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. 287–314

Turn design and progression

The use of aiyou in Mandarin conversation

Ruey-Jiuan Regina Wu | San Diego State University

The temporal character of talk is one fundamental feature of language in situ. As interaction unfolds, participants need to not only monitor the temporal progression of talk toward completion, but also attend to how the current turn ties back to the preceding turns. Whereas such dual-directional consideration is often a latent aspect of turn construction, efforts to clear up possible ambiguity are sometimes in order. This article introduces a Mandarin practice, the aiyou-preface, which seems to be used to just this end, and demonstrates an intimate relationship between the prosodic design of aiyou-preface and the displayed orientation to the intended directionality of the talk. The analysis draws upon a corpus of 35 hours of conversations collected in China.

Keywords: particles, prosody, conversation analysis, turn design, turn progression, directionality, aiyou

Published online: 19 July 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/slsi.31.10wu

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