Tag Questions in Conversation
A typology of their interactional and stance meanings
Author
This monograph deals with variable tag questions. These are utterances with a variable interrogative tag, like It's peculiar writing, isn't it, and the semi-variable tag innit, such as Nice, innit. The aim is to provide a corpus-based, comprehensive semantic-pragmatic typology of British English tag questions. Compared to existing descriptions, the proposed typology is novel in three ways. Firstly, whereas almost all existing typologies are single-layered classifications, the functions of tag questions are categorized into two parallel dimensions of interpersonal meaning: the speech function and the stance layer. Secondly, semantic generalizations are proposed for clusters of grammatical, intonational and conversational properties. Thirdly, the bottom-up description is based on a sizeable amount of authentic, spontaneous conversations, which are analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively.
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 83] 2018. xviii, 250 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
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Acknowledgements | pp. ix–9
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List of abbreviations | pp. xi–xiii
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Typographical conventions in the examples | p. xv
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Key to transcription conventions | pp. xvii–xviii
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Chapter 1. Introduction | pp. 1–5
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Chapter 2. State of the art and aims of study | pp. 7–34
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Chapter 3. Corpora, data and methodology | pp. 35–50
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Chapter 4. TQ properties | pp. 51–91
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Chapter 5. Speech functions | pp. 93–127
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Chapter 6. Stance typology of TQs | pp. 129–190
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Chapter 7. TQs across the three corpora | pp. 191–213
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Chapter 8. Conclusions and prospects for future research | pp. 215–222
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References | pp. 223–235
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Appendix
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Appendix | pp. 237–244
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Name index
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Subject index
“Despite an abundance of previous studies on TQs, Kimps succeeds in taking a fresh approach, by considering a range of features and accounting systematically for correlations between formal and conversational properties and interaction/stance functions.”
Gisle Andersen, NHH Norwegian School of Economics
“Unique descriptive results regarding tag questions; the development of an original analytical framework; exemplary deployment of methods; and excellently written.”
Jonathan Culpeper, Lancaster University
“It develops a rich taxonomy of use and I am happy to note incorporates prosody. The author’s well motivated separation of Interactional function and stance is for me the most significant aspect of this study.”
Gerard O’Grady, Cardiff University
“This book delivers on one of the most important promises of corpus linguistics, which is that the use of corpora can not only give us data, but can furnish us with new opportunities. [...] The book is well-produced, well proofread, and well indexed, and we ought to give credit to both the author and the publisher for the nice array of charts and graphs in the book, many of which include color. [...] What exactly is going on with tag questions in English? How does corpus linguistics empower us to provide better analyses of such linguistic phenomena? This book provides worthwhile answers and points us in the direction of deeper understanding.”
Hanno T Beck, University at Buffalo, on Linguist List 30.229, (15 January 2019)
“I strongly recommend this book to all scholars interested in tag questions in particular, but also to anybody hoping to receive guidance on how to tackle the challenges presented by the categorization of speechrelated features.”
Sebastian Hoffmann, Trier University, in Journal of Pragmatics 147: 100-102, 2019
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2021. Mechanisms of Grammaticalization in the Variation of Negative Question Tags. Journal of English Linguistics 49:4 ► pp. 419 ff.
Ekberg, Katie, Stuart Ekberg, Lara Weinglass, Anthony Herbert, Johanna Rendle‐Short, Myra Bluebond‐Langner, Patsy Yates, Natalie Bradford & Susan Danby
2022. Attending to child agency in paediatric palliative care consultations: Adults’ use of tag questions directed to the child. Sociology of Health & Illness 44:3 ► pp. 566 ff.
Kimps, Ditte, Kristin Davidse & Gerard O’Grady*
Kimps, Ditte & Gerard O’Grady
2022. Overlapping Reactions During Tag Questions. <i>WORD</i> 68:3 ► pp. 253 ff.
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2020. I English Language. The Year's Work in English Studies 99:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Põldvere, Nele, Johan Frid, Victoria Johansson & Carita Paradis
2021. Challenges of releasing audio material for spoken data: The case of the London-Lund Corpus 2. Research in Corpus Linguistics 9:1 ► pp. 35 ff.
Vandelanotte, Lieven
Wei, Lifang, Alex Ho-Cheong Leung & Yufeng Sun
2023. “We don’t normally require that in other contexts, do we”: Interpersonal meanings of tag questions in British university seminars based on the BASE corpus. Frontiers in Psychology 13
Westphal, Michael
2020. Question Tags in Philippine English. Corpus Pragmatics 4:4 ► pp. 401 ff.
Westphal, Michael
2021. Question tags across New Englishes. World Englishes
Westphal, Michael
2022. The Multilingual Pragmatics of New Englishes: An Analysis of Question Tags in Nigerian English. Frontiers in Communication 6
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 16 september 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.
Subjects
Main BIC Subject
CFG: Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis
Main BISAC Subject
LAN009030: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Pragmatics