Dui bu dui as a pragmatic marker: evidence from chinese classrom discourse

ELSEVJER Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2001) 1441-1465

www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma

Dui bu dui as a pragmatic marker: Evidence from Chinese classroom discourse*

Yiya Chen, Agnes Weiyun He

Linguistics Department, State University of New York at Stony Brook, NY 11794-4376, USA

Received 14 October 1998; revised version 11 December 2000

Abstract

Seeking evidence from its discursive purposes, its sequential positions in interaction, and the nature of the activity it is situated in, we reexamine the form dui bu dui ‘correct-not-correct’ that was used during four class meetings, a total of six hours, in a Chinese language school. We propose that besides functioning as an A-not-A question, dui bu dui can also be used for pragmatic purposes. We show that appearing at the beginning or the end of TCU, dui bu dui is used as a basic marker to reinforce the illocutionary force of the sentence proposition it is tagged to; whereas at the beginning or as an independent TCU, dui bu dui is used as a discourse marker to signal transitions of interactional sequences at different levels of discourse and to help the speaker maintain the addressee’s attention in given activities. Such an approach to analyze the functions of dui bu dui suggests that (a) grammatical meanings in part emerge from interactional contexts, within which speakers construct, validate, or modify each other’s meanings on a moment-by-moment basis; and (b) functions of specific language forms can also be assigned by the specific activities the speakers are engaged in. 0 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Discourse marker; Tag question; Chinese; Dui-bu-dui; Classroom discourse; Conversation analysis

* We would like to thank the anonymous referees for their helpful comments. Different parts of this paper have been presented at The IPh North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics at Harvard University and the American Association of Applied Linguistics Conference in Stamford, Connecticut. In addition, we thank Mark Aronoff and Richard Gerrig for their insightful questions and suggestions. Thanks also go to Meghan Sumner, Elyse Tamberino, and Yan Zhang for the discussions during the QPW meetings, and Naoko Takahashi for help during the initial stage of the research. Agnes Weiyun He would like to acknowledge a research grant from the Spencer Foundation which partly supported the writing of this paper. Any deficiencies are, of course, our own.

0378-2166/01/$ - see front matter 0 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: SO378-2166(00)00084-9

1442 Y. Chen, A.W. He I Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2001) 1441-1465

Recent research on functions of grammatical forms has shown increasing sensi- tivity towards the placement of these forms in the sequential organization of talk-in- interaction as well as towards the speech activity in which they are used (e.g., Cum- ming and Gno, 1997; Duranti, 1995; Ford, 1993; Fox, 1987; Ford and Thompson, 1996; Gee, 1985; He and Tsoneva, 1998; Levinson, 1992 [1979]; Ochs et al., 1996; Gno and Thompson, 19%). Collectively, these studies suggest that (a) grammatical meanings in part emerge from interactional contexts where speakers construct, validate or modify each other’s meanings on a moment-by-moment basis; (b) grammatical meanings can be assigned by the specific activities the speakers are engaged in. In the same spirit, work on discourse particles in English such as oh (Heritage, 1984), Okay (Beach, 1993; Guthrie, 1997), and (Heritage and Sorjonen, 1994), uh huh (Schegloff, 1981), mmhmm (Guthrie, 1997), and you know (He and Lindsey, 1998) has provided fresh insights into the functions of language forms largely through detailed sequential analysis of the talk of which these forms are a

Part. The present paper investigates the functions of a form in Chinese dui bu dui (lit-

erally, ‘correct not correct?‘; meaning roughly ‘right?‘). Drawing on naturally occurring data from classroom interactions, we propose that besides functioning as an A-not-A question as described in existing grammar (Li and Thompson, 198 1 ), dui bu dui can also serve pragmatic purposes. Fraser’s (1990,1996) framework for pragmatic markers is adapted to explain such a usage of dui bu dui. We show that appearing at different sequential locations, dui bu dui can function not only as a basic marker to reinforce the illocutionary force of the sentence proposition it is tagged to, but also as a discourse marker to signal transitions of interactional sequences at different levels of discourse and to help the speaker maintain the addressee’s attention in given activities.

In what follows, Section 2 introduces existing descriptions of dui bu dui, followed by instances of dui bu dui from naturally occurring data that challenge those descriptions. It also outlines Fraser’s (1990, 1996) framework for pragmatic markers to pave the way for our later discussion. Section 3 describes the data and methodology used in our analysis. In Section 4, we examine the functions of dui bu dui with respect to its sequential locations, taking into account the specific activities at hand and the associated non-verbal (e.g., postural orientation, eye gaze, and gestures) information. Section 5 concludes the study.

2. The problem

2.1. A-not-A and tag questions in existing grammar

Literally, dui bu dui in Chinese means ‘correct-not-correct’ in English. Its fimc- tion has been identified as either the main predicate of an A-not-A question or the tag of a tag question. Examples follow.

(1) a.

b.

(Zhei ge daan)’ dui bu dui? this cl answer correct not correct ‘Is this answer correct? ’ (ZHE@ ge daan) dui. this cl answer correct ‘THIS answer is correct.’

C. (Zhei ge daan) bu dui. this cl answer not correct ‘This answer is not correct.’

(2) a.

b.

C.

d.

Nimen shi jiu dianzhong kai men de, dui bu dui?

You be nine o’clock open door de correct not correct ‘You opened at nine o’clock, right?’ (Li and Thompson, 1981: 546) Dui, (women shi jiu dianzhong kai men de). correct we be nine o’clock open door de ‘Yes. We opened at nine o’clock.’ Bu dui, (women bu shi jiu dianzhong kai men de). not correct we not be nine o’clock open door de ‘No. We did not open at nine o’clock.’ *Dui, (women bu shi jiu dianzhong kai men de). correct we not be nine o’clock open door de * ‘Yes. We did not open at nine o’clock.’

Y. Chen, A.W. He I Journal of Pragmutics 33 (2001) 1441-1465 1443

In (la), the main predicate of the sentence is dui and dui bu dui is used equivalent to an English yes-no question. Such a usage of dui bu dui is defined as an A-not-A question. In Chinese, A-not-A can be formed by a verb, an adjective, or an adverb. (1 b) is a positive answer to (la) and (lc) is a negative answer. In (2a), the main predicate of the sentence is shi and dui bu dui follows the main clause. Here, dui bu dui is defined as a tag question, which is equivalent to an invariant English tag question ‘right’. (2b) is a positive answer and (2~) is a negative answer. Semantically, the difference between an A-not-A question and a tag question lies in what they seek as a question. A tag question seeks “confiiation of the statement that occurs before the tag” (Li and Thompson, 1981: 546), while an A-not-A question “seeks an answer that confirms or denies the proposition in the question” (1981: 548). This difference is evident in the two negative answers shown in (lc) and (2~). In (lc), bu is placed to negate the main predicate dui. In (2c), however, as dzd bu dui is asked to confii the proposition, when the main predicate is negated, bu is also required as an answer to the tag question; without bu, the answer is illogical, as shown in (2d). Struc- turally, for the same phrase to form a tag, it is always attached to the end of the main clause. Yet to form an A-not-A question, its position varies depending upon the position of the predicate in the sentence; in other words, it can appear sentence initially, medially, finally, or independently.

