Exploring dangran ‘of course’ responses to polar questions in Taiwan Mandarin talk-in-interaction

Abstract

Building on previous conversation analytic studies on question resistance across languages, this study examines Taiwan Mandarin dangran ‘of course’ as a response to polar questions in order to probe into Mandarin speakers’ methods of pushing back question constraints. Data consists of 159 cases from 232.5-h ordinary conversations and institutional interactions. Adopting multimodal conversation analysis and interactional linguistics, the study identified and analyzed dangran as a single response and as one of the elements in different response types. Findings have shown that respondents commonly apply dangran to indicate the undoubtedness of the matter under discussion, thus treating the question as unaskable and holding the questioners morally responsible in asking a question that contains the information they should have known. In contrast to “of course” in English, dangran does not always suggest a morality counterchallenge by the respondents (i.e., not the kind of person implied in the question). Regarding those responses where dangran manifests a moral concern, they tend to co-occur with a final particle a. Through multimodal analysis, these findings are supported by various semiotic resources utilized by participants in their dangran responses. This study advances the understanding of resistant answers to polar questions in cross-linguistic research.