued in Chapter 4 that the falling, acknowledging Mms respond to turn constructional units that show no articulatory problems, carry simple or straightforward ideas, are not emotionally or judgementally strongly expressive, are not disjunctive within the emerging sequence or topic, and are grammatically, pragmatically and intonationally complete.
Canonical cases of Mm as acknowledger with falling contour The most characteristic of all Mms is the canonical falling one discussed in Chapter 4. Fragment (1) is a reminder of this Mm. In this example, Ben is telling Ann about computer problems at his work. (1)
A&B3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Ben: Ann:→ Ben: Ann:→ Ben:
The problem w’z;= that th’t ya needed someone who kne:w;= a:bout compu:ders, °Mm:°. en’ about- the in:dustry:, °Mm:°. tk·hh E:rm; (1.2) an:dh, (0.2) e:rm, (0.8) about- tran:sfer rea:lly¿ (0.2) c’z et w’z a
The Mm in line 3 has a mid falling contour, it is oriented to Ben’s talk in lines 1 to 2, which comes at a point of intonational, grammatical and pragmatic completion. A similar Mm occurs in line 5, after Ben increments his turn in line 4. Ann produces these two falling Mms at this point because the talk to which they are oriented have the characteristics noted above. It is articulated clearly, it is conceptually easy to understand, it is relatively neutral in terms of emotional involvement, it is sequentially in an expected position, it is in a topically coherent position in the sequence, it has come to full grammatical and pragmatic completion, and to the end of a unit of intonation. Note also that there is no evidence in the data that falling Mms (or any others) orient more strongly to type two intonational completion (the fall to low or rise to
198 When Listeners Talk
high) than to type one completion (a Xatter contour, with only a slight fall or rise around the mid level of a speaker’s pitch range). The two Mms in (1) are examples of the unmarked case, in which there has been no trouble in the turn constructional unit to which it is oriented. In the remainder of this section, further variants and more specialized uses of the falling Mm are discussed.
Falling Mm as a Xexible second position response Mm is not only used as an acknowledging response to an informing. It can also occur as an answer to a question in the position of a Yeah or a No, as a complying response to a directive, or certain other second pair part positions. In fragment (2) the Mm is placed in an archetypical answering Yeah position, as an answer a repair initiation question. This is an example of an Mm being imbued with the force of its action (answer) through its position in the sequence as a second pair part6 as well as being imbued with the polarity of the turn to which it is oriented, in this case positive. (2)
F:I:A:3.6 A&BF3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Ben:
Ann: Ann: Ben:→ Ann: Ben: Ann:
Bert’s goin’ off te do a c’mpuder trai:ning course. ·hh (0.6) Ou:*h:. (1.9) Training hi:m:¿ ↑°M:m°. ↑O:h;= g(k)ood↑. ↑°Yeah°↑. (0.4) So yer going Mon:da:y,
Note that the question is a reduced form, which is given its status as a question by its rising intonation, rather than by interrogative syntax, and the minimal nature of the Mm aligns nicely with the reduced question form, a jointly constructed minimality. It could be argued that Ben’s response, the Mm, is highly preferred, being contiguous, immediate, and as minimal a vocalisation as possible. The Mm in fragment (2) is a response to a question. In fragment (3), the Mm is a response to a directive.
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 199
(3) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
F:I:A:3.10 I&JW3a Jan: Jan: Jan: Ike:→ Jan:
(10.4) °a:hh° (0.7) This’s got t’ be the w:ei:rdest pumpki:n¿ (0.9) Look ‘t that ski:n. (2.1) Mm.= =Great ↓texture. (10.9)
This Mm follows a long pause, which may have been Ike’s time out to direct his gaze at the pumpkin before responding. The couple are decorating a house during this conversation, and so are involved in other activities apart from talking, which means that silences are frequent and relatively long. Another point on the position of this Mm and what it responds to is that there is nothing here to suggest any problems in the unfolding of the sequence, so a more marked form of the Mm intonationally is not called for. However, Jan’s prior assessment, this has got to be the weirdest pumpkin, did not get a response, so her directive may in fact be pursuing a response to her assessment rather than to the directive itself. A Wnal point is that Ike’s vocal involvement is truly minimal in this stretch of talk. Apart from the Mm response to her directive, Jan’s two other Wrst pair parts (lines 4 and 9) get no vocal response at all.
Falling Mm in post-expansion position The Mms up to this point have been in second position in the sequence. In fragment (4), one occurs in third position as a post-expansion to the adjacency pair, following a substantial second pair part by Sally in which she follows Ron’s announcement in lines 4–5 with her own, parallel announcement, to which Ron responds with a falling Mm. (4)
F:I:A:3.65 R&SB4a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Ron: Sal: Ron:
Sal: Ron:→ Sal: Ron:
Whatchu goin’ ta do. (1.2) Go ta [ (re:st).] [We hadna-] (0.3) ppahlling meeting tani:ght, (1.7) So did we:. Mm:. What w’z you:rs about-. Don’t kno:w.
200 When Listeners Talk
11 12 13 14
Sal: Ron:
(1.4) ·hh [Have you- ] [It’s a ]bou:t e:m; (0.1) it’s ba:zic’lly:; (.) reinventing the whee:l.
By uttering this Mm in third position, Ron has passed up the opportunity to produce the next Wrst pair part, despite his Wrst position utterance, we had an appalling meeting tonight, having all the characteristics of an announcement, which are often followed up with some kind of topical expansion. It may be that Ron sees Sally’s So did we as a competing story, and his Mm is a refusal to get into her story. Her response is to attend to his story and encourage him to talk, and his next — and on the surface very odd — response is Don’t know, which is a claim that he does not know what he obviously must have known. After this, however, he ‘relents’, and starts telling his story. The low falling Mm response to Sally’s So did we, followed by his odd plea of ignorance about what went on at a meeting at which he was present, is suggestive of low commitment to the talk at this point.
Falling Mm following a multi-unit turn As well as occurring in second and third position in a sequence, falling Mms also occur regularly when a speaker produces a multi-unit turn, such as a storytelling, an anecdote or news-of-the-day. There is a strong tendency for a full falling terminal contour (rather than a fall-rising one) to occur at the end of the Wnal turn constructional unit of the multi-unit turn, rather than in the midst of it. This is illustrated in fragment (5). (5)
F:I:A:3.19 L&MC2ai
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Mel:
Liz:→ Mel: Liz:
a:nd e::r (1.3) >I think- otha comp’nies;= stard off like that-,= b’t-< (2.3) et (.) the drop ev a hat;= the:y j’s s:lip inta the suit ‘n ↑tie::¿= en:; (0.4) en:d e:r; (0.7) cert’nly;= by th’ thime they:’re; (0.5) turning ova millions:, (0.4) °y’know°; (.) everyone in the comp’ny, (.) wears a suit en ti:e. (0.8) °Mm [:°. [B’t not this o:ne, (2.6) ↑°Mm:°↑. (2.3)
The falling contour after tie in line 7 is the Wrst fall to low pitch in Mel’s turn. Although Liz’s Mm comes late, after a 0.8 second gap, it is in many ways quite a
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 201
typical token of its type: quiet, falling, and not very long. Mel’s long turn consists of a series of intonation units that have relatively Xat terminal contours with slight rises or falls. Its trajectory has characteristics of the speech paragraph or paratone (cf. Brown and Yule 1983, Couper-Kuhlen 1983), which Brown and Yule suggest is characterised by prosodic features which include high pitch onset, with low pitch and amplitude and pausing at the end. This Mm is found after the Wrst full falling contour and after a pause. Falling Mms as responses during multi-unit turns do not only occur terminally. Fragment (6) shows Bob in the middle of a long storytelling sequence. The two falling Mms here are oriented to turn constructional units which are partially pragmatically complete, in the sense that they are coherent in themselves. However, they are part of a longer storytelling that clearly has not come to an end, which in part explains the choice of mid-rising terminal contours in both of the turn constructional units to which the Mms are oriented. This illustrates an orientation of these Mms to local contingencies, rather than to some macrostructure in the discourse. (6)
F:I:A:3.69/70 A&BD3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Bob:
Ann:→ Bob:
Ann:→ Bob:
=I mea:n-, (0.4) I m’n she coulda jess sai:d nothi:ng,= b’t- (0.2) y’know she w’s: (.) fairly strai:ght,= >en we got- talk’n aboud a who:le lodda otha bits ‘n pieces;= en th’re w’s a who:le lotta pe:opl:e¿ °Mm°. thet- (.) she ed either ↑wo:rked with:↑_ or ha:d γeγ they ↓hed wo:rked fer ↑he:r;= en whadever in diff’ren’ pla:ces, ·hh over the ti:me; th’t Nick en I↑: kne:w¿ °Mm:°. e:hn en stuff like that-, ‘n: (0.4) >↑YEA:H I’d-< (0.8) I min:;= she w’s sti:ll-↑ (1.0) quide oka:hy.=
The Mms in lines 6 and 11 are archetypical falling Mms in all ways. They are quieter than the talk to which they are oriented, and they come at points of possible completion during an extended turn at talk by Bob, which has already been under way for some time. The telling is proceeding smoothly and without trouble. One nice aspect of this is the Spanish question mark movement (i.e. fairly strongly rising) at the end of the units to which the Mms are oriented, which contrasts with the Xatter pitch of the other units with the multi-unit turns. This contour seems to invite a response. Again, these Mms occur at the end of a multi-unit turn (and of a paratone) and not during it.
202 When Listeners Talk
Falling Mm accompanied by other minimal same speaker talk The instances reported so far have been of free-standing Mms. Falling Mms that are associated with further brief same speaker talk can also be characterised as indicating no problems with the emerging talk, and that their speaker has nothing substantial or new to add at that point to the talk to which they are oriented. Fragment (7), line 3, illustrates this. Bob and Ann, recently wed, are discussing a court appearance concerning a dispute with his Wrst wife about the care of the children from that marriage. (7)
A&BD4a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Bob: Ann:→ Bob: Ann:
Bob: Ann: Bob: Ann:
[’n I ws jess] I thought;= well bugger et,= I↑’m genna get in fi:rst. °Mm. (0.2) that’s [ri:ght]°. [°an:d ] e:r° (2.3) >I mean i- (.) ya know-<; (0.2) ↑jest↑ the who:le thing wez: I ws think’n ‘bout’t;= a:ftawuds;= en’ j’st°Yheah:h°. ↑j’st-↑ (0.5) the:: (1.2) <desto:rtion ev perception; ev [ her o]:wn a:ctions>,= is= [°M m:°.] =[jes’ qui]de ama:zing?
Ann’s Mm, that’s right shows solidarity with Bob’s expression of determination to show the judge before his wife does that he is treating the boys well. At this point, Ann is doing no more than acknowledging and agreeing. That she is doing no more than this at this point is evidenced by Bob beginning to continue, before abandoning his next turn, and a silence of over two seconds, before she expands on her expression of solidarity. A free-standing Mm at this point might have come across as too minimal, which explains the agreement marking That’s right. However, it is nevertheless appropriate, given the evidence that space is being left for Bob to continue, and at this point there is no evidence that she wanted to make a substantial topical contribution. Fragment (8) is an instance of Mm in topic attrition environment with further same speaker brief talk, with the Mm preceding a boundary marking oh well, and a long silence, before a shift in topic that expands the topic domain. (8)
F:SS:A:2.19 L&MC2aii
1 2 3
Mel:
Well;= I mean the- (.) no:;= the- (1.0) it’s not- (1.2) a lodda the ti:me;= it’s not s:mart(.) ↓casual.
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 203
4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
Liz: Mel: Mel: Liz: Mel: Mel: Liz: Mel: Liz:→ Liz:
°How’s th[at°. [it’s: (.) rough: casual. (1.0) Beach bum °cahsual°. (2.5) ·hhh (0.2) Jeans with ho:les in th’m;= all tha:t so [rdev °thing°.] [Oh;= yeh, °( ] )°. (0.2) °( leather). (0.2) hnhh hn[hh hnhh [see:ms ta be;= the gear¿ ((sniff)) (0.4) °Mm:°. oh;= ↑well¿ (3.6) Yeh;= it’s j’st intristing;= isn’ it.= °th’t iy’kno:w;= one cohmp’ny;= would have a sordev (·) e:m°; (1.6) . (.) like- that-.
The sequence of talk before the Mm in question here has been about the rough casual way that employees in the computer company dress: jeans with holes and some kind of leather is what they wear (seems to be the gear). Liz’s response to this description is an Mm, an Oh and a Well (each token separate intonationally). The Mm comes in its typical turn initial place, and with a full fall. It is a neutral acknowledgement of the description and report, not in this case an agreement. So the Mm is aligning and claiming there is no trouble with the reception of the turn to which it is oriented. The Oh and the Well seem to be doing further closure work, not, this time, on the immediately prior turn, but on the entire topical sequence. Evidence for this exists in the very long silence in line 19 following Liz’s turn, almost a lapse in terms of its length, although after this long silence Liz does in fact revive an aspect of the topic of the talk before her turn in line 20. Falling Mms also occur with substantial, topical same speaker talk. With such a falling Mm, the token is essentially still saying, as in the above examples, that its speaker has received the utterance to which it is oriented without any hitches, and has nothing substantial to add, because the talk that follows the Mm in these circumstances is invariably on a topic other than the topic of the talk to which the Mm is oriented. It does not pick up and expand upon or continue the topical thread from that turn, though it may pick up a related topical line from earlier in the talk.
204 When Listeners Talk
Falling Mm: Some apparently anomalous examples The vast majority of falling Mms that occur in the core Australian data, both with and without same speaker talk, can be accounted for in the same way as the examples so far. However, a number of exceptional examples of falling Mms remain that need explication. The Wrst, fragment (9), provides some evidence of local realignment when a response for which a token has been designed is not forthcoming. It is unusual, in that the Mm in question in line 10 does not follow on from the previous speaker’s turn, but from Mal’s own talk, a ‘failed continuer’ Yeah, which has slightly rising intonation. (9)
F:SS:A:1.20a L&MH3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Lyn: Mal: Lyn:
Mal: Mal:→
Lyn: Mal:
=↑I think ↓ee’s do:ing;= a l:ot-; thet’s [ v:e:ry ] good. ·hh en when I ta:hlked= [°Ye:hs°.] =ta him on F:riday ni:ght¿ ·hh (.) it’s obvious thet a la:rge-, (.) -amou:nt-; ev this cleaning up ev the sta:tions, ·hh ↑is ↓done;= by local c’mmunity [grou:ps]. [↑°Mm:°.] °Yeah°, (0.9) ·hh °Mm°. D’d ya rea:d (.) o:h;= n↓o:, ysorry;= not rea:d, ·hh (0.2) no: it’s:; I hea:rd ‘n interview;= this: morning,= with ↓the ·hh Roa:d Tra:nsport ↓*Fed’ration;=or whadever they ca:ll themse:lves [:*¿ [°M:mhh°, risponding ta the Government’s what the Government’s sa:ying. ·hh >ebou’ what the’re goinna do;= with< ↑roa:d tra:nspo[:rt¿
In lines 1–2 and 4–7, Lyn is reporting on a conversation she had had with the Victorian State Minister for Transport. Mal’s Wrst response is a fairly enthusiastic rise-fall Yes in recognitional overlap (cf. JeVerson 1983) in line 3, after Lyn has made her sequence initial positive assessment about his good work generally. Her next turn constructional unit is a compound one, and at the end of this unit, in which Lyn reports the minister as saying that a large amount of this cleaning up of the stations is done by local community groups, Mal comes in with two response tokens, the Wrst being a falling Mm in recognitional overlap, which is quiet and high pitched, in overlap with the last word, indicating no trouble with his receipt of her turn. This is followed by a continuer Yeah, with slightly rising intonation. What follows, however, is not the designed for further talk by Lyn, but a silence of 0.9 seconds. With no response forthcom-
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 205
ing, Mal produces another Mm. This third one is a recognition that no further talk is coming, suggestive of the closure implicativeness of the Mm, that is, ‘you have had suYcient opportunity to respond after I encouraged you to go on, so we can now move on to next matters’. This use appears to be slightly diVerent from the uses discussed above. It is still saying something about ‘no trouble’, or perhaps ‘resolving trouble’, with the preceding interaction. In this case the speaker is going to move on to another topic (actually a second story), which is related, but which is a deWnite shift away from the precise topic they had been talking about in the sequence up to now. Quite commonly Mms respond to turn constructional units that end in type one intonational completion, i.e. a relatively Xat terminal contour. Fragment (10) has two falling Mms oriented to units that are intonationally complete in this sense, both having slightly rising, continuative intonation. It should be noted that although there is no type two intonational completion, what has been said in both turn constructional units to which the Mms are oriented is grammatically and pragmatically possibly complete. (10)
F:I:A:3.8a/8b A&BF3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Ben: Ann:→ Ben: Ann:→ Ben:
Ann:
The problem w’z;= that th’t ya needed someone who kne:w;= a:bout compu:ders, °Mm:°. en’ about- the in:dustry:, ↓°Mm:°↓. tk·hh E:rm; (1.2) an:dh, (0.2) e:rm, (0.8) about- tran:sfer rea:lly¿ (0.2) c’z et w’z a rea- (.) it w’z a rea:lly te:chnic’l sortev dea:ul,= =°M:m:°.
In this sequence, Ben is saying that he is the only person in his company who knows enough about computers to deal with this particular problem, as he reveals about ten lines further on, when he says, and eVectively I was the only person in the company that had that knowledge really. The two falling Mms (in lines 3 and 5) are oriented to turns in which Ben is characterizing what needed to be done to tackle the problem, namely to get someone with expertise. This turn constructional unit and its increment get the most neutral of acknowledgers: two quiet, falling Mms placed impeccably in transition space, though it can be noted that the second one is lower in pitch. The explanation for these two falling Mms is that each of the turns to which they are oriented, whilst ending with continuative intonation, are both potentially complete utterances, both grammatically and pragmatically.
206 When Listeners Talk
Next, a small minority of falling Mms fall from high pitch. It is not surprising that high falling Mms are scarce, as falling Mms typically occur where there is nothing out of the ordinary occurring in the talk, either in terms of the interaction, the topic, or of emotion. The literature suggests that high pitch is marked for emotional involvement (e.g. Cruttenden 1986, Brazil et al. 1980). The Wrst example of a high falling Mm is found in fragment (11) (same as fragment (2) above). (11)
F:I:A:3.6 A&BF3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Ben:
Ann: Ann: Ben:→ Ann: Ben: Ann:
Bert’s goin’ off te do a c’mpuder trai:ning course. ·hh (0.6) Ou:*h:. (1.9) Training hi:m:¿ ↑°M:m°. ↑O:h;= g(k)ood↑. ↑°Yeah°↑. (0.4) So yer going Mon:da:y,
This Mm is a positive polarity answer to a question, substituting for Yes. It is a second pair part in a next turn repair initiation repair sequence that gets a third position post-expansion assessment Oh good. The reason for the high involvement tone of the three turns from 7 to 9 is not really apparent. However, the positive assessment by Ann in line 8, Oh good, suggests that she shows approval for the computer training for Bert, which Ben very likely shares, as evidenced by his own choice of high pitch. There can thus be seen to be a combination of minimal response to the reduced repair initiation in line 6 with a contrasting higher involvement with the topic of the talk, Bert’s computer training. Another atypical shape, though not quite so rare as the high-pitched falling Mm, is the ‘semi-falling’ Mm. Such Mms are tokens that fall only slightly from mid-pitch (indicated by the semi-colon following the Mm), rather than fully to low pitch. They generally sound like continuative Mms rather than Wnal, completing Mms. Only 12 out of 117 free-standing Mms, and only 7 out of 57 Mms followed by same speaker talk, have the semi-fall contour. That is, a total of 19 out of 174 Mms do a semi-fall. One instance is the Mm in line 4 in fragment (12).
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 207
(12) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
F:I:A:3.76 L&MH3b Mal: Lyn:→ Mal: Lyn:
(0.5) Ohw;= w’ll ↑i’s: ↓quite- (.) >clea:r.= I think wi [th-< with thi]s:; ↑ta:keover;= th’t the whole= [° M m: h ° ; ] =thing;= ‘s jess being shut d↑o:wn.= =Ye:s;= I min *it’s- ·hh it’s a CHEAP ti:hme;= ta BU:Y out;= competition.
There would appear to be three reasons for Mms to take on semi-fall rather than full fall contours in environments in which one would expect the latter. First, some Mm responses are lenis: soft, Xat, without strong pitch movement. This is to be expected for a token that is frequently articulated more softly than the surrounding talk. In a sense it is surprising that the so many Mms Wnish on low pitch. In the case in question here, the breathy end to the token may also contribute to a curtailing of the downward pitch movement of this Mm. Another type of instance of semi-falling Mm is seen in fragment (13), where Sally stretches out her Mm and keeps its contour Xat, as she waits for the termination of Ron’s turn-in-progress. (13)
F:SS:A:1.16a R&SB4a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Sal:
Ron: Sal:→ Sal:→ Ron:
[I do dis]like the phra:se;= inventing the whee:l though. (0.5) O::h;= re:inventing [:,= I kno:w]. [M m : : ; ]= =‘t’s a bit like s:tate ev thee a:rt. (0.3) Ye:hs.
In this case, Sally comes in with her Mm at a point of possible completion after Ron’s other-initiated other repair in next turn, the reinventing in line 4, and stretches this Mm as she waits for the oVset of Ron’s increment to his turn, which is in overlap with Sally’s Mm. Immediately on oVset, Sally begins her next turn constructional unit, and next substantial piece of talk. In other words, she was holding on to her Mm, and keeping it Xat to avoid coming to completion, in anticipation of the opportunity that would occur for her to claim a turn constructional unit once Ron had Wnished his turn. If she had let this Mm fall quickly to low pitch, she would have had to curtail its production earlier. This is the second reason that one Wnds semi-falling Mms. A third reason is found in fragment (14), with the semi-falling Mm in line 11 preceding the agreement token that’s right.
208 When Listeners Talk
(14)
F:SS:A:2.22 A&BF3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Ann:
Ben:→ Ann: Ben:
·hhh en- en- I: w’s j’ss kinda sa:ying;= in pa:ssing;= d’you bel↑ie:ve this.= >y’know;= this’z what- the sci:ence faculdy’s d↑o:ne. ·hh an Rosanna kinda said;= °↓well.= ‘t’s really ha:rd ta get- (·) sponsoring fer-↓; (·) lin guistics.= en Ih said;= thehre’s gohhtta be sohmething↓°; ↑SOME↓WHE:RE, ·hh heh heh ·hh $↑Yew kna↓o:w aI ↑laike yer addi↓tu(h):(h)de.= hih hih heh heh heh ·hh ↑en I thought;= well why: no:t↑.(·) ↑Well,= ↓that’s what ↑I’m the:re fo:r↑. °↑Mm;= ‘t’s ri:ght↑°. The mo↑:re I do::,= th[e mo]re I reash-↑ I= [Yeh-.]
One would normally expect that the Mm in line 11 would fall to low pitch, as everything that comes before has reached full intonational, grammatical, and pragmatic completion. It would appear that this short Mm has been curtailed during its downward pitch movement before reaching low pitch, and that the latching to the (phonologically reduced) agreement token that’s right precludes a full fall, so the fall is cut oV before it reaches completion by the exigencies of rushing the turn through to the agreement. The data also include some cases of what on initial analysis appear to be pragmatically incongruous occurrences of Mms falling to low pitch. For example, in fragment (15) the Mm in line 6 occurs after some talk that might warrant a more emotionally involved rise fall, or at least a high falling token. (15)
F:I:A:3.30 L&MH3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Lyn: Mal: Lyn: Mal:→ Lyn:
An’ there’s jes’ this little ba:re no:tice;= in the pah:per t’da:y:, hh y’know;= Miche[:lle;]= [°M:m°], =die:d unex:pectedly in her slee:p. (0.4) °Mm:°.= =Beloved daughter o:f. (1.2)
The news in Lyn’s turn in lines 1–2 and 4 is about the death of the daughter of some friends, news most markedly of a type to which one might expect a strongly emotional response. Instead Mal does a classic, quiet, falling Mm. However, for Mal the news that Michelle had died is old: they had discussed this in a conversation recorded the previous day. What is news to him here is that there was a notice in the paper about the death, a much less shocking piece
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 209
of news. The ‘uninvolved’ falling Mm in line 6 can thus be seen to be a neutral, appropriate and expected response to Lyn’s talk. In fragment (16) a falling Mm in line 7 is one that comes in a classic continuer position, where Ann is in the midst of producing a complex turn constructional unit (cf. Lerner 1991). The clause begins with once in line 5, projecting a second, main clause. (16)
A&BD4a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Bob: Ann: Ann:
Bob:→ Ann:
Bob:
↑Yea:h↑. (.) oh;= [yea:h], [So::.] (0.4) en I think I mean-; (0.5) quite frankly I think;= that once Adam ge:ts;= rea:lly sordev sta:rts ta get;= stuck in:to ‘is little prow:ject out the:re? Mm:. it’s ganna be even mo:re; (0.3) e:r so:. (0.4) >°keen about coming°<. ·hh >Thee otha thing I ws thinking abou:t<;= w’s: e:m:; (0.8) tsk the ba:ske’ba:ll.= cos ee mentioned et to me. (0.5) Yea:h.
Even here, in what looks like a classic place for a continuer, it can be argued that this Mm has been chosen to do retrospective acknowledging work, marking completion of the turn-so-far. However, this kind of case, unusual as it is, remains puzzling, and one can only speculate that Bob is orienting more strongly to the content of Ann’s talk in lines 4–5 (perhaps that Adam is going to get stuck into his little project), than to the grammatically projected continuation of her turn. After all, Mm is not a challenge to her Xoor, even though it is being argued that it is more a retrospective acknowledging token than a prospective continuer. In this section, the archetypical weak acknowledging Mm has been shown to have overwhelmingly a contour that falls from mid and terminates at low pitch. This is iconic with its role in conversation as marking the turn to which it is oriented as being grammatically and pragmatically complete, and received by the Mm producer without any problems of understanding. Some acknowledging Mms do not fall to low pitch. It has been argued that in such cases one can Wnd local contingencies that preclude a full fall, which are the regular extreme lenis features of this token, the need to hold a token without falling too quickly when seeking an opportunity to legitimately take a turn, and further same speaker talk that leads to a curtailing of the Mm before it has fallen fully.
210 When Listeners Talk
Mm with fall-rising intonation The classic continuers are Uh huh and Mm hm. The claim that these two response tokens are archetypical continuers rests on three primary observations. First, they are overwhelmingly followed by continuation by another speaker; second, an examination of their positions in sequences of talk shows that they occur overwhelmingly where the talk to which they are oriented is pragmatically and intonationally (and less frequently grammatically) incomplete; and third, their terminal intonation contour is overwhelmingly a rise, which has been shown to mark incompletion (e.g. Du Bois et al. 1992; Cruttenden 1986; McLemore 1991). Fragment (17), which was used to illustrate the canonical use of Mm hm as a continuer in Chapter 4, shows this. In this stretch of talk, Mal is telling Lyn about what has been happening with his motorbike. (17)
MH:22/23:L&MH3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Mal:
Lyn: Mal: Lyn: Mal: Lyn: Mal:
Lyn:→ Mal:
Seven e’clock;= temorrow >morning;= I get< the motorbike. (0.5) What’s happened with it. (0.3) ↑°Right°¿ ·hh There’s three: things th’ta godda be fixed;= fer th’ roadwo:rthy? Ye:ah. They’re ha:lf fixed et the mo:ment¿ [Ri:ght], ·hh= [°M:m°,] =I pick id up-; ↑from hiz pla:ce;= et seven e’clock t’morrow >morn’ng-; I take it- down d’< Moda Italia:na; ·hh THE:Y fix thee other things-; (0.3) which nee:d do:ing, ·hh becuz they’re things which (.) I↑: w’z genna cha:nge anywa:y, Mm h:m,= =or envo:lved with th’ work which I: w’z genna get >done anyway<; ·hh then (.) I hafta take it ↑backh, (0.2) ¿ (0.5)
Mal has Wrst set up a multi-unit turn with an announcement that he is picking up his motorbike the following morning. He also projects a list by stating that three things need to be done to the bike. Lyn produces a series of response tokens during Mal’s multi-unit turn, which includes the fall-rising Mm hm in line 16. The Mm hm comes whilst Mal is in the midst of telling his news about the motorbike. About 15% of response token Mms in the core Australian data, including
Intonation contour and the use of Mm
the Mm in line 10 of fragment 17, are continuers with fall-rising intonation contours similar to the archetypical Mm hm continuer in the above fragment. The conditions under which one Wnds such Mms have been presented in Chapter 4, and are summarized again here. The turn constructional unit to which a fall-rising Mm is oriented will show at least some of the following features. Such an Mm is oriented to a turn which is – – –
regularly articulated unclearly, is regularly conceptually diYcult to understand, is frequently in a sequentially incomplete position.
It also has some similarities to the falling Mm, being – –
relatively neutral in terms of emotional or evaluative content, and generally not having come to possible full type two intonational, or full grammatical or pragmatic completion.
With regard to the points about the three types of completion, continuers such as Mm hm or the continuer variant of Mm are not just positioned anywhere, but orient to partial completion, for example to the termination of intonation units with a continuative terminal contour (type one completion), to grammatical sub-units, such as dependent clauses preceding independent clauses, or phrases within emerging simple clauses, or to stages in partially completed complex pragmatic actions. Mms used as continuers are not simply substitutes for Mm hms. They will generally retain some of the characteristics of the falling, acknowledging Mm with some closing force, but have the additional mapping of the rising component, which encourages the other speaker to continue talking. The utterance of such an Mm thus indicates receipt of the turn-so-far, and a request for more. Mm hm is a typical continuer, but only in combination with a fall-rising contour, which it overwhelmingly has (over 90% of instances in the current data set), whereas Mm is typically an acknowledgement token with sequence closing implicature, but only in combination with terminally falling intonation, which around 85% have. The Mms ending with a rise are in the great majority of cases fall-rises, with straight rises (low rise or high rise) being very unusual in the core Australian data set. Cruttenden’s (1986) discussion of the fall-rising contour ranges across a variety of environments, including ones in which he suggests that a fall-rise signals non-Wnality and contrast, whereas a straight rise (low or high) only
211
212 When Listeners Talk
signals non-Wnality. A level tone is also a marker of non-Wnality. The diVerence between low rise, high rise and level tone when they are in a position of dependency to some other intonation unit appears on his argument to be that low rise is “the most oratorical and is also typical of a formal reading style”, the high rise is “more casual”, and “the mid-level seems to carry no meaning other than that of non-Wnality” (p. 102), which is perhaps why it alone of these three tones occurs only in non-Wnal position. A rise occurs at the end of an intonation unit that is not dependent on another, that is, when the rises are in independent clauses (as most Mms are, if one takes them to be minor clauses). Low rise is diYcult to attach local meanings to, but on declaratives it is, according to Cruttenden, always associated with uncertainty, sometimes additionally being non-committal or grumbling. High rise can suggest casualness. Fall-rises for Cruttenden can be in positions of intonational sandhi (a merging of two independent intonation groups). He also says that appeal, self-justiWcation, “I told you so”, and also warning, are expressed by fall-rising intonation, but the most typical of all its meanings “can be summed up in the word ‘reservations’ and includes what might be called ‘emphatic contrast’ and ‘contradiction’” (p. 109). Finally, he contrasts “the (A) meanings (‘reservations’, ‘contrast’, ‘contradiction’) and the (B) meanings (‘self-justiWcation’, ‘appeal’, ‘warning’)” and that a third type of fall-rise “is worth mentioning: a ‘whining’ variant of high-rise in echoes and tag responses” (p. 110). For fall-rising Mms (as well as Mm hms) in the current data set, these characterizations do not appear to hold, unless one extends the sense of ‘reservation’ to include something like ‘I would like to hear more so that I can fully grasp what you are saying’. One reason may be the point raised by Coulthard (1992) and cited earlier in this chapter that the semantics of the utterances that Cruttenden examines may colour his interpretation of the contour he is examining. Brazil (1985) takes a more discourse oriented approach. On fall-rise he says, “very informally, we may say that the constituent that has a ‘fall-rise’ is already in play, conversationally it is what we are talking about” (emphasis in the original) (p. 106). There is some similarity in this characterisation to what has been found in the present study for fall-rising Mms, that is, they are responses to talk that has already started, so in a sense they are responses to ‘what we are in the midst of talking about and have yet to Wnish’. This can be contrasted with the retrospective, falling Mm, which marks oV what has just been talked about, and which is Wnished, locally at least, as a completed unit of talk. These characterizations from the literature show how complex and multi-
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 213
functional such contours are. In the context of the current study, it is felicitous that the coincidence of fall-rise with the response token Mm is relatively uncomplicated, and the vast majority appear to be characterizable as continuers, that is, to have Wrst and foremost an interactional meaning, and have a force similar to that described by Brazil. As was suggested above, Mm with a fall-rising intonation contour retains the ‘core’ function of Mm, which is that its speaker has nothing substantial to add to the topic of the talk of the turn constructional unit to which it is oriented. However, at the same time it is a continuer.7 It does this because the turn to which it is oriented has run into some trouble requiring resolution, regarding its production, its sequential position, or its topical content, or is in some other sense incomplete. This contrasts with the prototypical Mm with a falling contour, which is the more neutral acknowledging item, and which is saying that its producer has no problems with the receipt of the turn constructional unit to which that Mm is oriented: it is clear, it is positioned in a sequentially relevant place, and it is conceptually not problematic in terms of its understanding.
Free-standing, fall-rising Mm in the environment of incipient trouble in the talk Another way of understanding the role of fall-rising Mms is that they occur in environments of incipient trouble, that is, they occur with the three types of potential trouble (of topic and reference, of the organisation of adjacency pairs and expanded sequences, and of production and/or reception) associated with repairs (cf. SchegloV et al. 1977), but they occur when their speaker still, so to speak, has some hope that the trouble will be resolved before the need for a repair. Rather than do repair, they are giving the speaker of the talk that is beginning to become troublesome an opportunity to do something about it before it is overtly addressed with a repair.8 These environments can also be seen as pragmatically incomplete, in the sense that a part, or stage, of a complex pragmatic action has been completed, but full completion of the action has not yet occurred. Virtually all occurrences of fall-rising Mm occur in pragmatically incomplete positions, some of which are also grammatically or intonationally incomplete. In other words, there is evidence here that parties in a conversation orient Wrst and foremost to the emerging meanings of the talk, rather than to the grammar or prosody of the talk.
214 When Listeners Talk
Fall-rising Mm in an environment in which a topic has not yet become salient One environment of incipient trouble in which one Wnds a fall-rising Mm response occurs with notable regularity when the Mm is a response to a topic initial turn or some turn that is strongly evolving (shifting) topically. The Mm comes as the second pair part in a pre-sequence, or following an utterance that in some way sets up further talk on the topic that it introduces. In fragment (18) Bob is in the middle of an extended account of his day at work. (18)
PD:I:A:3.7 A&BD3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
Bob:
Bob:
Ann: Bob: Ann:→ ?: Bob:
Bob:
°So:h. (0.3) tsk >It w’s goo(h)d<. a(h)n° ·hh couldn’ ↓believe th’t,= ↑this (fa)< ↓sha:des evhh; Raymond Cook’s da:hys:. hh (0.2) ·hh (.) hh (.) ·hh (0.4) THERE’S A ↑GU:Y IN SYDNEY WHO W’Z:;= E:HFF↑ECTIVELY the video conf’rencing:,= counderpart- ta *me:*.= he’s the se:nior s:ales executive video conf’rencer°. Yea:h;= ↑ri:gh [t-]. [T-]To:dd Jo:nes. M:m, (0.7) ((smacking lips?)) (1.0) To:dd Jo:nes:,= h’s got Leeanne: Su:tcliffe;= the secretary in Sydney;= sidding r:↑i:ghd outsi:de iz off:ice:. (.) she sits R:↑IGHD outsi:de iz ↓doo:r. (0.4) ·hh Toda:y Todd Jones ra:ng:, (0.8) tk ↑Nick Barwon-;
Starting in line 6, Bob introduces a new character in his story, marked prosodically by increased amplitude and an elaborate introduction (a paratone beginning). Ann responds with two falling tokens, a Yeah and a Right, acknowledging and marking receipt of the news respectively. Bob then goes on to provide the new character with a name. At this point the person has been fully and adequately introduced, but clearly there is going to be a reason for introducing him into the story, so Ann’s fall-rise Mm is asking for continuation, giving Bob the opportunity to elaborate on the new character. The next three fragments also have fall-rising Mms in the environment of topic initiation. In (19), the Mm in line 12 comes at a point when the content of the interview has yet to be fully introduced; in (20), the Mm in line 8, by saying
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 215
what the government expects rail to pay for at the moment, projects an expansion of talk on this topic with a contrast to what they might be doing in the future; in (21), the continuer Mm9 in line 3 follows what is clearly a presequence type of utterance, it’s actually interesting the last couple of days, projecting further talk on what it is that is interesting. (19)
PD:I:A:3.18 L&MH3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
Lyn:
Mal: Mal:
Lyn:→ Mal:
Lyn: Mal: Lyn:
=ta him on F:riday ni:ght¿ ·hh (.) it’s obvious thet a la:rge-, (.) -amou:nt-; ev this cleaning up ev the sta:tions, ·hh ↑is ↓done;= by local c’mmunity [grou:ps]. [↑°Mm:°.] °Yeah°. (0.9) ·hh °Mm°. D’d ya rea:d (.) o:h;= no:; ysorry;= not rea:d, ·hh (0.2) no: it’s:; I hea:rd ‘n interview;= this: morning,= with ↓the ·hh roa:d tra:nsport ↓*federation;=or whadever they ca:ll themse:lves [:*, [°M:mh°, risponding ta the government’s what the government’s sa:ying. ·hh >ebou’ what the’re goinna do;= with< ↑roa:d tra:nspo [:rt¿ [Mm:hh. the’re ganna mo:ve t’wards full cohst ric[overy;= by the] yea:r two thou:san:d¿ [That’s ri:ght.]
(20)
PD:I:A:3.21a L&MH3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Lyn: Mal: Mal:
(21)
F:I:A:3.77 L&MH3b
1 2 3
Mal:
Lyn: Mal: Lyn:→ Mal: Lyn: Mal: Lyn:
Lyn:→
tk What d’[ you: think;= about- this] ide:a. [°Y e s :, (w e : l l)°;] >↑Oh-. (.) look-_ ↑I think-<; (0.4) <↑at- the mo:ment>¿ (0.2) ·hh ixpected ta pay fer the rai:lway:s¿ (.) [ p l u s ] [(°Right°)]. everything e:lse¿ (0.2) O[kay¿ ] ·hh No:w;= it [°M:m°], seems ta me-; if that’s what’s sk- so called; a level table ↑pla:ying field [i:s¿ ] [Ye:ah], then: (.) the roa:d tra:nsport indestry,= sh’d be doing the ↑sa:me. °Mm::hh°.
·hh ↑It’s acksh’lly; int’resting la:st couplev da:ys¿ ·h [h using the] railway up en down fr’m= [M m : : h ¿]
216 When Listeners Talk
4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Mal: Lyn: Mal: Lyn: Mal: Lyn:
=↑Caulfield;= ta [Springv]a:le¿ ·hh ptk um- (.) [M m : .] ya c’n te:ll-_ tilly diff’ren’ cliente:lle¿ -Mm [:. [ta the clientelle;= th’t we: get-. going fr’m here inta [the ci[dy? [·hhh [↑It’s poo:rer, bud it’s m:uch bedder c’ndihtion.
The fall-rising Mms can be contrasted with the response token Mms with falling terminal contours: in (19) the four falling response tokens, three Mms and a Yeah, occur at the end of a topical sequence (lines 5 and 7) and at the end of the elaborate question (line 16); in (20), when Mal gets to his main point in line 14 — that a level table playing Weld is what is needed — he gets a rise-falling Mm token that expresses Wnality, completion and adequacy (as well as involvement); in (21), in lines 5 and 8, the falling Mms come where the unit is understandable and projectably complete (even though Mal continues the turn). So there is cumulative evidence in these three cases that fall-rising Mms are used where an emerging new topic is in the course of being established, and before it has become stable.
Fall-rising Mm in the middle of a multi-unit turn by the other speaker Another fairly obvious locus for a continuer is where an extended sequence of talk is already under way (e.g. a story, a description, or an explanation) and that sequence is not Wnished. However, it should be noted that very often full falling Mms occur in such positions. So the main point again is that it appears that these true continuers amongst the Mms come in such sequences only when their utterers perceive some incipient or actual ‘trouble’ or pragmatic incompletion in the emergence of talk in that sequence, such as the inadequacy of the message-so-far, or hitches and perturbations, or very complex units of talk (e.g. grammatically complex, or a pragmatically/semantically complex). In fragment (22) Ann is talking at length about some planned activities for her partner’s son from his Wrst marriage. (22)
PD:I:A:3.1 A&BD4a
1 2 3 4 5
Ann:
Bob:
I’m ganna ring up- (0.3) y’know the ba:s:ke’ball clu:hb;= ‘n’ see wheth’ thee arra:ngements’re still the sa:me? (0.2) ·hh an’ then we c’n talk about- (.) what w’re genna do: aboud et-. [Yea:h.]
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 217
6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Ann:
Ann:
Ann:
Ann: Bob:→ Ann:
[c o s:] (.) I think ees: (0.2) f-fairly kee:n. y’kno:w¿= I think ‘ee’s jess waiding;= fer th’ next step no:w¿ (1.0) The way I: see et is:, (0.5) i↑f the >s- i↑f th’s< the sa:me es , en the practise is fr’m . (0.5) tsk en: e:m, (0.3) I’ve got- my cla:ss;= till fou:r¿ (0.3) >b’d I mean<_ (0.5) the li:brary muss be o:pen:¿ ↑M:[:m], [at] Westbou:rne,= en’ he c’ld go en’ wo:rk¿ (0.2) jes’ till I arri:ve.= which will be;= abou’ twenny past ↑fou:r¿ (0.6)
The Mm in line 19 is a classic continuer with its fall-rising intonation. There are some positions in this multi-unit turn that could have attracted a response token, but which did not. For example, there is the appeal of the y’know (line 7), a second of silence before she continues (line 9), and two more extended transition space silences in lines 14 and 17. By this time she has launched into a grammatically very complex turn constructional unit about the timing of the arrangements for picking up the son: day of practice, time of practice, time she would have free. Then comes something functionally diVerent: it all depends on the library being open. This is a Wrst mention of the library. This is part of a unit which has not yet come to full completion on any level, and here one Wnds a continuer Mm. It thus appears that the continuer Mm is positioned to come at a point of general partial completion, but after a clause, and after an intonation unit. Fragment (23) includes a series of continuers, two Mms and a Yeah with fall-rising intonation. In this instance the similarity of Mm and Yeah in this particular environment is apparent. They have very similar shapes, and are oriented to talk that is in all three instances very similar: Matt is describing a Japanese meal he had eaten, and the continuers come at points at which the description is obviously not complete. (23)
PD:I:A:3.12/13 P&QT3b
1 2 3
Nik:
↑Oh;= ya got yours in a tin foil tray¿= did you↑¿ (0.2)
218 When Listeners Talk
4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Nik: Nik: Mat: Mat:
Nik: Mat: Mat: Nik:→ Mat: Nik:→ Mat:
Nik:→ Mat: Mat:
↑I ↓got mine in a BO:WL; a noodle bow:l. (1.5) S’pose it’s logical;= if yer having noodles; ·hh °spo:se:°, (0.7) ↓Given tha’ the’re giving you dento:ng↓, they really needed ta do et. °t’ (attract > )°. [It’s r]eally [↓quite ni:ce]ly ↑do:ne.= [↑↑OO- ] [↑Oo::erhhhhh] =‘n also-< (0.5) ptk normal also-< bento si:ze¿ (0.5) tk ha::d (0.2) c’mpartment about- (·) ↑tha:t(0.2) by that ev ri:ce. M:m¿ (0.2) S::qua:re c’m↓pa:rtment-; ev:: (0.2) thin sliced bee:f;= en a rilly nice sau:ce. *Ye:*ah¿ (1.0) tsk ‘nother c’mpa:rtment o:::f; (·) ↑pork-; >wh’ch w’z a liddle bit< co:ld,= b’t- (·) quite nice deep fried pork-, M::m, >en a deep fried chicken<. (0.2) >Things like that-<, (1.4)
This is a case where it would be stretching credibility to characterise the Mms in lines 17 and 26 as being in potentially troublesome environments. However, Matt’s description of the food is starkly incomplete, as it is going to take more than one turn constructional unit to describe the food he had at the Japanese restaurant. This appears to be the motivation for the choice of Mm. It has to be said, though, that an Mm hm would seem to Wt just as nicely as these Mms. However, if one takes a series of adjacency pairs with regular turn-taking as the unmarked or default form of conversation, then an extended sequence with a main speaker such as this can be seen as being out of the equilibrium of turn-byturn talk, with the fall-rising contour on the response tokens urging their recipient on to completion and a return to the equilibrium of turn-by-turn talk. Another way in which ‘trouble’ can occur and a pre-repair continuer Mm is used to circumvent that trouble during an extended turn is with person reference, particularly where potential confusion might arise through multiple person reference, as occurs in the next fragment.
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 219
(24)
PD:I:A:3.6 A&BD3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49
Bob:
Ann: Bob: Ann: Bob: Ann: Bob:
Ann: Bob:
Ann: Bob:
Bob:
Ann:→ Bob:
Ann: Bob:
Bob:
Ann: Bob: Ann: Bob: Ann:
°eh ‘n° David w’z up to iz o:le ↑tri:cks too:↑. hhh (0.5) iz o:ld ↑tri:cks:?= =Ga:me pla:yer¿ Oh;= ga:me player. Yea:h-. [(Ris) [Nick ‘n’ I:;= ‘re both ev thee op↑inion;= tha’ t’da:y’s v↑isit;= ‘as godda hh, (0.2) hidden ag~enda~. ~O:h;= ri [:ght~. [Bat- wi’re not- qui:te su:re;= whaddit wo:z.= we’re (0.2) ·hhh ((sniff)) not su:re;= if the h↑idden agenda is:: hhh er::m; (0.2) ·hh he’s godda do a spec on voice mai:l;= an’ so: a:lleva sudden;= ee’s cha:sin’ thee inferma:tion;= ‘n’ w’ve given ‘im thee a:nswers ee n↑ee:ded, ·hh [h [°Yeah_= right°,= =o:r whether;= the hidden agenda;= i↑z in fa:ctthat- er::; (0.3) with kno:wing,= th’t ↑Nick ‘n’ I↑: ‘re toge:ther, coz I found oud;= he had lunch la:ss wee:k;= with Tim Mollo:y;= so ee would’ve got- thee inferma:tion on tha:t-, (0.5) which is a gu:y:,= in one a thee other- (0.2) wo:rks up,= with Patrick Dealey;= in thee other comp’ny. (0.8) M:m¿ A:nd e:r; hh (0.3) I think- (.) e:rm; (1.5) I know ee’s wo:rking;= where ee i:z et the mo:ment;= fer en int’rem pe:riod. hh (0.3) [Ri:ght], [t·hh ] ↓A::n↓ I ‘ink ee:’z:;= shopping arou:n’;= looking: fer thee appropriate pheople I think? (0.2) ta go inda whadever it iz ee’s (0.3) wanning da go in;= th’t ee’z not telling anybody about-; b’t ee’z genna go inda something.= =he-uhh: ·hh This iz David. Thi(h)s °i(h)s Da(h)vid [hh° [Yeah.= =‘n’ you know what- Da:vid’s li [:ke. [·hh Ye:ah-; well I do:.
220 When Listeners Talk
In this fragment Wve persons are referred to, and as the story begins to unfold, with David as the protagonist, Ann is noting the emerging framework of references mainly with Right and Yeah as idea connector (cf. Chapter 2) and acknowledgement token respectively. Within this series, at line 31, there is a continuer Mm, which occurs at a position where the potential for confusion is considerable, as it occurs after reference to the Wfth person in the story. It also occurs after a silence of 0.8 seconds. What follows this Mm is further information to clarify the emerging story. However, if this Mm was an appeal for more information to circumvent the incipient trouble, it only partially succeeds, as in line 44 she has to do a repair, a request for conWrmation (through a candidate naming) that she is understanding a current person reference correctly.10 It can also be noted that the syntactic complexity of Bob’s emerging multi-unit turn here is great indeed.
Fall-rising Mm following a dependent clause A further locus for fall-rise continuer Mm is after a subordinate (dependent) clause, and before a main (independent) clause, another of Lerner’s (1996) ‘opportunity spaces’ for another speaker to come in with a contribution, such as a collaborative completion, or, as in the cases reported here, a continuer. This is a case of pragmatic and grammatical incompletion going hand in hand, as a turn constructional unit in the emerging talk is partially complete on both levels after an initial dependent clause. In fact, all the examples in the core data used for this study follow complex clause initial if-clauses. For example, in fragment (25), the fall-rising Mm in line 16 is placed at the possible completion of the if-clause if it moves towards full cost recovery. (25)
PD:I:A:3.19/20 L&MH3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Mal:
Lyn: Mal:
Lyn: Mal:
[Oh-;= -a:re they] (.) e:ver. The’re saying th’t- (.) they’re g’nna clo:se down;= the who:le trucking indestry;= if the gover’ment;= goe:s ahea:d;= ↑Mm::h. Ya kno:w;= en it’s:; (0.3) en:- the bloke fr’m the union;= >w’s saying;= w’ll the u:nion doesn’< wanta- (.) do: that-; b’t if the m:en wanta go ou:t-; (0.2) bicus they’ll no: longer >be able da make a< living:; (0.4) um-; the union will s’ ↑port- ↓them. Yea:h. B’t- (.) w:hat they’re (.) >I m’n what they w’re sa:ying; ·hh w’z th’t ↑if they- ↑if it mo:ves t’wards;= full cost recovery;
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 221
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
Lyn:→ Mal: Lyn: Mal: Lyn: Mal: Lyn: Mal:
<M:m>, ↑Right? virt’ually ↑•ev’ry •owner •dri:ver;= w’ll go oudev bus’ness.= bicus they [↑ca:hn’t-]= [°M : m°, ] =↓do et. Ye:auh-, Bicus:- (.) >I m’n< at- th’ mo:ment;= the’re j’s s:o heavily subsidi:sed. <#↑Ye:hs:¿ you c’n se[e: t h a: t#>, ] [an’ the’re subsi ]di:sed;= approxim’ly ↑eighty percent ev the co:hst. (0.3)
The continuer Mm in line 16 can be contrasted with the two prior response tokens, the falling Mm in line 5, and the falling Yeah in line 12, each of which is oriented to a turn that has no problem in its production, and which is grammatically and pragmatically complete in itself. This is in contrast with the line 16 Mm, which occurs at a point of only partial grammatical (and pragmatic) completion, after an if-clause that projects a main clause to follow.11 However, there is also a sense of trouble here. Mal self-repairs to include an I mean before what they’re saying in line 13. This, introduces a reformulation or clariWcation of what he’d said in his previous turn about the drivers no longer being able to make a living. There is thus a strong sense of pragmatic incompletion, even instability here, further underlined by Mal’s Right between the if-clause and the main clause, a check on whether Lyn is still following him. Thus the combination of grammatical and pragmatic incompletion in combination present a sense of incipient trouble, strong conditions for a continuer Mm.
Fall-rising Mm in the environment of dispreferreds Another environment of trouble and incompletion in which isolated fall-rise continuer Mms were found was after dispreferreds. For example, in fragment (26), Lyn and Mal are in their transport and graYti conversation. (26)
PD:I:A:3.14 L&MH3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Mal: Lyn: Mal: Lyn: Mal: Lyn: Mal:
·hh ↑It’s acksh’lly; int’resting la:st couplev da:ys¿ ·h[h using the] railway up en down fr’m= [M m : : h ¿] =↑Caulfield;= ta [Springv]a:le¿ ·hh ptk um- (.) [M m : .] ya c’n te:ll-_ tilly diff’ren’ cliente:lle¿ -Mm [:. [ta the clientelle;= th’t we: get-. going
222 When Listeners Talk
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32
Lyn:
Lyn: Mal: Lyn:
Mal:→ Lyn:
Mal:
Mal: Lyn: Mal: Lyn:
fr’m here inta [the ci[dy? [·hhh [↑It’s poo:rer, bud it’s m:uch bedder c’ndihtion. (0.3) [that train li:n [:e? [Well[No;= it’s •no:th[h,= [·hh It juss hasn’ been ta:rted ↑up yet Malcolm; I↑: woz on it a m:onth ag- I mean a yea:r ago::¿ ·h [h when I w’s] doing the consult’ncies;= [° M : m ° , ] =la:st yea:r. ·hh I did a lodev wo:rk-; Da:ndeno:ng:;= Springva::le. ·hh No:ble Pa:rk, ·hh an- (.) it w’s ↑r:ea:lly noticeable;= .= =Oh;= no: wa:y:. (.) They have m:ore greffiti;= ↑da:rling,= no:w¿ (0.4) pt ·h [hh ev:’r]y s:ingle;= s::pace- °ev° in:ch-;= [↑Ah↓:hh.] =is- (.) covered up with greffi:ti. ptk (.) That’s come on;= v:ery ↑sudd’nly:.
Before the fall-rise Mm in line 20, the talk has come to a disagreement about the condition of the CaulWeld-Springvale train line in Melbourne. Lyn has suggested that the line is poorer but cleaner, to which Mal disagrees forcefully, with no it’s not (the not being said particularly forcefully). Lyn attempts to hold her position (lines 16–17) before saying that she has recent experience of the line in question, during the course of which she self-repairs (month ago to year ago).12 There are thus now two layers of trouble: the repair and the continuing disagreement, two conditions for a continuer Mm. At this point Mal comes in with the fall-rise continuer Mm. A third factor further contributes to conditions for a continuer here, namely the pragmatic incompletion in that I was on it a month ago — I mean a year ago is a statement of when she had experience of the line, but not what that experience was, which she gives in lines 24–5, those trains had less graYti. In the end she seems to accept his counter-argument, but does some face saving by referring to the suddenness with which this graYti has appeared (if one year can be seen to be ‘sudden’). In fact, as the next fragment shows, this disagreement sequence continues for some while yet before Lyn fully concedes the point. A few seconds further on in the conversation, they are still discussing the graYti in fragment (27).
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 223
(27)
PD:I:A:3.15 L&MH3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
Lyn:
Mal: Lyn: Mal: Lyn:
Mal: Lyn: Mal: Lyn:
Mal: Lyn: Lyn:→ Mal:
Lyn:
·pthh Well the thing th’t struck me;= la:st ↑yea:r.= bicus:- (.) I min I w’s trav’lling all over the ea:st [coa:st,]= ↑ri:ght?= [(Yea:h)], ·hhh [h en:d- ] (0.2) hh (.) -I min a l:otev= [↓*Yeah*.] =the trav’lling >I w’s doing in Melbern;= w’s that-< ↑s:outh-ea:stern grid;= b’d also [the] w:estern ↑subu:rbs gr:i[:d. ·h]hh [Yes]. [Sure. ] *Now*- (.) the western suburbs;= ↑-OBviously had the poo:rest pe:hople¿ ·hh [an’ th’ ]= [(°Mm:°),] =south↓eastern o:nes; would follow afta tha:t, ·hh the western suburbs;= w’re the ↑cl:ea:nest;= in te:rms ev quality:; ·hh ev ↑any pahrdev Melbern I’ve ↑tr:ahvelled throu:gh. (0.2) ·hh ↓*No:.= it’s [: (.) not] the ca:se*. [ °Mmhh°. ] °*M::m*°¿ E:m:; (0.2) b’t- the- yi- gh the pe:opl:e-, (0.4) yi kno:w, , (0.2) ↓°Mm[:hh°.