1 In examples (l-2), the materials within parenthesis are optional depending on contexts. * We use capitalized letters to represent focus.

1444 Y. Chen, A.W. He I Journal of Pragmutics 33 (2001) 1441-1465

2.2. Problematic cases: A-not-A vs. tags

The above generalizations of the functions of dui bu dui as an A-not-A question or a tag question, however, can be challenged by an examination of naturally occurring interactional data drawn from a Chinese classroom. Consider examples (3) and (4) below.3

(3) (27-4-27) ((The teacher (T) writes characters on the blackboard and asks the students (Ss) to read them aloud.)) 001 s:

002 T:

003+ T:

004 T:

005 ss:

006+ T:

Tiao shen. ‘. Jump rope ‘The tiao in tiaoshen (jump the rope).’ Ah Tiao. Jump >dui bu dui?< Zhe ge shi tiao. Correct not correct? This cl be jump ‘It’s tiao, right? This is tiao.’ (.2) ((T looks at her book. )) Zhe ge ne? This cl Q-particle ‘How about this one?’ ((T writes more characters on the blackboard.)) Na na na dongxi = take take take something ‘Na (take), na dongxi (take something).’ =Na shenme de, na dongxi de na >dui bu dui?c Take what de, take something de take correct not correct ‘It is the nu in nu dongxi. It means to take something, right? ((T writes on the blackboard.))

In (3), the teacher is reviewing some characters with her students. In line 004, while the teacher is writing a character on the blackboard, she asks the students zhe ge ne ‘what is this one’. One student responds in line 005 that it is nu ‘take’ as the na in nu dongxi ‘take something’. Then the teacher utters line 006. Since there is no other predicate in the sentence, without any context, dui bu dui in line 006 should be interpreted as an A-not-A question asking if the FZU in nu dongxi is correct or not. How- ever, the teacher’s pedagogical goal of this moment is to see if the students can recall the characters, rather than to see if they know how to write the characters correctly. So, dui bu dui in line 006 is to be understood as that the teacher is asking if what she has written is the character nu in na dongxi or not. In other words, this token of dui bu dui should be interpreted as a tag question following an elliptical statement.

3 Data were transcribed according to the conventions of Conversation Analysis (e.g., Sacks et al., 1974: 731-733; Atkinson and Heritage, 1984: ix-xvi). For transcription symbols and grammatical glosses, see Appendix A.

Y. Chen, A.W. He I Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2001) 1441-1465 1445

In the beginning of example (3), after the teacher writes tiuo ‘jump’ on the blackboard, one student reads it aloud in a phrase tiuoshen ‘jump rope’ in line 001. The teacher responds with ah and repeats tiuo in line 002. Then she utters dui bu dui, which forms an intonation unit with the following utterance zhe ge shi tiuo (003). Judging from the context, dui bu dui here is to ask if its subsequent statement zhe ge shi tiuo ‘this is tiuo’ is true or not. Thus it should be a tag question. However, structurally, it is not attached to a preceding proposition but rather a subsequent proposition, which, according to the existing grammar, makes it impossible to be a tag. Before going further into how this instance of dui bu dui should be categorized grammatically, let’s look at example (4) first.

(4) (38438) ((The teacher summarizes characters that she taught the week before.)) 007 T: Chuntian de chun laoshi you jiao.

Spring de spring teacher Asp- teach ‘Teacher has taught the chun in chuntiun (spring).’

008 T: Zhang da de zhang laoshi you jiao. grow big de grow teacher Asp- teach ‘Teacher has taught zhung (grow) in zhungda (grow up).’

009 + T: >dui bu dui?< ((T looks at her book.)) correct not correct ‘Right? ’

010 T: Eh han jia de han. En winter vacation de winter ‘Hun in hunjiu (winter vacation).’

011 S: Oh.(.)= ((The student raises her hand.)) ((T looks up from her book. She ignores the student and turns around to write on the blackboard.))

012 + T: =>Dui bu dui?c correct not correct ‘Right?’

013 T: Hanjia de han shangmian you ge shenme? Winter vacation de winter above have cl what ‘What does the character hun have in the upper part? ’

014 S: You yi ge bao (bu zhidao). Have one cl buo not know ‘It has a buo. (Well, I don’t know).’

015 T: Shangmian you ge gaizi. ((T turns to Ss while talking.)) above have cl gui radical component ‘There is a guizi (a radical component which means cover) above.’ ((T turns back to blackboard))

016 + T: >dui bu dui?< correct not correct ‘Right? ’ (.3) ((T writes on the blackboard))


017 T: Ranhou xiamian ne? then underneat Q-particle ‘How about the lower part?’

In (4), the teacher summarizes characters that she has taught the week before. There are three instances of dui bu dui (009, 012, 016). According to the differences we have mentioned above between tags and A-not-A questions, none of the instances of dui bu dui are tag questions since they occur independently. Therefore, by definition in existing grammar, they must be A-not-A questions. Thus the following question arises: why are none of the A-not-A questions responded to? More interestingly, as we examine the video tape, we see that in line 011, a student raises her hand, asking for permission to participate. While the teacher sees her, she turns around, uttering dui bu dui in line 012. Surprisingly, no student responds to it, not even the one who is very anxious to participate. What is even more surprising is that the teacher does not pause at all but goes on with a WH question in line 013. This seems to suggest that dui bu dui was not used here to elicit any response from the students. The only logical inference one can draw seems to be that the three instances of dui bu dui here probably are not A-not-A questions.

All of the above instances of dui bu dui challenge the description of its usage as either an A-not-A question or as a tag question. They compel us to look beyond the utterance itself and to ground our interpretation of the functions of dui bu dui in the interactional and instructional activities the teacher and the students are engaged in. Our goal in the rest of the paper is thus to meet that challenge. But before delving into detailed analysis of our data, we first present Fraser’s (1990, 1996) notion of pragmatic markers which we will draw on in a later section.

2.3. Pragmatic markers

According to Fraser (1996), sentence meaning contains two parts: propositional meaning and non-propositional meaning. Propositional meaning “represents a state of the world which the speaker wishes to bring to the addressee’s attention (1996: 167-169)“. It is the content meaning of a sentence. Non-propositional meaning signals the speaker’s potential communicative intentions. The linguistic forms that these different types of meanings correspond to are called pragmatic markers, which Fraser further breaks into four subtypes. Basic markers signal more or less specifi- cally the illocutionary force of the sentence proposition. A basic marker could be structural (e.g., the syntactic structure of the sentence itself ), lexical (e.g., the per- formative ‘request’ in ‘My request is that you go at once’), or hybrid in that it can be a specific structure in combination with certain lexical conditions (e.g. a tag question). Commentary markers signal messages that comment on the content meaning of the sentence (e.g. ‘frankly’ in ‘Frankly, we are lost’). Parallel markers signal messages in addition to the basic message (e.g. ‘waiter’ in ‘Waiter, please bring me another fork’). Discourse markers signal the relationship of the basic message to the foregoing discourse (e.g. ‘however’ in ‘However, she is sick’). Fraser’s categories provide us a way to see discourse as “text-sentences” (Lyons, 1977: 622), which are


context-dependent utterances rather than abstract well-formed strings generated by grammar. We will later argue that instances of dui bu dui similar to those in examples (3) and (4) carry non-propositional meanings and constitute specific types of pragmatic markers.

Having shown the necessity for a re-examination of the functions of dui bu dui and outlined a framework which delineates pragmatic functions of utterances, we next turn to methodological issues.

3. Data and methodology

3 .I. Database

Data presented for this study were drawn from a larger data corpus collected by the second author. It consists of 30 hours of audio and/or video recorded class meetings involving 4 teachers and a total of 35 children from two Chinese heritage language schools in the U.S. The teachers are native speakers of Mandarin Chinese and the children are mostly second-generation Chinese immigrants. A cursory look at the entire database suggests that dui bu dui is commonly used in all class meetings conducted by all four teachers. The present study, however, focuses on a total of six hours of four class meetings conducted by one teacher due to the fact that this sub- corpus contains complete video as well as audio recordings. All data used in this study were transcribed with verbal as well as non-verbal information. As we will show later, clear visual information is indispensable in data analysis. The students consist of two boys and five girls of similar ages (6-9). In one of the class meetings, one boy is absent.

3.2. Non-A-not-A questions and non-propositional messages

Given Fraser’s framework, when tokens of dui bu dui are used as A-not-A questions, they convey propositional meanings. When used otherwise in our corpus, we call them non-A-not-A questions and they convey non-propositional meanings. The primary goal of this paper is to explore the usage of dui bu dui when it is not used to convey propositional meanings. Hence only such relevant data, which occur both in the class and during some of the breaks4, were transcribed and examined in detaLs

4 Portions of the talk during the break were not taped or not clear enough to be transcribed. 5 Although only the relevant ones are tram&bed TCU by TCU, it is to be noted that all six hours of the data were transcribed in CA conventions. Furthermore, for cases that are not convincingly apparent, both authors scrutinized the video tapes and arrived at a large degree of consensus as to what was tran- spiring.


3.3. Methodology

Conventions used in Conversation Analysis (shown in the Appendix A) were adopted to transcribe the data, first from the audio tapes and then checked against the video recordings. All tokens of dui bu dui were then analyzed in terms of its placement in relation to the turn-constructional-units (TCUs) (Sacks et al., 1974; Ford and Thomp son, 1996; Ford et al., 1996). We further examined the turns preceding and following the turns containing dui bu dui, the topic and activity units within which dui bu dui is used, as well as the larger classroom instructional tasks the participants are engaged in. In all cases, T in data excerpts stands for the teacher and S stands for students.

Sacks et al. (1974) proposed that the turn is the basic unit of conversation. Within each turn, there are “various unit-types with which a speaker may set out to construct a turn” and the possible points of the completion of these units constitute transition-relevance places (TRP) (1974: 702). The turn constructional units (TCU) for English “include sentential, clausal, phrasal, and lexical constructions” (1974: 702). Recent research has expanded the original proposal by examining how prosodic fea- tures help to define the basic unit of conversation (Couper-Kuhlen and Selting, 1996; Cruttenden, 1986; Chafe, 1988; Du Bois et al., 1993). Most notably, Ford and Thompson (1996) and Ford et al. (1996) propose Complex Transition Relevance Places (CTRP), the convergence of intonational, pragmatic and syntactic completion, as the strongest predictor of speaker change. Furthermore, they also examine how non-verbal aspects (such as body movement, gaze, and laughter, etc.) are factored in the production of turns during face-to-face communications and suggest that an array of combinations of linguistic and non-linguistic factors determines the moment-by- moment contingent nature of co-participation in conversation.

Given the current treatment of TCU which addresses grammatical, intonational, pragmatic as well as non-verbal organizations of conversation, we have chosen to use it as our basic unit of analysis. While related research paradigms have presented other concepts which could benefit our study (e.g., move, Eggins and Slade, 1997; Halliday, 1994; Martin, 1992, and exchange, Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975), a TCU- by-TCU analysis best enables us to capture the structuring of classroom discourse on various levels for our research purposes. In identifying TCUs, we adopted the notion of CTRP proposed by Ford et al. (1996). At the same time, non-verbal communications, such as postural orientation, hand gesture, and eye contact?, were treated as being as fundamental as verbal communications. In the data, dui bu dui was found to appear at the beginning of a TCU and the end of a TCU, as well as to constitute an independent TCU. When dui bu dui is used at the beginning or end of a TCU, a unified intonation group occurs. The intonation contour has an identifiable onset and closure and ranges over dui bu dui and the clause, which either precedes or follows it. As an independent TCU, dui bu dui forms its own intonation contour.7

6 Unless otherwise noted, the teacher has eye contact with the students in the excerpts in this paper. 7 Tao (1996: 47) points out that “for the distinction between final/complete and continuing intona- tions, what appears to be the crucial factor for the perception of functional types of Mandarin intonation units is the declination unit”. Unlike English, in which final falling intonation contours often imply


Furthermore, when dui bu dui is at the end of a TCU, the pause before its following utterance is longer than the pause after its preceding utterance. When dui bu dui is at the beginning of a TCU, the pause before its following utterance is shorter than the pause after its preceding utterance. These auditory prosodic cues constitute the basic criteria to differentiate the three different sequential locations of dui bu dui.

4. Non-A-not-A dui-bu-dui: Locations and functions

A total of 297 tokens of dui bu dui as non-A-not-A questions were found in six hours of the class meetings, among which 2 are uttered by the students and the other 295 by the teacher.s These 297 tokens of dui bu dui have different placements with respect to TCUs. Table 1 shows the distribution of dui bu dui in terms of its sequential locations.

Table 1 Distribution of dui bu dui as non-A-not-A questions in terms of their sequential locations

Sequential locations Numbers

Beginning of TCU 16 End of TCU 222 Independent TCU 59

%

5.4% 74.4% 19.9%

Total 297 100%

A quantitative as well as qualitative study of these tokens of dui bu dui suggests that when dui bu dui is used as non-A-not-A questions, it functions as a pragmatic marker to convey different kinds of non-propositional messages in interaction (see Fraser, 1990, 1996). Though no causal relation is found between locations and functions, we will, for the sake of clarity, discuss in detail the functions of dui bu dui in relation to its sequential locations. According to their frequency, we will begin with instances of dui bu dui at the end of TCUs.

4.1. End of TCU

There are 222 tokens of dui bu dui as non-A-not-A questions occurring at the end of TCUs, taking up 74.7% of all the instances of dui bu dui (shown in Table 1). According to Li and Thompson (1981: 546), in Chinese “a statement can become a

a completion and rising contours imply non-finality or incompleteness, a more indicative cue for the completion of a TCU in Mandarin Chinese is a “gradual fall (a declination slope) in FO over time during a period of speech” (1996: 48). it can be one or more than one intonation units. The above mentioned auditory intonation group may he identified as a declination unit. However, because of the quality of the tapes, we camrot see the pitch contours. 8 Within the six hours of interaction, the students’ oral participation takes up about 10% TCUs.

1450 I’. Chen, A.W. He I Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2001) 1441-1465

question by the addition of a short A-not-A question form of certain verbs as a tag to that statement” and dui bu dui is listed as one of the four common tags. Thus structurally speaking, these 222 tokens of dui bu dui are tag questions.

