Managing common ground in foreign-language business telephone calls

1
Managing common groundin foreign-language
business telephone calls 

• Gisela RedekerUniversity of Groningen
• 5th ABC Europe, Lugano, 31 May 2003

2
Outline

• Response tokens
• definition
• items
• functions
• Examples from business phone calls
• Conclusions

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Response Tokens

• Definition (adapted from Gardner 2001)
• Response tokens are conversational objects that
  indicate that a piece of talk has been registered
  by the recipient of that talk, claiming that the
  talk has been heard, acknowledged, and perhaps
  understood, assessed, or agreed with, or treated
  as news or not news.

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Items used as response tokens

• mhm/mm
• uh huh
• yeah/yah
• no
• oh
• okay

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Functions of Response Tokens

• continuer
• acknowledgement
• news
• (dis)agreement, confirmation, denial
• elicit confirmation
• echo
• turn taking, turn completion

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Example 1

• off-record disagreement
• P silence and minimal response
• M silence, hesitations, hedging
• P is forcing M to take responsibility

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Example 2

• fine-tuning an arrangement
• P minimal acknowledgements,
• hesitant/partial agreements,
• request specification, state constraint
• M amend and elaborate proposal
• acknowledge constraint (news receipt)

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Conclusions

• yeah and okay are often used for agreement or
  confirmation
• mhm and mm can be continuers but also (markedly?)
  minimal acknowledgements
• response tokens achieve interactional alignment
  by cueing common ground