Part of
Units of Talk – Units of ActionEdited by Beatrice Szczepek Reed and Geoffrey Raymond
[Studies in Language and Social Interaction 25] 2013
► pp. 207–242
Edited by Beatrice Szczepek Reed and Geoffrey Raymond
[Studies in Language and Social Interaction 25] 2013
► pp. 207–242
When ‘yes’ is not enough – as an answer to a yes/no question
This article investigates confirming answers to yes/no questions that consist of more than the type-conforming ‘yes’ token. The study is based on 160 cases of question-answer sequences with confirming answers, taken from a corpus of Danish interactions. The authors claim that certain actions, which are carried out as yes/no questions, demand a response unit that consists of ‘yes’ plus an elaboration. The actions that have this far-reaching projection are: (1) expansion-eliciting questions, (2) knowledge discrepancy questions, and (3) specification requests. The authors found no simple relationship between syntax and action. Some of the actions that demand more than a ‘yes’ can be carried out with both interrogative and declarative syntax, whereas others are done only interrogatively. Keywords: yes/no questions; responses; confirmations; elaborations
Cited by (22)
Cited by 22 other publications
Szczepek Reed, Beatrice & Marina N. Cantarutti
2024. Turn continuation in yeah/no responding turns. In New Perspectives in Interactional Linguistic Research [Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 36], ► pp. 73 ff. 
Szojka, Zsofia A. & Thomas D. Lyon
2024. Children’s Elaborated Responses to Yes-No Questions in Forensic Interviews About Sexual Abuse. Child Maltreatment 29:4 ► pp. 637 ff.
Bolden, Galina B., John Heritage & Marja-Leena Sorjonen
2023. Chapter 1. Introduction. In Responding to Polar Questions across Languages and Contexts [Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 35], ► pp. 1 ff.
Harjunpää, Katariina & Ana Cristina Ostermann
2023. Chapter 3. Responding to polar questions in Brazilian Portuguese. In Responding to Polar Questions across Languages and Contexts [Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 35], ► pp. 76 ff.
Hayano, Kaoru & Makoto Hayashi
2023. Chapter 9. Post-confirmation modifications. In Responding to Polar Questions across Languages and Contexts [Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 35], ► pp. 272 ff.
Alvanoudi, Angeliki
2022. Polar answers and epistemic stance in Greek conversation. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) 32:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Ozerov, Pavel
Ozerov, Pavel
2023. From sentential syntax to syntax of interaction. Journal of Speech Sciences 12 ► pp. e023001 ff.
Deppermann, Arnulf & Alexandra Gubina
Drake, Veronika
2021. Alternative questions and their responses in English interaction. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) 31:1 ► pp. 62 ff.
Gubina, Alexandra & Emma Betz
2021. What Do Newsmark-Type Responses Invite? The Response Space After German echt. Research on Language and Social Interaction 54:4 ► pp. 374 ff.
Reddington, Elizabeth, Ignasi Clemente, Hansun Zhang Waring & Di Yu
2021. “Doing being collegial”. In Questioning and Answering Practices across Contexts and Cultures [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 323], ► pp. 257 ff.
Kurhila, Salla & Inkeri Lehtimaja
2019. Dealing with numbers: Nurses informing doctors and patients about test results. Discourse Studies 21:2 ► pp. 180 ff.
Pizarro Pedraza, Andrea
2019. MadSex: collecting a spoken corpus of indirectly elicited sexual concepts. Language Resources and Evaluation 53:1 ► pp. 191 ff.
Heinemann, Trine & Jakob Steensig
2018. Chapter 15. Justifying departures from progressivity. In Between Turn and Sequence [Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 31], ► pp. 445 ff.
Zhang Waring, Hansun, Elizabeth Reddington, Di Yu & Ignasi Clemente
2018. Going general: Responding to yes–no questions in informational webinars for prospective grant applicants. Discourse & Communication 12:3 ► pp. 307 ff.
Heinemann, Trine
2017. Receipting Answers That are Counter to Expectations: The Polar Question-Answer-NåSequence in Danish. Research on Language and Social Interaction 50:3 ► pp. 249 ff.
Rasmussen, Gitte
2016. Repeated use of request for confirmation in atypical interaction. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics 30:10 ► pp. 849 ff.
Enfield, N. J. & Jack Sidnell
2015. Language structure and social agency: Confirming polar questions in conversation. Linguistics Vanguard 1:1 ► pp. 131 ff.
Steensig, Jakob & Trine Heinemann
2015. Opening Up Codings?. Research on Language and Social Interaction 48:1 ► pp. 20 ff.
Szczepek Reed, Beatrice
2015. Managing the Boundary Between “Yes” and “But”: Two Ways of Disaffiliating With Germanja aberandjaber. Research on Language and Social Interaction 48:1 ► pp. 32 ff.
[no author supplied]
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