Cover not available
Part of
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. 339–370

Chapter 12
Calibrating an agnostic epistemic stance in Swedish conversation

The case of okej-prefacing in calls to the Swedish Board for study support

| Uppsala University

Conversation analytic research on turn-initial particles has by and large examined turn-initial items that are language (or language family) specific such as the English well, the Finnish niin, the French voilà, and the German naja. This chapter by contrast, explores the turn-initial use of a word that was imported as a loan from English to Swedish, namely okay, in Swedish okej. The data is drawn from interactions between clients and administrators at the Swedish Board for Study Support. I have analyzed telephone calls where clients are inquiring about how to apply for a new loan or negotiating the payback of an existing loan. The discourse marker okej ‘okay’ is recurrent in these materials. Okej can be used by itself as a first pair part, a second pair part, or a sequence closing third. It can also be embedded within larger turns. This chapter is based on a collection where okej is used as a turn preface. By analysing the sequential context, action implementation, and sequential trajectory of okej-prefaced turns, I show that okej-prefacing is used by call takers as an agnostic marker by registering the information provided by the caller without either endorsing it as true or dismissing it as false.

Keywords: conversation analysis, epistemic stance, financial aid counselling, Swedish telephone conversation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data
  • 3. Contexts of use in the SBSS corpus
  • 4.Turn-prefacing
  • 5.Epistemics
  • 6.Analysis
    • 6.1Okej as a turn-preface
    • 6.2 Turn-prefaced okej as a resource for expressing an agnostic stance
    • 6.3The specificity of okej-prefacing: Evidence from resayings
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgement
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 19 July 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slsi.31.12lin
References
Barske, Tobias
2007 “Same Token, Different Actions: A Conversation Analytic Study of Social Roles, Embodied Actions, and ‘ok’ in German Business Meetings.” Journal of Business Communication 46 (1):120–149. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barth-Weingarten, Dagmar, Elizabeth Reber, and Margret Selting
(eds) 2010 Prosody in interaction. Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Beach, Wayne
1993 “Transitional Regularities for ‘Casual’ “Okay” Usages.” Journal of Pragmatics 19:325–352. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth, and Margret Selting
(eds) 1996 Prosody in Conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dahl Knudsen, Anette
2015 “O(↑)kay(?), ↑Ohkay – en prosodiafhængigy tringspartikel? [O(↑)kay(?), ↑Ohkay – A proso dydependentparticle?]. Skrifter om samtalegrammatik 2:1–48.Google Scholar
Davidson, J.
(1984) “Subsequent versions of invitations, offers, requests, and proposals dealing with potential or actual rejection.” In J.M. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds.) Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 102–128.Google Scholar
Ekström Mats, Anna Lindström, and Susanna Karlsson
2013 ”Managing Troubles-Talk in the Renegotiation of a Loan Contract.” Discourse Studies 15:371–394. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ekström, Mats, and Fredrik Lundström
2014 “The Termination of Complaints in Calls to an Authority for Student Support.” Journal of Pragmatics 74:132–149. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Guthrie, Anna
1997 “On the Systematic Deployment of Okay and Mmhmm in Academic Advising Sessions.” Pragmatics 7:397–415. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heinemann, Trine, Anna Lindström, and Jakob Steensig
2009 “Addressing Epistemic Incongruence in Question-Answer Sequences Through the Use of Epistemic Adverbs.” In The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation, ed. by Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada, and Jakob Steensig, 107–130. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Heisler, Troy
1996 “OK – A Dynamic Discourse Marker in Montreal French.” In Sociolinguistic Variation: Data, Theory, and Analysis – Selected Papers from NWAV 23 at Stanford, ed. by Jennifer Arnold. Stanford: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Heritage, John
2002 “ Oh-Prefaced Responses to Assessments: A Method of Modifying Agreement/Disagreement.” In The Language of Turn and Sequence, ed. by Cecilia Ford, Barbara A. Fox, and Sandra Thompson, 196–224. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
2012a “The Epistemic Engine: Sequence Organization and Territories of Knowledge.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 42 (1):25–50.Google Scholar
2012b “Epistemics in Action: Action Formation and Territories of Knowledge.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 42 (1):1–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013 “Epistemics in Conversation.” In Handbook of Conversation Analysis, ed. by Jack Sidnell, and Tanya Stivers, 370–94. Boston: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
2015 “ Well-Prefaced Turns in English Conversation: A Conversation Analytic Perspective.” Journal of Pragmatics 88:88–104. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heritage, John, and Steve Clayman
2010 Talk in Action. Interactions, Identities and Institutions. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail
1989 “Preliminary Notes on a Possible Metric Which Provides for a ‘Standard Maximum’ Silence of Approximately One Second in Conversation.” In Conversation: An Interdisciplinary Perspective, ed. by Derek Roger, and Peter Bull, 166–196. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Karlsson, Susanna
2016 “Transfer of Telephone Conversations as a Transition between Call-takers.” Journal of Pragmatics 96:1–14.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Labov, William, and David Fanshel
1977 Therapeutic Discourse: Psychotherapy as Conversation. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Lindström, Anna
1997 Designing Social Actions: Grammar, Prosody, and Interaction in Swedish Conversation. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Local, John, and Gareth Walker
2012 “How Phonetic Features Project More Talk.” Journal of the International Phonetic Association 42:255–280. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Metcalf, Allan
2010 OK. The Improbable Story of Americaʹs Greatest Word. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Näslund, Shirley
2016 “Tacit Tango: The Social Framework of Screen-Focused Silences in Institutional Telephone Calls.” Journal of Pragmatics 91:60–79. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Raymond, Geoffrey
2010 “Prosodic Variation in Responses: The Case of Type-Conforming Responses to Yes/No Interrogatives.” In Prosody in Interaction, ed. by Dagmar Barth-Weingarten, Elizabeth Reber, and Margret Selting, 109–130. Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Read, Allen W.
1964 “Successive Revisions in the Explanation of ‘O.K.’” American Speech 39:243–267. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A.
1980 “Preliminaries to Preliminaries: “Can I Ask You a Question?” Sociological Inquiry 50:104–152. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1996 “Turn Organization: One Intersection of Grammar and Interaction.” In Interaction and Grammar, ed. by Elinor Ochs, Emanuel A. Schegloff, and Sandra Thompson, 52–133. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2004 “On Dispensability.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 37 (2):95–149. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 Sequence Organization in Interaction. A Primer in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A., and Harvey Sacks
1973 “Opening up Closings.” Semiotica 8:289–327. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schleef, Eric
2008 “The “Lecturerʹs OK” Revisited: Changing Discourse Conventions and the Influence of Academic Division.” American Speech 83 (1):62–84. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sharp, Harriet
2001 English in Spoken Swedish. A Corpus Study of Two Discourse Domains. Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis. Stockholm Studies in English. XCV.Google Scholar
Weatherall, Ann
2015 “’But Whose Side Are You on?’ Doing Being Independent in Telephone-Mediated Dispute Resolution.” In Producing and Managing Restricted Activities. Avoidance and Withholding in Institutional Interaction, ed. by Fabienne Chevalier, and John Moore, 151–179. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 april 2024. 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.