Fanzheng ‘anyway’ as a discourse pragmatic particle in Mandarin conversation: Prosody, locus, and interactional function

Abstract

The Mandarin modal adverb fanzhenɡ (反正), lit. ‘back-front’, roughly translated as ‘anyway/ in any case’ etc. in English, can be used in all three positions of turn constructional units: TCU-initial, -medial, and -final. Based on prosodic and conversation structural notions, a three-way taxonomy is proposed to capture the main uses of the token in conversation: (prosodically) integrated, detached, and loosely attached, with different interactional functions. With such a multitude of flexibility, fanzheng is deemed to be evolving from an adverb to becoming a discourse pragmatic particle, with various intersubjective uses. This study shows that analyzing a versatile token such as fanzheng can raise important methodological questions about describing and identifying the relevant tokens and the functions of utterance peripheries.