<!-- image -->

## Danish dialogue particles in an interactional perspective

Jakob Steensig Aarhus University linjs@cc.au.dk

Søren Sandager Sørensen Aarhus University linsss@cc.au.dk

Abstract: In our paper, we give an overview over what is known about some of the most frequent interjections in Danish talk-in-interaction: ja ('yes'), nej ('no'), mm ('mm') , nå (approximately 'oh'), and okay ('okay').

We review the CA/IL literature on these words, and we present our own exemplary  analyses  of  single  instances  of  these  words  in  extracts  from  our corpus of recorded, naturally occurring Danish interactions. Based on this, we argue that sequential position, epistemics, and affi liation and alignment should be taken into account when describing and categorizing dialogue particles in talk-in-interaction.

Prosody and other phonetic cues are important for the realization of the above dimensions and functions and we review what is known about prosodic and phonetic cues plus add some of our own observations, without launching a full phonetic and prosodic analysis.

## 1. Introduction

In  our  academic  fi  elds,  Conversation  Analysis  (CA,  see  Sidnell  and  Stivers 2013) and Interactional Linguistics (IL, see Couper-Kuhlen and Selting 2018), interjections have always been at the centre of attention. Th e reason for this is that CA and IL focus on how people perform actions with talk (and other resources) and interjections oft  en stand alone and perform vital actions on their own.

In this paper, we investigate the interactional functions of some of the most frequent interjections in Danish talk-in-interaction. We focus on their use in 'third position' aft  er questions and answers. For the current purpose, we use a broad defi  nition of interjections as words that can stand alone and be  independent  utterances  (as  in  Christensen  and  Christensen  2014;  ODT n.d.). Th e subclass of these that we describe here are the 'neutral interjections' (Hansen and Heltoft   2011:1117ff  ) or 'dialogue particles' (Hilmisdóttir 2007; ISK 2004) ja ('yes'), nej ('no'), mm ('mm') , nå (approximately 'oh'), and okay ('okay'). Th e purpose of our investigation is to describe, as precisely as possible, the criteria for the choices interactants make when choosing one particle over another.

We  start  by  delimiting  the  tokens  we  are  investigating  and  briefl  y introduce our methods and data. Th en we show the results of a distribution analysis  of  the  sequential  positions  of  the  tokens.  Th is  forms  the  point  of departure for looking closer at the interactional functions of the particles in third position, which is the position where most of them occur. Th is results in an overview of the interactional functions of the particles in that particular position, which highlights the diff  erences between the particles.

## 2. Delimiting the object of the study

For this article, we are only studying free-standing versions of the particles. Th e basic criterion for a particle (or other word) to be 'free-standing' is that it  performs an action on its own, and, thus, becomes a turn constructional unit,  that  is,  a  possible  turn  of  its  own  (Sacks,  Schegloff    and  Jeff  erson 1974;  Steensig  2001,  2011).  As  this  is  the  most  frequent  environment  for interjections, including the subgroup of dialogue particles (see above), this is an obvious place to start. It means that we have not considered instances where the particles are quoted, as in 'he said yes' . It also means that we have not  included  combinations  of  particles,  for  instance ja=okay ('yes=okay'), nå=okay (' oh=okay'), nå=ja ('oh=yes')  (Emmertsen and Heinemann 2010); particles occurring with conjunctions, like ja=men ('yes but/well') (Steensig and Asmuß 2005); or duplicated/multiple ones, like ja=ja ('yes=yes'), nej=nej ('no=no'),  etc.  (Heinemann  2009;  2015;  Stivers  2004). 1 Neither  have  we included tokens that are integrated with or placed inside a longer turn in any other manner.

It  can  be  diffi cult  to  determine  whether  a  token  that  comes  at  the beginning of a longer turn is integrated with what comes aft  er or is a turn constructional  unit  of  its  own.  Prosodic  boundaries  are  fuzzy  and  indeterminate (Barth-Weingarten 2011, 2013, 2016; Szczepek Reed 2010), so we have considered whether or not a particle carries out an action of its own, and only when we were convinced that it did so, did we consider it for this study.

Words  in  talk-in-interaction  do  not  occur  without  sound.  So,  the particular phonetic and prosodic sound shape is a vital part of understanding what interjections and particles do. We are currently studying the prosody of okay (Sørensen and Steensig in prep.) and a study will be carried out on the prosody of the other particles as well (Sørensen in prep.). For this article, however, we do not investigate the prosody in any detail. We only mention prosody when we know that prosodic features are crucial for distinguishing basic functions of the particles.

