This cross-sectional study explores the phrase jag tänker ‘I think/cogitate’ in Swedish
talk-in-interaction and compares it with two similar phrases, jag tycker ‘I think/find’ and jag
tror ‘I think/believe/guess’. It consists of a quantitative overview of the three phrases and a qualitative,
interactionally informed analysis of jag tänker in task-based group conversations with L1 and L2 speakers of
Swedish. The results show that jag tänker has a stance-taking function in L1 interactions and projects more talk,
which typically accounts for the reasoning behind the point the speaker is making. However, the L2 speakers do not use jag
tänker as a stance-taking phrase; instead, they may deploy jag tror or jag tycker
to project turns that accomplish similar actions to those that the L1 speakers accomplish with jag tänker.
In spoken interaction, participants often refer to their own thoughts and opinions with phrases such as I think, which take the grammatical form of a minimal clause and simultaneously express the speaker’s stance towards upcoming or preceding talk (see, e.g., Thompson and Mulac 1991; Aijmer 1997; Thompson 2002; Kärkkäinen 2003; Keevallik 2010; Mullan and Karlsson 2012). For example, the English complement-taking predicate I think is routinely deployed as a stance-framing device before the speaker presents their point of view (Thompson 2002, 125; Kärkkäinen 2003, 35). However, stance-taking in conversation is not merely a case of quoting a speaker’s pre-formulated thoughts. Consequently, phrases such as I think may also be deployed retroactively to hedge the previous utterance or mark its completion due to, for instance, no uptake from interlocutors (Kärkkäinen 2003, 166; Auer and Lindström 2016, 86). Moreover, formatting upcoming talk as a ‘thought’ can be beneficial for managing the ongoing interaction. For example, in the context of joint decision-making, the construction of a proposal as a thought mitigates imposing on co-participants, which, in turn, allows the co-participants to reply in more open-ended ways (Stevanovic 2013, 521).
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