3.1Intimate imperatives in formulating here-and-now directives and requests

The intimate imperatives are prevalently used when the speaker directs or requests the recipient to carry out the nominated action here-and-now, such as when one provides an instructional directive (e.g., giving directions) or makes a request to mobilize other speakers to do something (e.g., reach for an object). Excerpt (3) shows a case where the speaker uses an imperative form to initiate a directive. Two cousins, Jin and Mia, have just entered the parking lot of a department store. Jin is driving and Mia is in the passenger seat, and it is raining as they arrive.

As Jin wonders about the parking, Mia directs him to drive into the underground parking structure and provides accounts for this directive (the rain and the parking structure’s depth, which means it will have many spaces). Mia’s directive is constructed with the intimate imperative (tuleka ‘enter + imperative a’), as shown in line 2. The use of an imperative is warranted when both participants have a joint project or goal (Rossi 2012Rossi, Giovanni 2012 “Bilateral and Unilateral Requests: The Use of Imperatives and mi X? Interrogatives in Italian.” Discourse Processes 49: 426–458. ; Wootton 1997Wootton, Anthony 1997 Interaction and the Development of Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ) or when there is a pressing or urgent need for the nominated action (Goodwin and Cekaite 2013Goodwin, Marjorie Harness, and Asta Cekaite 2013 “Calibration in Directive/Response Sequences in Family Interaction.” Journal of Pragmatics 46 (1): 122–138. ; Mondada 2017Mondada, Lorenza 2017 “Precision Timing and Timed Embeddedness of Imperatives in Embodied Courses of Action: Examples from French.” In Imperative Turns at Talk: The Design of Directives in Action, ed. by Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Liisa Raevaara, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 65–101. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ). Mia’s directive meets both conditions: Mia and Jin share the same goal of finding a parking spot and there is an imminent need to park the car. Moreover, Mia is more familiar with the parking situation, as demonstrated in lines 4–5 wherein she questions Jin’s familiarity with the place. When Mia reissues the same instruction in line 7, she again constructs it with the intimate imperative (tuleka ‘enter + imperative a’).

It is consistently observed across the data collection that practical, everyday, here-and-now actions that require the recipient to do something for the requester are formatted with the intimate imperatives. In Excerpt (4), Ara and Jun are watching a soccer game on the television right in front of them. While they are both gazing at the television, Ara starts to take off her earrings (line 1) and makes a request to Jun to fetch her jewelry box for her (line 2).

Compared to Excerpt (3), here the speaker’s request is a unilateral request (Rossi 2012Rossi, Giovanni 2012 “Bilateral and Unilateral Requests: The Use of Imperatives and mi X? Interrogatives in Italian.” Discourse Processes 49: 426–458. ) made to the benefit of the requester only. However, what is requested is a low-cost action as it is compatible with the current situation of the requestee. Jun, who is watching the game, simply stretches his upper body to reach for the jewelry box in front of him. Cross-linguistically, low-cost actions tend to be requested via imperatives (Rossi 2017Rossi, Giovanni 2017 “Secondary and Deviant Uses of the Imperative in Italian.” In Imperative Turns at Talk: The Design of Directives in Action, ed. by Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Liisa Raevaara, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 103–137. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ; Sorjonen et al. 2017Sorjonen, Marja-Leena, Liisa Raevaara, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen eds. 2017 Imperative Turns at Talk: The Design of Directives in Action. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ). In contrast, interrogatives are usually used instead of imperatives to request high-cost actions; that is, when the requested action is not contiguous to what the recipient is doing, and carrying out the request requires the suspension of the recipient’s own activity. Note that, in constructing this low-cost request, the intimate imperative is again deployed (line 2, kkenay cwe ‘take out for me + imperative e’).

In contrast to intimate imperatives, plain imperatives are rarely used for here-and-now actions. Among the few instances, one occurs about two minutes earlier in the same interaction from which Excerpt (4) is taken. In Excerpt (5), while Ara and Jun are watching the soccer game, Ara shouts out what she thinks the players should do.