In an elaborate defence of her position, Lyn claims that Melbourne’s western suburbs stations were the cleanest in the city. For the second time she gets a strongly dispreferred response from Mal, his no it’s not the case in line 19. Whilst she has been making her points, Mal responds with a series of four falling response tokens (line 6, and two in line 10, with an indistinct token in line 13 that may be rising). These constitute a series of acknowledgements that are claiming that each chunk of the argument has been received adequately and trouble-free. After Lyn has Wnished her defence with a formulating the western suburbs were the cleanest in terms of quality of any part of Melbourne I’ve travelled through, he rejects forthrightly. Note that Lyn’s full fall Mm (which is breathy and quiet) in line 20 is oriented to the No at the beginning of Mal’s turn (a point of possible completion), and merely receipting it neutrally. Her next Mm is the fall-rise, with quite a strong rise, and placed after his expansion to the No, an unsubstantiated claim that it’s not the case. The incompletion here is that this needs elaboration, and the troublesome environment is the disagreement. Apart from these being dispreferred environments, the parties here are
224 When Listeners Talk
providing space for the other to explain their position (cf. Filipi 1994). In other words, it appears that the fall-rising Mm (and probably any other fall-rising response token) has potential as a conXict avoiding token by passing the Xoor to the other speaker to make a point on the issue, again in a sense a ‘dealing with incipient trouble’ before it emerges. Lyn and Mal’s discussion in these last two fragments continues in a similar vein, with more fall-rising Mms being found in what has become a postdispreferred environment, as shown in fragment (28). By this stage in the conversation, Lyn appears to have backed down and accepted Mal’s judgment of the greater presence of graYti in the poorer, working class western suburbs of Melbourne. (28)
PD:I:A:3.16/17a/17b L&MH3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Mal:
Lyn: Mal:
Mal: Lyn:→ Mal:
Lyn:→ Mal: Lyn:→ Mal:
Lyn: Mal:
Mal: Lyn: Mal: Lyn:
E:m:; (0.2) b’t- the- yi- gh the pe:opl:e-, (0.4) yi kno:w, , (0.2) °Mm[:hh°. [>Yi know<;= y’ ↑the’ve ↓got- that rea:l, (.) e::rm-; (0.3) <wo:rking cla:ss>;= sordev (.) <wa:lk en sitting posstyer>. (0.4) thet ya *see arou:nd*. °Mh:[m:h°, [en ‘s- ‘ts really ↓quite- (0.3) quite n:odiceable;= j’st how sordev (.) dihff’rent it i:s. °Mm:hh°, (0.9) *Er* a l:odev ev people using the trai:n-; (.) puhshing bi:cycles. °Mh:mh°, ·hh tk en:; I w’s surpri:sed et that-;= bicuz ·hh (.) I’ve ↑n:ever seen it-; (.) on a wo:rking da:y bifo:re.= =ptk Ri:ght, E:rm; >I know; y’know;= I’ve s- ya see it et< weeken:ds en thing:s¿ ·hh or ya see it;= ↑with ki:ds. ·hh b’t no::*. these were- (.) < ↑middle a:ged me:n:>,= or middle aged women. ·hh [h ya know; gedding ] o↑:n: the trai:n;= [°O↑:h;= r↑ea:lly:°.] =↑with their ↓bi:cycl:es[:; [°Gohsh::°.
Immediately following on from the talk in fragment (27) is this sequence with three further fall-rising continuer Mms. Before these, in line 4, Lyn has pro-
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 225
duced a falling Mm, as the prior turn has been receipted without any problem, even though Mal has done intonational sub-completion with the terminal slight rise, and pragmatically it appears that more is to come (although that impression may be a function of the intonational incompletion). The three fall-rise Mms in a series which then follow are responses to Mal’s extended turn describing poverty of the western suburbs working person. Thus he is not, in terms of sequence organisation, addressing the talk prior to his turn, with which he had overtly disagreed, as in the turn constructional units before the Wnal one in her turn, the discussion had been about the cleanliness of the western suburbs railways. Lyn’s fall-rise Mms can thus be seen as a series of responses to the perceived lack of resolution of the disagreement, and in expectation of a more relevant response further down the turn. Beyond these Mms there is also a fall-rising Right response by Lyn, but a more relevant response to her position does not come. Instead there is further upgrade to surprise markers and then a change in topic.
Fall-rising Mm in the environment of hitches and perturbations A further locus for fall-rising, continuer Mms is where the turn to which the token is oriented is encountering some diYculties in its production (and subsequently its reception) through hitches and perturbations. In fragment (29), Ann is telling her husband about a planned publicity video her department was producing, and speciWcally here about one that another department had already produced. (29)
PD:I:A:3.8 A&BF3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Ann: Ben: Ann:
Ben:→ Ann:
↑Did I ↑tell you;= about- their vi:deo:↑? (1.3) Who ↓spon↑s’r’d th’m. (0.4) . There’s a list- there’s ↑three of th’m. ?hh an they sponsored this vide↓o:¿ (0.5) ; (0.4) six hundred ↓or-; ↑had six hun:dred or something of th’m;= ↑distribuded ta ↑all: p-p- .·hh They also sent; a fe:w intersta:te, ·hh u:m:;= an ‘if you wannid it;= fr’m an- ‘nyou kno:w;= if the intersta:te schools;= wan:tid it-; (0.4) then: um:;
226 When Listeners Talk
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35
Ben: Ann:
Ann:
Ben: Ann:
((sniffs)) (0.3) tsk *u::m:*; °they c’d geddit sent ta th’m°.= =the:y could- (·) ph- they pai:d for it.= they a:sked them;= ta pa:y for it.= ↑b’t they sent et fre:e, (0.6) first ev all;= they sent around a fli:er;= advertising et¿ hh (0.4) an’ then they s:aid-; (0.2) ya kno:w,= led es know if you wa:nt et¿= en they sent around these;= six hundred *fliers*,= they got f:our hundred ‘n twenty ba:ck;= °saying yes;= we want it°. ·hh they sent it free:;= ta ev’ry schoo:l-; anywa:y¿= °whether they’d said;= they wann’d it or no:t, [°Mm:h°]. [·h h h] U:m:, ã_aaaã gea::red a::t; (0.5) fourth en fifth, (·) no:. (.) thi:rd en fourth-; (1.1) fo:rm,
In her turn from line 5 to 12, Ann runs into problems of articulation, i.e. one type of the production/reception group of troubles. First, she goes into a name search in lines 5–7, with characteristic delays, an Ah, and a cutoV. She runs into further trouble with a transition space repair: made six hundred, or had six hundred or something of them distributed. Beyond this there is more trouble in the form of hitches and perturbations: stutter, repetition, hesitation marker, what appears to be a reduced click (the t), and a long inbreath, before the next point of possible completion after schools (line 12), then an increment to this turn constructional unit with a high pitched, rising prepositional phrase on the lack of cost: in other words, she has encountered what might be considered massive trouble in this turn. Here, at the end of the transition relevance place associated with this turn constructional unit increment, Ben does a continuer Mm. This placement in an environment of considerable perturbation is at a position which both JeVerson (1983) and Lerner (1996) have reported speakers coming in to produce talk. Ann runs into trouble again as her turn continues after Ben’s fall-rising Mm, this time doing another self-repair, this one to redo the grammatical structure of her utterance (topicalising the more unmarked subject of the sentence, the interstate schools, to ensure that it is understood that it was the interstate schools she was talking about and not the Victorian schools), and then there are more hitches and perturbations (hesitation marker, sniV, pause, click, hesitation marker), before Ben comes in and collaboratively completes her utterance-inprogress for her, which can in this instance almost be seen as a repair because of the problems Ann has been having with her turn. This again illustrates the
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 227
association between fall-rising Mms and environments of trouble in the talk and incipient repair. Ben’s turn in line 19, however, only partially succeeds as a collaborative completion, because Ann begins to integrate his talk into her own before Wnding that they could does not actually Wt what she wants to say, so she again has to restart, twice. The continuer, fall-rising Mm in line 13 can be contrasted with the next acknowledging, falling Mm in lines 32. Ann’s continuation of her multi-unit turn from lines 24 to 31 is much more trouble free, and this is reXected in Ben’s subsequent falling Mm signalling trouble-free receipt. This falling Mm can be understood to be of the type that comes at the end of a paratone, discussed above for the examples (5) and (6). Even more marked in terms of hitches and perturbations is the sequence in fragment (30). Ben is in the middle of a long turn, and he produces some remarkably long pauses in this talk. (30)
PD:I:A:3.9 A&BF3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Ben:
Ann: Ben:
Ann:→ Ben:
Um::; (7.0) ((sniff)) (0.9) that video;= a lodev ou:r talk-; basic’lly centred on:;= try:ing ta tahp. (.) th- the lai:ety:¿ °(the laiety- (.) p’tential)°. °Mm°. (1.0) °*E:r*°, (4.8) an’ we ↑felt- th’t a la:y:; (1.4) l:e:d h; (2.0) thing w’d be a good thing. (0.3) M::m¿= =°ta hhelp th’m k- ta help- coordinate ‘n ‘ncourage:°; (0.2) ((sniff)) (0.6) °those activities-°; (0.4) tsk >’n so;= we sat down;= en dre:w- (.) pictures ev °diff’ren’ things th’t were happ’ning< to:° (.) th’ Faraday ↑Insti↓tute.=
In line 5, Ann produces a falling, acknowledging Mm, and then in line 10 a fallrising, continuer one. In the Wrst case, notwithstanding an extraordinarily long pause after the turn initial Um of over nine seconds13, the Mm is oriented to a turn that emerges relatively trouble free, despite a repetition of the laity. Ben’s next turn from 7–8 is quite remarkable, however, because it has a series of further unusually long pauses: at 4.8, 1.4, and 2.0 seconds. Ann’s Mm is actually quite restrained in merely asking for further talk from Ben, presumably an explanation of why a lay led thing would be a good thing. The point is, the emergence of Ben’s turn so far has not been without trouble, and has not
228 When Listeners Talk
reached a satisfactory conclusion of its stage, so a continuer is appropriate. A similar orientation to a fall-rising Mm following hitches and perturbations, in association with grammatical complexity, is fragment (31), where the fall-rising Mm in line 8 is followed by falling Yeah and Sure. (31)
PD:SS:A:2.1 L&MH3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Lyn:
Mal: Lyn:
Mal:→ Mal:→ Mal:→ Lyn:
Mal:
Yeh.= she’ll ged a ↑good hon:ours degre:e,= an’(0.4) she’s goinda be facing inuff problems anywa:y;= with im:ployment [being;] (.) you kno:w;= [°Yeah°]; =f:ordy-fi:ve;= when she looks for a- (.) w’ll fordy-fou:r;= she’ll b e:, ·hhh when shi looks f’r ‘er [ fers ] prefessional jo:b. [°M:m°,] (0.3) °Yea:h°; (0.2) [↑Su:re°]. [M m: . ]= ‘cos she ca:hn’t phiggyback;= on- (.) any ev that wo:rk she did in- (0.5) at th- (.) °th’° secreta:rial con:te[:xt, [°Mm:°, (0.7)
The Mm in line 8 has come in early, or perhaps very late and oriented to forty four she’ll be, but the rest of Lyn’s turn is unpredictable enough for Mal to need to do a revision of his continuer in line 8 to an acknowledging Yeah with (slightly) falling contour in line 10, and the even stronger agreeing Sure in line 12. Mal’s Mm might also be explained by the semantic incongruity of Lyn’s turn: with unemployment being, you know, forty Wve when she looks for her … making this one of Lerner’s (1996) opportunity spaces as a response to production trouble and hitches in Lyn’s talk.
A fall-rising Mm with substantial same speaker talk There are three cases in the core data set that do not occur in ‘potential trouble’ environments, and appears to be anomalous. The fall-rise Mms in two are followed by some brief, reactive same speaker talk, and in the third, fragment (32), the apparently contradictory happens, a fall-rising continuer Mm is followed by substantial same speaker talk. Nik and Matt are discussing improvements to their garden.
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 229
(32)
PD:SS:A:1.1 P&QT2ai
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Mat:
Mat: Nik: Mat: Nik: Mat: Nik: Mat:
Nik:→ Nik:→ Mat:
Mat: Nik:
Mat:
↑M:ulch:↑; (0.3) °u:hm:° (0.3) building out the mou:n:ds;= arou:n’; (so ) s:quash,= en things like that¿= so I c’n wat’r th’m more ea:sily¿ (0.8) Pu [dding a pi:pe] in:;= fer th’ necteri:ne¿ [(mm:ye:s::) ], ↓°°sunningk I’ll°° need t’do this afternoo[: : : : : n ]a. [>↑Oh ↓yeh-<_] (0.3) (0.7) A:gi ↓pi:pe,= =>Agi ↓pipe;= so I c’n: fill et up with wa:ter,= ‘n’ jes let et drai:n dow:n. (1.5) M:m:? (0.8) Whe[ r e ] ‘re ya gedding this:: (.) Agi= [(so-)] =pipe from. ((dishes clattering)) There w’s ↑one↑ arou:n:’ somewhe:re. (1.1) (Th’z one behin’ th’ dog’s kennel). (1.0) ((dishes clattering)) ↑Yeah, ‘t’s a good (↑to:rque). (0.9)
The Mm in line 18 comes after a collaborative completion Nik had done in which she supplied the term agi pipe (agricultural pipe) that Matt had been searching for, before he goes on to Wnish the turn of which the term was a part (with the so-clause). What follows is a very long gap of one and a half seconds before the continuer Mm, which has an unusually strong terminal rise to high pitch. There is evidence that this is a continuer that simply fails to get its designed for response, as a further silence of 0.8 seconds follows, before Nik herself, perhaps as a result of the lack of further talk from Matt, resumes the talk with a new tack on the topic, namely the source of the agi pipe. So whilst some doubt remains, this Mm may be a failed continuer, but its very unusual shape may mean it is doing some other work, not accounted for by this analysis. The evidence overall, however, is overwhelming that a fall-rise contour on an Mm turns it from an acknowledgement token with purely retrospective
230 When Listeners Talk
force that is claiming adequate receipt of the message-so-far into a continuer which is asking for more talk from the co-participant currently talking, in an eVort to circumvent potential trouble in the talk arising from pragmatic incompletion of the turn-so-far to which the continuer Mm is oriented. This therefore circumvents the need for repair due to pragmatic (and sometimes grammatical) inadequacy of the message-so-far, or because of some problem with the production or reception of the talk. One further point remains to be made in this section, throughout which the discussion has focused on the orientation of the continuer Mm producer to pragmatic, and to a somewhat lesser degree grammatical, incompletion, but hardly at all to intonational incompletion. This has been because of strong evidence of parties’ orientation to grammar and, even more strongly, to pragmatics, when producing continuer Mms. The evidence for orientation to intonation has been far less clear. On the one hand, there sometimes appears to be intonational alignment, as in the following fragments. (33)
A&BD4a
1 2
Ann:→ Bob:→
(34)
L&MH3a
1 2
Mal:→ Lyn:→
(35)
A&BF3b
1 2 3 4 5 6
Ann:
→ Ben:→
(36)
P&QT3b
1 2 3 4
Mat:
Nik:→
(37)
L&MH3b
1 2
Mal:
→
>b’d I mean<_ (0.5) the li:brary muss be o:pen:¿ ↑M:[:m],
They’re ha:lf fixed et the mo:ment¿ [Ri:ght], ·hh I= [°M:m°,]
the sci:ence depa:hrtment ma::de>; (0.4) six hundred ?or-; ?had six hun:dred or something of th’m;= ?distribuded ta ?all: p-p-
Yea:h.= it’s: et the co:rner o::f:; (0.3) Bu:rke ‘n ↓Swa:nsten:¿ (0.8) M::[m¿
>↑Oh-. (.) look-_ ↑I think-<; (0.4) <↑at- the mo:ment>¿ (0.2) ·hh ixpected
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 231
3 4 5 6
Lyn: Mal:→ Lyn:→
(38)
L&MH3b
1 2 3
Mal: → Lyn:→
ta pay fer the rai:lway:s¿ (.) [ p l u s ] [(°Right°)]. everything e:lse¿ (0.2) O[kay¿ ] ·hh No:w;= it [°M:m°],
>ya ↓know. I min< if you ca:hn’t make a ↑go ev it? ↑°Mm::h°,
and with a slightly more complex rise-fall-rise aligning to a fall-rise: (39)
L&MH3b
1 2 3
Mal: → Lyn:→
·hh ↑It’s acksh’lly; int’resting la:st couplev da:ys¿ ·h[h using the] railway up en down fr’m= [M m : : h ¿]
In these cases it would seem quite plausible that the shape of the Mm as a fallrise is a response to, and an alignment with, the fall-rising terminal contour of the turn to which the Mm is oriented. This possibility appears much less likely on the evidence of a large number of fall-rising Mms that follow terminal falls in the turn to which they are responding, as in the following fragments. (40)
L&MH3B
1 2 3 4
Mal:
Lyn:→
(41)
L&MH3b
1 2 3 4 5
Mal: Lyn: Mal:→ Lyn:→
(42)
P&QT2ai
1 2 3
Mat: → Nik:→
(43)
A&BD3a
1 2 3
Bob:
→
→
E:m:; (0.2) b’t- the- yi- gh the pe:opl:e-, (0.4) yi kno:w, , (0.2) ↓°Mm[:hh°.
[So;] (0.2) I a:sked him-; (·) ho:w w’d it go:;= [hhh] =over three: mo:nths. (0.3) M:m,=
an’ he- >‘s bin bringin’ th’m< ho:me;= >n’ sawin’ th’m;= ‘nt’ bits ‘n’ ↑bu:rning th’m<. hM:m¿
which is a gu:y:,= in one a thee other- (0.2) wo:rks up,= with Patrick Dealey;= in thee other comp’ny.
232 When Listeners Talk
4 5
Ann:→
(44)
A&BF3b
1 2 3 4
Ben:
Ann:→
(45)
P&QT3b
1 2 3
Mat:
→
→ Nik:→
(0.8) M:m¿
°*E:r*°, (4.8) an’ we ↑felt- th’t a la:y:; (1.4) l:e:d h; (2.0) thing w’d be a good thing. (0.3) M::m¿=
tk ha::d (0.2) c’mpartment about- (·) ↑tha:t(0.2) by that ev ri:ce. M:m¿
In these latter instances, there is no alignment of intonation, and the choice of the fall-rise can be explained on pragmatic grounds. The cumulative evidence, therefore, is that conversationalists make their choices of acknowledging (falling) versus continuer (fall-rising) on pragmatic (and grammatical) rather than intonational grounds.
