Publications

Publication details [#35289]

Tsui, Amy B. M. 1991. The pragmatic functions of I don't know. Text 11 (4) : 607–622.

Publication type

Article in journal

Publication language

English

Keywords

conversational analysis | face maintenance | pragmatic function | utterance

Language as a subject

English, British

Place, Publisher

De Gruyter Mouton

ISBN

0165-4888

Journal WWW

www.degruyter.de/journals/order/en.start.html

Annotation

This paper demonstrates that the utterance 'I don't know' serves quite some different functions, besides the well-known response to an information question, and argues that the underlying pragmatic motivation often regards face maintenance of oneself and the other.