Here, Ara’s turn begins with a plain imperative urging the players to kick the ball harder (chala ‘kick + ala’) followed by a series of complaintive wh rhetorical questions (lines 1–2, ‘What are (you) doing?’, ‘Why did (you) let the (ball) get stolen again?’). While Ara’s imperative turn in Excerpt (4), line 2 makes a concrete request to a co-participant, her plain imperative in Excerpt (5), line 1 is not really directing the players, but rather a rhetorical display of her dissatisfaction with their performance. The rhetorical nature of her directive is clear due to the context (the players are not co-present) as well as her delivery, which is in a high pitch (marked by ↑) and a loud voice (marked by capital letters). This finding is in line with a suggestion made by Lee (1994)Lee, Hyo Sang 1994 “Discourse-Pragmatic Functions of Sentence-type Suffixes in Informal Discourse in Korean.” In Theoretical Issues in Korean Linguistics, ed. by Young-Key Kim-Renaud, 517–539. Stanford, CA: CSLI. that speakers use plain imperatives when circumstances are counter to the speaker’s liking or an assumed norm. Lee’s discourse functional perspective is in contrast to the majority of studies that discuss the function of the plain imperative in terms of speech level and politeness (Han 2004Han, Kil 2004 Hyondae uri mal ui mach’im ssikkut yon’gu [A study on Korean sentence-enders]. Seoul: Yeklak.; Kim et al. 2005Kim, Joungsook, Dongho Park, Byungkyu Lee, Hyeyoung Lee, Heejung Jung, Jungsoon Choi, and Yong Huh 2005 Oegugin ul wihan han’gugo munpop 1 [Korean grammar for foreign language learners 1]. Seoul: Communication Books.). However, while Lee is concerned with what is going on in an individual speaker’s mind, the current study aims to understand how the choice of the plain imperative emerges in interaction (the interactional trajectory in which the plain imperative occurs and which it invokes) and what actions the speaker implements through the choice. In the following section, we examine cases in which the plain and intimate imperatives are directed to an existing co-participant to see how these different choices of imperatives emerge in the course of interaction.

3.2Alternate imperative choices for the same verb

The differences between the intimate imperatives and plain imperatives become more evident when we examine their use with the same action verb. In Excerpts (6) and (7), the speakers construct imperative turns with the verb yayki ha- ‘to talk’. Let’s first look at the case of the intimate imperative, yayki hay ‘talk’, in Excerpt (6), from a telephone call between two friends, Jia and Bom. In the midst of their call, Jia announces that her son is visiting her at home (line 1), and she has her son and Bom talk to one another.

Both when Jia asks Bom to talk to her son (Aiden) in line 2, and when she asks her son to talk to Bom (referred to as “auntie”) in line 9, she uses the intimate imperative (yayki hay ‘Talk (with him)’, mal hay ‘Talk (with auntie).’). Although Jia’s requests are somewhat abrupt, Jia anticipates compliance; indeed, the recipients display no problem with Jia’s action and comply happily with the request, as shown in lines 10–11, in which they greet one another enthusiastically.

Next, let’s examine how a turn with the same verb but with the plain imperative, yayki hayla ‘talk’, emerges in interaction. Excerpt (7)11.Parts of Excerpt (7) are discussed by Kuroshima et al. (2021Kuroshima, Satomi, Stephanie Hyeri Kim, Kaoru Hayano, Mary Shin Kim, and Seung Hee Lee 2021 “When OKAY Is Repeated: Closing the Talk So Far in Korean and Japanese Conversations.” In Okay Across Languages: Toward a Comparative Approach to Its Use in Talk-in-Interaction, ed. by Emma Betz, Arnulf Deppermann, Lorenza Mondada, and Marja-Leena Sorjonen, 235–265. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , 249–251) in analyzing the usage of the duplicated okay (line 27). comes from a telephone call in which Sue tells her friend Hee, who lives in New York City (NYC), about the beautiful scenery she enjoyed during a road trip from Buffalo to NYC.