Mm with rise-falling intonation It has been generally accepted in the literature that one of the major functions of intonation is the expression of emotion and attitude. As Bolinger (1989:1) puts it, intonation is a “non arbitrary, sound symbolic system with intimate ties to facial expression and bodily gesture, and conveying, underneath it all, emotions and attitudes”. Pike (1945:20) says that some intonation characteristics “may be aVected or caused by the individual’s physiological state — anger, happiness, excitement, age, sex, and so on. These help one to identify people and to ascertain how they are feeling” (p 20). From the current study, it has emerged that the rise-falling contour on an Mm has a particular force in the expression of emotion and attitude: it transforms Mm into an assessment token. The term ‘assessment’ may not be entirely transparent to capture the work of these types of tokens. By assessment is meant a token that evaluates the talk to which it is oriented, generally by some display — often through the lexis — of a speaker’s positive or negative orientation towards that talk. Assessments can be elaborate, multi-unit turns, they can be clauses or phrases, such as It’s great, How ridiculous, Love it, or single words, such as Good, Beautiful, Awful, Delicious. One point about assessments is that they generally include a clue
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 233
about their speaker’s emotional orientation to what is being talked about, and frequently they have a prosodic or intonational overlay that contributes to the expression of emotion, and that expression entails a heightened involvement in what is going on. For Mm, which has no lexicosemantic content to convey the emotional stance, the whole work is taken over by the intonation and prosody (notably by markedly high pitch). Assessment Mm is meant here to include the evaluative aspect of the rise-fall Mm, as well as the heightened involvement (evidence for which is argued in the analysis of the fragments in this section). As Goodwin and Goodwin (1987:8) say, an analysis of “the way in which intonation can display speaker’s evaluation of the talk being produced is most relevant to the structure and organisation of assessment actions”. Coulthard (1992) has criticized some of the claims associating attitudinal (and emotional) meaning with certain tunes, saying that this “is, in fact, being derived from the lexicogrammatical and contextual features of the examples themselves and not from the intonation contour” (p 36). It is also the case, as Collier (1990) points out, that Bolinger, and many others, base their claims on their intuitions, which “are not substantiated by any sort of empirical or experimental evidence” (p 343). In the case of Mm, it is possible at least to eliminate the lexical colouring of attitudinal and emotional meanings, as Mm is semantically empty, a characteristic it shares, as Bolinger (1989) points out, with some other ‘interjections’ as he calls them, such as Huh, Huhn, Oh, or Ah ah14 One can then try to see what features of context remain that imbue the combination of contour and token with a particular aVective or attitudinal ‘feel’. Of the three major contour shapes considered in this chapter, the one which appears to carry most emotional and attitudinal weight is the rise-fall. Cruttenden (1986:100–1) points out the relatedness of the rise-fall to the simple fall, in so far as “the rise-fall tone can be grouped semantically with the two simple falling tones the rise-fall involves a sense of Wnality, completeness, deWniteness and separateness, particularly when used with declaratives”. But he also notes a distinguishing characteristic of the rise-fall, in that there are two diVerent local meanings which are additionally characteristic of the rise-fall. The Wrst is ‘impressed’ With this sort of meaning, breathy voice is often also involved and the eVect is one of ‘gossip’ (This meaning of rise-fall is also produced by humming it, i.e. [^mm].) The other local meaning commonly associated with rise-fall is ‘challenging’ (p 101).
The association with ‘challenging’ has also been noted by Bolinger (1947), who
234 When Listeners Talk
mentions its eVect as “something sustained as overriding opposition” (p 136). Both of these characteristics are reminiscent of the claim in the current study of heightened involvement associated with a rise-fall shape to Mm. More neutrally, Brazil et al. (1980:56) point not only to the similarities of the fall and the rise-fall, which they characterise as “adding information to the common ground”, but go on to say that the rise-fall “also adds to the speaker’s own store of knowledge”, which would appear to give the rise-falling Mm something of a newsmarking quality, as, in itself, Mm cannot add to the store of knowledge. Brazil (1985:148–9) further states that a speaker using the rise-fall “is heard as proclaiming the fact at the very moment of discovering it for himself”, and where it is used with expostulations, “we might paraphrase [it] as ‘What you have just said, or done, astonishes me (that is to say, it changes my world view)’” (p 149). This combined sense of news and, in some environments, surprise, accords with the Wndings in the current study that Mm is associated with heightened involvement. The fall-rise is, of course, only one prosodic cue for expressing heightened involvement in the talk. Tannen (1984) notes marked low and high pitch, marked shifts in pitch and amplitude, marked voice quality and pausing as other cues for expressing a ‘high-involvement’ style. Similarly, Selting (1994) discusses various prosodic and other linguistic cues which are used to signal what she calls emphatic speech style in her German data. She takes this to be “an expression and/or manifestation of a speaker’s heightened emotive involvement” (p 383), and examines such style in storytelling for her examples. The cues she discusses are a heightened density of accented syllables in relation to unaccented ones, short isochronous rhythmic cadences, as well as higher pitch peaks and/or greater loudness, and sound stretching (or elongation of vowels).15 These associate with certain lexical and syntactic choices, such as lexical intensiWers and syntactic ellipses and parallelisms.16 Again, there is an advantage in examining Mms for these features. Clearly Mm has no syntax, and it is lexically empty, allowing a focus on pitch, tone and lengthening and their occurrence in a particular sequence which can provide information on the degree of involvement of the speaker. In this data set, almost half the instances of rise-falling Mms either have markedly high pitched onsets, or are punched up in the course of their uttering to markedly high pitch. Amongst the falling Mms, the corresponding Wgure is around one in twenty, and for fall-rising Mms the Wgure is well below one in ten. This points to high pitch being signiWcant in expressing heightened involvement, as Selting also found. The distribution of lengthening of sounds in
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 235
relation to the three tunes also proves interesting: around 14% of falling Mms are notably lengthened, for fall-rises this increases to nearly 30%,17 whilst for the ‘heightened involvement’ contour of rise-falls, this increases to well over 40%. Thus it seems that rise-falling intonation is regularly used in combination with at least this one other prosodic feature to cue heightened involvement in the talk. In terms of some of the other features mentioned by Tannen and Selting, increased loudness hardly ever occurs, which may be because of the inherent articulatory diYculty of making the [m] sound loud. A major proposition in this section is that rise-falling intonation on an Mm appears, in one sense or another, to combine Wnality or completion with a claim that its producer has some heightened involvement in the talk. That is, the rise-falling shape on Mm gives it something of the characteristic of an assessment. The boundaries between categories are, again, porous and leaky. This heightened involvement appears to be associated with three primary environments. First, a large number of rise-falling Mms occur in the environment of positive or negative assessments, either in the same turn as the assessment (i.e. the Mm and the assessment are spoken by the same speaker), or in a turn following a turn with an assessment in it, (i.e. the Mm and the assessment are spoken by diVerent speakers). Second, and closely related to the Wrst group, some rise-falling Mms occur in response to some talk by another speaker that refers to positive or negative aspects of their inner state. The third major environment for rise-falling Mms is in response to some highly involving topic, for example good news or bad news. These Mms have something of the newsmarker about them (i.e. they move towards an Oh-like use). They are associated with topics that are in some sense emotional, surprising, or in some other way remarkable. A somewhat diVerent environment is the occurrence of some rise-falling Mms around incipient or actual disruption in the talk, particularly after prelapse length silences, thus making them of a similar type to the lapse terminator Mms discussed in Chapter 3. They cluster between about one and three seconds of silence after the last talk, and are usually followed by silences too. These Mms can also have a simple falling contour, and are eVectively keeping channels open in what could otherwise become a lapse in the conversation. The presence of a rise-falling contour on many of these can be partially explained with the ‘heightened involvement’ argument in the sense that the contour signals not just that the Mm producer is still there and paying attention, but also that he or she is keenly there. These Mms also occur occasionally after some actual ‘disruption’ to the turn-by-turn Xow of the talk, such as after
236 When Listeners Talk
laughter. The rise-falling contour can be explained by the need to do extra work to show involvement in the conversation after some such disruption (its producer saying something like ‘I’m back in here listening to you, attentive and involved’). A Wnal point to note is the greater statistical speakership incipiency of risefalling Mms compared with full falling Mms: this Wts very nicely with their ‘heightened involvement’ nature, as this is also likely to mean higher likelihood of readiness to move into speakership on the part of the speaker who produces the rise-falling Mm.18
Rise-falling Mm in the environment of assessments The grounds for claiming that rise-falling Mms in the environment of either same- or other-speaker assessments are themselves assessments are in a sense circumstantial, but nevertheless reasonably compelling. Rise-falling Mms occur regularly with other assessments (as well as in the other ‘heightened involvement’ environments discussed below), and they do not occur regularly in the more ‘neutral’ environments in which falling Mms are found (as discussed above). What I am arguing is that the rise-falling Mm producer is aligning with the other speaker in the case of other-speaker assessments (a kind of weak aYliation, in the way that so much of what Mm does is a weaker version of something else), or is a reXection of the more lexically salient assessments in the same turn as the rise-falling Mm. In other words, the patterns found in the discourse environment of an Mm are evidence that can be used to interpret the Mm itself.
Rise-falling Mm following other speaker assessment The regular occurrence of a rise-falling Mm with assessments suggests heightened involvement, as assessments are tokens that are evaluating what the talk has been referring to in terms of whether it is good or bad. In fragment (46) Ben is talking about how his computer expertise was called upon at his work. (46)
PU:I:A:3.3 A&BF3a
1 2 3 4 5 6
Ben: Ann: Ben: Ann: Ben:
[That w’z the problem,= bicoz they we-] [Et w↑o:z,= I r’member that l↑ed ]der you wro:te. they w’re using their machinery. (°Yup°). ye:p¿= =to access ou:r machinery °’n’ stuff°. °°( )°°
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 237
7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
Ann: Ben:
Ann: Ann:
Ben: → Ann:→ Ben: Ann:
[Y’kno- ye had ta rea]lly, [Y↑ea:h;= I rem↑ember.] (1.4) an- (.) effectively:,= I↑:’z th’ only person’n th-, (0.2) in th’ comp’ny;= th’t had that knowledge. (0.2) rea:lly, . .((ca 45 lines of transcript omitted)) . (3.1) Oh that’s goo:d. I mean it’s *good*. (0.3) Like I ws sa:ying;= before I s:aid te someone;= I’m su:re; ·hh the job’s’re like- (.) y’kno:w, thee emergency work;= et ACR;= w’ll come up;= when we are really squee:zed fer money. ((clears throat)) Yea:h; it’s ackshly; (.) good way e- (.) ev being honoured;= ‘n a wa:y¿ ↑’t’s nice. ↑°Mm:°. a:fter the debarcle ev th’ end ev la:st yea:r,= (w [ith ),] (° °) [(That’s ri::ght),]
The Mm in line 26 follows a positive assessment, by Ben, it’s nice. The high pitch mentioned by Selting (1994) associated with heightened involvement is present here. Ben has been complimenting himself on being given the job of setting up a computer system in the company he works for. Although a selfcompliment is not exactly a preferred action (cf. Pomerantz 1984), if one occurs, then a preferred response would be to align with that compliment, which is what Ann’s rise-falling Mm response is doing. In the next batch of fragments, rise-falling Mms similarly follow assessments by the other speaker. In (47), Ron and Sally are discussing a photograph of a big python. (47)
PU:I:A:3.12 R&SB4a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Sal: Ron: Sal: Ron: Sal: Ron:→ Sal: Ron: Sal:
[↑Bd ‘t] c’n swallow a- (.) a- (.) pi:g↑;= maybe it c’n swallow a chi:ld. ↑Yea:h↑. (0.7) °O:hhh°;= °↓Gohh: [:d°. [Well- (.) ye:hs. ↑Ohh;= ↓how ↑a:whfuhl. ↑Mm:h. ↑A:whhh. Oh_= dea-↑. Ahhh= =Ahhh (0.2) hhhh (0.2) ↑*oohhh*↑=
238 When Listeners Talk
Ron’s rise-fall Mm in line 8 comes in the midst of some strong assessments by Sally as a follow-up to her own imagining of the python being able to swallow a child, to which she does an oh god, an oh how awful, and an awh, oh dear, all with marked high and low pitch. In the midst of this, Ron does a number of responses, including the high pitched and somewhat breathy Mm. It appears that the contour is aligning with the high pitch and rise-falling contours of Sally’s turns. In fragment (48), Ike’s rise falling Mm, which is very long, comes simultaneously with Jan’s assessment isn’t it amazing. Both of these turns are responses to something they have apparently seen from the car as they are driving along, perhaps an animal. (48) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
PU:I:A:3.16a I&JW4a Jan: Jan: Jan: Jan:→ Ike:→ Ike:
Jan:
(2.2) ‘ma:zing how they turn arou:nd like that. (2.6) Makes me wanna take a °phohhdagrahhph°. (0.4) ↑O:h;= lookeda t↑ai::l. (0.5) >Izz’ [n et ama::zing]. [ M : m : : : .] (1.3) ↓I↑ ’m surprised th’t Billy’s there. Billy °Harper°. (1.8) Who:s tha::t. hh
This is one of the very few Mms produced by this couple, and is one which has many similarities to the degustatory Mm, of which it is perhaps a ‘metaphorical’ use. It is very long, as well as being very markedly rising and falling.
Rise-falling Mm prior to own assessment Rise-falling Mms can also be associated with one’s own assessments, rather than with the other speaker’s. In (49) Sally and Ron extend the series of assessments and comments on their son’s positive experiences. (49) 1 2 3 4 5
PU:I:A:3.14 R&SB4a Ron: Sal:
(3.3) ↑(So:_= ‘t w’) ↓qui:(.)te- exc↑iting fer Don:;= rea:lly, ↑Mm:. (1.0)
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 239
6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Ron: Sal: Ron: Sal:→ Ron: Sal: Ron:
↑°Mm. (0.2) ‘t’s good°↑. (0.9) ↓°He wz v↑ery plea::sed°↓. Woz ee.= =°Mm::°. (0.5) Why: w’z ee plea:sed. (1.8) tsk·hh Well contact with↑ Ma:rk I s’po:se is:, (.) very import’nt ta h [i: m¿] [Yeah.] (0.7)
Sally’s Mm in line 10 is a response to what appears to be a mixture of surprise and a newsmarker and a request for conWrmation was he by Ron in line 11. Sally treats it as a request for conWrmation with her quiet, long and minimal rise-falling Mm, latched to the ‘question’. The choice of a rise-fall in this case appears to be the persistence of heightened involvement from her own prior turn, with a very strong rise-fall on very, as well as the punched up contour of Ron’s question. It also comes in the wake of Ron’s assessment of their son’s music lesson in lines 2–3, to which Sally had responded with a rise-fall Mm (line 4), which is an example of rise-falling Mms associated with other speaker assessment. This may be an example of emotions tending to fade rather than be suddenly cut oV. Rise-falling Mms in the same turn as an assessment are rarer than as a response to some other party’s assessment, probably because an assessment generally does enough work to express involvement without the need for reinforcement through an Mm. One occasion, though, where it does happen is found in fragment (50). (50)
PU:SS:A:2.2 A&BF3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Ann:
Ann: Ben: Ann:→ Ben:
[b’t et th’ sa:me ti:me; they- >y’know-; ↑ackshlly said when she ↑die:d<, no one said;= well do:ne Dori:s¿ °huh huh ·hhh hhh ·hh° (0.7) °You ↑know°? (3.0) °Weddings ‘n’ ↓funerals,= ↑bring out- th’ best ‘n’ worst in ↓fa:m’[lies°]. [M↑M:.] ‘s incr↑edible.= really,= isn’t et. W’ll wa- ↓shi’s facing that-;= with her wedding no:w.
240 When Listeners Talk
Ann’s very forceful Mm in line 10, which is one of very few Mms in the data that has high amplitude and an animated tone, has a particularly marked rise and fall, and is followed immediately by her own elaborate assessment that is doing an expression of her surprise that weddings and funerals should bring out the best and worst in families Involvement persistence across an intervening turn was noted in fragment (49). It is found again in fragment (51). (51)
PU:I:A:3.23 A&BF3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Ann: Ben: Ann:
Ann: Ben: Ann: Ben: Ann:
Ann:
Ben: Ann:→ Ben:
°HHHHUHUH°
·hh That’s good-. (0.7) pt·hh I’m not- that incre:dible,= it’s jes [t that-] [↑YOU A↑:]:RE IN↓CREDIB(H)LE. ↑Yo(h)u ha(h)ve i(h)nferma(h)tion $on ev’ry subject I c’n rai::se$↑. (0.4) It’s fantahstic. Well it’s jest fr’m having had contacts. (0.3) Y↑ea::h.= that’s [r i: g h t]¿ [That’s ↓a:]ll. (1.0) I min I s’pose in three years ti:me;= I↑:’ll make contract19,= ↑too:. °I↑:’ve been in th’ wo:rkforce;= ↑fer three years°, (2.9) B’t yer a:lso very goo:d;= et f:iguring out-;= ‘n making c’ne:ctions:. (0.7) I ↑think I ↓like- selling. (0.9) ↑Mm::↑. (0.8) ↑a’ mean:;= if it’s gener’lly;= gonna ben’fit tra:nsfe:r, °then it’s gener’lly gonna benefit;= the linguistics° °°depa:rtment;= ↑then°°¿
Ann has been strongly complimenting her husband in this sequence (lines 5–7/ 9 and 19–20). Ben here does the preferred response of not agreeing with the compliments directly (line 10), but Ann’s compliment in 19–20 is underlined and reinforced in a post-position by her Mm in 24 with its high pitch and risefall contour. This case suggests a combination of high involvement, with the rise-fall, and the typically minimal nature of Mm, placed here as the complimenting sequence is fading.
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 241
Rise-falling Mm following other speaker expression of inner state Another fragment in which involvement persistence is found is (52), which also has an element of expression of inner state by Mel (see also below). The couple have been ruing how tough life is for a teacher. (52)
PU:I:A:3.22 L&MH3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Liz:
Liz: Mel:
Liz:→ Mel: Liz:
°Mm:°.= they ↑run off;= ↓’n about-fi:ve minutes;= en then they play up- play ‘n. (.) up like;= anything:. (1.0) TERRIBLY ha:rd;= ta teach (the [se)] [OH;]= I KNOW IT’S HA:RD. (0.3) ↑IT’S- (.) it’s a cha:n:ge.= I: I’m looking fer a cha:nge;= ↓in my li:fe.= =°Mm:°. (1.8) hhh ‘f I do:n’ get- o:ne,= °I th’nk’ll° ↑YEAR SE:VEN’S;= BEDDER TH’N YEAR EI:GHT-.
Here Liz has been showing her involvement through lexical choice (terribly hard), increased amplitude on terribly, and its rise-falling contour. After Mel’s plaintive I’m looking for a change in my life comes a rise-falling Mm by Liz, an expression of sympathy aYliating with Mel’s inner wishes. The expression of inner state, this time a markedly positive one, receiving an aYliative rise-falling Mm response is also found in fragment (53). (53)
PU:I:A:3.6 L&MH3a
1 2 3 4 5 6
Mal:
Lyn: Mal:
7
8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Lyn:
Mal:
Lyn: Mal:
↑en’ ↓I think that would- (.) e:m; (0.5) I think in the l↑o:ng te:rm; (0.7) tha:t’s pr↑obably-; (0.3) th’ ki:nd ev a:rea; (.) where my future might lie:. Ri:ght. >I m’n-< whether it’s:; (0.2) >public health in th’ sense’v road safety;= or public health in other areas<;= ‘s [ nod ] import’nt. [Yeah.] Yeah. (0.5) °*Yeah.= I think that’s::*° (0.3) that’s pardev the fu:ture. (0.3) ↑Ri:ght; So I↑’m quite happy aboud it. (0.3)
242 When Listeners Talk
18 19 20 21 22 23
Lyn:→ Mal: Mal: Lyn:
°Mm:°. °Right°? (3.0) *°An’° I* also have s’me other *ne:ws*. Wha:t. (0.5)
Lyn’s rise-falling Mm in 18 is a response to a turn in which Mal is claiming that he is happy about developments in the process of a job application he is going through. His wife provides a response, albeit a minimal one, that through its rise-falling contour is aligning with the positive nature of Mal’s turn. Lyn chooses this token because this is a topic terminal environment. What perhaps makes this an appropriate token in this environment is that Lyn is not claiming that she has more in terms of a substantial contribution to make on this topic, but at the same time the rise-fall does suYcient alignment to the upshot in Mal’s expression of his happiness.
