Chapter 5. Three practices for confirming inferences in French talk-in-interaction
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Rasmus Persson
Abstract
Three practices for doing confirmation in French are investigated (repetition, the particle voilà and the adverb/adjective exact(ement)) as responses to inferences, i.e., requests for confirmation that display some understanding of prior talk. While broadly restricted to the context of inferences, at a level of finer action-sequential granularity the paper looks in turn at responses to four different types of inference-making confirmation-seeking first pair parts. The analyses show how each confirmation practice does slightly different work depending on the type of initiating action, while some commonalities also hold for each confirmation practice across inference-types. Through repetitional confirmation, confirmers claim authorship over what is inferred. With voilà-confirmations, confirmers attribute some epistemic agency to the interlocutor with respect to the forming of the confirmable understanding. By confirming with exact(ement), confirmers treat the inference-producer as having reached the proffered understanding even more independently. The findings reveal both more context-free and more context-sensitive aspects of the work done by the response forms.
Abstract
Three practices for doing confirmation in French are investigated (repetition, the particle voilà and the adverb/adjective exact(ement)) as responses to inferences, i.e., requests for confirmation that display some understanding of prior talk. While broadly restricted to the context of inferences, at a level of finer action-sequential granularity the paper looks in turn at responses to four different types of inference-making confirmation-seeking first pair parts. The analyses show how each confirmation practice does slightly different work depending on the type of initiating action, while some commonalities also hold for each confirmation practice across inference-types. Through repetitional confirmation, confirmers claim authorship over what is inferred. With voilà-confirmations, confirmers attribute some epistemic agency to the interlocutor with respect to the forming of the confirmable understanding. By confirming with exact(ement), confirmers treat the inference-producer as having reached the proffered understanding even more independently. The findings reveal both more context-free and more context-sensitive aspects of the work done by the response forms.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgments vii
- Chapter 1. Introduction 1
- Chapter 2. Repetitional responses to polar questions in Russian conversation 40
- Chapter 3. Responding to polar questions in Brazilian Portuguese 76
- Chapter 4. Responses to polar questions in Polish 109
- Chapter 5. Three practices for confirming inferences in French talk-in-interaction 139
- Chapter 6. Complexities of responding 179
- Chapter 7. The division of labor between the particles jah and jaa ‘yes’ as responses to requests for confirmation in Estonian 210
- Chapter 8. Code-switching, agency, and the answer possibility space of Spanish-English bilinguals 239
- Chapter 9. Post-confirmation modifications 272
- Chapter 10. Responding to polar questions without a polarity item ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in Finnish 301
- Chapter 11. Renewing a social action in US primary care 328
- Chapter 12. Do English affirmative polar interrogatives with any favor negative responses? 350
- Appendix. Transcription conventions and symbols for glossing 377
- Subject index 381
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgments vii
- Chapter 1. Introduction 1
- Chapter 2. Repetitional responses to polar questions in Russian conversation 40
- Chapter 3. Responding to polar questions in Brazilian Portuguese 76
- Chapter 4. Responses to polar questions in Polish 109
- Chapter 5. Three practices for confirming inferences in French talk-in-interaction 139
- Chapter 6. Complexities of responding 179
- Chapter 7. The division of labor between the particles jah and jaa ‘yes’ as responses to requests for confirmation in Estonian 210
- Chapter 8. Code-switching, agency, and the answer possibility space of Spanish-English bilinguals 239
- Chapter 9. Post-confirmation modifications 272
- Chapter 10. Responding to polar questions without a polarity item ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in Finnish 301
- Chapter 11. Renewing a social action in US primary care 328
- Chapter 12. Do English affirmative polar interrogatives with any favor negative responses? 350
- Appendix. Transcription conventions and symbols for glossing 377
- Subject index 381