Sue and Hee repeatedly tease one another throughout the storytelling. While telling her story, Sue first teases Hee as someone who lacks appreciation (lines 13–14) of the beauty of nature. In response, Hee initially simply laughs (line 15), but later begins to more actively challenge Sue by claiming her own appreciation and knowledge of the beautiful scenery in question, based on her own prior travel experience (lines 22–23). Sue outright rejects Hee’s account (line 24), and in return Hee rebuts Sue’s remark with an account of her own independent recent knowledge of the scenery (lines 25–26). Sue proposes to close this playful tug of war with the duplicated okay (Kuroshima et al. 2021Kuroshima, Satomi, Stephanie Hyeri Kim, Kaoru Hayano, Mary Shin Kim, and Seung Hee Lee 2021 “When OKAY Is Repeated: Closing the Talk So Far in Korean and Japanese Conversations.” In Okay Across Languages: Toward a Comparative Approach to Its Use in Talk-in-Interaction, ed. by Emma Betz, Arnulf Deppermann, Lorenza Mondada, and Marja-Leena Sorjonen, 235–265. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , 251) and continues to tell her story, talking about the animals she saw while on the road (line 27 and omitted lines 28–37). Now, Hee reciprocates the teasing: she portrays Sue as inconsiderately sitting back to enjoy her animal-watching, entirely carefree, while others do the driving (lines 38–39). In response, Sue first corrects Hee’s understanding of the matter (lines 40–41). Then, at this interactional juncture, in which Sue and Hee are again at odds with one another, Sue constructs a plain imperative directive in line 43 (‘Huh, for god’s sake, hear me ou:t.’). Much as in Excerpt (5), this plain imperative turn serves to display the speaker’s complaint about the recipient, while expressing the speaker’s wish that the recipient would correct their ongoing action or fault (corrective instructions; Deppermann 2018Deppermann, Arnulf 2018 “Instruction Practices in German Driving Lessons: Differential Uses of Declaratives and Imperatives.” International Journal of Applied Linguistics 28 (2): 265–282. ); in Excerpt (5), Ara’s wish that the soccer player would perform better, and here, Sue’s wish that Hee will stop challenging her and let her get to the point of her story. The speakers continue to playfully tease and challenge one another (lines 44–49), and eventually Sue issues another plain imperatively formatted turn in line 50 (solcikhi yayki hay-la ‘Talk frankly’), urging Hee to be straight with her. As we see here once again, the plain imperative directives are consistently used for disaffiliative actions.

Excerpts (6) and (7) clearly show that social and interpersonal factors such as age difference or relative power are insufficient to explain or warrant the use of one imperative form over the other. In Excerpt (7), Sue uses the plain imperative to Hee, who is the younger friend (as shown by Hee addressing Sue as enni ‘sister’ in lines 22 and 38). In Excerpt (6), Jia uses the intimate imperative to her friend, Bom, and to her son, Aiden, regardless of their different relationships to her. In both excerpts, then, the speakers’ choice of imperative form is not determined by an age or power difference. Rather, the two types of imperative turns perform different actions and pursue diverging interactional trajectories. Their combination with same verb, yayki ha- ‘to talk’, highlights the contrast (Excerpt [6], line 2 and Excerpt [7], line 50). The intimate imperatives are used when the speaker does not expect the recipient to have any problem following through with the nominated action, thereby projecting the speaker’s and the recipient’s collaboration in further advancing the interactional trajectory of the moment: Bom and Aiden happily speak to each other, as directed by Jia (Excerpt [6], lines 10–11). The plain imperatives are used when the speaker and the recipient are at odds, displaying disaffiliative stances, thereby projecting that the speaker and recipient will continue to challenge or disagree with one another: indeed, Sue and Hee continue to mock each other (Excerpt [7], lines 51–53).

3.3Alternate imperative choices by the same speaker

The differences between the intimate imperative and plain imperative are again testified in the following excerpt in which the same speaker deploys different imperatives. Excerpt (8) comes from a telephone call between a mother and a son talking about an upcoming visit to the son’s place by an elder of their church (lines 1–5).

As the son complains about the stress of the upcoming visit (lines 4, 6–7), his mother suggests he prepare only simple dishes (lines 8–11). The son continues to complain as he recollects the unexpectedly high cost of the last such visit he hosted (lines 12–13). In response, in line 14, his mother begins her turn with kulem, equivalent to ‘of course’ in English (Stivers 2011Stivers, Tanya 2011 “Morality and Question Design: ‘Of Course’ as Contesting a Presupposition of Askability.” In The Morality of Knowing in Conversation, ed. by Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada, and Jacob Steensig, 82–106. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ), which treats the alternative, such an occasion costing less, as inconceivable. Furthermore, the mother constructs an imperatively formatted turn with po- ‘see’, but here the verb is used with the plain imperative (cyay com pwala ‘Look at him.’). Unlike the imperatively formatted turn in line 10, where the mother empathizes with the son’s concern and gives advice to solve the problem, here the mother is displaying disaffiliation with her son’s surprise at the high cost of hosting the elder. She thus distances herself from his inconceivable-to-her implication that such an occasion could cost less. Furthermore, the mother immediately underlines her disaffiliative stance in line 15 by firmly asserting the high cost with the sentence-ending suffix ci, which serves to display the speaker’s strong commitment toward the proposition (Lee 1999Lee, Hyo Sang 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. ), as well as another kulem ‘of course’ (kulem pissa-ci ‘Of course, it is (indeed) expensive.’).

As shown in Excerpts (3)–(8), whether the imperatively formatted turns serve to mandate the recipient to carry out a concrete action (e.g., ‘Take that out for me.’) or to figuratively display the speaker’s attitude or stance toward the recipient or another party (e.g., ‘Look at him.’), the speaker’s choice of the intimate imperative or the plain imperative hinges on the interactional trajectory in which the imperative occurs and which it invokes and what action the speaker implements through the choice rather than the interpersonal relationship of the participants. This is clearly demonstrated in Excerpt (8), in which the mother deploys different imperatives: in line 14, when she disagrees with her son regarding the expected cost, she deploys the plain imperative. However, in line 10, when she gives advice to her son to alleviate his stress over preparing for the elder’s visit, she deploys the intimate imperative (‘Prepare just simple side dishes.’). The cases of imperatives implementing remote actions, such as providing advice as seen in line 10, will be examined further in the following section.

The examination of naturally occurring interactional data explains why intimate imperatives, and not plain imperatives, are dominantly used for here-and-now actions. Studies show that in requesting here-and-now actions (e.g., to be passed an object), the choice of imperative is warranted when the speakers are carrying out an on-going activity in which both parties are already engaged and aligned (Rossi 2012Rossi, Giovanni 2012 “Bilateral and Unilateral Requests: The Use of Imperatives and mi X? Interrogatives in Italian.” Discourse Processes 49: 426–458. , 2017Rossi, Giovanni 2017 “Secondary and Deviant Uses of the Imperative in Italian.” In Imperative Turns at Talk: The Design of Directives in Action, ed. by Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Liisa Raevaara, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 103–137. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ). The intimate imperative is apt for such here-and-now actions as it helps construct turns that are aligned with another participant’s turns in terms of the action and activity they are engaged in. In contrast, the plain imperative, which projects a disaligned action and/or disaffiliative stance, is rarely observed when speakers are carrying out a joint activity or project.

4.1Imperatives in the context of advice-giving

The differences between the two imperatives are again demonstrated when they are used in giving advice in response to another speaker’s troubles-telling or complaint talk. Let’s first consider an example of an intimate imperative usage between two friends. Before Excerpt (9) begins, Bum has been extensively telling Nam about the trouble he has been experiencing in an immigration-related process.

Bum is describing his trouble trying to find his selective service number. Such troubles-telling establishes advice-giving as a relevant next action by the addressee (Thompson and Couper-Kuhlen 2020Thompson, Sandra A., and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen 2020 “English Why Don’t You X as a Formulaic Expression.” In Fixed Expressions: Building Language Structure and Action, ed. by Tsuyoshi Ono, and Ritva Laury, 99–132. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , 104), and indeed, Nam offers several ideas to try to help Bum solve his problem (lines 1–6). Nam finally advises Bum to directly call the relevant institution (lines 7–8), formulating this advice with the intimate imperative. Although the advice turns out not to be useful, it is nevertheless aligned with Bum’s troubles-telling as it displays Nam’s wish to help Bum find a solution to his problem.

As seen in Excerpt (9), as well as in Excerpt (8) (line 10), intimate imperatives are used when a speaker reports his or her trouble, and another speaker, taking the trouble as a problem to be solved, actively joins in finding a solution to the problem. Now let’s examine a case in which the plain imperative is used for giving advice between two friends. In the case of the intimate imperative, the advisor shows alignment, empathizing with the troubles-teller. In Excerpt (10), however, the advice is a disaffiliated response to the speaker’s trouble. The segment comes from a telephone call between two friends.

Ain expresses frustration with her long hair (‘It’s driving me crazy.’), and her need for a perm or some other measure (lines 2–3). Similar to troubles-telling, such complaining establishes advice-giving as the next relevant action (Thompson and Couper-Kuhlen 2020Thompson, Sandra A., and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen 2020 “English Why Don’t You X as a Formulaic Expression.” In Fixed Expressions: Building Language Structure and Action, ed. by Tsuyoshi Ono, and Ritva Laury, 99–132. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , 104). In response, in line 4, Boa advises Ain to just tie her hair up. With this advice, Boa is not treating Ain’s trouble as an important problem; according to Boa, there is an easy fix, so Ain does not need to do anything particular. This engenders what Jefferson and Lee (1981)Jefferson, Gail, and John Lee 1981 “The Rejection of Advice: Managing the Problematic Convergence of a ‘Troubles-Telling’ and a ‘Service Encounter’.” Journal of Pragmatics 5 (5): 399–422. called “interactional asynchrony”: Ain takes her trouble seriously while Boa views it as unimportant. Boa formats her incongruent advice with the plain imperative. The subsequent interaction also shows a sharp contrast to the interactions in Excerpt (9), in which the intimate imperative was deployed. Boa’s advice receives challenge from the troubles-teller, Ain. In lines 5 and 7, Ain expresses her view that Boa’s suggestion would only be a temporary measure and asks whether Boa will be accountable for her hair. Thus, we see that the two imperative formats lead to diverging interactional trajectories. A teller of troubles does not challenge or problematize advice designed with the intimate imperative. On the other hand, advice designed with the plain imperative can engender different types of responses from the troubles-teller, as the plain imperative makes relevant that the two speakers are at odds in terms of the actions they are engaged in and/or the stances they hold.

The following excerpt shows another case in which the speakers are at odds with one another in regard to whether they view a problem as genuine trouble. This talk is between two sisters, Min and Joo.

When Joo self-deprecates about her weight gain (lines 1–12), Min rebukes Joo for portraying it as a problem (line 13, ‘You’re calling that a weight gain?’). She expands on her disapproval by reporting this news to her husband, who is next to her (line 15). She then tells Joo to eat more (line 16). As a response to Joo’s characterization of her weight gain as a problem, this is contradictory advice. The advice embodying disaffiliation toward the prior speaker’s troubles-telling is again designed with the plain imperative, not the intimate imperative. Similar to the interaction in Excerpt (10), the incongruent advice receives resistance from the troubles-teller (line 17, ‘I eat.’). Couper-Kuhlen and Thompson (2022)Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth, and Sandra A. Thompson 2022 “Action Ascription and Deonticity in Everyday Advice-Giving Sequences.” In Action Ascription in Social Interaction, ed. by Arnulf Deppermann, and Michael Haugh, 183–207. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. found that advice formulated in the deontically strongest format, an imperative, is frequently met with resistance by the recipients. This observation resonates particularly well with the current data of advice-giving turns designed with the Korean plain imperative. As we have seen, in these excerpts, the advice-giver and the recipient hold different stances toward the trouble; accordingly, the recipient takes the advice to be disaffiliative and resists it.

Interestingly, the same speaker, Min, provides another suggestion to her younger sister, ten minutes prior to Excerpt (11). But in Excerpt (12), line 2, she deploys the intimate imperative to do so.

Joo informs Min that her hair is quite long, and Min advises her to have it styled. This advice is formulated as an intimate imperative turn (line 2), and it is aligned to and affiliated with the recipient’s prior turn, as borne out in the following exchange, where Joo and Min exchange ideas related to the advice, such as the possibility of getting a perm (lines 3–8). This hair advice and the subsequent interactional trajectory show a sharp contrast to Boa’s hair advice in Excerpt (10) (‘Just leave your hair tied up.’), which is met with challenge by the recipient; in Excerpt (12), both parties are jointly engaged in finding a solution. Excerpts (11) and (12) again confirm that the choice of imperatives is not explained solely by interpersonal social factors or politeness, as the same speaker deploys different imperative choices to the same recipient depending on the action implemented and stance conveyed in the course of the interaction.

4.2Ironic imperatives

As the plain imperatives routinely serve to display disaffiliation, they are readily deployed to express ironic criticism, as shown in the following excerpts. Excerpt (13) comes from a conversation between a younger brother and his older sister. When the sister makes an exaggerated report that everyone at her school smokes, the brother accuses her of smoking as well (lines 1–4). When the sister denies it, the brother accuses her of lying, and it turns into a jocular exchange in which they pretend that the sister really does smoke (lines 5–11).

Still joking, the younger brother further threatens to tell their mother that the sister smokes (line 12). Note how his sister responds: She repeats the verb in the brother’s turn using the plain imperative form, and tells him to go ahead and tell their mother (line 13). On the surface, the sister may seem to be going along with the proposed action (telling their mother), but this is a case of what Aikhenvald (2010Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2010 Imperatives and Commands. Oxford: Oxford University Press., 245) called the ironic imperative. The sister is not literally directing the brother to tell their mother, but expressing annoyance at his announced action (‘Go ahead and tell her, I don’t care.’). This ironic imperative is prosodically prominent, as the talk is rushed or compressed (marked by > <), and the plain imperatives are delivered in a high pitch (marked by ↑).

While the sister initially went along with her brother’s joke, admitting that she does smoke and even apologizing (lines 7, 9, 11), with her plain imperative formatted response from line 13, she is no longer co-participating in the joke. She does not pretend to be threatened or scared by her brother. After all, the threat is based on a bogus accusation. As the brother further vows to tell their mother, the sister makes a long lip-smacking sound displaying her disapproval and disaffiliation toward the brother, who continues to tease her (lines 15–16).

Excerpt (14) shows another case of the plain imperative deployed in an ironic imperative use. This is a conversation between two close acquaintances who recently finished their studies in the United States. They are discussing whether to stay or return to Korea. Sol is older than Eun.