Rise-falling Mm in the environment of ‘involving’ topics In addition to assessments and expressions of inner states, a third type of stimulus for involvement Mms is when the topic of the talk is such that a heightened expression of interest or surprise is appropriate. Fragment (54) is a case in point, with its strong sense of sympathy and involvement. (54)
PU:SS:A:1.1a L&MH3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Mal:
Mal: Lyn: Mal: Lyn:→ Lyn: Mal: Mal: Lyn:
ptk ·hh Oh-; -i:t’s:: (0.2) ya’d get- en en:o↑::r↓mous shock.= ya r↑ea:lly ↓wou:ld. (0.6) >Yes I mean; y’k ya< [↑go da t]ahp ‘er on th’= [°M m :°.] =shou:lde:r e*n:*; (.) ↑no-↓thi [ng:. [°Mm:h°. (1.0) ↑Y’know- all the tihme our ↓ba:bies [w’re lidd]le,= I w’s: ↓sca:red ev coht <dea:th>, [°E r : :°,] (0.2) #°Mm:°#¿= =↑I:↑ don’ know what- (.) ‘n’ I ‘s t↑alkin’ ta Harriet aboud et;= ‘n’ she sai:d; could it’ve been a dr↑u:g o:verdo:se:.
Mal has just imagined a parent coming into a daughter’s bedroom and Wnding her dead. There is, perhaps, nothing one could conceive that is more designed
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 243
to elicit a rise-falling Mm response. A minimal sympathetic response can be seen as highly appropriate under the circumstances, as it expresses aYliation with the tragedy, coupled with an inability to express it in words. Another kind of topical involvement environment found for rise-falling Mms was around a complaint sequence, shown in fragment (55). Bob is reporting on how his ex-wife spends ‘too much’ on clothes. (55)
PU:I:A:3.2 A&BD4a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
Bob:
Ann: Bob: Ann:
Bob:→ Ann: Ann:
°She cn:- (0.4) n-° y’know ‘SPESHLY a:fteh (0.7) yesterda:y (y’kno::wd), (0.7) ,= I mean: ↑un:↓be↑lie:v↓able.= ↑ho:w ↓many ↑clo:thes.= an: th’n (.) I WZ RI:GHT-, (0.4) too:.= she tu:rned up;= . (1.0) °Yea:h; *w’ll that was:*, (.) absalutely predictable;= wadn’ et°; °↑Yeh-↑°_ (1.5) Yea:h–_ (0.2) well that’s ri:gh-;= I mean in terms ev mai:nt’nance,= °I mean; (.) what’s it being u:sed for°. Mm:. (0.7) S:o::; (0.5) B’t- (.) I mean the otha thing too:;= is:;= thee amoun- ev time th’t you ↑have them.=
Ann’s talk aYliates by raising the question of how his ex-wife uses the maintenance money from Bob. Bob’s response to this is a rise-falling Mm, an indicator of his heightened topical involvement, as it is, after all, money he gives her that she might be misspending. Another example of this ‘complaint’ type of rise-falling Mm is found in fragment (56), where the Mm comes at a point of pre-re-completion. The sense of criticism is milder than in the previous example, but nevertheless present. (56)
PU:SS:A:2.1 A&BF3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Ann:
Ben: Ann: Ann:
[O↑:h it’s ] ↓Pino:cchio.= I↑: thoughd id wz that- (0.9) Disney o:ne. (0.3) thee u:m (1.1) Mickey Mou:se et wo:rkhhh huh huh hh huh huh huh ·hih [huh [Don’ think I’ve had th’ pleasure. huh huh huh hh do(h)n’ bo(h)ther. huh huh huh ·huh The Discovering S:eries:,= I think it’s
244 When Listeners Talk
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Ben: Ann: Ben:
Ann:→ Ben: Ann: Ben:
↑ca(h)l(h)led, huh huh huh huh huh ), Discovering (how ta HUH (.) huh huh (.) huh huh huh= =I l:ike the one where you (0.4) mm:; (0.8) ‘t’s rilly f:unny how they d o: that,= they- they ged all this (.) o:ld stuff;= they useta d↓o:,= when they ha- (.) ne (.) when they w’re origin’l, Mm:. an’ then reha [:sh] et. [Yea:h]. [end] re:hash et. (0.3) [ Mm:.] ((sniff)) ↑Hanna Ba:rb’ra’s done th’ sa:me thing;= witha ↑Flin:tston:es.
Of all subjects in the current study, Ann is the most idiosyncratic and frequent user of rise-falling Mms. Here she is suYciently involved in this talk to help Ben to redo his completion when he has almost Wnished. The Mm might be seen as her gearing up to do the re-completion in an ‘opportunity space’ (cf. Lerner 1996).
Rise-falling Mm in some other environments Some rise-falling Mms appear to be newsmarking, that is, doing Oh-like or Right-like work. In fragment (57) the somewhat breathy Mm in line 10 seems to be marking the prior turn as surprising news. This is reminiscent of Brazil’s (1985:149) claim that rise-falling intonation “is heard as proclaiming the fact at the very moment of discovering it for himself”, and “What you have just said, or done, astonishes me (that is to say, it changes my world view)”. This combined sense of news and surprise is what is found here. (57) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
PU:SS:A:2.8 R&SB3b Ron: Sal: Ron: Sal: Ron: Sal: Ron:→ Sal: Ron:
(0.4) ptk (.) Saturda:y; (1.3) M:usic ↓S’ci:ety dinner-;= >music-c-c [ya kno:w], [ Mm hm, ] Co:dy:, Mm hm, (0.2) Colebrooke O’Do:rk bu:siness. ↑*Mmh:m↑; i↑s it*. (0.5) (↑Yehw’l [I’m:-);] [°°hhnh ] ohh;= (dear)°°.
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 245
The breathy Mm in line 10 comes in response to Sally’s mention of plans for the next Saturday. One planned activity is a musical event, the Colebrook O’Dork business. This gets the Mm response from Ron, high, a bit creaky, a bit breathy, and rather long. His latched conWrmation check is it that follows also does a marked rise-fall, and this is the evidence that newsmarking is what is going on here. There is one more piece of supporting evidence that this Mm is in fact marked for heightened emotional involvement in Ron’s next turn, in which he appears to be expressing disappointment about this plan with oh dear. His unwillingness to go to this event becomes even more evident in the ensuing talk. Not all instances of rise-falling Mms are as clear as those above. In fragment (58), Ann produces one where it is initially diYcult to see why it has been selected on the basis of the argument presented so far. (58)
PU:SS:A:1.1b A&BF3a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Ben: Ann: Ben: Ann: Ben:
Ann:→ Ben: Ann: Ben: Ann:
The problem w’z;= that th’t ya needed someone who kne:w;= a:bout compu:ders, °Mm:°. en’ about- the in:dustry:, ↓°Mm:°↓. tk·hh E:rm; (1.2) an:dh, (0.2) e:rm, (0.8) about- tran:sfer rea:lly¿ (0.2) c’z et w’z a rea(.) it w’z a rea:lly te:chnic’l sortev dea:ul,= =°M:m:°. [That w’z the problem,= bicoz they we-] [Et w↑o:z,= I r’m↑ember that l↑ed]der you wro:te. they w’re using their machinery. (°Yup°). ye:p¿=
There is nothing here that intuitively strikes one as being worthy of an expression of heightened involvement, or surprise, or sympathy, or excitement, or even something involving assessments in the topic leading up to this Mm. However, there is supporting evidence in the emphatic reinforcement of it was (line 11), which is also strongly punched up, as are two lexical items in her next utterance. One might also surmise that she has recognised something not accessible to an analyst, i.e. something private, in the history of what Ben is talking about, and she deems it appropriate to be supportive in this clear and explicit way. However, the main evidence for ‘heightened involvement’ in this fragment is in the prosodic patterning itself. Most of the above examples of rise-falling Mms clearly exemplify heightened involvement in the talk, the evidence being their occurrence with assessments, with expressions of inner states, and with emotional or surprising
246 When Listeners Talk
topics. Many other rise-falling Mms do not appear initially to fall into this heightened emotional involvement characterisation so neatly. A signiWcant number of these Mms, which account for the overwhelming majority of the remaining cases, occur around some actual or potential disruption in the talk, and the rise-fall contour is used to emphasize not only engagement, but also involvement in the talk at a point of incipient or actual breakdown. It can legitimately be asked what the diVerence is between these rise-falling Mms in the environment of disruption and fall-rising Mms in the environment of incipient trouble discussed above. The answer is that the fall-rising Mms are used to encourage the other speaker to say more to resolve the trouble before a repair becomes necessary, whereas the rise-falling Mms are used to express their utterer’s continued involvement in the talk despite the disruption. It can thus be argued that these rise-falling Mms are doing some marked expression of involvement, as disruption is a sign that the intersubjectivity of participants is threatened. One group of these Mms is in the environment of a potential disruption, where there has been a substantial delay in the production of a responding Mm. (59)
PU:I:A:3.5 L&MC2ai
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Mel:
Liz: Mel: Liz:→ Mel: Liz:
a:nd e::r (1.3) >I think- otha comp’nies;= stard off like that-,= b’t-< (2.3) et (.) the drop ev a hat;= the:y j’s s:lip inta the suit ‘n ↑tie::¿= en:; (0.4) en:d e:r; (0.7) cert’nly;= by th’ thime they:’re; (0.5) turning ova millions:, (0.4) °y’know°; (.) everyone in the comp’ny, (.) wears a suit en ti:e. (0.8) °Mm [:°. [B’t not this o:ne, (2.6) ↑°Mm:°↑. (2.3) (Think ‘t’[s a)] [Whad]da the women wea:r,=↑Mel¿ (1.9)
The Mm in line 12 is isolated between two long silences of 2.6 seconds and 2.3 seconds. What comes before it is a coda to a turn in which Mel had been describing the sartorial distinctiveness of the male employees of a computer company he has been associated with (this turn receiving a classic falling acknowledging Mm in line 9). The last, incremental component of Mel’s turn following this acknowledging Mm turns out to be a coda to this particular
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 247
topical sequence before Liz shifts focus to the sartorial habits of the women in the company. The rise-falling Mm in line 12 is eVectively there keeping channels open in what could otherwise turn into a lapse in the conversation. Why does she choose a rise-falling Mm? A full falling one would be more neutral, and could be a heard as a herald of a lapse or a change of topic in a topic attrition environment rather than an avoider of a lapse. The rise-fall, on the other hand, expresses greater involvement, greater speakership incipiency, and thus is likely to be more potent in saying that the conversation should not lapse. The other type of rise-falling Mm associated with disruption occurs after actual rather than incipient disruptions to the talk. In (60) this disruption takes the form of laughter following a joke. Liz is reporting on her application for Australian citizenship. (60)
PU:SS:A:2.7 L&MC2ai
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
Liz: Mel:
Liz:
Liz: Mel: Mel:
Liz: Mel: Liz:
Liz: Mel: Liz:→ Mel: Liz:
[I(h) dunn(h)o:,]= I god all these pa:pers ta rea:d¿= an’ fo:rms ta fill in¿ en °Oh-. (.) you may ez well do that pa:rt ev et th’n°. (0.4) >‘n then I think- I’ll go along;= ‘n make< an oa:th ta be loyal ta the Quee:n. >↓Wehllwm already loyal ta the Queen,= a:ren’t I↓<. (1.0) [>Don’ n]eed ta do that really,= d↓o: I:So the’ wi a:re<.
This rise-falling Mm in a joke environment may be construed as an environment of heightened involvement, in this case in the sense of doing irony or perhaps mocking, with the Mm aligning with the humour. A fall-rising Mm of
248 When Listeners Talk
the type that occurs in environments of incipient trouble would not be an appropriate token here, as the disruption does not take the form of trouble or prospective trouble, but is simply a break in the ‘normal’, smooth transition from speaker to speaker on a turn-by-turn basis. Jokes, failed or successful, may be seen as disruptive in the sense of departing from a ‘normal and serious’ turn-by-turn forward movement of the talk. In fragment (61) the disruption is caused by two events: Ben’s trouble in producing Xuent, hitch-free talk, in particular in lines 19–22, and Ann’s own throatclearing during this turn. (61)
PU:SS:A:2.10 A&BF3b
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35
Ben:
Ben: Ben: Ann: Ben: Ann: Ben: Ann: Ben:
Ann: Ben:
Ann: Ben: Ann:→ Ann: Ben: Ann: Ben: Ann: Ben:
[The colli- (.) y’ I know this is soun- (.) >soun’ing funny;= ya w↑anna c’nvince< (.) the(.) *the:* ↑hi:gh school >students;= b’t ya< also wanna c’nvi:nce: (0.9) thee- (.) lit’riture teachers. (0.3) °in the hi:hgh schoohls°. (0.3) [em lit’]riture;= *an: lang:uage teachers;= [Wh’ bou-] i[n the high school]; [Eng:li- [Eng:lish]= [Wh’d’ya kno’ ‘bout l]ing [ui:sti:c[s:::::. ] =teachers;= in the high school. O↑:h;= yea:uhs: [:,= [so:-; (.)in a wa:y;= you almo:st; (0.7) it’s ni:ce ta sell:;= >sordev a< tea:m video:. (0.4) [ to: ] (.) >°people°;= b’t= [°Mm:° ]. =thee-< (.) the:se peohple; gen’r’lly:, (1.2) >I min the- ↑the’re- (0.4) in a wa:y:-, (.) the’re the sordev role model;= or et least the’ think [the’re g’nna be edvi:[s i n g . (0.2) students= [((throat)) [((throat)) =who ma[:y wanna go] o:n. [ M m : : . ] ↓Mm:.= =es ta what so- whadded be the be:st thing ta [do:;]= I min su:re;= have the team y’kno’ [Mm:.] on >the vide-;= b’d I think- a:lso be awa:re; (0.2) Yea:h. that- (0.3) >it’s easier;= fer a teacher ta look ed a video like that-;= en think w’ll when I↑: went through sci:ence et Melbern Unive:rsidy,=
Intonation contour and the use of Mm 249
36 37 38 39 40 41 42
Ann: Ben: Ann: Ann:
it w’s seven hundred people;= packed inta the fi- (.) inta the chemistry lecture;= in< fi::rst yea::r>; ·hhh [h e n] s↑o: ↓jolly ↑wha:t; >en= [°°M:m°°]. =y’kn’w it’s [jess< ] bo:ring. [°M:m°;] °M:m°;
One task here is to explain why Ann should use rise-fall on her Mm in line 25, but not in 18, 26, 29, 39, 41 and 42, which all have falling contours. The talk here is about Ann’s work, and doing some publicity work to convince students to study linguistics. Ben’s line is that it is not only the students that need convincing, but also the teachers, in particular the English teachers. He continues by conceding that it’s nice to sell sort of a team video (l. 16–17), which gets an acknowledging, full falling Mm. He then goes on (in a turn with quite substantial trouble in its production) to say these teachers are role models for students, or at least are going to be advising them, and it is this that gets the rise-falling Mm response, which does not come at a point of possible completion, but after a relative clause has begun, so it is virtually two syllables past the last point of possible completion. Note that Ann has cleared her throat (whilst Ben is talking) just before this. It may be that she does this Mm (where it really seems to deserve a simple acknowledging, falling contour) to show that she is back and involved in the talk after this little disruption. ‘I was out of this conversation for a moment whilst I was coughing, now I’m back, and I’m involved’ seems to be what it is saying. This Mm is followed very quickly by a falling Mm. It seems these two Mms are doing diVerent tasks, the Wrst responding to the interruptive throat clearing by Ann in the turn of the main speaker, and the second doing the actual responding work on the talk of the other speaker. The rise-fall contour on an Mm, then, on the evidence presented, transforms it from an acknowledgement with purely retrospective force that is claiming adequate receipt of the message-so-far into an assessment which is aligning with a position by the other speaker, which evaluates, or makes some statement of that speaker’s aVective state, or alternatively is a way of expressing heightened or keen involvement in the talk.
Conclusion In this chapter the eVect of intonation on the response token Mm has been investigated. The three most frequently occurring intonational mappings on
250 When Listeners Talk
the response token Mm have been described: the falling contour, the fall-rising contour, and the rise-falling contour. About 70% of all Mms have the falling contour. It is the unmarked case, with the core function of the response token Mm as an acknowledgement that is closing a sequence, usually in second and sometimes in third position. This Mm is saying that its producer has nothing to add at this point to the topic of the immediately preceding talk. Typically, it is a quiet token, coming in the mid to low pitch range, and unmarked prosodically. The fall-rising contour has the eVect of turning the acknowledger into a continuer, similar to Mm hm and Uh huh, though retaining some of the force of Mm as acknowledger with nothing substantial to add to the topic. Additionally it typically occurs where there is some incipient trouble in the emerging talk, and the fall-rise Mm is used to elicit more talk from the other speaker to avoid the necessity of a repair sequence, which would be dispreferred if initiated by the recipient of the talk. The rise-falling Mm retains some of the sense of the falling Mm, but conveys an added sense of heightened involvement in the talk, which may be an alignment with sympathy, surprise, complaint, humour etc. in the other party’s talk. It employs high pitch signiWcantly more frequently than the other two contour types. From a slightly diVerent perspective, the acknowledging Mm, with its falling contour, is saying that the turn constructional unit to which it is oriented has been received without any problems. The continuer Mm, with its fall-rising contour, is saying that the turn constructional unit to which it is oriented is pragmatically (and often grammatically) incomplete, and it is urging further talk, and pragmatic completion by the other speaker before trouble occurs. The assessment Mm is, like the falling Mm, saying that the turn constructional unit to which it is oriented has been received without any problems, but it is expressing a greater degree of involvement in that talk than the falling Mm does.