From the studies we have already carried out on okay , we know that it is necessary to distinguish two variants of okay in Danish, one, which we will refer to as 'falling okay ' , has a falling pitch contour, because the second syllable is lower in pitch than the fi  rst, and/or because there is a clear falling pitch on the second syllable. Th e other, 'rising okay ' , has a rising pitch contour, where the second syllable lies higher in pitch than the fi  rst and/or has a rising pitch itself (Knudsen 2015; Mortensen and Mortensen 2009; Sørensen and Steensig in prep.).

We  have  also  found  it  necessary  to  distinguish  two  usages  of nej ('no'): A 'disconfi  rming nej ' ,  which disconfi  rms, rejects or refuses an earlier utterance that has positive polarity, and a 'confi  rming nej ' , which confi  rms a prior utterance that has negative polarity (Heinemann 2005, 2015).

Th is means that we distinguish seven functions of our fi  ve tokens: ja ('yes') , confi  rming nej ('no') , disconfi  rming nej ('no') , mm ('mm') , falling okay, rising okay , and nå ('oh').

## 3. Methods

Th e methods we use for investigating the interactional functions of our particles stem from CA/IL. Th e basis for all studies in this tradition are video and/or audio recorded interaction data. Th ose data are transcribed with a high level of accuracy when it comes to the timing of events and rendering of words and sounds (Hepburn and Bolden 2013; Jeff  erson 2004). Th e transcripts help in identifying phenomena and in understanding their systematicity, but they are not data in themselves - as analysts we are always responsible to the original data. So, we have listened to and looked at the video and audio recordings of all our data.

As  analysts  we  try  to  arrive  at  an  understanding  of  interactional phenomena that is as close as possible to the understanding that interactants have. Th e advantage of focused interactional encounters in that respect, is that interactants, through the way they react (or not), show each other how they understand what is going on. Th erefore, the extracts that we use and show in the article, include turns that come before and aft  er the phenomenon of interest, and in our analytic argumentation we use our understanding of the context in which the phenomenon occurs as a guide to understanding what it does. We also use 'next turn proof procedure' (Sacks, Schegloff   and Jeff  erson 1974), that is, how interactants react to the phenomenon, as an even more important guide.

Among  other  guiding  principles  in  our  approach  is  that  no  detail can  be  dismissed  beforehand  as  potentially  unimportant  (Sacks  1984:25, 1992:419-420), that utterances are built for turn-taking (Sacks, Schegloff   and Jeff  erson 1974), that utterances perform actions, and actions occur in action sequences (Schegloff   2007), where every action is both context-sensitive and context renewing (Heritage 1984a).

For this study, we have started by establishing the sequential positions of every particle in the dataset. Th is forms the basis for our distribution analysis in section 5, which establishes the possible position in the interaction of the seven usages. Th en, in section 6, we make a more detailed analysis of what we believe to be typical cases of the particles as they occur in the position that most of the particles can and do occur in: third position. Th ese analyses are 'single case analyses' (Pomerantz and Fehr 1997; Steensig 2015; Sidnell 2013). But rather than just showing the interactional logic of the single cases, we try to  formulate possible generalisations, which can form the basis for a more exhaustive  'collection  based'  analysis  (Hoey  and  Kendrick  2017;  Steensig 2015; Sidnell 2013) of more instances of the diff  erent tokens.

## 4. Data

We are in the process of collecting instances of our fi  ve particles from a corpus of 'naturally occurring' Danish talk-in-interaction. By 'naturally occurring' , we mean that the data have been recorded in everyday settings with people doing whatever they were doing. Th ey have not been asked to do anything special or summoned to come to a special place, they have just given permission that the interaction they were having could be recorded (Mondada 2013).

We  are  using  two  corpora:  (1)  Samtalebanken  (talkbank.org  n.d.), which is a publicly available corpus of interactions in Danish. For this corpus, the  interactants  have  given  the  researchers  permission  to  publish  the  data (video and audio), but names of the interactants have been changed, and every mention of something that could lead to the identifi  cation  of  persons,  has been beeped out. (2) AULing (samtalegrammatik 2018), which is a corpus of conversations gathered by students and researchers at Linguistics, Aarhus University. For this corpus, interactants have given permission that their data can be used for publications, but only when anonymised. We have taken care that all names and other information that could lead to the identifi  cation of persons in the recordings or persons talked about have been anonymised.

