Cover not available
Part of
Constructing Collectivity: 'We' across languages and contexts
Edited by Theodossia-Soula Pavlidou
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 239] 2014
► pp. 159–186

Replying with the freestanding ‘we’ 
in Greek conversations

| Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

The present chapter focuses on the freestanding first person plural subject pronoun εμείς (‘we’) in Modern Greek. Previous work on εμείς (Pavlidou 2008, 2012) has shown that its non-referential functions depend on the sequential context in which the turn containing this freestanding pronoun appears. Adopting a Conversation Analysis perspective, the chapter investigates one particular sequential context in which εμείς appears, namely replies to questions. It is shown that – with hardly any exceptions – such replies are type non-conforming and/or dispreferred. Therefore, it is argued, εμείς indexes some kind of trouble. However, as this conclusion cannot be extended to all occurrences of εμείς in other second pair parts, it is suggested that underlying the function of indexing trouble there is an argumentative stance on the speaker’s part toward the on-going interaction.

Published online: 27 February 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.239.12pav
References
Assouline, Dalit
. 2010. “The emergence of two first-person plural pronouns in Haredi Jerusalemite Yiddish.” Journal of Germanic Linguistics 22(1): 1–22. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bazzanella, Carla
. 2009. “ Noi come meccanismo di intensità.” In Fenomeni di Intensità nell’Italiano Parlato , Barbara Gili-Fivela and Carla Bazzanella(eds), 101–114. Firenze: Cesati.Google Scholar
Benveniste, Emile
. 1971. Problems in General Linguistics . Coral Gables, Florida: University of Miami Press.Google Scholar
Borthen, Kaja
. 2010. “On how we interpret plural pronouns.” Journal of Pragmatics 42(7): 1799–1815. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brewer, Marilynn and Gardner, Wendi
. 1996. “Who is this ‘we’? Levels of collective identity and self representations.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 71(1): 83–93. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bull, Peter and Fetzer, Anita
. 2006. “Who are we and who are you? The strategic use of forms of address in political interviews.” Text & Talk 26: 1–36. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Corpus of Spoken Greek
. Institute of Modern Greek Studies (M. Triandaphyllidis Foundation), Aristotle University of Thessaloniki ([URL], accessed on July 21, 2013)
Davidson, Brad
. 1996. “‘Pragmatic weight’ and Spanish subject pronouns: The pragmatic and discourse uses of tú and yo in spoken Madrid Spanish.” Journal of Pragmatics 26(4): 543–565. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
De Fina, Anna
. 1995. “Pronominal choice, identity and solidarity in political discourse.” Text 15(3): 379–410. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Du Bois, Inke
. 2012. “Grammatical, pragmatic and sociolinguistic aspects of the first person plural pronoun.” In Subjectivity in Language and in Discourse , Nicole Baumgarten, Inke Du Bois and Juliane House(eds), 319–338. Leiden: Brill. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Duranti, Alessandro
. 1984. “The social meaning of subject pronouns in Italian conversation.” Text 4(4): 277–311. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fortanet, Inmaculada
. 2004. “The use of ‘we’ in university lectures: Reference and function.” English for Specific Purposes 23(1): 45–66. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hacohen, Gonen and Schegloff, Emanuel A.
2006. “On the preference for minimization in referring to persons: Evidence from Hebrew conversation.” Journal of Pragmatics 38(8): 1305–1312. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Helmbrecht, Johannes
. 2002. “Grammar and function of we.” In Us and Others: Social Identities across Languages, Discourses and Cultures , Anna Duszak(ed.), 31–49. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heritage, John and Raymond, Geoffrey
. 2012. “Navigating epistemic landscapes: Acquiescence, agency and resistance in responses to polar questions.” In Questions: Formal, Functional and Interactional Perspectives , Jan P. de Ruiter(ed.), 179–192. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Holton, David, Mackridge, Peter and Philippaki-Warburton, Irene
. 1997. Greek: A Comprehensive Grammar of the Modern Greek Language . London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail
. 2004. “Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction.” In Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation , Gene H. Lerner(ed.), 13–31. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kuo, Chih-Hua
. 1999. “The use of personal pronouns: Role relationships in scientific journal articles.” English for Specific Purposes 18(2): 121–138. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lerner, Gene H.
1993. “Collectivities in action: Establishing the relevance of conjoined participation in conversation.” Text 13(2): 213–245. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lerner, Gene H. and Kitzinger, Celia
. 2007. “Extraction and aggregation in the repair of individual and collective self-reference.” Discourse Studies 9(4): 526–557. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mao, LuMing R.