Chapter 7
Summary and future directions
Summary This book has examined response tokens, in particular the conversational token Mm, together with some observations on some other receipt tokens, especially Yeah and Mm hm. The second chapter has outlined what we know about eight common response tokens in English, namely Mm hm, Uh huh, Mm, Yeah, Oh, Right, Okay and Alright. Mm hm and Uh huh are prototypical continuers, whose main function is to hand the Xoor back to the prior speaker. Mm and Yeah are acknowledgement tokens, typically marked unproblematic receipt of the prior turn. Mm is the more neutral acknowledger, and also shows less speakership incipiency than Yeah, though more than Mm hm/Uh huh. Oh is a newsmarker that, most typically, claims that its utterer has experienced a change of state of his or her knowledge as a result of what has been said in the turn to which it is oriented. Right is a newsmarker-like object whose most typical function is to mark the information in the turn to which it is oriented as related or connectable to some other information from a turn before the prior one. Okay is used to mark the end of one sequence or activity in the talk and a readiness to move on to another. Alright is very similar, but works at a higher level of discourse structure, marking the juncture between what is Wnishing and the next phase as more major. It has been demonstrated in Chapter 2 that each does distinctive interactional work, and that it is misleading to assume that they can be lumped together as a homogenous group of ‘minimal responses’, or even within a broader group of ‘backchannels’, except to characterise them generally in the way that ‘prepositions’ or ‘conjunctions’ can be lumped. The main focus of the rest of the book has been on Mm. As far as could be ascertained from the literature, this token has been little studied. Generally, where it has been mentioned, which is mainly in the British literature, it has not been distinguished from Yeah and Mm hm (and often from other ‘minimal
252 When Listeners Talk
responses’). In the CA literature, too, a tradition in which even the smallest and apparently most insigniWcant diVerences have not been dismissed as irrelevant, there have been few references to Mm. This is most likely because most work on continuers has been carried out by American researchers, and the token is relatively scarce in American English. However, even those who have worked on British data have hardly mentioned it. The methodology chosen for this study was CA in the ethnomethodological tradition. With its Wne-grained transcripts and insistence on the primacy of the recording, this set of tools has proved to be very useful for examining response tokens, which are highly interactive and indexical. The JeVersonian transcription system, which has been used in this study, has been extended somewhat to capture more Wnely some prosodic features, in particular certain features of intonation. Also the intonation unit has proved to be a useful analytic level for chunking of talk, though not the only one: the other principal ones being grammatical and pragmatic. The data used for the main study in this book was primarily seven hours of ordinary dyadic conversation between spouses in Australia. These were transcribed by the author. About half of this corpus constituted the core data set. For some aspects of the study, this core data set was supplemented by further substantial corpora of US and UK conversational data. In particular, Mm is a token that is very common in Australian (and British) English, but far less common in American English. Its relatively neutral receptor variant was hardly found in American English. Furthermore, it is a token that seems, even amongst the Australian English speakers studied, to be used vary variably by diVerent speakers: hardly at all by some, and well over 200 times in an hour by the highest user. Eight major types of Mm have been identiWed in this study. First, an Mm that ends a lapse in a conversation, the lapse terminator Mm, which marks a renewed engagement in talk; second, one that is an expression of pleasure, most typically associated with the ingestion of food, the degustatory Mm; third, a variant of the pause Wlling Erm or Um, the hesitation marker Mm; fourth, an Mm that is like a next turn repair initiating Huh?, the repair initiating Mm; Wfth, an Mm that is in many respects very similar to the sixth type, the answering Mm, which can substitute for Yeah and its variants and No as an answer to a polar question; sixth, the most frequently occurring variant by far in the Australian data, the neutral acknowledging Mm with a falling intonation contour, which is quite closely related to Yeah; seventh, the continuer Mm, with a fall-rising intonation contour, which is most closely related to Mm hm
Summary and future directions 253
and Uh huh; and eighth, the assessment Mm, with a rise-falling intonation contour. The response token Mm accomplishes a number of actions in talk that appear distinctive to it, if not quite unique, as the other tokens discussed here, mainly Yeah and Mm hm, are Xexible enough to be able sometimes to do the same work as Mm. However, one action of Mm that is very typical for it is that it is saying that its producer has nothing more of any substance to add to the topic of the talk in the turn to which it is oriented. This is most clearly recognisable when an Mm is followed by substantial same speaker talk, as it regularly is. The talk that follows such Mms is almost invariably on a topic other than the topic in the turn to which it is oriented. This occurs occasionally with Yeah and Mm hm, but is a much more regular and distinctive feature of Mm. It is more diYcult to demonstrate that a speaker has nothing more to say on the topic of the turn to which his or her Mm is oriented when the Mm occurs in isolation or with one or two other receipt tokens or assessments or other brief responses. Nevertheless, what the Mm is doing in such cases is responding in a most minimal way to the prior talk, without any propositional development to the prior talk. Overwhelmingly, such Mms have a strongly falling intonation contour to low pitch, which is associated with Wnality and closure. Mm is, in many respects, a ‘most neutral’ response in ongoing talk, claiming nothing apart from continued attention, and adding nothing to the existing topic. They can be seen as primarily completing a sequence (an adjacency pair or a base adjacency pair expanded into a sequence). Mm proved to be particularly suited to a study of intonation, being monosyllabic, indeed monophonemic, and regularly exhibiting three major contour types. The falling contour, through which the Mm is a relatively weak acknowledgement token, is saying that the turn to which this token is oriented has been received unproblematically. With the fall-rising Mm, the producer is saying that they need to hear more from the other in order to make full sense of what they are saying. In fact there is typically some incipient trouble in the emerging talk, so this Mm can be seen as a kind of pre-trouble token. This attempt at eliciting more talk is why it is a true continuer. The rise-falling tone on Mm is used to express some heightened involvement in what the other has said. The rise-falling tone is only one prosodic resource used to express this heightened involvement, high pitch being another important one.
254 When Listeners Talk
Future directions Ideas for future directions are scattered around the footnotes in this book. The Weld of conversation analysis is so replete with such ideas that an enumeration here would be tedious. Instead of this, some very general observations. Response tokens have not been very amenable on the whole to a close characterisation of what it is they accomplish in talk. This is partly because of their relative semantic emptiness, and partly because of their highly interactional nature, and thus the need to study them in the context of the discourse in which they occur and from which they emerge. Much remains to be discovered concerning what they do, including the following. What role does prosody and intonation play in the ‘meanings’ of these tokens? This book has only touched on some fairly simple aspects of intonation. Amongst the points of view that might repay attention are pitch height and range, tempo, amplitude, and some qualitative features such as creaky voice, taut versus lax, staccato versus legato, and breathiness. In addition, whilst this book has made a modest contribution towards our understanding of the falling, fall-rising and rise-falling tones on Mm (and perhaps some other tokens), it remains to be discovered what else these tones do, both in the sphere of the contribution of the primary recipient to the unfolding talk, and in the broader domains of talk. These three major contours, in so far as they have been studied in this book, are not uniform within themselves: their shapes vary in, for example, the pitch range they cover, or in their length, which make them diVerent from one another. A further question is what the rising, level and the more complex tones accomplish. There are also still many ‘regional’ questions to be answered. What does the work of Mm in American English? What does the work of Uh huh (and to some extent Mm hm) in British and Australian English? Are Uh huh and Mm hm very similar, with purely ‘dialectal’ or ‘social variational’ or ‘stylistic’ diVerences? What are the various roles of Yeah in all ‘Englishes’? How do these recipiency oriented tokens Wt into a paradigm, if at all? What is the work of some other related tokens, such as Oh, Okay, Right, Sure, Really and No. Although some characterisation of their work has been achieved, much more remains to be discovered. How do response tokens work in a series, both where several tokens occur in one speaker’s turn, or when a variety of tokens is used in response to a series of turns by another speaker? In other words, what is it that motivates a speaker
Summary and future directions 255
to choose one token over another when it appears that two or more might be chosen? In the longer term it may be possible to address further some other questions that have already provided a rich source of interest amongst discourse and conversation analysts. For example, what is the nature of gender diVerences in the use of these tokens? Attempts so far to describe these have been hampered by too little diVerentiation between the tokens, as well as too great a readiness to generalise from limited data. On occasion the tokens have been lumped together as ‘minimal responses’, with subsequent claims (on the basis of the empirical evidence) about greater involvement and conversational supportiveness by women. There are strong indications that women use these tokens more frequently than men. In the current study this diVerence is smaller than has generally been reported in the literature (eg. Coates 1986; Fishman 1983). Study of the actual use in particular instances of these multifaceted objects would perhaps throw more light on how the sexes diVer in their use of them, but factors such as the inXuence of the type of speech event involved, the relationship between speakers, or the type of activities being accomplished locally by the speakers, serve to make a study of gender (or any other macro-social variable) in relation to response tokens (or any other micro-interactional conversational phenomenon) particularly tricky. Another aspect is individual variation in the frequency of use of Mm (and perhaps also of the other tokens). In the current data set, contrary to what the tenor of published results might lead one to expect, some males were very high Mm users, and some females were very low users. Most signiWcantly, if one member of a couple was a high user, so was the other, and if one was a low user, so was the other. Why? There are no doubt many other questions that could be addressed in studies of response tokens, and the larger issues of recipiency and what it is that listeners do and contribute to conversations and other forms of talk-in-interaction. This book has attempted to provide a small contribution to such studies.
Notes
Notes to Chapter 1 1. As will be made apparent in later chapters, many of these listener activities are highly Xexible, and can, through contingent conditions such as prosodic shape or sequential placement, be ‘transformed’ into another of these types of listener response. 2. The distinctiveness of the CA approach to studying conversation and talk-in-interaction has been explicated in numerous places (e.g. Boden 1990; Drew 1990, 1994; Drew & Heritage 1992; Drew & Sorjonen 1997; Gardner 1994; Goodwin & Heritage 1990; Heritage 1984a, 1987, 1989, 1995, 1999; Heritage & Atkinson 1984; Hutchby & Drew 1995; Moerman 1988; Pomerantz & Fehr 1997; Psathas 1995; ten Have 1999). 3. Newsmarkers might be seen as taking an ‘evaluative’ stance, in that their speaker is treating the talk to which they are responding as something that they did not know before. However, this is not the same as the evaluation that an assessment does, which is an aVective, judgemental, aesthetic, etc. response, i.e. their speaker is not saying something about the content of the talk (as news), but about their attitude to that content. 4. Uh huh is very similar to Mm hm, but is excluded from this discussion, as it was found to be very scarce in the Australian data used for this study.
Notes to Chapter 2 1. There is a problem with the term ‘neutral’, as it can be argued that nothing is neutral in conversation. Every utterance is indicative of a stance or attitude to what is being talked about, even if it is to say something such as ‘I have nothing to say on this matter at this point’. However, it can also be argued that response tokens are more neutral than most other utterances in talk. 2. This group may also include Sure, No and perhaps some others, but these latter are excluded from this review, in part because they do not appear to belong to the core group, but more importantly because there have as yet been few studies on them. 3. Yeah may well be the most multifunctional of the response tokens, and for this reason is mentioned here both as a continuer and an acknowledgement token. Prosody is one resource speakers use to distinguish between these functions (see Chapter 6). 4. Amongst sociolinguistic studies, Malz and Borker (1982) refer only to Mm hm; whilst for
258 When Listeners Talk
Coates (1986) her objects of study are Mhm, M and Yeah, and also Oh my god and No; for Fellegy (1995) they are ones such as Mmhmm, Yeah, Uh-huh and Right; Reid (1995) provides a list restricted to what she found in her data, namely Ha, No, Yep, Bloody oath, That’s right, Aha, Ya have to and Someone; Stubbe (1998) includes laughter, Mhmm, Yeah, and “brief expressions of overt support or agreement, through to longer sequences of various sorts”; Holmes (1997) has laughter, Mm, Yeah, Oh, Right, and, apparently, expressions such as Oh good on you, I know and Goodness me. Amongst social psychologists, Bilous & Krauss (1988) include amongst ‘back-channel responses’ Uh huh, Yes, I see, etc; Mulac and Bradac (1995) investigated 20 conversational features, including ‘back channels’, which were Uh huh, Right and other brief hearing and understanding verbal responses, similar to Mulac et al. (1998), who added Yeah to examples of their short vocal responses; for Mott & Petrie (1995), these are Mm, Yes ‘etc.’; Dixon & Foster (1998) included Hmm, Yeh and nonverbal ‘backchannels’ such as head nods; Gerhardt & Beyerle (1997), reporting from a psychoanalytic setting, include amongst their acknowledgement tokens Mm-hm, Uh-huh, Yeah, Yes, Sure, Right and I bet. Roger & Schumacher (1983) are especially vague about what they include as ‘backchannels’, namely ‘a common type of speech act that is readily identiWable in conversation’. They are, they say, non-interruptive, and include ‘long and short utterances’ (p 700). The broadest deWnition I have found is in Ralph (1990), for whom a minimal response is ‘a response which did not add information beyond that directly requested so as to limit the continuation of the conversation’ (p 264), which presumably includes, for example, simple answers to questions. In the conversation analysis tradition, Zimmerman & West (1975) include amongst minimal responses such items as Um hmm, Uh huh and Yeah. 5. These spelling inconsistencies may well also reXect the phonetic (in addition to the functional) variability of these tokens. They are also reminiscent of the more widespread spelling inconsistencies found before standardisation that appears after the publication of major dictionaries. Furthermore, they are indicative of the marginal existence of these forms in the study of language, and they have frequently been seen as substandard language. 6. A transition relevance place occurs at completion of a turn constructional unit (a minimal unit of interactional talk, most usually a clause or a phrase), upon completion of which a new speaker can legitimately start up (see Sacks et al. 1974). There is still debate about what ‘completion’ means here, though more recent work (Eggins 1990; Ford & Thompson 1996) suggests it occurs where prosodic, grammatical and pragmatic completion of the utterance coincide. 7. Uh huh and Mm hm may, in fact, be variants of the same token. This is discussed further below. 8. The case of No is an interesting one. JeVerson (1996) has argued that it is an acknowledgement token in some environments, and when used by some speakers, but not in others, or when used by some other speakers. 9. There are, though, some references to response tokens in Sacks et al. (1974) and in some earlier papers by SchegloV (e.g. 1972). 10. At least they are not exhibiting a lack of understanding when they are uttered alone, and with a fairly level intonation contour, and without marked prosody. An Uh huh which, for
Notes 259
example, is stretched, with a strong fall-rising contour, ending at high pitch, in certain environments, may well be a precursor to a disagreement, but even so, in itself, it is unlikely that it would be seen even then as an actual disagreement 11. Why this is so is unclear, but it may have to do with diVering conversational ‘styles’ or ‘dialectal’ diVerences — are Americans more ‘involved’ in their conversations, and so more likely to produce the more salient and ‘visible’ Uh huh, in the sense that the mouth is slightly open rather than closed? 12. Yeah and Mm can become interpretable by participants in talk as continuers rather than, primarily, acknowledgement tokens by a change in their intonational shape, most usually by the mapping onto them of a fall-rising contour. 13. In the current study, Yeah was similarly found to initiate turn bids on about half of its occurrences, whilst Mm hm did so only on about 5% of its occurrences. Uh huh scarcely occurred in this data set (one instance). Mm was intermediate between Yeah and Mm hm at about 25% (either with substantial topical talk or with further response tokens or other brief recipiency talk). 14. JeVerson, in this paper, makes one of the few references to Mm in the CA literature, where she notes that it is used to pass up a substantive topical turn at talk. This characterisation does not diVerentiate it from the continuers. 15. Adjacency pairs are two utterances that have a mutual dependence on each other, such as greeting followed by greeting, question followed by answer, invitation followed by acceptance/decline. The former of these pairs, the Wrst-pair-part, makes the second-pairpart ‘conditionally relevant’ (cf. SchegloV 1972). The local structures of conversation is largely built around these adjacency pairs and expansions of these pairs. For a more extended discussion of the notion of adjacency pairs and their expansions, see SchegloV (1995). 16. Line numbers from the original transcript are retained here. This interview was fully transcribed, and amounts to more than 2,100 lines of transcription. The line numbers thus provide a rough indication of where in the transcript/interview the extracts are taken from. 17. The issue of what constitutes a topic, or a topic shift, is a fraught one. Turner, however, distinguishes three levels. To use her example, she takes from one of her conversations the ‘macro-topic’ of wedding invitations. This conversational topic passes through several phases, including a sequence on the wording of the invitation, and on the layout of the invitation. These are ‘topics’ within the ‘macro-topic’. Within these topics, there are further distinguishable phases, so that the wording ‘topic’ has the ‘sub-topics’ of ‘what to say’, ‘Wnding the words to say’ and ‘order of the words’. This is a rough-and-ready classiWcation, but it receives some empirical support, in that she found signiWcant diVerences in the frequencies of Okay and Alright within these phases.
260 When Listeners Talk
Notes to Chapter 3 1. A signiWcant number of response token Mms also occur after signiWcant silences, as delayed responses, and these need to be distinguished from lapse terminators. These are discussed in Chapter 5. 2. After about three seconds of silence, parties in a conversation begin to disengage from the talk and a lapse becomes imminent (cf. Goodwin 1981). This disengagement includes change in posture and a turning away from coparticipants in a conversation. 3. This raises a problem that GoVman (1981) pointed out, namely that some utterances have some characteristics of second pair parts in adjacency pairs, in that they are clearly responses to something, although that something is not talk. An example presented by GoVman (1981:47) is the following: A: B: A:
[Enters wearing a new hat] No, I don’t like it. Now I know it’s right.
The next example is of a degustatory Mm, which is in a similar sequential position. It is from the Chinese Dinner transcript. Bet:
Ter: Bet:→
=Maybe she would be more gentle with us if we were more gentle with her. (1.5) One two[t h r e e f o u r,] [Mmm:: the soup is goo:d,] (0.7)
Betty’s Mm is not a response to any of the preceding talk, but to her tasting of the soup. 4. This variant has much in common with the assessment Mm (see Chapter 6), and could indeed be considered a sub-type. 5. Alcoholics Anonymous, the self-help group for alcoholics. 6. I have not been able to Wnd any published literature on Ah, but its phonetic shape suggests aYnities to Oh, as do informal analyses of its occurrence in transcripts. If it is the case that Ah is a kind of newsmarker, then there is the possibility that Jan’s Ah in line 6 before her resumption of topical talk is in response to a new thought she has just had. This also explains the change in topic from before the lapse, as the thought would be new. 7. Once again, one could posit an iconicity here between what is a very elemental human sound, and one of the Wrst learnt by infants, [m], and two very basic human drives, eating and sex. 8. Although the inclusion of a non-native speaker of English raises questions about whether this is a variety of native English that is being described or some ‘interlanguage’ or transferred Japanese use, the example is so compelling that it is included. There are suYcient ‘native speaker’ examples that follow for the characterisation of this as an ‘English language’ item to be made with conWdence.
Notes 261
9. Alternatively, such Mms might be seen as one Wrst pair part in a multi-unit turn. 10. GoVman (1981) would probably have interpreted this diVerently (see footnote 3 above). In a similar way to GoVman’s observation that some utterances respond to nonverbal ‘Wrst parts’, it might be argued that the degustatory Mms in the fragments cited (in fact in all cases of degustatory Mms) are second pair parts to non-linguistic Wrst pair parts, in this case the ingestion of food (or anticipation of ingestion of food, or some other pleasurable experience). Nevertheless, as conversation, as some initiation of talk, they are Wrst ‘bits’. The entrance of someone wearing a hat, or the eating of food, does not make an Mm (or some other talk) ‘conditionally relevant’ (cf. SchegloV 1972a). In this sense, even though they are in a way reactive, they are nevertheless Wrst parts. 11. The term ‘hesitation marker’ is used as a ‘holding’ term in order to give this type of Mm a name. However, I am not very conWdent that this kind of Mm is best characterised in this way. It remains to be discovered what items such as Erm, Um and this kind of Mm are actually doing in conversation. 12. This term, coined by SchegloV (1996), captures the idea that one environment in which intraturn pauses regularly occur is in the middle of a grammatical unit, such as a phrase or a clause, which has ‘maximum grammatical control’ because the speaker is obviously not Wnished. 13. There may even be some element of a degustatory Mm here, as the talk is about food, which may have pushed the shape of the token towards an Mm, and a lengthened on at that, rather than an Um or an Erm.