At the time of writing this article, we had gathered all instances of freestanding okay from 20 hours of interaction in the corpora. Th is yielded 362 instances of okay , which have all been examined closely. We have 329 cases of ja ('yes'), which have also been examined quite closely. For the other tokens we have fewer ( nej ('no'):  136; nå (' oh'):  55; mm :  20).  When  gathering  the instances, we include phonetic variants, such as [ ja, a, ja ɐ̯ ] of ja , [ n ɑɪ̯ , n ɑ , ŋɑɪ̯ , ŋɑ ] of nej , okay with and without diphthongised vowels and with and without aspirated plosive, mm both short and long and with one or two syllables, and nå in both long and short versions. Whenever we were uncertain whether an instance belonged to our categories, we excluded them. Th erefore, we have not included instances of ej [ ɑɪ̯ ] as it seems to be able to both perform some of the functions of nej , but can also be a diff  erent token, doing other things (Steensig et al. 2013). Neither have we included 'gustatory mm ' s' (Wiggins 2002), that is,  when people express their satisfaction with food through an mm sound. And so far, we have found no clear instances of the negative mm , which we expect to have one or two syllables, of which the fi  rst (or only) - or both - end in a glottal stop and the (possible) second syllable has a lower pitch than the fi  rst one.

Th   is  is  an  overview  article,  building  on  our  data and our  intuitions about how the particles work. All our analytic conclusions build on analyses of concrete instances of the particles in their interactional context, but it is only for ja and okay that we have been able to check our analytic assumptions on a larger dataset. For the other particles, the fi  ndings in our (still limited) datasets have  been  weighed  up  against  the  existing  literature,  and  our  assumptions about the functions of the particles will have to be checked on larger datasets.

## 5. Distribution: Th e particles in their sequential positions

As we are only considering free-standing particles (see section 2), a study of the distribution of the particles equals studying their sequential position .  In determining sequential position, we are relying on CA approach to actions in sequences (Schegloff   2007). Th is builds on 'paired actions' or 'adjacency pairs' (Schegloff   and Sacks 1973), that is, strings of actions which are closely related to and conditioned by each other. Within these, we distinguish a fi rst position , which is when an action starts a sequence, for instance when asking a question or issuing an invitation, a second position ,  which is the response to a fi  rst  position  action, and a third position ,  which is the receipt or other treatment of the action in the second position. Furthermore, we have identifi  ed particles that occur in a responsive position outside adjacency pairs, notably as responses to tellings, accounts or other longer projects, or 'discourse units' (Houtkoop  and  Mazeland  1985),  where  they  indicate  that  their  speaker assumes a recipient role and accepts that the teller or accounter continues her/ his project. We term particles in this position 'continuers' (Couper-Kuhlen and Selting 2018:497, 511-514; Goodwin 1986; Schegloff   1982).

We have looked through our data and examined accessible sources in order to establish in which positions our seven distinctions can occur. Table 1 gives an overview of what we have found. A plus ('+') indicates that the usage does occur in the position in question, a minus ('-') that it does not occur, and a plus  in  parentheses  ('(+)')  that  it  does  occur  but  only  under  special circumstances.

Table  1:  Th e  occurrence  and  non-occurrence  of  uses  of  particles  in  sequential positions

| Position\Particle   | Falling OKAY   | Rising OKAY   | JA   | Discon- firming NEJ   | Confirm- ing NEJ   | NÅ   | MM   |
|---------------------|----------------|---------------|------|-----------------------|--------------------|------|------|
| 1st pos.            | -              | +             | (+)  | -                     | +                  | +    | -    |
| 2nd pos.            | +              | -             | +    | +                     | +                  | -    | +    |
| 3rd pos.            | +              | (+)           | +    | -                     | +                  | +    | +    |
| 'Continuer'         | (+)            | +             | +    | -                     | +                  | +    | +    |

Th e  particles  only  very  rarely  occur  in  fi  rst  position,  as  questions  or  other sequence initiators in insertion sequences (Schegloff   2007). In this position, they  seem  to  be  understood  as  asking  whether  the  recipient  really  means something s/he has expressed, that is, they are responsive, but still initiate a sequence. We have few instances of this, so we will not discuss this use further here.

Th e particles that can confi  rm or disconfi  rm ( ja , nej , mm ), or accept or  reject  ( ja , okay , nej ),  occur  in  second  position.  Analyses  of  those  can reveal  interesting  details  about  boundary  cases  of  (dis)confi  rmation,  (non) acceptance  and  (dis)agreement.  Th is  position  will  be  examined  in  other studies, but for this study, we focus on one of the two positions in which we fi  nd most of the particles, third position .  Space limitations allow us to focus on only one position and this position is the one for which we fi  nd the best cues to the functions of the particles we are considering. Note that this focus excludes disconfi  rming nej ('no') as it is not found in third position, so we are now examining six usages.

Below, we analyse instances of each of the six usages in this position in order to arrive at preliminary conclusions about their function and meaning in this position in Danish talk-in-interaction.

