Cover not available

In:Between Turn and Sequence: Turn-initial particles across languages
Edited by John Heritage and Marja-Leena Sorjonen
[Studies in Language and Social Interaction 31] 2018
► pp. 25–58

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

Chapter 2
Nu-prefaced responses in Russian conversation

 | Rutgers University
Published online: 19 July 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/slsi.31.02bol
Abstract
This chapter examines the Russian particle nu, focusing on its use in responses to polar and question-word questions. I show that nu prefaces responses that are, in some way, misaligned vis-à-vis the initiating action. First, nu may preface non-type-conforming responses, i.e., responses that “depart from the constraints embodied in the grammatical form” of the question (Raymond 2003, 946). Such responses may operate on the terms of the question, correct its presuppositions, resist the action the question implements, and problematize its assumption of answerability. Second, nu may preface responses that conform to the question’s grammatical constraints and forward its action agenda, but convey an incongruent epistemic stance by suggesting that the questioner already knows the solicited information.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2. Nu-prefaced non-type-conforming responses: Departing from the question’s action agenda
    • 2.1Operating on the question’s terms
    • 2.2Responding to questions that embody incorrect presuppositions
    • 2.3Resisting the action implemented by the question
    • 2.4Problematizing the question’s assumption of answerability
  • 3. Nu-prefaced type-conforming responses: Conveying an epistemic incongruency
  • 4.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
References (63)
References
Beach, Wayne A., and Terri R. Metzger. 1997. “Claiming Insufficient Knowledge.” Human Communication Research 23 (4): 562–588. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bolden, Galina B. 2008. ““So Whatʹs Up?”: Using the Discourse Marker “So” to Launch Conversational Business.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 41 (3): 302–327. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2009. “Implementing Incipient Actions: The Discourse Marker ‘So’ in English Conversation.” Journal of Pragmatics 41 (5): 974–998. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2015. “A Simple Da?: Affirming Responses to Polar Questions in Russian Conversation.” Journal of Pragmatics 100:40–58.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2016. “The Discourse Marker Nu in Russian Conversation.” In NU/NÅ: A Family of Discourse Markers across the Languages of Europe and Beyond, ed. by Peter Auer, and Yael Maschler, 48–80. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bolden, Galina B., Jenny S. Mandelbaum, and Sue Wilkinson. 2012. “Pursuing a Response by Repairing an Indexical Reference.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 45 (2): 137–155. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bolden, Galina B., and Jeffrey D. Robinson. 2011. “Soliciting Accounts With Why-Interrogatives in Conversation.” Journal of Communication 61 (1): 94–119. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clayman, Steven E. 2010. “Address Terms in the Service of Other Actions: The Case of News Interview Talk.” Discourse & Communication 4 (2): 161–183. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dal’, Vladimir Ivanovich. 1880–1882. In Толковый словарь живого великорусского языка [Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language]. Url: [URL].
Drew, Paul. 1987. “Po-Faced Receipts of Teases.” Linguistics 25:219–253. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drew, Paul, and Elizabeth Holt. 1988. “Complainable Matters: The Use of Idiomatic Expressions in Making Complaints.” Social Problems 35 (4): 398–417. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1998. “Figures of Speech: Figurative Expressions and the Management of Topic Transition in Conversation.” Language in Society 27:495–522. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Efremova, T. F. 2000. In Новый словарь русского языка [New dictionary of the Russian language]. Url: [URL].
Enfield, N. J., Tanya Stivers, and Stephen C. Levinson. 2010. “Question-Response Sequences in Conversation Across Ten Languages: An Introduction.” Journal of Pragmatics 42 (10): 2615–2619. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Feldman, Anna. 2001. “Discourse Markers – Accessing “Hearer-Old” Information: The Case of the Russian Zhe .” In Proceedings of the 27th LACUS Forum (Speaking and Comprehending), ed. by Ruth M. Brend, Alan K. Melby, and Arle R. Lommel, 186–201. Houston: Rice University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fox, Barbara A., and Sandra A. Thompson. 2010. “Responses to Wh-Questions in English Conversation.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 43 (2): 133–156. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness. 1983. “Searching for a Word as an Interactive Activity.” In Semiotics, ed. by John N. Deely, and Margot D. Lenhart, 129–138. New York: Plenum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heritage, John. 1984. “A change-of-state token and aspects of its sequential placement.” In Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis, edited by J. Maxwell Atkinson and John Heritage, 299–345. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1998. “ Oh-Prefaced Responses to Inquiry.” Language in Society 27 (3): 291–334. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2003. “Designing Questions and Setting Agendas in the News Interview.” In Studies in Language and Social Interaction: In Honor of Robert Hopper, ed. by Phillip J. Glenn, Curtis D. Le Baron, and Jenny S. Mandelbaum, 57–90. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. “Questioning in Medicine.” In “Why Do You Ask?”: The Functions of Questions in Institutional Discourse, ed. by Alice F. Freed, and Carol M. Ehrlich, 42–68. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. “Epistemics in Action: Action Formation and Territories of Knowledge.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 45 (1): 1–29. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013a. “Epistemics in Conversation.” In Handbook of Conversation Analysis, ed. by Jack Sidnell, and Tanya Stivers, 370–394. Boston: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013b. “Turn-Initial Position and Some of its Occupants.” Journal of Pragmatics 57:331–337. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. “ Well-prefaced turns in English conversation: A conversation analytic perspective.” Journal of Pragmatics 88:88–104. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heritage, John, and Geoffrey Raymond. 2012. “Navigating Epistemic Landscapes: Acquiescence, Agency and Resistance in Responses to Polar Questions.” In Questions: Formal, Functional and Interactional Perspectives, ed. by Jan P. De Ruiter, 179–192. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hirst, Daniel, and Albert Di Cristo. 1998. “A Survey of Intonation Systems.” In Intonation Systems: A Survey of Twenty Languages, ed. by Daniel Hirst, and Albert Di Cristo, 1–44. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail. 1986. “Notes on ‘Latency’ in Overlap Onset.” Human Studies 9 (2–3):153–183. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kuosmanen, Anne, and Teija Multisilta. 1999. “ Nu and Vot in Spoken Russian: On Discourse Functions and Prosodic Features.” Scando-Slavica 45 (1):49–64.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labov, William, and David Fanshel. 1977. Therapeutic Discourse: Psychotherapy as Conversation. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lerner, Gene H. 1995. “Turn Design and the Organization of Participation in Instructional Activities.” Discourse Processes 19 (1):111–131. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Meyer, Janet R. 2002. “Contextual Influences on the Pursuit of Secondary Goals in Request Messages.” Communication Monographs 69 (3):189–203. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Multisilta, Teija. 1995. “Pragmatic Particles Nu and Vot in Spoken Russian.” In Organization of Discourse: Proceedings from the Turku Conference, ed. by Brita Wårvik, Sanna-Kaisa Tanskanen, and Risto Hiltunen, 381–392. Turku: University of Turku.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ozhegov, Sergej Ivanovich. 1949. In Толковый словарь русского языка [Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language]. Url: [URL].
Paukkeri, Pirkko. 2006. “Реципиент в русском разговоре: О распределении финкций между ответами да, ну и так [Recipient in Russian conversation: Division of tasks between the response words da, nu and tak].” Doctoral dissertation, Slavonic and Baltic Languages and Literatures, University of Helsinki.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pomerantz, Anita. 1984a. “Agreeing and Disagreeing With Assessments: Some Features of Preferred/Dispreferred Turn Shapes.” In Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, ed. by J. Maxwell Atkinson, and John Heritage, 57–101. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1984b. “Pursuing a Response.” In Structures of Social Action, ed. by J. Maxwell Atkinson, and John Heritage, 152–164. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Raymond, Geoffrey. 2003. “Grammar and Social Organization: Yes/No Type Interrogatives and the Structure of Responding.” American Sociological Review 68:939–967. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004. “Prompting Action: The Stand-Alone “So” in Ordinary Conversation.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 37 (2):185–218. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. “Grammar and Social Relations: Alternative Forms of Yes/No Type Initiating Actions in Health Visitor Interactions.” In Why Do You Ask?: The Function of Questions in Institutional Discourse, ed. by Alice F. Freed, and Susan Ehrlich, 69–107. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Robinson, Jeffrey D., and Galina B. Bolden. 2010. “Preference Organization of Sequence-Initiating Actions: The Case of Explicit Account Solicitations.” Discourse Studies 12 (4):501–533. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey. 1972. “On the Analyzability of Stories by Children.” In Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication, ed. by John J. Gumperz, and Dell Hymes, 329–345. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1987. “On the Preferences for Agreement and Contiguity in Sequences in Conversation.” In Talk and Social Organization, ed. by Graham Button and John R E Lee, 54–69. Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters.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 50:696–735. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A. 1996. “Turn Organization: One Intersection of Grammar and Interaction.” In Interaction and Grammar, ed. by Elinor Ochs, Emanuel A. Schegloff, and Sandra A. Thompson, 52–133. Cambridge: Cambridge University 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
Schegloff, Emanuel A., Gail Jefferson, and Harvey Sacks. 1977. “The Preference for Self-Correction in the Organization of Repair in Conversation.” Language 53:361–382. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A., and Gene H. Lerner. 2009. “Beginning to Respond: Well-Prefaced Responses to Wh-Questions.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 42 (2):91–115. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sherstinova, Tatiana. 2010. “Quantitative Data Processing in the ORD Speech Corpus of Russian Everyday Communication.” In Text and Language: Structures, Functions, Interrelations, Quantitative Perspectives, ed. by Peter Grzybek, Emmerich Kelih, and Ján Mačutek, 195–205. Prae/Sens.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2001b. “Simple Answers to Polar Questions: The Case of Finnish.” In Studies in Interactional Linguistics, ed. by Margret Selting, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 405–431. Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2002. “Recipient Activities: The Particle “No” as a Go-Ahead Response in Finnish Conversations.” In The Language of Turn and Sequence, ed. by Cecilia E. Ford, Barbara A. Fox, and Sandra A. Thompson, 165–195. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sorjonen, Marja-Leena, and Heidi Vepsäläinen. 2016. “The Finnish Particle No.” In NU/NÅ: A Family of Discourse Markers across the Languages of Europe and Beyond, ed. by Peter Auer, and Yael Maschler, 243–280. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stivers, Tanya. 2010. “An overview of the question–response system in American English conversation.” Journal of Pragmatics 42 (10):2772–2781. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. “Morality and Question Design: ‘Of Course’ as Contesting a Presupposition of Askability.” In The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation, ed. by Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada, and Jakob Steensig, 82–106. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stivers, Tanya, and N. J. Enfield. 2010. “A Coding Scheme for Question-Response Sequences in Conversation.” Journal of Pragmatics 42 (10):2620–2626. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Svetozarova, Natalia. 1998. “Intonation in Russian.” In Intonation Systems: A Survey of Twenty Languages, ed. by Daniel Hirst, and Albert Di Cristo, 261–274. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thompson, Sandra A., Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, and Barbara A. Fox. 2015. Grammar and Everday Talk: Building Responsive Actions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vasilyeva, Anna N. 1972. Particles in Colloquial Russian. Moscow: Progress Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Walker, Traci, Paul Drew, and John Local. 2011. “Responding Indirectly.” Journal of Pragmatics 43 (9):2434–2451. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yokoyama, Olga T. 1986. Discourse and Word Order. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zemskaia, Elena Andreevna. 1979. Русская разговорнаяречь: лингвистический анализ и проблемы обучения [Russian colloquial speech: linguistic analysis and instructional issues]. Moskva: Nauka.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zemskaia, Elena Andreevna, and L. A. Kapanadze. 1978. Russkaia razgovornaia rech: Teksty [Russian conversational (informal) speech: Texts]. Moskva: Nauka.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (13)

