Multimodal action formats for managing preference: chais pas ‘dunno’ plus gaze conduct in dispreferred responses to questions

Abstract

This paper investigates speakers’ use of the French epistemic expression je sais pas (JSP) ‘I don't know’ and its variants (e.g., chais pas ‘dunno’) in dispreferred responses to questions – i.e., responses that disagree or disalign with the terms set up by the prior speaker's action. Drawing on multimodal conversation analysis, I identify two distinct uses of the expression in the same sequential environment that systematically differ in terms of the respondent's gaze conduct and features of prosodic and morpho-phonological delivery: [JSP + gaze averted from recipient], comprising a semantically bleached and formally reduced JSP (chais pas), serves to project an incipient dispreferred response – JSP here works as a particle-like disagreement preface; [JSP + gaze on recipient], comprising a fully epistemic use that tends to be produced in fuller form (je sais pas), serves to accomplish a dispreferred response of the ‘claiming lack of knowledge’ type. The two multimodal assemblies hence represent two distinct social action formats, pertaining to two different practices involved in the management of preference organization. The findings deepen our knowledge of the type of turn-initial particles and of the multimodal practices pertaining to preference organization, and shed further light on how grammar and bodily conduct interface in social interaction.