Chapter published in:
Between Turn and Sequence: Turn-initial particles across languages
Edited by John Heritage and Marja-Leena Sorjonen
[Studies in Language and Social Interaction 31] 2018
► pp. 59–96

Bueno-, pues-, and bueno-pues-prefacing in Spanish conversation

| University of Colorado, Boulder
This chapter reports on two turn-initial particles in Spanish: bueno and pues. While previous research has equated both of these to well-prefacing in English in that they project “unexpectedness”, here the aim is to explicate the distinct interactional work that each particle performs. Focusing on responses to questions, I show that bueno-prefaced responses do not overtly problematize the prior utterance, but rather accept its terms before departing from them, and thereby acquiesce to the prior turn’s design. Pues-prefaced responses, by contrast, are directly addressed to the prior turn, but they cast that prior turn’s action or design as problematic in some way. I conclude by illustrating how these two uses are not mutually exclusive by examining the compound preface bueno-pues.
Keywords: particle bueno , particle pues , Spanish, conversation analysis/CA, discourse marker, answers, responses
Published online: 19 July 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/slsi.31.03ray
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