Home Chapter 11. OKAY projecting embodied compliance to directives
Chapter
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Chapter 11. OKAY projecting embodied compliance to directives

  • Leelo Keevallik and Matylda Weidner
View more publications by John Benjamins Publishing Company
Search
OKAY across Languages
This chapter is in the book OKAY across Languages

Abstract

This chapter on Estonian and Polish OKAY focuses on complying responses to high entitlement directives. The responses are built of two parts, the verbal OKAY that completes the adjacency pair and an embodied compliance that ensues. The OKAY provides an immediate verbal notification and acceptance of the suggested action trajectory, which is relevant for the co-participants’ continuing coordination of activities in progress, while the projected embodied compliance is necessarily deferred. By looking at two genetically and historically unrelated languages and showing a similar response pattern in them, we hope to illustrate the general interactional potential of the particle OKAY, and perhaps begin to understand some of its cross-linguistic allure.

Abstract

This chapter on Estonian and Polish OKAY focuses on complying responses to high entitlement directives. The responses are built of two parts, the verbal OKAY that completes the adjacency pair and an embodied compliance that ensues. The OKAY provides an immediate verbal notification and acceptance of the suggested action trajectory, which is relevant for the co-participants’ continuing coordination of activities in progress, while the projected embodied compliance is necessarily deferred. By looking at two genetically and historically unrelated languages and showing a similar response pattern in them, we hope to illustrate the general interactional potential of the particle OKAY, and perhaps begin to understand some of its cross-linguistic allure.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements vii
  4. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  5. Chapter 2. Data and methods used in the study of OKAY across languages 29
  6. Generic sequential uses of OKAY across languages
  7. Chapter 3. OKAY in responding and claiming understanding 55
  8. Chapter 4. OKAY in closings and transitions 93
  9. OKAY in specific languages
  10. Chapter 5. The prosody and phonetics of OKAY in American English 131
  11. Chapter 6. Rising OKAY in third position in Danish talk-in-interaction 175
  12. Chapter 7. OKAY as a response to informings in Finnish 205
  13. Chapter 8. When OKAY is repeated 235
  14. OKAY in specific activities and settings
  15. Chapter 9. OKAY in health helpline calls in Brazil 269
  16. Chapter 10. A resource for action transition 301
  17. Chapter 11. OKAY projecting embodied compliance to directives 337
  18. Chapter 12. Coordination of OKAY, nods, and gaze in claiming understanding and closing topics 363
  19. Appendix. Transcription conventions and glossing symbols 395
  20. Bibliography 401
  21. Name index 433
  22. Subject index 437
https://doi.org/10.1075/slsi.34.11kee

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements vii
  4. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  5. Chapter 2. Data and methods used in the study of OKAY across languages 29
  6. Generic sequential uses of OKAY across languages
  7. Chapter 3. OKAY in responding and claiming understanding 55
  8. Chapter 4. OKAY in closings and transitions 93
  9. OKAY in specific languages
  10. Chapter 5. The prosody and phonetics of OKAY in American English 131
  11. Chapter 6. Rising OKAY in third position in Danish talk-in-interaction 175
  12. Chapter 7. OKAY as a response to informings in Finnish 205
  13. Chapter 8. When OKAY is repeated 235
  14. OKAY in specific activities and settings
  15. Chapter 9. OKAY in health helpline calls in Brazil 269
  16. Chapter 10. A resource for action transition 301
  17. Chapter 11. OKAY projecting embodied compliance to directives 337
  18. Chapter 12. Coordination of OKAY, nods, and gaze in claiming understanding and closing topics 363
  19. Appendix. Transcription conventions and glossing symbols 395
  20. Bibliography 401
  21. Name index 433
  22. Subject index 437
Sign up now to receive a 20% welcome discount
Institutional Access
How does access work?
Have an idea on how to improve our website?
Please write us.
© 2025 De Gruyter Brill
Downloaded on 22.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1075/slsi.34.11kee/html?lang=en
Scroll to top button