The distinctive uses of right in British and American English interaction

Abstract

This paper explores distinct usages of the response particle right in American versus British English conversation. The analysis shows that, in American English, right conveys the speaker's knowing stance and, in certain environments, the speaker's claim of primary knowledge. In contrast, in British English, right registers provided information as previously unknown, informative, and relevant to the current speaker's ongoing project. The analysis draws on large corpora of audio- and video-recorded ordinary and institutional interactions in British and American English. We use the methodology of Conversation Analysis to examine sequential environments in which right is used, its interactional import, and prosodic realizations.