Cover not available

Article published In: Pragmatics
Vol. 35:3 (2025) ► pp.423–447

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

The use of the non-lexical sound öö in Hungarian same-turn self-repair

ORCiD logo with link | University of Szeged | MTA-SZTE-DE Research Group for Theoretical Linguistics and Informatics
Published online: 18 April 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.23019.nem
Abstract
This paper explores the use of the non-lexical schwa-like sound öö in three Hungarian self-initiated same-turn self-repair phenomena, namely, searching, replacing, and searching converted into aborting. Since self-repair inherently prevents the turn from progressing towards possible completion, by deploying the non-lexical öö in the course of the three repair operations, speakers can vocalize and promise continuation without producing lexical elements. Öö thus serves as a delaying technique and an indication that the speaker is aware of the obligation to make the unit-under-way recognizably complete, and is ready to satisfy this obligation. When the turn-in-progress is halted and verbally marked with öö in the course of the three repair operations under investigation, the speaker displays to the other participants that the turn is problematic in some respects, but she is ready to attend to the problem in order to produce a recognizably complete action.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Theoretical background and aims of the paper
  • 2.The Hungarian dataset and the methodology of the study
  • 3.The role of öö in the repair operations of searching, searching converted into aborting, and replacing in Hungarian conversations
    • 3.1Searching for a word
    • 3.2The [conjunction + öö + clause] technique: Searching for a clause
    • 3.3Searching converted into aborting
    • 3.4The use of öö in the repair operation of replacing
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (45)
References
Amiridze, Nino, Boyd H. Davis, and Margaret Maclagan (eds). 2010. Fillers, Pauses and Placeholders. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas. 1993. “Representativeness in Corpus Design.” Literary and Linguistic Computing 81: 243–257. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, Roger, and David McNeill. 1966. “The “Tip of the Tongue” Phenomenon.” Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 51: 325–337. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clark, Herbert H., and Jean E. Fox Tree. 2002. “Using Uh and Um in Spontaneous Speaking.” Cognition 841: 73–111. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Deme, Andrea, and Alexandra Markó. 2013. “Lengthenings and Filled Pauses in Hungarian Adults’ and Children’s Speech.” In Proceedings of DISS 2013. The 6th Workshop of Disfluency in Spontaneous Speech, ed. by Robert Eklund, 21–24. Stockholm: KTH Royal Institute of Technology.
Domonkosi, Ágnes. 2002. Megszólítások és beszédpartnerre utaló elemek nyelvhasználatunkban [Forms of address and elements referring to the partner in conversation]. Debrecen: A Debreceni Egyetem Magyar Nyelvtudományi Intézetének Kiadványai [Proceedings of the Department of Hungarian Linguistics of the University of Debrecen] 791.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fox, Barbara, Fay Wouk, Makoto Hayashi, Steven Fincke, Liang Tao, Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Minna Laakso, and Wilfrido Flores Hernandez. 2009. “A Cross-linguistic Investigation of the Site of Initiation in Same-turn Self-repair.” In Conversation Analysis: Comparative Perspectives, ed. by Jack Sidnell, 60–103. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fox, Barbara, Yael Maschler, and Susanne Uhmann. 2010. “A Cross-linguistic Study of Self-repair: Evidence from English, German, and Hebrew.” Journal of Pragmatics 421: 2487–2505. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goodwin, Charles. 1980. “Restarts, Pauses, and the Achievement of a State of Mutual Gaze at Turn-beginning.” Sociological Inquiry 50(3–4): 272–302. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1987. “Forgetfulness as an Interactive Resource.” Social Psychology Quarterly 50(2): 115–130. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie H., and Charles Goodwin. 1986. “Gesture and Coparticipation in the Activity of Searching for a Word.” Semiotica 621: 51–75.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gósy, Mária. 2006. “A semleges magánhangzó nyelvi funkciói [The linguistic functions of the neutral vowel].” In Beszédkutatás 2006 [Speech research 2006], ed. by Mária Gósy, 8–22. Budapest: MTA Nyelvtudományi Intézet.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. “Multifunkcionális beszélt nyelvi adatbázis – BEA [A multifunctional spontaneous speech database: BEA].” In Általános nyelvészeti tanulmányok XXIV. Nyelvtechnológiai kutatások [Studies in general linguistics 24: Language technology research], ed. by Gábor Prószéky, and Tamás Váradi, 329–349. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gósy, Mária, Judit Bóna, András Beke, and Viktória Horváth. 2013. “A kitöltött szünetek fonetikai sajátosságai az életkor függvényében [The phonetic characteristics of filled pauses with regard to age].” In Beszédkutatás 2013 [Speech research 2013], ed. by Mária Gósy, 121–143. Budapest: MTA Nyelvtudományi Intézet.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gósy, Mária, Dorottya Gyarmathy, and András Beke. 2017. “Phonetic Analysis of Filled Pauses Based on a Hungarian-English Learner Corpus.” International Journal of Learner Corpus Research 31: 149–174. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Helasvuo, Marja-Liisa, Minna Laakso, and Marja-Leena Sorjonen. 2004. “Searching for Words: Syntactic and Sequential Construction of Word Search in Conversations of Finnish Speakers with Aphasia.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 371: 1–37. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heritage, John. 1984. “Conversation Analysis.” In Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology, ed. by John Heritage, 233–292. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Horváth, Viktória. 