Notes to Chapter 4 1. The use of Mm as an assessment is not contrastive to Mm hm and Yeah, but to some other tokens such as Good or Wow. Its use as an assessment is discussed in Chapter 6. 2. A discussion of the notions of ‘dialect’ or ‘speech community’ is not presented here. They subsume some serious diYculties concerning, for example, variation within the ‘communities’, description of which are fugitive and elusive. For a discussion of some of the problems of speech community see, for example, Althusser, 1971; Gumperz, 1971; a number of papers in Labov, 1972; and for a more recent discussion, Williams, 1992. 3. The problem of what constitutes a turn is glossed over here. The number of turns is simply the number of speaker designations in the transcript. Whilst this will include some ‘contentious’ turns, such as reponse tokens, laughs, and other non-verbal vocalisations, the totals still present a good approximation of the size of the transcripts, which is the aim of this count. 4. For this table, only the SBL and NB US transcripts, which are both telephone corpora, have been used; ie. the three face-to-face US transcripts in table 1 (Chicken Dinner, Chinese Dinner and Automobile Discussion) have not been included here. 5. McLemore (1991:116) also claims that ‘phrase-Wnal levels continue’, though the sense of
262 When Listeners Talk
connecting and continuing appear to be closely related, whilst segmenting suggests Wnishing or closing. A further diVerence between rising and level terminal pitch is that rises ‘change current values’, whilst levels ‘don’t change current values’, which seems to be saying that there is a shift in focus following a rise that does not occur with a level tone, which occurs frequently with listings. Note also that there is an iconicity to her characterisation of phrase-Wnal level pitch: pitch does not change, and pragmatically things remain the same too, as ‘current values’ do not change, and continuation follows. Level tone Mms were found to be non-existent in the Australian data for the current study. This is, perhaps, not surprising, as Mms were mainly found in environments that ‘segment’ or complete, on the one hand, or connect to the other speaker on the other. Put another way, the very nature of Mm as a type of response token is to act as a completer of the prior turn (and thus segment), and if same speaker talk follows, it is not on the prior topic, so it is not continuative. Mms are interactional; a crucial function they have is as turn managers. 6. In the core Australian data set, over 90% of Mm hms had a rising terminal contour, the remainder ending on a fall. Of Yeahs, 82% ended with a falling pitch direction, 14% with rising, the remainder with level terminal pitch. The picture is complicated by a number of matters, such as the many rising Yeahs followed by substantial same speaker talk, or the question of the function of level terminal contour with some Yeahs, or an explication of why some Yeahs are followed by slight falls to mid pitch, whilst others are followed by strong falls to low pitch. Nevertheless, these Wgures are strongly suggestive that overwhelmingly Mm hms with rising terminal pitch direction are continuers, and Yeahs with falling terminal pitch direction are acknowledgers. 7. This claim is made on the basis of the observation that overwhelmingly Mm with this contour has a relatively small degree of pitch movement. A large movement in pitch would indicate some heightened involvement (cf. Selting 1994 and the section in Chapter 6 on Mm with rise-falling intonation). It appears that the falling contour is chosen because there is no heightened involvement, and the narrow pitch range is a natural accompaniment to the token. 8. The expression ‘is about to come to’ means is relation to the placement of the Mm at the beginning of a transition relevance place in terminal overlap, or a syllable or two before the start of the transition relevance place. 9. It should be noted that speakers orient to points of possible completion (cf. Sacks et al. 1974). In fragment (4), for instance, although Ann’s turn ends in a fall to low pitch, at a grammatically complete point, with a pragmatically complete action, she in fact increments her turn with a new clause. However, Bob has oriented his Mm to the possible completion point. Whenever points of completion are referred to, it should be assumed that possible, rather than actual, completion is what is meant, unless otherwise speciWed. 10. There is something unusual here, namely there is an increment to Marilyn’s turn with the adverbial particle out, despite the full intonational completion after way. However, this does not aVect the analysis. 11. By ‘substantial’ same speaker talk is meant talk that develops a topic further, rather than just reacting to it. This notion is explained more fully in Chapter 5.
Notes 263
12. What the little alveolar click in line 5, the tk, is doing is not apparent, though it is placed during the stretched vowel in meal in terminal overlap. It seems too much of a coincidence for this placement of the tk to be random. There is need for an investigation into clicks in conversation. 13. This Wgure of 80% includes Yeahs that are answers to questions. Whilst these are clearly not identical with response tokens, they are similar in that they align with the polarity of the proposition expressed in the utterance (whether asserting or questioning) to which the Yeah is oriented. A response token thus aligns with and agrees with or aYrms the proposition of the assertion to which it is oriented, and an answer aligns with the polarity and conWrms the proposition of question to which it is oriented. It is beyond the scope of the current study to explicate the various uses of Yeah more fully. 14. This does not, of course, mean that the work they do is identical. This is discussed more fully in Chapter 5. 15. Ann’s unclear vocalisation in line 8 may be an attempt at extending the repair sequence further. 16. These conditions may apply to Mm hm and Yeah also, but to establish whether this is the case would require a more detailed investigation than has been possible for this study. However, in the analyses in this section, these conditions appear to be working equally well for Mm hm and Yeah. 17. This is not the case for point 3, which is a characterisation not in terms of a glitch in the talk, as the other points are, but in terms of the general character of this token. 18. As is to be expected, not all uses of Mm hm are ‘canonical’, not even all those with a fallrising contour. In the following fragment, the Mm hm is in third position after a response to her oVer to Mel of an onion from their evening meal. MH:16:L&MC2ai 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 10 11 12 13
Mel: Liz: Liz:
Mel: Liz:→ Liz: Liz:
(6.3) [Tom-] (.) [Tommy] [D’ju] [D’ju wa- ] Sorry-, Mel d’yu wan’ that onion.= bicoz- (0.5) °I(.) >don’ thing I’ll< (.) >be able ta< digest it. (0.6) >O[kay<. ] [>Mm hm<¿] (1.7) n’m DELicate ↑sta:te¿ (1.5) °>(Thereyago)<°,
It appears that this Mm hm is a follow-up acknowledgement to the acceptance, though, as the only instance of its type in the data set, it is diYcult to know why Mm hm has been chosen here. 19. This fragment is discussed and analysed more fully in Chapter 6. 20. In some respects, these two points appear to be saying very much the same thing, i.e. that expectations in terms of meanings have not been fulWlled. However, points (iv) and
264 When Listeners Talk
(vii) are approaching the phenomenon from diVerent levels of organisation. Point (iv) is concerned with sequence structure (adjacency pairs and their expansions), whilst point (vii) is concerned with the interactional construction of meanings. 21. As Zimmerman (1993) has also pointed out, a fuller account of Yeah would need not only to take account of intonation and prosody, but also the variants of the token, such as Yes, Yup, Yep, Yuh, and the Yeups here. This is beyond the scope of the current book. 22. Uh huh, too, is much more closely related to Mm and Mm hm than it is to Yeah. Uh huh is phonetically identical to Mm hm, apart from having lips slightly parted. This has the eVect of sound resonance occurring in the oral cavity with Uh huh, rather than in the nasal cavity with Mm hm. However, some tokens appear to be pronounced in a way that can be rendered as Uhn huhn, whereby despite the slightly parted lips, the uvular Xap diverts the air.
Notes to Chapter 5 1. This three way division is similar to that made by Drummond & Hopper (1993a) for Mm hm, Uh huh and Yeah. 2. Mal’s Yeah in line 4 is a slightly late acknowledgement of Lyn’s she’s going to be facing enough problems anyway. 3. An alternative interpretation of this sequence was proposed in a class at UNSW during the final stages of the production of this book. There are a number of odd features about Marilyn’s turn in line 16, providing evidence that she is having difficulty with the relevance of Mal’s comment that her asthma attack was what galvanised him into thinking that they needed a bigger tent. Her response, prefaced by Mm and well, states that they do indeed now have a bigger tent, with rising intonation, which could be interpreted as her asking a ‘so what’ question. In response, Mal restates that ‘that’, i.e. the asthma attack, was what galvanised him into buying a bigger tent, after which Marilyn says that in her view it wasn’t the tent, but the sleeping bags that caused het asthma. This all points to another plausible interpretation of what is going on here, namely that she has not understood why Mal is making his statement in line 14–15. On this reading, the Mm is not so odd, as what she says following it can be said not to be on topic, in the sense that she does not know what the topic is, or at least that she is having difficulty with the topic. I thank Sally Dixon and Julie Bishop for this analysis. 4. Butterworth measured his silences to an accuracy of one hundredth of a second. This is a case of too much precision, as there would not appear to be any evidence that parties in conversations respond to this level of timing. 5. This is one of the few fragments in this section on non-continuer free standing Mms where the Mm would conceivably be more likely to be replaceable by a true continuer like Mm hm than by a Yeah. The reason for this is probably that one might expect an announcement of some news to receive some elaboration, and for the recipient of the news to actively engage in constructing the talk to move towards further explication. The more aligning/ agreeing acknowledgement token Yeah would be less likely in this position, as straight,
Notes 265
factual news, such as this news in the way it is presented, is not something one can agree to or align with easily. These points, however, do not undermine the analysis of this fragment given here, as the recipient of the news has chosen an Mm as the more neutral acknowledging token, and the newsgiver has gone on not to elaborate on this piece of news, but to provide further news. In this way, Mm Wlls a niche that neither Yeah nor Mm hm (or Uh huh) could Wll in quite the same way. 6. The published literature is diYcult to assess as far as intonation contours of Mm hm or Uh huh are concerned. Transcription conventions are often insuYciently detailed to show the contour, and very often they are left unmarked, suggesting a fairly Xat contour. 7. The [n] in Mmnyeh may simply be an articulatory phenomenon, as Ben has to move from bilabial closure on the [m] to parting of the lips on [j] of yeh, and from nasal to oral, so that the nasality of the [m] intrudes into the orality of [j]. 8. In many of the fragments in this section, neither participant is engaged in a long (multiunit) turn, so strictly speaking the ‘conditional access’ constraints do not apply. However, the point is that the utterances here following the Mm are brief addresses to the talk of the previous turn very much in the manner sanctioned during somebody’s extended turn at talk. 9. Both these Mms plus assessment come in a classic continuer or acknowledgement token position in relation to transition space, as reported in the literature (SchegloV 1982; Goodwin 1986), which is just before the end of a turn constructional unit. They do not come in the classic assessment position, that is “rather than bridging two turn-constructional units, assessments in the midst of another’s extended talk come to completion before a new unit is entered” (Goodwin 1986:209). In fact, the great majority of assessments in the Australian data set occur in the ‘continuer’ position at the end of a turn constructional unit or between two units, and not in the ‘assessment’ position within a turn constructional unit. It may be that the presence of an Mm before these assessments has pushed them back to the ‘bridging’ position of the continuer. Alternatively it may be that assessments are placed diVerently in ‘Australian’ English than they are in ‘American’ English. 10. Of course, a very large number of collaborative completions are achieved without any interjected response token such as Mm. It may be that the contingencies of most collaboratively completed utterances are not perceived by parties as potentially face threatening. The evidence appears to be to the contrary: that most collaboratively completed utterances are displays of particularly strong alignment where one party has been following another closely enough to be able to predict what that other is about to say. 11. This apparently contradictory ‘message’ (i.e. continuer shape and same speaker talk following) is discussed below in relation to some Australian data with which the author is more familiar, so that a more thorough analysis can be undertaken. 12. Of course not every silence after an Mm hm is going to be evidence of a misWre of the token. Such silences will have a variety of causes or sources. However, in this instance the silence that comes together with the particular sound shape of this token provides cumulative rather than discretely conclusive evidence for the argument being put forward here. 13. A turn-initial Mm is not necessarily redundant if it is followed by other talk that marks in some way receipt of the prior turn (or turn to which it is oriented), because the very nature
266 When Listeners Talk
of an Mm is to mark receipt as such and only as such. It is not illogical to mark receipt and then go on to do something else as well, but it is illogical (and redundant) to do some other work that implicitly marks adequate receipt of the prior turn (by the very fact of doing an appropriate next action) and then to do some pure and relatively neutral receipt of that talk.
Notes to Chapter 6 1. These three contours account for nearly 98% of mappings. Rises and rise-fall-rises comprise the remaining cases. There are no level contours on Mm in the core Australian database. 2. There is no systematic distinction in this chapter between ‘high’ falling and ‘low’ falling. The main reason for this, as is explained and demonstrated later in the chapter, is that overwhelmingly the falling contour on Mm is a low fall (i.e. from mid pitch range to low). This can be explained by the ‘neutrality’ of this token. High pitch, as Selting (1994) has shown, is associated with some heightened involvement in the talk. The very nature of the falling intonation, acknowledging Mm is that it is typically not displaying heightened involvement. That is principally accomplished for this token with rise-falling intonation, which much more regularly reaches the high part of a speaker’s pitch range. Examples of the very few cases where a acknowledging Mm with contour falling from high are discussed in this chapter. 3. This provides a corpus which is large enough from which to make some generalisations. As Pike (1945) has said, the chief danger of error in studies of intonational meaning is in the failure to study a suYcient variety of contexts to uncover a common meaning. 4. It is not the purpose of this section to provide a comprehensive review of work on intonation. Some important discussions of intonation in English and other languages are found in Bolinger (1972, 1986, 1989), Cruttenden (1986), Crystal (1969), Ladd (1980), Pierrehumbert (1980) and more generally on prosody in Couper-Kuhlen (1986) and Couper-Kuhlen and Selting (1996). 5. Mms frequently overlap with the other speaker, but in non-competitive ways. That is, the Mm producer is not attempting with an Mm to take over the main speakership role. 6. This Mm is also one of the relatively rare Mms that fall from high pitch. It is discussed in this context below. 7. There is a need to be careful with the argument that all rising Wnal intonation contours are in some sense intonationally incomplete, because one needs to distinguish between rises that project further same speaker talk, i.e. contours that are saying ‘I haven’t Wnished’, and contours that are projecting, even trying to elicit, talk from the other, but in themselves are complete, such as a question. So there are two types of pragmatic (in)completion that are being referred to here: incompletion that is saying this stretch of my talk (my turn) is not complete, and incompletion that is saying my turn is Wnished, but this sequence is not Wnished.
Notes 267
8. This also Wts nicely with the notion of preference: an other-initiated repair is a dispreferred action (cf. SchegloV et al. 1977), so, in the absence of a self-initiated repair (the preferred type of repair), the other, rather than do the dispreferred action, uses the relatively neutral Mm to allow the prior speaker some space to do the preferred action. 9. This Mm in fact is one of very few in the data base with the complex rise-fall-rise contour, but I am assuming here that the terminal rise makes it, whatever else it is, a continuer, handing back the Xoor immediately to Mal to continue what he has projected with his turninitial utterance. 10. This request for conWrmation is done as a conWrmation of an allusion, in which she has provided a candidate understanding of the alluded to person — alluded to through ambiguous pronominal person reference (cf. SchegloV 1996b) — which is repeated by Bob word-for-word as a conWrmation that she has understood correctly. 11. The next response token is another fall-rise continuer Mm in line 19, which comes after onset of a because-clause following turn constructional unit completion with will go out of business, to which the Mm is oriented. However, remembering that the topic here is that the government want full cost recovery from the road transport industry on costs for use of roads, it may be that Lyn is waiting for evidence as to why they would go out of business, as Mal’s claim is bald, without substantiating argument. The same argument can be put forward for the fall-rise continuative Yeah that comes after they can’t do it in line 18/20: the claim has been made, so where is the hard evidence that they can do it? What comes next is some kind of argument, namely the strong subsidies the road transport industry currently enjoys from the government. 12. Interestingly she is relying on experience that is a year old, though she has to self-repair after Wrst claiming it was a month ago, which would have made her experience much more recent and thus more powerful, as it is less likely that things would have changed in a month than a year. 13. The reason for this exceptionally long pause can only be surmised. There may have been something Ben, or Ben and Ann, were doing during this silence, a kind of side activity. However, nothing can be determined from the audiotape. 14. Bolinger (1989) claims that these ‘interjections’ can be regarded as mere intonation carriers, revealing most clearly their emotional undertones. I would wish to take issue with this characterisation of them, as the tokens can, in fact, be to a considerable extent characterised according to their functions and roles in speech independently of their tones (see, for example, Heritage 1984b, SchegloV 1982, JeVerson 1993, as well as the current study). However, it is probably true that their relative semantic emptiness makes them more amenable to adaptation according to their tones, and also more amenable to analysis. 15. In a study on interruption, French & Local (1990) note that an interrupting speaker coming turn-competitively at a point away from any possible completion point typically employs high pitch and high amplitude. This falls away immediately upon termination by the turn occupant. This is another and somewhat diVerent instance of ‘heightened involvement’. Similar observations, though more informal in terms of prosodic description, concerning these and a range of other features of overlapping talk, have been made by SchegloV (1990b).
268 When Listeners Talk
16. Selting does not discuss tone, and an examination of her transcripts reveals that risefalling intonation does not play a role in her data to indicate heightened emotive involvement. This contrasts with the Wndings in the present study in relation to Mm. 17. The high number of lengthened continuative Mms (i.e. the fall-rises) in addition to the regular lengthening of assessment Mms (i.e. the rise-falls) suggests that lengthening may be used to cue something other than merely ‘heightened involvement’. In examination of lengthened continuer Mms in the data, no pattern of heightened involvement or, for example, self-justiWcation (cf. Cruttenden 1986) was discerned. On the other hand, if it is used in these cases, too, at least on occasions to signal heightened involvement, then that means lengthening is a resource that can be used in varying combinations with other prosodic features for various purposes. It then remains for researchers to disentangle these combinations. The point remains, however, that lengthening occurs most frequently with rise-falls, the tune that demonstrably is mapped on to Mm to signal heightened involvement. 18. The notion of heightened involvement is not restricted to rise-falling response token Mms. The degustatory Mm, discussed in Chapter 3, also exhibits this quality. These Mms invariably have a rise-falling contour, as in the fragment presented here. PU:SS:A:1.3 P&QT2ai 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Nik:
Nik: Nik: Nik:→
Nik: Nik: Mat:
↑The’re a wie::rd thi:ng:,= the’re n↑ot rilly ↓m:eaty. (0.4) w’n ya see:;= j’s this lid’l brocc’↑li? (0.8) tsk (0.5) ↑Mm:::↑. (.) ↓oo:h,= ni:ce marina:de, (1.9) ((slurp)) ‘cept- ‘t’s ↓*in a (crack)*↓. (1.3) (↑Hang ↓on,) (1.2) [(Ah;= I↑: c’n marinade] et).
Nik has just tasted the marinade that she (or perhaps he) is making. The talk does not refer to any preceding talk in the conversation, but deictically to something in the context of situation, namely the marinade. Note there is an audible slurp shortly after this utterance which supports this interpretation. The punched up intonation expresses her high involvement and is an expression of delight in the ingestion of food (in other uses of this token it may also be some other activity), so the notion of heightened involvement is applicable to this use. 19. This contracts is a slip-of-the-tongue, by which she clearly means contacts.
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97. MAYNARD, Senko K.: Linguistic Emotivity. Centrality of place, the topic-comment dynamic, and an ideology of Pathos in Japanese discourse. n.y.p. 98. DUSZAK, Anna (ed.): Us and Others. Social identities across languages, discourses and cultures. n.y.p. 99. JASZCZOLT, K.M. and Ken TURNER (eds.): Meaning Through Language Contrast. Volume 1. n.y.p. 100. JASZCZOLT, K.M. and Ken TURNER (eds.): Meaning Through Language Contrast. Volume 2. n.y.p.
