You know as invoking alignment: A generic resource for emerging problems of understanding and affiliation

Abstract

The English-language particle you know is used so frequently in a diversity of environments that a comprehensive account of its functional import has been elusive. The present study, based on sequential and distributional analyses of a large sample from ordinary conversation, demonstrates that you know works as an alignment token invoking a convergent orientation between recipient and speaker. The invoked alignment may come off in context as either intersubjective (recipient correctly grasps speaker's meaning) or affiliative (recipient endorses speaker's action or stance). In support of this analysis, you know clusters in action environments where either the recipient's understanding or affiliation has emerged as salient or potentially problematic, but before such problems have risen to the level of overt expression. Correspondingly, the particle engenders confirmatory responses which are interjacently produced in a plurality of cases. The particle is thus implicated in the maintenance of both intersubjectivity and solidarity when these come under strain, and its use is indicative of nascent difficulties in either or both of these areas.