2010. “Filled Pauses in Hungarian: Their Phonetic Form and Function.” Acta Linguistica Hungarica 571: 288–306. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. Hezitációs jelenségek a magyar beszédben [Hesitation phenomena in Hungarian spontaneous speech]. Budapest: ELTE Eötvös Kiadó.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Iványi, Zsuzsanna. 2003. “A “nyelvemen van”-jelenség német és magyar nyelvű beszélgetésekben: Nyelvészeti vizsgálatok a konverzációelemzés módszereivel [The “tip of the tongue” phenomenon in German and Hungarian conversations: Linguistic examinations with the methods of conversation analysis].” Magyar Nyelvőr 1271: 76–91.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail. 1974. “Error Correction as an Interactional Resource.” Language in Society 3(2): 181–199. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1984. “Notes on Some Orderlinesses of Overlap Onset.” In Discourse Analysis and Natural Rhetoric, ed. by Valentina D’Urso, and Paolo Leonardi, 11–38. Padua: Cleup Editore.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004. “Glossary of Transcript Symbols with an Introduction.” In Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation, ed. by Gene H. Lerner, 13–31. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kenesei, István. 1994. “Subordinate Clauses.” In The Syntactic Structure of Hungarian, ed. by Ferenc Kiefer, and Katalin É. Kiss, 275–354. San Diego: Academic Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kitzinger, Celia. 2013. “Repair.” In The Handbook of Conversation Analysis, ed. by Jack Sidnell, and Tanya Stivers, 229–256. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kurhila, Salla. 2006. Second Language Interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Laakso, Minna. 1997. Self-Initiated Repair by Fluent Aphasic Speakers in Conversation. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2003. “Collaborative Construction of Repair in Aphasic Conversation: An Interactive View on the Extended Speaking Turns of Persons with Wernicke’s Aphasia.” In Conversation and Brain Damage, ed. by Charles Goodwin, 163–188. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Laakso, Minna, and Marja-Leena Sorjonen. 2010. “Cut-off or Particle – Devices for Initiating Self-Repair in Conversation.” Journal of Pragmatics 421: 1151–1172. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lerch, Ágnes. 2007. “Az ismétlés mint az önjavítás eszköze a magyarban [Repetition as a means of self-repair in Hungarian].” In Nyelvelmélet – nyelvhasználat [Language theory and language use], ed. by Tamás Gecső, and Csilla Sárdi, 123–130. Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lerner, Gene H. 1996. “On the ‘Semi-permeable’ Character of Grammatical Units in Conversation: Conditional Entry into the Turn-space of Another Speaker.” In Interaction and Grammar, ed. by Elinor Ochs, Emanuel A. Schegloff, and Sandra A. Thompson, 238–276. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2013. “On the Place of Hesitating in Delicate Formulations: A Turn-constructional Infrastructure for Collaborative Indiscretion.” In Conversational Repair and Human Understanding, ed. by Makoto Hayashi, Geoffrey Raymond, and Jack Sidnell, 95–134. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Németh, Zsuzsanna. 2012. “Recycling and Replacement Repairs as Self-initiated Same-turn Self-repair Strategies in Hungarian.” Journal of Pragmatics 441: 2022–2034. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2017. “The Interactional Functions of Four Repair Operations in Hungarian.” In Pragmatics at Its Interfaces – Mouton Series in Pragmatics 17, ed. by Stavros Assimakopoulos, 279–310. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2020. “A nemlexikális öö hang interakciós szerepének elemzése magyar nyelvű társalgásokban [An analysis of the interactional role of the non-lexical Sound öö in Hungarian conversations].” Jelentés és Nyelvhasználat 71: 23–50. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2021. A Preference Hierarchy Model of Same-Turn Repair Operations in Talk-in-Interaction. Sheffield, UK: Equinox Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2022. “The Conversation-Organising Role of the Non-lexical Sound öö in Hungarian.” Journal of Pragmatics 1941: 23–35. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oravecz, Cs., Tamás Váradi, and Bálint Sass. 2014. “The Hungarian Gigaword Corpus.” In Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC-2014), ed. by Nicoletta Calzolari, Khalid Choukri, Thierry Declerck, Hrafn Loftsson, Bente Maegaard, Joseph Mariani, Asuncion Moreno, Jan Odijk, and Slelios Piperidis, 1719–1723. Reykjavik: European Languages Resources Association (ELRA).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson. 1974. “A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation.” Language 501: 696–735. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A. 1979. “The Relevance of Repair to Syntax-for-Conversation.” In Syntax and Semantics XII, ed. by Talmy Givón, 261–286. New York: Academic Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2007. Sequence Organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2013. “Ten Operations in Self-Initiated, Same-Turn Repair.” In Conversational Repair and Human Understanding, ed. by Makoto Hayashi, Geoffrey Raymond, and Jack Sidnell, 41–70. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A., Gail Jefferson, and Harvey Sacks. 1977. “The Preference for Self-Correction in the Organization of Repair in Conversation.” Language 531: 361–382. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tar, Cintia. 2022. “Az önjavítási jelenségek magyar nyelvű spontán, baráti társalgásokban [Self-repair phenomena in Hungarian spontaneous conversations among friends].” Beszédtudomány – Speech Science 31: 75–104.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vukov Raffai, Éva. 2016. “A diskurzusjelölő-választások életkori sajátosságai az így, ilyen, hát, mondjuk, ugye esetében [Age characteristics in discourse marker selections in the case of így, ilyen, hát, mondjuk, ugye].” Magyar Nyelvőr 1401: 483–497.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue