Chapter published in:
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. 206–233

Chapter 7
OKAY as a response to informings in Finnish

| University of Helsinki
| University of Helsinki
This chapter examines the use of the particle OKAY in Finnish as a response to turns that are designed to provide new information. The study focuses on the ways in which the speakers of OKAY orient toward the epistemic character of the informing, and on its sufficiency for the purposes of the ongoing interaction. These aspects are analyzed by paying attention to the sequential and activity context of the particle, its phonetic-prosodic design, and the possible subsequent talk in the turn. OKAY is also compared with some other Finnish response particles in similar sequential and activity contexts. The data come from telephone and face-to-face interactions between family and friends spanning a period from the late 1980s to the present.
Keywords: change over time, change-of-state, comparison of response particles, doubt, Finnish, instrumental information, newsworthiness, prosody, sufficient information, understanding
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data
  • 3.Contrasting the use of okei to change-of-state tokens proper
  • 4.Receiving information as understood and sufficient for current purposes
  • 5.Receiving information as newsworthy: okei produced with marked prosody
  • 6.Expressing doubt or perplexity toward the information received: okei produced with stylized prosody
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
Published online: 17 March 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/slsi.34.07koi