Cover not available

In:Responding to Polar Questions across Languages and Contexts
Edited by Galina B. Bolden, John Heritage and Marja-Leena Sorjonen
[Studies in Language and Social Interaction 35] 2023
► pp. 179–209

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

Chapter 6
Complexities of responding

Confirming responses to pseudo-tag questions in Korean conversation

 | Yonsei University
Published online: 27 November 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/slsi.35.06lee
Abstract
This paper examines three forms of confirming responses to pseudo-tag questions in Korean conversation: unelaborated type-conforming responses with affirmative particles alone, elaborated responses with affirmative particles followed by elaboration, and nonconforming responses. The respondent’s selection of a particular form of response represents a solution to multiple contingencies involved in providing confirmation. When producing affirmative particles alone, respondents do nothing more than confirming and treat the question as in need of a mere confirmation. In producing elaborated type-conforming responses, respondents tend to avoid unwanted understandings that a simple yes particle can bring. They may address the action implemented by the question, often in affiliation with the questioner. Nonconforming responses tend to treat the question as problematic, proposing a problem with the legitimacy or relevance of the question.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.An overview of polar questions and their responses in Korean conversation
  • 3.Data
  • 4.Unelaborated type-conforming responses
  • 5.Elaborated type-conforming responses
  • 6.Nonconforming responses
  • 7.Confirming responses, question formats, and epistemic gradients
  • 8.Conclusion
  • References
References (44)
References
Bolden, Galina. 2016. “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
Bolinger, Dwight. 1978. “Yes-No Questions Are Not Alternative Questions.” In Questions, ed. by Henry Hiz, 87–105. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Reidel. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clark, Herbert H. 1996. Using Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drew, Paul. 1997. “‘Open’ Class Repair Initiators in Response to Sequential Sources of Trouble in Conversation.” Journal of Pragmatics 28: 69–101. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Enfield, N. J. 2006. “Social Consequences of Common Ground.” In Roots of Human Sociality: Culture, Cognition, and Interaction, ed. by N. J. Enfield, and Stephen C. Levinson, 399–430. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Enfield, N. J., Tanya Stivers, Penelope Brown, Christina Englert, Kaatariina Harjunpää, Makoto Hayashi, Trine Heinemann, Gertie Hoymann, Tina Keisanen, Mirka Rauniomaa, Chase W. Raymond, Federico Rossano, Kyung-Eun Yoon, Inge Zwitserlood, and Stephen C. Levinson. 2019. “Polar Answers.” Journal of Linguistics 55: 277–304. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fox, Barbara, and Sandra A. Thompson. 2010. “Responses to Wh-Questions in English Conversation”. Research on Language and Social Interaction 43: 133–156. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1978. “Response Cries.” Language 54: 787–815. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hayano, Kaoru. 2011. “Claiming Epistemic Primacy: Yo-Marked Assessments in Japanese.” In The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation, ed. by Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada, and Jakob Steensig, 58–81. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hepburn, Alexa, and Galina Bolden. 2017. Transcribing for Social Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 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, ed. by J. Maxwell Atkinson, and John Heritage, 299–345. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1998. “Oh-Prefaced Responses to Inquiry.” Language in Society 27: 291–334. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. “Questioning in Medicine.” In “Why Do You Ask?”: The Function of Questions in Institutional Discourse, ed. by Alice F. Freed, and Susan Ehrlich, 42–68. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. “Territories of Knowledge, Territories of Experience: Empathic Moments in Interaction.” In The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation, ed. by Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada, and Jakob Steensig, 159–183. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heritage, John, and Geoffrey Raymond. 2005. “The Terms of Agreement: Indexing Epistemic Authority and Subordination in Talk-in-Interaction.” Social Psychology Quarterly 68: 15–38. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 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
Jefferson, Gail. 1981. The Abominable “Ne?”: A Working Paper Exploring the Phenomenon of Post-Response Pursuit of Response. Department of Sociology, University of Manchester.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
Kim, Haeyeon. 1999. “The Form and Function of Questions in Korean Conversation.” Discourse and Cognition 6: 211–247.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kim, Mary Shin. 2011. “Negotiating Epistemic Rights to Information in Korean Conversation: An Examination of the Korean Evidential Marker -tamye.” Discourse Studies 13: 435–459. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kim, Stephanie Hyeri. 2015. “Resisting the Terms of Polar Questions through Ani (‘No’)-Prefacing in Korean Conversation.” Discourse Processes 52: 311–334. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lee, Hyo Sang. 1994. “Discourse-Pragmatic Functions of Sentence-Type Suffixes in Korean.” In Theoretical Issues in Korean Linguistics, ed. by Young-Key Kim-Renaud, 517–539. Stanford, CA: CSLI.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1999. “A Discourse-Pragmatic Analysis of the Committal -ci in Korean: A Synthetic Approach to the Form-Meaning Relation.” Journal of Pragmatics 31: 243–275. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lee, Seung-Hee. 2006. “Second Summonings in Korean Telephone Conversation Openings.” Language in Society 35: 261–283. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. “Response Design in Conversation.” In The Handbook of Conversation Analysis, ed. by Jack Sidnell and Tanya Stivers, 415–432. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. “Two Forms of Affirmative Responses to Polar Questions.” Discourse Processes 52: 21–46. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2017. “Acquiescence and Resistance in Disconfirming Responses to Polar Questions.” Discourse Processes 54: 124–142. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maynard, Douglas W. 2003. Bad News, Good News: Conversational Order in Everyday Talk and Clinical Settings. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pomerantz, Anita. 1988. “Offering a Candidate Answer: An Information Seeking Strategy.” Communication Monographs 55: 360–373. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Raymond, Geoffrey. 2003. “Grammar and Social Organization: Yes/No Interrogatives and the Structure of Responding.” American Sociological Review 68: 939–967. 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, 87–107. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Raymond, Geoffrey, and John Heritage. 2006. “The Epistemics of Social Relations: Owning Grandchildren.” Language in Society 35: 677–705. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey. 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. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sadock, Jerrold, and Arnold Zwicky. 1985. “Speech Act Distinctions in Syntax.” In Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Volume 1, Clause Structure, ed. by Timothy Shopen, 155–196. 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
Sohn, Ho-Min. 1999. The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sorjonen, Marja-Leena. 2001. “Simple Answers to Polar Questions: The Case of Finnish.” In Studies in Interactional Linguistics, ed. by Margret Selting, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 405–431. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stivers, Tanya. 2005. “Modified Repeats: One Method for Asserting Primary Rights from Second Position.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 38: 131–158. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. “An Overview of Question-Response System in American English Conversation.” Journal of Pragmatics 42: 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
. 2019. “How We Manage Social Relationships through Answers to Questions: The Case of Interjections.” Discourse Processes 56: 191–209. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stivers, Tanya, and Makoto Hayashi. 2010. “Transformative Answers: One Way to Resist a Question’s Constraints.” Language in Society 39: 1–25. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Suh, Cheong-Soo. 2006. Korean Grammar. Seoul: Hanyang University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yoon, Kyung-Eun. 2010. “Questions and Responses in Korean Conversation.” Journal of Pragmatics 42: 2782–2798. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue