Table Of ContentS
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Jun Xu
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John Benjamins Publishing Company
Displaying Recipiency
Studies in Chinese Language and Discourse (SCLD)
issn 1879-5382
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Volume 6
Displaying Recipiency. Reactive tokens in Mandarin task-oriented interaction
by Jun Xu
Displaying Recipiency
Reactive tokens in Mandarin
task-oriented interaction
Jun Xu
Hunan University
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8
the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
doi 10.1075/scld.6
Cataloging-in-Publication Data available from Library of Congress:
lccn 2016025742 (print) / 2016039941 (e-book)
isbn 978 90 272 0186 7 (Hb)
isbn 978 90 272 6657 6 (e-book)
© 2016 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
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John Benjamins Publishing Company · https://benjamins.com
Table of contents
Acknowledgements ix
Abbreviations xi
List of tables xiii
List of figures xv
List of graphs xvii
chapter 1
Introduction 1
1.1 Aspects of conversation 3
1.2 Dichotomy in relation to reactive tokens 4
1.3 Organization of the book 6
chapter 2
Reactive tokens in English and Mandarin conversation 7
2.1 Previous studies on reactive tokens 7
2.2 A survey of reactive tokens in English conversation 9
2.2.1 ‘Mm’ 9
2.2.2 ‘Mm hm’ 10
2.2.3 ‘Yeah’/‘Yes’ 11
2.2.4 ‘Uh huh’ 12
2.2.5 ‘Oh’ 14
2.2.6 ‘Okay’ 15
2.2.7 ‘Right’ 16
2.2.8 Confirmatory repeats 17
2.2.9 Collaborative productions 20
2.2.10 Laughter tokens 21
2.2.11 Summary 23
2.3 Reactive tokens in Mandarin conversation 23
chapter 3
Data and approach 31
3.1 Data collection through the map task 31
3.1.1 The map task 31
3.1.2 Settings and participants 32
vi Displaying Recipiency: Reactive Tokens in Mandarin Task-Oriented Interaction
3.1.3 Instruments and procedures 35
3.1.4 A summary of the data 36
3.1.5 Potential limitations of the map task 37
3.1.6 Reactive tokens in relation to the map task data 38
3.2 Approaches to data analysis 39
3.2.1 Aspects of conversation analysis 39
3.2.2 Deviant case analysis in conversation analysis 41
3.2.3 The use of recorded data in conversation analysis 42
3.2.4 The procedures of conversation analysis 43
3.2.5 A pplications of conversation analysis in Mandarin
conversation 44
3.3 Two types of sequences: Adjacency pairs and direction-giving
sequences 45
3.3.1 Adjacency pairs 45
3.3.2 Direction-giving sequences 47
3.4 Some preliminary concepts 49
3.4.1 The turn constructional unit in Mandarin conversation 50
3.4.2 Complex transition relevance places 52
3.5 Summary 56
chapter 4
A sequential analysis of reactive tokens in Mandarin 57
4.1 The working definition and categorization of Mandarin
reactive tokens 57
4.2 A sequential analysis of reactive tokens 65
4.2.1 Backchannels 66
4.2.2 Reactive expressions 77
4.2.3 Composites 86
4.2.4 Repeats 94
4.2.5 Collaborative productions 96
4.2.6 Laughter tokens 103
4.3 A deviant case of ‘mm’ 109
4.4 A summary of conversational actions through reactive tokens 111
chapter 5
Displaying levels of recipiency through reactive tokens 117
5.1 The role of recipients 117
5.2 The concept of recipiency 118
5.2.1 Recipiency and participation 119
5.2.2 Recipiency and response 120
Table of contents vii
5.2.3 Recipiency and affiliation 121
5.2.4 Other relevant terms in relation to recipiency 122
5.3 Displaying recipiency through reactive tokens as a social action 124
5.4 Conversational identities as speakers and recipients 125
5.5 A sequential analysis of displaying levels of recipiency through reactive
tokens 128
5.5.1 A bsence of displaying recipiency in the absence of reactive
tokens 128
5.5.2 Displaying passive recipiency through backchannels 130
5.5.3 Displaying neutral recipiency through reactive expressions 134
5.5.4 D isplaying active recipiency through repeats and
collaborative productions 136
5.5.5 Displaying affiliative recipiency through laughter tokens 139
chapter 6
Selection of reactive tokens in information mismatch sequences 145
6.1 Information mismatch sequences 145
6.2 Type I: Label change 146
6.2.1 Episode One by NNSs (17 Turns): Daxingxing (大猩猩) 146
6.2.2 Episode Two by NSs (4 Turns): Chazhuang xiliu (叉状溪流) 154
6.3 Type II: Absence or presence 156
6.3.1 Episode Three by NNSs (8 Turns): Shangdian (商店) 156
6.3.2 Episode Four by NSs (4 Turns): Gengdi (耕地) 159
6.4 Type III: Number inconsistency 161
6.4.1 Episode Five by NNSs (21 Turns): Louti (楼梯) 162
6.4.2 Episode Six by NSs (6 Turns): Mishide jiaobu (迷失的脚步) 167
6.5 Summary 170
chapter 7
Conclusion 173
7.1 Summary 173
7.2 Limitations and further work 178
References 181
Appendix 191
List of Names 195
List of Subjects 197
Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to many people, in the United Kingdom and China, who have
given me inspiration, understanding and confidence during the development and
writing of this book.
First and foremost, I would like to thank Professor Rebecca Hughes, who sup-
ported me steadfastly, with a great deal of confidence and trust. I am indebted
to Dr. Beatrice Szczepek Reed and Professor Liz Hymp-Lyons, for their helpful
and insightful comments. I wish to thank Professor Ronald Carter and Professor
Hongyin Tao for their trust and encouragement. Of course, I am solely responsible
for any errors or shortfalls remaining in the book.
I thank especially the anonymous participants, students from Hunan Uni-
versity and members of staff from Ningbo Campus of the University of Notting-
ham, in the three separate projects in 2004, 2005 and 2006. I am grateful to my
colleagues, Yan Yang and Shengli Wang at Hunan University, who introduced
me to some of the participants in this study. In addition, I would like to pay
tribute to the support I have had from my home institution, Hunan University,
in China.
I would like to thank my parents, sisters and family. Although my parents and
sisters did not always fully understand what I was doing, they always supported
me and had faith in me. My husband, Tong Shu, always provided me with techni-
cal support in using computers, and my daughter, Xin Shu, showed great patience
and understanding towards my work.
I am very thankful for Prof. Chris Sinha for reading the revised draft of the
final manuscript and providing me with various encouraging comments and
insights to improve expression, style and organization of the book. I especially
wish to thank Prof. Hongyin Tao for his thoughtful encouragement that has sup-
ported me to overcome the difficulties during the final stage of my little book. I
would also like to thank Prof. Zhengguang Liu who generously supported me in
the course of updating the book.
This monogragh is an updated version of my Chinese book Linguistic Resources
in Mandarin Chinese Conversation (hanyu huihua yuyan celue) (Xu, 2012) pub-
lished by Hunan University Press in China. An earlier version of Chapter 5 of this
monograph was published in the Journal of Pragmatics (Xu, 2014).