Cited by 13 other publications

Hutchby, Ian
2025. Prospective expertise: The use of ‘listen’ in the discourse of television sports pundits. Discourse Studies 27:3 ► pp. 399 ff. DOI logo
Saifeeva, Kamila
2025. (Sure), Go Ahead, (But): levels of approval and Russian imperatives. Russian Linguistics 49:1 DOI logo
Ruskan, Anna
2024. Role of six turn-initial demonstrative and emotive particles in Lithuanian. Open Linguistics 10:1 DOI logo
Arita, Yuki
2023.  Demo “but”-prefaced responses to inquiry in Japanese . Discourse Processes 60:8 ► pp. 594 ff. DOI logo
Bolden, Galina B., John Heritage & Marja-Leena Sorjonen
2023. Introduction. In Responding to Polar Questions across Languages and Contexts [Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 35], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Hayano, Kaoru & Makoto Hayashi
2023. Post-confirmation modifications. In Responding to Polar Questions across Languages and Contexts [Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 35], ► pp. 272 ff. DOI logo
Jasionytė-Mikučionienė, Erika
2023. Response Particles in Lithuanian Conversation and Turn Design. LANGUAGE: Codification, Competence, Communication 2:9 ► pp. 26 ff. DOI logo
Tůma, František, Leila Kääntä & Teppo Jakonen
2023. L2 grammar‐for‐interaction: Functions of “and”‐prefaced turns in L2 students’ collaborative talk. The Modern Language Journal 107:4 ► pp. 991 ff. DOI logo
Floyd, Simeon
2021. Conversation and Culture. Annual Review of Anthropology 50:1 ► pp. 219 ff. DOI logo
Persson, Rasmus
2020. Taking Issue with a Question While Answering It: Prefatory Particles and Multiple Sayings of Polar Response Tokens in French. Research on Language and Social Interaction 53:3 ► pp. 380 ff. DOI logo
Bolden, Galina
2017. Requests for here-and-now actions in Russian conversation. In Imperative Turns at Talk [Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 30], ► pp. 175 ff. DOI logo
Bolden, Galina B.
2017. Opening up closings in Russian. In Enabling human conduct [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 273], ► pp. 231 ff. DOI logo
Bolden, Galina B.
2023. Repetitional responses to polar questions in Russian conversation. In Responding to Polar Questions across Languages and Contexts [Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 35], ► pp. 40 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue