La partícula mmh Análisis descriptivo del uso de la partícula mmh en las conversaciones de estudiantes italianos de ELE

Abstract

This paper shows the results obtained in the analysis of the mmh particle in spontaneous dyadic face-to-face interactions in Spanish of 18 Italian university students of three domains of Spanish as a foreign language (6 of level A1 / A2, 6 of level B1 and 6 of level C1) according to their functions and their location in the conversation. For our study we used the CIELE oral corpus (Pascual Escagedo 2015a). Following the theoretical and methodological assumptions of the Conversation Analysis, and the classifications of the support turns and discursive markers proposed by Cestero (2000b) and Lopez and Borreguero (2010), respectively, we have found that mmh has played 5 functions: (1) signal by the listener to indicate that he is listening and following the interlocutor closely, (2) strategy to attenuate the turn taking without adding any other meaning, or adding that he is agreeing with the content of the previous message, or showing that he is understanding what is being said, (3) to communicate the speaker, as a collaborative answer and without taking the turn, his agreement with what is being said in the previous turn, (4) to request clarifications about what was said previously and, finally, ( 5) to answer questions. Regarding its location in the conversation, it has been more frequent the unique emission by the listener within narrative sequences. His initial position in the turn taking was also significant. Finally, we have added the results of the functions of the mmh particle to an earlier one (Pascual Escagedo 2015b), carried out with the same corpus, in order to better determine its role in the conversation.