A considerable number of functional linguistic studies has been carried out on tag questions. Most of the work has been on tag questions in different varieties of Eng- lish (Algeo, 1988; Houck, 1991; Jones, 1990; Leech, 1974; Lakoff, 1973; Millar and Brown, 1979; Quirk et al., 1972; among others). Though there is work on tags in other languages (Bublitz, 1979 on German; Chang, 1986 on Korean), little has been done on tags in Chinese. As for the interpretation of tags, each study pursues a different path.9 But there is a consensus about the basic functions of tag questions: one is to assert a proposition and use a tag to ask for confirmation; the other is to suppose a proposition and use a tag to request information.1o Whereas most of the work has detailed the analyses by looking at pre-conceived or invented contexts, we will examine the interactional function of the 222 tokens of dui bu dui at the end of TCUs in naturally occurring discourse. Table 2 provides the contexts where dui bu dui occurs at the end of a TCU with a detailed description about its preceding and uptake TCUs.”

Table 2 Preceding and uptake TCUs of dui bu dui as non-A-not-A questions at the end of a TCU.

Preceding % Uptake %

Student talk 74 33.3% 39 17.6% Student body movement,

gesture, and laughter 7 3.2% 8 3.6% Activity* 14 6.3% 17 7.7% Silence** 6 2.7% 4 1.8% Teacher 120 54.1% 152 69.4% Others*** 1 0.5% 0 0%

Total 222 222

* Activity: On-going classroom activities including dictations, text-reading, writing compositions, etc. ** Silence: Pauses longer than 2 seconds. *** Others: A comment frOm one of the student’s grandma.

9 For example, Algeo (1988) and Jones (1990) studied the variation of syntax and functions of tag questions in national and international varieties of English. Chang (1986) looked into the speech acts of tag questions. Houck (1991) investigated the context for problematic behavior of certain tags. Algeo (1988) classified speaker attitudes conveyed by tags into different categories. Quii et al. (1972) and Hudson (1975) noted the conducive effect of tag questions. Lakoff (1973) elaborated on the social functions of tag questions. lo It is also noted that tag questions in English are used as a device to exit a turn and create a context for another turn (Sacks et al., 1974; Ford and Thompson, 1996). I1 As the majority of the instances of dui bu dui are from the teacher, the interpretation of the function of this phrase is thus grounded more upon the students’ responses. In Table 2, while no difference is made for the teacher’s communications, communications on the students’ part are differentiated between verbal and non-verbal ones. This is to provide a more detailed picture of how utterances containing dui bu dui are taken up.


Out of the 222 instances of dui bu dui, the majority are either preceded by the teacher’s utterance (54.1%), or taken up by the teacher (69.4%). More interestingly, although there are 81 (36.5%) instances of dui bu dui that are preceded by students’ turn (both verbal and non-verbal), only 47 (21.2%) instances of dui bu dui are taken up by the students. Suppose that these instances of dui bu dui are tag questions uttered by the teacher, one of the questions that arise is why they are not answered by students. In the following, we will describe in detail the contexts of dui bu dui and offer a coherent account of the functions of dui bu dui as a basic marker when it is used at the end of TCU.

4.1 .I. Confirmation only As Table 2 shows, among the 47 cases where dui bu dui is taken up by the stu-

dents, only 39 are responded to verbally, of which 10 are not to dui bu dui as questions.12 When the uptakes are responses to the questions, all of them merely provide brief confirmations. I3 Example (5) is a case in point.

(5) (170-18-45) ((Ss look up words in the dictionary. )) 018 T: Nimen ganggang shuo chun di ji ye?

You just now say spring No. which page ‘On which page did you say just now was chun (spring)?’

019 + T: Si bai wushi ye >dui bu dui?< four hundred fifty page correct not correct ‘Page 450, right? ’

020 S: Shi. Yes

The teacher has written on the blackboard the new words from the lesson she is going to teach for the day. The students are asked to look up these words in the dictionary. They are then asked to tell the teacher the page number for each word in the dictionary and the teacher will write it down on the blackboard. As the teacher is try- ing to write the page number for chun on the blackboard, she turns around and utters lines 018 and 019 to ask if the number she remembers is correct. Her question is taken up and confiied by one of the students with shi ‘yes’. As mentioned earlier, Fraser (1990, 1996) defines tag questions as a type of basic marker which signals the illocutionary force of the basic message of the proposition. Here, we may conclude that when dui bu dui is used at the end of TCUs as non-A-not-A questions, it is a tag question structurally and a basic marker pragmatically. Similar instances of dui bu dui as the one illustrated above thus function to convey the basic message as a request of confirmation of the propositional meaning.

I2 There are five cases where the responses from the students are verbal; but the responses are not clear enough to decide if they are relevant to the tag question or not. I3 Some of the responses are backchannels such as m&mm, Oh, En, etc.


4.1.2. Neither confirmution nor information Table 2 also shows that the majority of the instances of TCU-final dui bu dui are

not taken up by the students. Furthermore, utterances containing dui bu dui receive neither confirmation nor information. An example is shown in (6).

(6) (64-l l-4) ((The teacher is going over words with the students.)) 021 T: Zhe sheme zi?

this what character

022 ‘What is this character? ’

Ss: Xue= study

023 + T: =Xue > dui bu dui?< study correct not correct ‘It’s the character for study, right?’

024 T: Zhe ge zi ne?= This cl character Q-particle ‘What is this character?’

025 S: =xiao ‘It’s xiao.’

026 T: Xiao women xue guo le xiao we learn asp asp ‘We have learned Xiao.’

027 + T: Shangke laoshi jiao guo le >dui bu dui?< in class teacher teach asp asp correct not correct ‘I have taught it in class, right?

028 T: Xuexiao de xiao xue guo le. school de xiao learn asp asp ‘We have learned the xiao in xuexiao (school).’

029 T: Zhe ge zi. This cl character ‘This character.’ ((The teacher turns around and writes more characters on the blackboard.))

The teacher is going over earlier learned words with the students. She points at xue ‘study’ and asks what the character is (021). The students answer with xue (022). The teacher then repeats the answer, which is followed by a tag dui bu dui (023). What is interesting is that without waiting for any responses from the students, she goes on with another character in line 024. The same observation holds true for dui bu dui in line 027. After a student answers xiuo, the teacher takes the floor and men- tions that she has taught this character before, in lines 026 through 028. Then she turns around and writes another character on the blackboard while uttering line 029. Now the question is what is dui bu dui here used for.

If we examine the structure of this example, we see the similarity between the structure of sequences (021-023) and that of (024-028) as shown in (7).


(7) 021: Teacher & Question :024 022: Student e=$ Answer :025 023 : Teacher e ? ? :026-028

Research on classroom discourse suggests that, different from ordinary conversation, classroom discourse systematically exhibits a tripartite structure (Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975; Mehan, 1985). In Mehan’s terms, the three sequences are: initiation, reply, and evaluation. l4 Going back to (7), we see that lines 021 and 024 constitute initiations. Lines 022 and 025 are replies from the students. Thus, it follows naturally that line 023 and the sequences of talk from 026-028 are expected to provide some sort of evaluation. Now, let’s focus on line 023. First, if dui bu dui here is uttered by the teacher for confirmation or information, then we would expect the students to respond to this question, or the teacher should follow up with a confirmatory answer to her own question. However, the fact that the teacher goes right on to review another character in line 024 and no request is made by the students for clarification about the previously discussed character suggests that line 023 may not be interpreted as asking for confiiation or information. Rather, it implies confirmation and therefore constitutes an evaluation. Now, let’s go back to lines 026-028. After one student reads the character xiao, the teacher follows with Xiuo women xue guo le ‘Xiuo, we have learned’. By fronting the object and mentioning that the character has been taught before, a confiiation is actually implied to evaluate the student’s answer. Then the teacher repeats with a different syntactic structure using the subject luoshi ‘teacher’ and topicalizing shungke ‘in class’, meaning she has taught it in class and therefore everybody should know that character. Interestingly, such a strong message is accompanied by dui bu dui (027). Thus, the dui bu dui here (027) again is problematic if it is to be interpreted as a request for verbal confirmation.

4.1.3. A basic marker: An extension of Fraser’s definition To account for the data, we adopt Fraser’s (1990, 1996) notion of basic marker

and propose that dui bu dui at the end of TCU is used as a tag question structurally and a basic marker pragmatically. Whereas Fraser defines a tag question as a request for confirmation of its preceding content meaning, the data here suggest that when used in classroom discourse, dui bu dui uttered by the teacher can be interpreted to merely reinforce the propositional meaning conveyed in the main clause. This therefore explains why the majority of the instances of dui bu dui are not responded to by the students. The extension of the function of dui bu dui as a basic marker is supported by recent research on functions of markers within specific types of discourse (Greasley, 1994; de Fina, 1997, among others).15 These studies indicate that “the

I4 Alternatively, the three-part structure of classroom discourse is described as IRF (initiation, response, and follow-up) by Sinclair and Co&hard (1975). I5 Conceivably, one may assume that the tag here is used to elicit confirmation and functions as a statement which presupposes agreement from the hearer. Such an approach, we believe, runs counter to the tack we take here.

1454 Y. Chen, A.W. He / Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2001) 1441-1465

interpretation of a marker’s meaning cannot be divorced from ongoing activities” (de Fina, 1997: 338).

Such an extension of the interpretation of dui bu dui as a basic marker to convey stronger illocutionary force of the preceding clause reflects one of the most impor- tant roles a teacher plays in the classroom, that of an evaluator. Being the authority in the class, the teacher is able to use a tag question to intensify the basic message conveyed in the main clause. Here, dui bu dui is no longer a token of uncertainty and a request for confirmation, but rather a token of authority which conveys confii- tion and provides evaluation. Interestingly, while most of the tag questions uttered by the teacher are not responded to, the only two tag questions uttered by the students are both taken up by the teacher. l6 Such a contrast illustrates further that the interpretation of a syntactic structure is influenced by the pre-allocated roles and responsibilities of the participants.17

In short, when dui bu dui is used at the end of TCUs as non-A-not-A questions, structurally, it is a tag question. Pragmatically, it functions as a basic marker either to ask for confirmation or to provide confirmation, depending upon the activity at hand and the interpersonal relationship of the participants.

4.2. Independent TCU

Table 3 shows the contexts where dui bu dui is used as independent TCUs. Struc- turally speaking, these instances of dui bu dui are A-not-A questions. The same question as posed for Table 2 then arises: Why are the majority (69.5%) not

I6 One very interesting example of a tag question used by the students is given in the following: T: Oh even number. T: Odd shi sheme?

Odd is what ‘What is odd number?’

T: Jishu. odd number

s: Nimen jiang yinwen >dui bu dui?< YOU speak English right ‘You are speaking English, right?’

T: Na laoshi ah. then teacher ‘I am the teacher.’

Here, the class was talking about the number of person they needed for a game. The teacher used Eng- lish when referring to o&i and even numbers. One of the students challenged the usage of English in a Chinese classroom by uttering ‘You are speaking English, right’. Interestingly, this tag question was taken up by the teacher with an answer that sort of asserted her privilege as a teacher to speak English in class. I7 The interpretation of dui bu dui is also determined by the fact of who knows what, which, we think, is in some way related to how the roles and responsibilities of the participants are determined. We would also like to predict that when used in conversations where the relationship between the interlocutors is more symmetrical, dui bu dui could be rather ambiguous in the sense that it can be interpteted either as asking for confirmation or providing confirmation. It is certainly interesting and worthwhile to research further into that.


answered by the students? Jn the following, we argue that these occurrences of free standing dui bu dui are used in two ways: (a) as boundary markers to signal transitions at different organizational levels of classroom discourse; (b) as a device used by the teacher to maintain the students’ attention during activities.‘*

Table 3 Preceding and uptake TCUs of dui bu dui as an independent TCU

Preceding % Uptake %

Student talk Student body movement,

gesture, and laughter Activity Silence Teacher

9 15.3% 6 10.2%

2 3.4% 5 8.5% 2 3.4% 7 11.9% 8 13.6% 0

38 64.4% 41 69.5%

Total 59 59

4.2.1. A boundary marker Research on the structure of classroom discourse (Mehan, 1985) suggests that

each class meeting is composed of events which can be either small-group or whole- group activities. Each event in turn contains internal instructional phases composed of interactional sequences that are characterized by the tripartite structure outlined in Section 4.1.2. These sequences are organized around topics.

According to Fraser (1990, 1996), a boundary marker is also a discourse marker, one of the four pragmatic markers, which “signals the relationship of the basic message to the foregoing discourse” (Fraser, 1996: 187). Along the same line, Schiffrin defines discourse markers as “sequentially dependent elements that define units of talk” (1987: 3 1). Given the structure of classroom discourse and the function of a boundary marker, we had reason to predict that dui bu dui can be used at different levels of structure of classroom interactions. Gur prediction was confirmed by the data.

4.2.1 .I. A marker embedded in a tripartite structure. Example (8) illustrates a case where dui bu dui is used as a transition signal embedded in a tripartite structure.

(8) (274-25-61) ((The teacher is assigning homework to the students.)) 030 T: Ji ge suan yi suan.

how many cl count once count ‘Count how many (words) there are.’

I8 It is worth pointing out that these two functions of dti bu dui are intertwined in the sense that being a boundary marker, dui bu dui also has a secondary function as a device to maintain attention. By sig- naling transitions at different organizational levels of classroom discourse, dui bu dui actually functions as a cue to remind the students something different is about to happen and thus attracts the students’ attention.


031

032

033

034

035

036

037

T: Laoshi zai nian yi ci ha. teacher again read one cl F-particle ‘I’ll repeat them once more.’

