Managing common ground in foreign-language business telephone calls Gisela Redeker University of Groningen 5 th ABC Europe, Lugano, 31 May 2003

Outline Response tokens –definition –items –functions Examples from business phone calls Conclusions

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.

Items used as response tokens mhm/mm uh huh yeah/yah no oh okay

Functions of Response Tokens continuer acknowledgement news (dis)agreement, confirmation, denial elicit confirmation echo turn taking, turn completion

Example 1 off-record disagreement P: silence and minimal response M: silence, hesitations, hedging P is forcing M to take responsibility

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)

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