Addressing information discrepancies in conversation: bú shì…ma? interrogatives as account solicitations in Mandarin Chinese

Abstract

Adopting Conversation Analysis as the research method, the present study explores the interactional work performed by bú shì…ma? (Isn't it the case that…) interrogatives in Mandarin Chinese, which are a particular type of negative polarity interrogatives that are asked from a position where the speaker has epistemic access to the certainty of the embedded fact. It is found that, when following some prior talk with these interrogatives, the speaker is marking the prior turn as being somehow discrepant with what s/he claims to have known about the issue in question, thereby soliciting an account from the prior turn speaker (also the recipient of the interrogative) for that discrepancy. The issue in question (or about which a discrepancy arises) is shown to fall simultaneously into the epistemic domains of both interlocutors, while the recipient has epistemic primacy over it. Consequently, the responsibility to account for the discrepancy is accorded to the recipient. This practice of addressing information discrepancies emergent in ongoing interaction is shown to be not only face-saving for the recipient but also less risky for the speaker and thus supportive for the social solidarity between two interlocutors.