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OKAY across Languages: Toward a comparative approach to its use in talk-in-interaction
Edited by Emma Betz, Arnulf Deppermann, Lorenza Mondada and Marja-Leena Sorjonen
[Studies in Language and Social Interaction 34] 2021
► pp. 132–173

Chapter 5
The prosody and phonetics of OKAY in American English

| University of Helsinki

This chapter is devoted to a study of the prosodic and phonetic realization of the particle OKAY as deployed in American English mundane conversation. Its primary aim is to explore the question of whether there are recurrent prosodic-phonetic formats associated with positionally distinct uses of OKAY. The data come from telephone and face-to-face interactions between family and friends spanning a period from the 1960s to the present. Currently there are approximately 200 tokens in the collection. The older and more recent data sets are considered separately in order to capture changes that have ensued over the last fifty to sixty years.

Keywords: American English, tag, responsive particle, sequence-closing third, transitional position, continuer, pre-closing, prosodic stylization, deontic sequence, epistemic sequence
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data and procedure
  • 3.Prosodic and phonetic variables in the delivery of OKAY
  • 4.Sequential positions and patterns of delivery
    • 4.1OKAY accompanying a first-position action
    • 4.2OKAY in the second position of a sequence
      • Responsive OKAY in deontically driven sequences
      • Responsive OKAY in epistemically driven sequences
    • 4.3OKAY in the third position of a sequence
      • Third-position OKAY in deontically driven sequences
      • Third-position OKAY in epistemically driven sequences
    • 4.4OKAY in sequence-medial position
    • 4.5OKAY in transitional positions
      • Preface to a new topic/sequence
      • Closure of prior topic/sequence
    • 4.6OKAY in conversational preclosing
  • 5.Prosodic-phonetic marking in second- and third-position OKAY
    • Epistemically driven sequences
    • Deontically driven sequences
  • 6.Summary and provisional conclusions
  • 7.Some observations on changes in the use of OKAY over time
    • Frequency
    • Positional use
    • Prosodic design
  • Notes
  • Appendix
Published online: 17 March 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slsi.34.05cou
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth
2021. Language over time. Interactional Linguistics 1:1 ► pp. 33 ff. DOI logo
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth
2021. OH + OKAY in informing sequences: On fuzzy boundaries in a particle combination. Open Linguistics 7:1 ► pp. 816 ff. DOI logo
Schirm, Sam, Budimka Uskokovic & Carmen Taleghani-Nikazm
2023. The competence in little words. Applied Pragmatics 5:2 ► pp. 142 ff. DOI logo

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