Abstract
In our paper, we give an overview over what is known about some of the most frequent interjections in Danish talk-in-interaction: ja (‘yes’), nej (‘no’), mm (‘mm’), nå (approximately ‘oh’), and okay (‘okay’). We review the CA/IL literature on these words, and we present our own exemplary analyses of single instances of these words in extracts from our corpus of recorded, naturally occurring Danish interactions. Based on this, we argue that sequential position, epistemics, and affiliation and alignment should be taken into account when describing and categorizing dialogue particles in talk-in-interaction. Prosody and other phonetic cues are important for the realization of the above dimensions and functions and we review what is known about prosodic and phonetic cues plus add some of our own observations, without launching a full phonetic and prosodic analysis.
Highlights
In our academic fields, Conversation Analysis (CA, see Sidnell and Stivers 2013) and Interactional Linguistics (IL, see Couper-Kuhlen and Selting 2018), interjections have always been at the centre of attention
We investigate the interactional functions of some of the most frequent interjections in Danish talk-in-interaction
We use a broad definition of interjections as words that can stand alone and be independent utterances
Summary
Conversation Analysis (CA, see Sidnell and Stivers 2013) and Interactional Linguistics (IL, see Couper-Kuhlen and Selting 2018), interjections have always been at the centre of attention. The reason for this is that CA and IL focus on how people perform actions with talk (and other resources) and interjections often stand alone and perform vital actions on their own. We investigate the interactional functions of some of the most frequent interjections in Danish talk-in-interaction We focus on their use in “third position” after questions and answers. The purpose of our investigation is to describe, as precisely as possible, the criteria for the choices interactants make when choosing one particle over another
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