T: Yezi. leaf

T: Ranhou: hudie. then butterfly

T: Ranhou: xiao niao jiao. then small bird chirp

T: Ranhou fengjing. then scenary

T: Zai xiang tuhua. then like picture

T: Zai daochu. then everywhere

038 -+ T: >Dui bu dui?< correct not correct ‘Right? ’

039 S: Liu ge. six cl ‘There are six.’

040 + T: Liu ge xlui bu dui?< six cl correct not correct ‘Six, right? ’

Prior to these sequences of interaction, the teacher had assigned the students the homework for the day, which is to write six phrases and fill up six lines with one phrase for one line. In line 030, she asks the students to count how many phrases they have to write down. Then she repeats the phrases in lines 032-037. After that, she utters dui bu dui as an independent TCU, which is taken up by a student in line 039. If we assume that dui bu dui is an A-not-A question, line 039 can not be an appropriate answer to dui bu dui. Furthermore, it is rather a perfect response to the teacher’s utterance in line 030. After the student replies (039), we see an evaluation with a tagged dui bu dui in line 040. Structurally speaking, lines 030, 039, and 040 constitute a typical tripartite structure of interactional sequences in classroom discourse. Within this tripartite structure, there is an inserted sequence from 031 to 037 where the teacher repeats the words assigned. Semantically, dui bu dui in line 038 can be very well deleted without causing any confusion or misunderstanding, since it does not affect the truth conditions of their preceding or uptake utterances, nor does it add anything to the propositional content of any utterance. However, if we compare the contexts before and after it, dui bu dui here seems to signal a kind of boundary. It indicates that the teacher has finished repeating all the phrases and it is time for the students to do the task assigned a few TCUs earlier, that is,, to count the numbers of the phrases they were asked to copy for homework. Such a function of dui bu dui fits properly into the description of a discourse marker as a boundary signal.


4.2.1.2. A marker between tripartite structures. Example (9) illustrates that dui bu dui is also used to mark the boundary between two tripartite structures.

(9) (35-4-35) ((The teacher writes characters on the blackboard and compares them.)) 041 T:

042 s:

043 T:

044+ T:

045 T: 046 T:

Zhe sheme zi? This what character ‘What is this character? ’ Zhang=

grow ‘Grow.’ =Zhang bu shi chang.

grow not is long ‘It’s zhang (to grow), not chang (long).’ >Dui bu dui?< correct not correct OK. Xiaozhang de xiao ne? headmaster de “xiao” Q-particle ‘How about the xiao in xiaozhang ‘headmaster’.’

In this example, the teacher is reviewing characters with the students. Lines 04143 constitute a tripartite structure where the students and the teacher are going over the character zhang ‘to grow’. In line 046, the teacher starts another character xiao and thus a new tripartite structure of elicitation is initiated. Between these two sequences, dui bu dui and ok are uttered to signal the completion of one topic and the beginning of another.19

4.2.1.3. A multi-level boundary marker. So far, we have seen how dui bu dui can be used to signal boundaries within a tripartite structure (038) and between two tripartite structures (044). Both cases am transitions within the same instructional phases, though one (038) is within sequences of the same topic (i.e. on the number of phrases assigned for homework), while the other (044) is between sequences of different topics (i.e. on two different characters that are being reviewed). Example (10) further illustrates the function of dui bu dui as a multi-level boundary marker.

(10) (31-4-31) ((The teacher writes more words on the blackboard and asks the students to read them.))

047 T: Zhe ge cai shi jiao hua de jiao. this cl just is water flower de water ‘This is the jiao (water) in jiaohua (water flowers).’

I9 Here, we would like to point out that when dui bu dui is used as an independent TCU, OK is often found to co-occur with it. It would be interesting to look further into the relationship between these two phrases.

14.58 Y. Chen, A.W. He I Journal of Pragrnatics 33 (2001) 1441-1465

048 T: E:n (0.8) ((The teacher looks at her book.)) hao mei you good not have

zi le. character asp ‘No more characters.’

049 + T: >dui bu dui?< right ‘Right? ’

0) ((A student raises her hand.))

050 T: Na yi ge zi? which one cl character ‘Is there any more character? ’

051 S: Women ke bu keyi xiang shangci yiyang wan yi ge we can not can like last time same play one cl youxi.

game ‘Can we play a game like last time?’ ((The student goes on suggesting a game.))

The teacher has reviewed some previously learned characters with the students and then she utters dui bu dui in line 049. At this point, what the next context will be is unclear, but is implied by the teacher’s utterance in line 048 that a new activity might be started since there seem no more characters to be reviewed. As the teacher does not announce exactly what the next activity is, the pause after dui bu dui opens the floor for negotiation. One student self-selects and raises her hand for permission to air her suggestion. Given that dui bu dui can be used as a boundary marker and may signal transition at different levels of classroom interactions, the student takes it as a signal for a new event and suggests playing a game in line 051. However, “characteristics of classroom interaction define the teacher as the main responsible actor for the management of the classroom event as a whole” (de Fma, 1997: 340). This privileged status of the teacher presupposes her right as a new event initiator and the student’s as a follower. Thus, the student’s role as a negotia- tor in interactions is expected to be as local as possible. This is evident in line 050 as the teacher asks the student if there is an character left that has not been reviewed. Such a discrepancy between the teacher’s question and the student’s answer suggests the ambiguity of the functions of dui bu dui as a boundary marker, which arises from that fact that it can signal different levels of interactions.

4.2.2. Attention maintainer As an independent TCU, dui bu dui is also found to help the teacher maintain the

attention of the students during class activities, as in the case of (11).

(11) (28-4-28) ((The teacher writes a character on the blackboard, and asks the students what it is. )) ((The teacher finishes writing one component of a character.))


052 s:

053 T:

054 T:

YZUl.

Eye ((The teacher laughs.)) >dui bu dui?< correct not correct ‘Is it correct? ’ (.2) ((The teacher keeps writing the character.)) Yanjin de yan.

Rye de yan ‘The yan in yanjing (eye).’

This sequence of interaction occurs when the teacher is writing the character yan on the blackboard. After she finishes one component, a student guesses in line 052 that the teacher is writing the character yan ‘eye’. The teacher laughs while still writing on the blackboard. Immediately before finishing writing the character, she utters dui bu dui, which receives no response from the students. She then turns around and utters 054. Again, dui bu dui here (053) does not convey any content message. How- ever, different from the ones observed above (038,044,049), this instance of dui bu dui should not be a boundary marker, since there is no change in either topic organization or sequential organization. Rather, it is like a filler, used here by the teacher to maintain the attention of the students.

To summarize, when dui bu dui constitutes an independent TCU, it serves as a discourse marker, either to mark boundaries and to signal transitions at different interactional levels, or to help the teacher maintain students’ attention. As pointed out earlier, these two functions are not exclusively related to the form dui bu dui. Among the 59 instances of dui bu dui as independent TCUs, about 40% of the instances function primarily as boundary markers; about 43% as attention maintain- ers; and about 17% of the instances are ambiguous in the sense that neither of the two functions overrides the other.

4.3. Beginning of TCU

Table 4 shows the sequential contexts of the 16 tokens of dui bu dui occurring at the beginning of the TCUs.

Table 4 &ceding and uptake TCUs of dui bu dui at the beginning of a TCU

Fwxding % Uptake %

Student talk Student body movement,

gesture, and laughter Activity Silence Teacher

3 18.8% 2 12.5%

3 18.8% 0 2 12.5% 1 6.3% 3 18.8% 1 6.3% 5 31.3% 12 75.0%

Total 16 16

1460 Y. Chm, A.W. He I Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2001) 1441-1465

Now, if we compare Table 4 to Table 2, we see that for the preceding contexts, both dui bu dui at the beginning of TCUs and that at the end of TCUs have about the same percentage of students’ participation (beginning: 35.5%, end: 37.6%). As for the following contexts, at the end of a TCU, about 21.2% (39) of the instances of dui bu dui are taken up by the students. However, at the beginning of a TCU, only 12.5% (2) of the instances are taken up by the students. Furthermore, neither of the students’ responses are related to the preceding utterance. Now, if we look at Table 3, we see that when used independently, 10.2% of the instances of dui bu dui are taken up by the students; none of these students’ take-ups are relevant to the questions. So the contexts of dui bu dui at the beginning of TCUs look like a hybrid of the preceding contexts of dui bu dui at the end of TCUs and the following context of an independent dui bu dui. In the following, we will show the functional influence of dui bu dui on the basis of its different placement. We propose that when dui bu dui is used at the beginning of TCU, it can either function as a basic marker to reinforce the propositional meaning of the following utterance or as a discourse marker for the teacher to maintain the students’ attention.

4.3.1. A discourse marker

(12) (274-27) ((The teacher writes characters on the blackboard and asks students to read them.)) ((The teacher writes on the blackboard.)) 055 S: Tiao shen.

Jump rope ‘The tiuo in tiuoshen (jump rope).’

056 T: Ah Tiao. ((T turns around and faces the students.))

prt Jump 057 T: >dui bu dui? < Zhe ge shi tiao.

right? This cl is tiao ‘It’s tiao, right? This is tiuo.’ (.2) ((The teacher looks at her book.))

058 T: Zhe ge ne? This Cl Q-prt ‘How about this one? ’ ((The teacher writes more characters on the blackboard.))

Example (12) is a segment of example (4). The teacher is going over characters taught before. She writes on the blackboard and the students are asked to read them aloud. As mentioned above, literally, dui bu dui here is uttered to ask if the following statement zhe ge shi tiuo ‘this is tiuo’ is true or not. Thus, it looks like a fronted tag question. Pragmatically, as we can see from the contexts, the teacher is actually not asking for confiiation but rather, providing an evaluation of the students’ answer in line 055. Thus, we define it a basic marker which reinforces the propositional meaning of the following utterance. Other researchers have similarly observed that tags can be placed at the beginning instead of the end of the clause. Chang


(1986), for example, describes tags in Korean that are attached to the following utterance. Tiee (1986) also observes that Chinese shi bu shi ‘be-not-be’ as a tag question can be added “at the beginning or end of a statement or immediately before the predicate (except nominal predicate)” (Tiee, 1986: 65).20 Here, instances of dui bu dui at the beginning of TCUs in our data corpus suggest that dui bu dui can also be attached to a following utterance and function as a tag. However, given that tag questions are basic markers, and that a basic marker conveys basic messages which uses the propositional content of the sentence as its message content, it can be pre- dicted that the default placement for tag questions should be at the end of TCUs. That is why most instances of dui bu dui as basic markers are sentence final.

4.3.2. An attention maintainer It is worth mentioning that while the majority instances of dui bu dui at the begin-

ning of TCUs are used as basic markers, they also seem to help the teacher maintain the students’ attention. Throughout six hours of class meetings, there is only one instance where dui bu dui appears both at the beginning and the end of the same TCU. This actually illustrates that dui bu dui at the beginning of a TCU does have its independent function of being an attention maintainer. An example follows.

(13) (58-4-58) ((The teacher corrects a student’s mistake in the composition.)) 059 T:

060_, T:

061 S:

062 T:

Chuntian hen liangshuang. ((The teacher moves to the front of the classroom, near the student.)) Spring very cool ‘It’s cool in spring.’

(-2) >dui bu dui?< Chuntian hen liang ma, >“dui correct not correct spring very cool prt correct bu dui?“c not correct ‘Right? It Is cool in spring, right? ’ (OWo bu hui xie.“) I not able write ‘I don’t know how to write it.’ Bu hui xie, ao hao. not able write prt good ‘OK you don’t know how to write it.’

In this example, the students are divided into three groups. Each group is asked to write two compositions on the topic ‘Spring’, one in Chinese and the other in Eng- lish. The teacher notices that one student in the third group has written down an Eng- lish word ‘cool’ while she is supposed to write in Chinese. So she moves from the back of the classroom to the front and repeats what the student has written down

2o He observes that dui bu dui as a tag question cau only be attached to the end of the statement.


chunfian hen cool ‘Spring is cool’. Then she utters line 059 suggesting a Chinese phrase Ziungshumg for the English word ‘cool’. After about two seconds of pause, while the student is occupied with her writing and does not pay attention to the teacher’s comment, the teacher utters line 060, which begins with dui bu dui and ends with dui bu dui. Then the student utters line 061 and explains that she does not know how to write it. Here, while the second dui bu dui is a basic marker reinforc- ing the basic content meaning of the preceding utterance, the first dui bu dui is merely used to arouse the student’s attention to the following utterance.

These two functions of dui bu dui at the beginning of TCUs are not surprising considering the functions of dui bu dui at the other two locations. At the end of a TCU, dui bu dui is a basic marker, used to reinforce or intensify the basic message conveyed in the preceding clause it is attached to. When used as an independent TCU, dui bu dui functions as a discourse marker, mainly serving sequential organization or classroom attention management. TCU-initial dui bu dui seems to be a hybrid of TCU-final instances and independent TCUs in that it is attached to a propositional content but at the same time it starts a new TCU. Such characteristics of the sequential placement of dui bu dui at the begimring of TCUs lead naturally to its functions both as a basic marker and a discourse marker.

5. Conclusions

In this study, we have (re-)examined the distribution and functions of dui bu dui by examining naturally occurring interactional data in Chinese classrooms. This study contributes to the view that an interpretation of the functions of a syntactic structure such as dui bu du needs to take into account not only grammatical information, but also interactional (verbal and non-verbal) information. On the basis of its sequential placements and discursive purposes, we have shown that besides forming an A-not-A question, dui bu dui can also be used for pragmatic purposes. Specifi- cally, it can be used as a basic marker and a discourse marker. A schematic representation of the functions of dui bu dui is provided in Fig. 1.

Our analysis is based upon nearly 300 instances of dui bu dui, occurring in various classroom activities that are typical of not only this particular one classroom but also other classroom settings as well. Admittedly, further study is necessary to examine in detail the usage of dui bu dui used by other speakers in more diverse speech contexts.

During the study, an attempt was made to employ the results of intonation studies in transcribing and analyzing of the data. However, because of the quality of the tapes, such an attempt had only limited success. Further studies need to optimally use audio and vi&o recording technology to make interactional data more analyz- able by computers. It is our hope that future work will incorporate the study of phonetics to better identify TCUs.

Lastly, during the six hours of class meetings, similar syntactic structures such as hao bu hao ‘good not good’ and shi bu shi ‘be not be’ were also found. At present, it seems that shi bu shi might just be a variant of dui bu dui, while hao bu hao seems


dui bu dui

Propositional meaning Pragmatic meaning

A-not-A question Non-A-not-A question

Functions Discourse marker Basic marker

Boundary marker Attention maintainer

Placement I

Independent TCU Independent TCU End of TCU Beginning TCU Beginning of TCU

(Tag questions)

Fig. 1. A schematic representation of the functions of dui 6u dti.

to function differently. However, it is for future research to determine the usage of the two structures and to compare the differences and similarities among these three structures.

References

Algeo, John, 1988. The tug question in British English: It’s different, i’n’it? English World-Wide g(2): 171-191.

