(Amphithéâtre)
Stivers, Tanya (coordinator)
(Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen)
Recipient Stance Towards a Telling : The Use of Vocal
and Kinesic Response Tokens
Within the research on social interaction, vocal response tokens such
as “Mm hm,” and “Uh huh” have typically been discussed as performing
roughly the same function as head nods in the environment of
extended turns such as story tellings (Bavelas, Coates, & Johnson,
2000 ; Goodwin, C., 1986 ; Goodwin, M. H., 1980 ; Schegloff, 1982 ;
Yngve, 1970). Duncan (1974) asserts that they occur in the same
sequential position as well. A primary fi nding of these studies has
been that response tokens take a stance towards the ongoing turn at
talk as not yet complete (e.g., Schegloff, 1982). That is, they decline
to take a fuller turn and thereby collaborate with the projected and
in-progress course of action (e.g., a telling).
This paper will extend this line of research by suggesting fi rst that
nods and vocal response tokens “Mm hm,” and “Uh huh,” do have
a similar “continuer” function in that they pass on the opportunity
to take a fuller turn (Schegloff, 1982). However, whereas vocal continuers
take a stance only to the structure of the ongoing turn as
incomplete, nods align with the content of the speaker’s talk and
thus affi liate with the speaker. Additionally, this paper shows that
nods are often used in environments where the speaker’s telling has
in some way “stalled” or is failing to progress, and through this particular
form of alignment in this position, recipients push speakers
to move forward with their tellings.
Thus, this paper suggests that although vocal and kinesic response
tokens can both function as continuers, they can be differentially
used resources to either take a stance towards the structure or the
content of the talk and to either passively treat the turn as ongoing
or to actively encourage the speaker to move forward.