While Sol expresses her wish to stay in the United States, Eun displays her willingness to return to Korea (lines 1–8). Both are speaking in a joking manner: Sol exaggerates how hard she is working to stay, while Eun proclaims her willingness to return to Korea and “be scolded” (a euphemistic reference to difficulties she expects to face upon returning). Note how Sol responds using the plain imperative (line 9, ‘Yeah, get scolded.’). Similar to Excerpt (13), here Sol is not literally directing Eun to go through hardship, but mocking Eun for being willing to do so (‘Go ahead and get scolded if you want.’). In this way, Sol, who is trying so hard to remain in the United States, is disaffiliating with Eun.

As all the above excerpts have shown, the plain imperative is a marked form compared to the intimate imperative in terms of the actions it implements, the interactional trajectory in which it occurs or that it invokes, and the disaffiliative stance it displays. Likewise, the plain imperative is often prosodically more marked than the intimate imperative. The plain imperative is frequently delivered in a high pitch or with stress (Excerpts [5], [10], [13], [14]).

4.3Alternate imperative forms for discrete actions and stances

As we have seen in the data examined thus far, the two types of imperative turns perform different actions and pursue diverging interactional trajectories. Let’s revisit Excerpts (1) and (2) to verify these findings. Excerpt (1), repeated here, shows a case in which the recipient uses the intimate imperative. The interaction occurs toward the end of a telephone call between two friends of the same age.

Speaker A promises that she will call again later (‘I will call (you) later again.’). In response, speaker B displays agreement (‘Yes, okay.’), then repeats, in an intimate imperative form, exactly what speaker A just promised (‘Call (me) later again.’). B not only endorses, but further directs A to follow through with her just-announced intention. As a result, B’s imperative turn elicits a compliance response from A (line 4).

Next, Excerpt (2) is part (lines 11–15) of the longer sequence of interaction in Excerpt (15). Let’s examine in detail how the choice of a plain imperative here is different from the choice of the intimate imperative in Excerpt (1).

At the beginning of this talk, A complains that B has been difficult to reach by phone (lines 1–5). A’s complaining stance re-emerges toward the end of the call. After A and B agree to coordinate their trips to Korea (lines 6–10), B promises that she will contact A (line 11 ‘I will keep in touch.’). Similar to Excerpt (1), in response to the promise, A displays agreement (line 12 ‘Yeah, okay.’), but then abruptly seeks B’s attention with the discourse particle ya ‘Hey!’, indexing a disjunctive transition (Kim 2018Kim, Mary Shin 2018 “The Korean Vocative Interjection Ya ‘Hey’ Beyond Its Summoning Action.” In Japanese/Korean Linguistics 25, ed. by Shin Fukuda, Mary Shin Kim, and Mee-Jeong Park, 341–354. Stanford, CA: CSLI.; Kim et al. 2021Kim, Mary Shin, Stephanie Hyeri Kim, and Sung-Ock Sohn 2021 “The Korean Discourse Particle Ya Across Multiple Turn Positions: An Interactional Resource for Turn-taking and Stance-taking.” Journal of Pragmatics 186: 251–276. ). A then cries out to B to call her, deploying the plain imperative (line 14). This plain imperative turn clearly conveys a different action and stance than the intimate imperative in Excerpt (1). While the intimate imperative supports and encourages the action the prior speaker has announced, the plain imperative demands the other speaker follow through on her promise. A makes her complaining, disaffiliative stance evident throughout their interaction, first bringing up the difficulty of reaching B (lines 1–5) and then making it clear that B has not tried as hard as A to keep in touch (line 14, ‘You too (should call me).’). Even after B agrees (line 15), A reiterates the instruction (line 16). Although it was B who initially said she would keep in touch (line 11), A keeps pressing the point, and she deploys the plain imperative to do so (e.g., ‘You better call me!’).

On the surface, the imperative turn in Excerpt (15) resembles the one in Excerpt (1). However, the two imperatives show differences in terms of the actions they implement, the interactional trajectories in which they occur and that they invoke, and the stances they display.

The two imperatives are better understood as alternative grammatical resources that serve particular interactional pragmatic functions than as markers that index levels of (im)politeness or social relationships.