Atkinson, J. Maxwell and John C. Heritage, eds., 1984. Stn~ctures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Beach, Wayne, 1993. Transitional regularities for ‘casual’ “ Okay” usages. Journal of Pmgmatics 19: 325-352.

Bublitz, Wolfram, 1979. Tag questions, transformational grammar and pragmatics. In: Jacek Fish&, ed., Papers and studies in constrastive linguistics 9,5-23. Poznarl: Adam Mickiewicz University.

Chafe,Wallace, 1988. Linking intonation units in spoken English. In: John Haiman and Sandra Thomp- son, eds., Clause combining in discourse and grammar, l-27. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Chang, Suk-jin, 1986. Tag questions in Korean: Form and function. Studies in the Linguistics Sciences 16(2): 15-26.

Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth, and Margaret Selting, eds., 1996. Prosody in conversation. Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press.

Cruttenden, Alan, 1986. Intonation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cumming, Susanna and Tsuyoshi Ono, 1997. Discourse and grammar. In: A. Teun van Dijk, ed., Dis-

course as structure and process, 112-137. London: Sage.


de Fina, Anna, 1997. An analysis of Spanish bien as a marker of classroom management in teacher-student interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 28: 337-354.

Du Bois, John, Stephan Schuetze-Coburn, Danae Paolino and Susanna Cmnming, 1993. Outline of discourse transcription. In: Jane A. Edwards and Martin D. Lampert, eds., Talking data: Transcription and coding methods for language research, 45-91. Hillsdale, NJi Lawrence Erlbaum.

Duranti, Alessandro, 1995. From grammar to politics. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Eggins, Suzanne and Diana Slade, 1997. Analysing casual conversation. London: Cassell. Ford, Cecilia E., 1993. Grammar in interaction: Adverbial clauses in American English conversation

(Studies in interactional sociolinguistics 9). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ford, Cecilia, Barbara Fox and Sandra Thompson, 1996. Practices in the construction of turns: The

‘TCU’ revisited. Pragmatics 6: 427-454. Ford, Cecilia and Sandra Thompson, 1996. Interactional units in conversation: Syntactic, intonational,

and pragmatic resources for the management of turns. In: E. Gchs, E. Schegloff and S. Thompson, eds., Interaction and grammar, 52-134. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Fox, Barbara, 1987. Discourse structure and anaphora. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fraser, BNC~, 1990. An approach to discourse markers. Journal of Pragmatics 14: 383395. Fraser, Bruce, 1996. Pragmatic markers. Pragmatics 6(2): 167-190. Gee, Julie, 1985. An interpretative approach to the study of modality. Studies in language 9(2):

197-229. Greasley, Peter, 1994. An investigation into the use of the particle well: Commentaries on a game of

snooker. Journal of Pragmatics 22: 477494. Guthrie, A.M., 1997. Gn the systematic deployment of okay and mmhmm in academic advising sessions.

Pragmatics 7(3): 397415. Halliday, Michael, 1994. An introduction to functional grammar. Second edition. London: Edward

Arnold. He, Agnes Weiyun and Brian Lindsey, 1998. ‘You know’ as an information status enhancing device:

Arguments from grammar and interaction. Functions of Language 5(2): 133-155. He, Agnes Weiyun and Snezha Tsoneva, 1998. The symbiosis of choices and control: A discourse-based

account of can. Journal of Pragmatics 29(5): 615-637. Heritage, John, 1984. A change-of-state token and aspects of its sequential placement. In: J. Maxwell

Atkinson and John C. Heritage, eds., Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis, 299-345. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Heritage, John and Marja-Leena Sorjonen, 1994. Constituting and maintaining activities across sequences: And-prefacing as a feature of question design. Language in Society 23(l): l-29.

Houck, Noel, 1991. Tag questions: A necessary pragmatic context. Pragmatics and Language Learning 2: 29-38.

Hudson, Richard, 1975. The meaning of questions. Language 51(l): 1-31. Jones, M. Bob, 1990. Constraints on Welsh English tags: Some evidence from children’s language. Eng-

lish World-Wide ll(2): 173-193. Lakoff, R., 1973. Language and woman’s place. Language in Society 2: 45-79. Leech, Geoffrey N., 1974. Semantics. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Levinson, Stephen C., 1992 (19791. Activity type and language. In: Paul Drew and John Heritage, ed.,

Talk at Work, 66-100. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Reprint of Linguistics 17: 365-399.)

Li, Charles and Sandra Thompson, 1981. Man&in Chinese: A functional reference grammar. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Lyons, John, 1977. Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Martin, James, 1992. English text: System and structure. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Mehan, Hugh, 1985. The structure of classroom discourse. In: T.A. van Dijk, ed., Handbook of dis-

course analysis 3, 119-130. London: Academic Press. Millar, M. and K. Brown, 1979. Tag questions in Edinburgh speech. Linguistische Berichte 60: 24-45. Ochs, Elinor, Emanuel A. Schegloff and Sandra Thompson, eds., 1996. Interaction and grammar. Cam-

bridge: Cambridge University Press.


Gno, Tsuyoshi and Sandra Thompson, 1996. Alternative linguistics: Descriptive and the oretical models. In: P. Davis, ed., Descriptive and theoretical models in the new linguistics, 213-271. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartvik, 1972. A grammar of contempo- rary English. London: Longman.

Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson, 1974. A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language 50: 696-735.

Schegloff, Emanuel A., 1981. Discourse as an interactional achievement: Some uses of ‘uh huh’ and other things that come between sentences. In: D. Tarmen, ed., Analyzing discourse, 71-93. Wash- ington, DC: Georgetown University Press.

Schiffrin, Deborah, 1987. Discourse markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sinclair, John and Malcolm R. Coulthard, 1975. Towards an analysis of discourse: The English teachers

and pupils. London: Longman. Tao, Hongyin, 19%. Units in Mandarin conversation: Prosody, discourse, and grammar. Amsterdam:

Benjamins. Tiee, Henry Hung-Yeh, 1986. A reference grammar of Chinese sentences. Tucson, AZ: The University

of Arizona Press.

Appendix A: Transcription symbols and grammatical gloss

CAPS .

0

[ 1

=

&I,

I*‘, (( 1) <> cl

Prt Q-prt

emphasis, signaled by pitch or volume falling intonation falling-rising intonation quiet speech overlapped talk cut-off latched talk prolonged sound or syllable silences roughly in seconds and tenths of seconds (measured more according to the relative speech rate of the interaction than to the actual clock time) short, untimed pauses of one tenth of a second or less undecipherable or doubtful hearing additional observation slow speech classifier particle Question particle

Yiya Chen is a Ph.D. in Construction at the Department of Linguistics, SUNY-Stony Brook, USA. Her research interests include discourse analysis, phonetics, and phonology.

Agnes Weiyun He is a Research Associate Professor at the Department of Linguistics, SUNY-Stony Brook, USA. Integrating perspectives from conversation analysis, functional linguistics, and ethnogra- phy of speaking. She has written extensively on situated language use. Her most recent book is entitled Reconstructing institutions through talk (Nonwod, NJ: Ablex, 1998).

Dui bu dui as a pragmatic marker: evidence from chinese classrom discourse

Documents

Transcript of Dui bu dui as a pragmatic marker: evidence from chinese classrom discourse