1996. “Chinese first person pronoun and social implicature.” Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 7(3–4): 106–128.Google Scholar
Margutti, Piera
. 2007. “Genitori italiani, sportive austrialiani, cuochi lucani: Descrivere sé e gli altri in categorie di appartenenza.” In La Construzione Interazionale di Identità: Repertori Linguistici e Pratiche Discorsive Degli Italiani in Austrália , Anna Ciliberti(ed.), 139–175. Milano: FrancoAngeli.
Mühlhäusler, Peter and Harré, Rom.
1990. Pronouns and People . Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Oh, Sun-Young
. 2007. “The interactional meanings of quasi-pronouns in Korean conversation.” In Person Reference in Interaction: Linguistic, Cultural and Social Perspectives , Nick J. Enfield and Tanya Stivers(eds), 203–225. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pavlidou, Theodossia-Soula
. 2008. “ Εμε?ς και η συνομιλιακ? συγκρ?τηση (?μφυλων) συλλογικοτ?των.” [‘We’ and the discursive construction of (gendered) collectivities]. In Light and Warmth: In Memory of A.-Ph. Christidis , Maria Theodoropoulou(ed.), 437–453. Thessaloniki: Center for the Greek Language.Google Scholar
. 2012. “Collective aspects of subjectivity: The subject pronoun εμε?ς (‘we’) in Modern Greek.” In Subjectivity in Language and in Discourse , Nicole Baumgarten, Inke Du Bois and Juliane House(eds), 33–65. Leiden: Brill. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. this volume. “Constructing collectivity with ‘we’: An introduction.” In Constructing Collectivity: ‘We’ across Languages and Contexts , Theodossia-Soula Pavlidou(ed.). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logo
Pavlidou, Theodossia-Soula and Kapellidi, Charikleia
. 2005. “Speaking subjects, gendered stances.” Paper presented at the 9th International Pragmatics Conference, Riva del Garda.Google Scholar
Posio, Pekka
. 2011. “Spanish subject pronoun usage and verb semantics revisited: First and second person singular subject pronouns and focusing of attention in spoken Peninsular Spanish.” Journal of Pragmatics 43(3): 777–798. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pyykkö, Ritta.
2002. “Who is ‘us’ in Russian political discourse.” In Us and Others: Social Identities across Languages, Discourses and Cultures , Anna Duszak(ed.), 234–238. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Raymond, Geoffrey
. 2003. “Grammar and social organization: Yes/no type interrogatives and the structure of responding.” American Sociological Review 68(6): 939–967. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sacks, Harvey
. 1995. Lectures on Conversation . Volumes I and II, Gail Jefferson(ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sacks, Harvey and Schegloff, Emanuel A.
1979. “Two preferences in the organization of reference to persons in conversation and their interaction.” In Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology , George Psathas(ed.), 15–21. New York: Irvington.Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey, Schegloff, Emanuel A. and Jefferson, Gail.
1974. “A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation.” Language 50(4): 696–735. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A.
1996. “Some practices for referring to persons in talk-in-interaction: A partial sketch of a systematics.” In Studies in Anaphora , Barbara Fox(ed.), 437–485. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, Εmanuel A.
2007. Sequence Organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A.
2008. “A different ‘uh(m)’: The reason-for-the-call as the locus of order.” Studies in Greek Linguistics 28: 30–56.Google Scholar
Skarzynska, Krystyna
. 2002. “ We and they in Polish political discourse.” In Us and Others: Social Identities across Languages, Discourses and Cultures , Anna Duszak(ed.), 249–264. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stewart, Miranda
. 2001. “Pronouns of power and solidarity: The case of Spanish first person plural nosotros.” Multilingua 20(2): 155–169. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2003. “‘Pragmatic weight’ and face: Pronominal presence and the case of the Spanish second person singular subject pronoun tú.” Journal of Pragmatics 35(2), 191–206. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stivers, Tanya and Hayashi, Makoto
. 2010. “Transformative answers: One way to resist a question’s constraints.” Language in Society 39: 1–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stivers, Tanya, Enfield, Nick J. and Levinson, Stephen C.
2007. “Person reference in interaction.” In Person Reference in Interaction: Linguistic, Cultural and Social Perspectives , Nick J. Enfield and Tanya Stivers(eds), 1–20. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Temmerman, Martina
. 2008. “«Today, we're all Danes»: Argumentative meaning of the 1st and 2nd person pronouns in newspaper editorials on the Muhammad cartoons.” L’Analisi Linguistica e Letteraria XVI: 289–303(Special Issue: Word Meaning in Argumentative Dialogue).Google Scholar
Tzartzanos, Achilleas
. 1991. Νεοελληνικ? Σ?νταξις (της Κοιν?ς Δημοτικ?ς) A? [Modern Greek Syntax (of Common Demotic), Vol. 1]. Reprint of the 2nd edition in 1946 (1st edition in 1928). Thessaloniki: Kyriakidis Bros.Google Scholar
Vergaro, Carla
. 2011. “Shades of impersonality: Rhetorical positioning in the academic writing of Italian students of English.” Linguistics and Education 22: 118–132. DOI logoGoogle Scholar