Doing More than Confirming: Expanded Responses to Requests for Confirmation in German Talk-in-Interaction

Abstract

Abstract While requests for confirmation (RfCs) make a yes/no-response relevant, recipients often produce more than a mere confirmation. Our paper explores expanded responses to RfCs in German talk-in-interaction. We focus on responses consisting of a confirmation and an additional TCU/action. Drawing on video data from mundane and institutional settings, we demonstrate how expanded responses are designed and fit the sequential environments in which they occur. We show four different functions fulfilled with expanded responses: (i) specifying and elaborating on the topic introduced in the RfC, (ii) accounting for the intelligibility of the speaker’s prior actions, (iii) resisting the terms of the RfC, and (iv) challenging a RfC by referring to the recipient’s pre-existing knowledge. Finally, we summarize interactional features relevant for the occurrence of expanded responses in our data. In addition, we discuss the implications of our results for future cross-linguistic research.