## 6. Analyses of the particles in third position

In this section, we analyse instances that we believe to be representative of the core interactional functions of the six uses of the particles we have found in third position. All the cases that we analyse involve question-answer sequences, in which knowledge about and access to knowledge is a central concern. Most of  the  particles  can  also  be  used  in  'deontic'  or  directive  sequences (Drew and  Couper-Kuhlen  2014;  Stevanovic  and  Peräkylä  2012)  and  assessment sequences (Th ompson, Fox and Couper-Kuhlen 2015; Pomerantz 1984), but our dataset contains mostly epistemic usages of the particles.

For the particles that we have studied the most, okay ('okay') and ja ('yes'), we are quite certain that our extracts and analyses represent frequently occurring usages. For nå (' oh'), we build on quite extensive earlier work, which corresponds to what we have found so far. For nej ('no') and mm , however, the representativity is less certain. But we can still claim that the functions we fi  nd through our analyses are parts of the repertoire of usages that the particles can have.

Our analyses aim at establishing the considerations that participants can be shown to have when choosing the particles in question. We analyse whether the particle expresses that the information provided in the answer to the question is treated as suffi cient and, thus, whether the question-answer sequence can be closed (Th ompson, Fox and Couper-Kuhlen 2015; Schegloff 2007).  We  also  consider  whether  the  particles  express alignment and/or affi liation .  We  use  these  two  terms  in  the  way  proposed  by  Stivers  (2008, see  also  Steensig  2012;  Stivers,  Mondada  and  Steensig  2011),  according  to which an aligning action  is  one  that  goes  along  with  the  activity  suggested by  a  prior  action,  whereas  an affi liative action  is  one  that  takes  the  same evaluative  stance  or  perspective  as  a  prior  utterance.  We  further  consider their epistemic stances, that is, how knowledge territories are expressed and negotiated (Heritage 2012a, 2012b, 2013; Heritage and Raymond 2005, 2012), and, where relevant, we consider the degree and quality of the involvement or commitment expressed through the use of the particles.

## 6.1 Ja in 3rd position

In extract 1, four people have gathered to play board games. All participants have brought games along, and here Svend (SVE) is presenting a game in lines 1-3:

## Extract 1 AULing | board-game-coff   ee1 | 01:59

- 01 SVE:  s å har: jeg: red november hvor man oss then I: ha:ve red november where you also 02 SVE:  spiller sammen mod en ubåd der: i: (.) play together against a submarine tha:t's in 03 SVE:  grove problemer man er en lille gnom, .hhh serious trouble you are a little gnome .hhh 04 MAR:  det du snakkede om\_ the one you talked about 05 SVE:  ja\_ yes\_ 06 MAR: ja\_ yes\_ 07 SVE:  å æh: and uh: 08 (0.3) 09 SVE:  ja man ska redde den her ubåd fra en sto:r yes you have to save this submarine from a æ ksprutte udenfor elle:r nukleare

- 10 SVE:  bl bi:g squid outside o:r nuclear

Th is extract contains two free-standing ja 'yes' tokens, in lines 5 and 6, where the second in line 6 is in third position and in focus here.

Th e  question  in  line  4  is  the  beginning  of  an  insertion  sequence (Schegloff   1972, 2007) into Svend's account of a game the participants could play. Margrete (MAR) asks a clarifying question in line 4, where she seeks to clarify if the game that Svend is talking about is one he has talked about before. Margrete takes an epistemic position of knowing something but needing a confi  rmation of the assumption. Th is can be seen by the fact that her question is non-interrogative (Heritage and Raymond 2012). It is phrasal without any special syntactic (or intonational) marking of interrogativity. In line 5, Svend confi  rms, in a type-conforming format with ja 'yes' (Raymond 2003) in second position and with no silence or any other indication that the question or its answer are problematic. Th is is receipted by the questioner, Margrete, in line 6 with a ja 'yes' , aft  er which Svend continues his account of the game. Svend thus treats Margrete's receipt as an acceptance that his confi  rmation was suffi cient, and that the insertion sequence is now over.

Ja in third position is here used to accept an answer as suffi cient, as having confi  rmed an already held assumption. It is thus sequence closing. It is also aligning, that is, it accepts and furthers the projected interactional course of events, but it does not affi liate, that is, it does not take a position, mainly because it is not relevant at this point to agree, disagree of express emotions (Stivers 2008). Th e point of departure was that the speaker had an assumption that she only needed to get confi  rmed, so the change in epistemic position that the recipient experiences is not a major one, it only goes from not being sure to being sure, rather than from not knowing (K-) to knowing (K+) (Heritage and Raymond 2012).

## 6.2 Confi  rming nej in 3rd position

Extract 2 is found in a recording of three people who are cooking a large meal together  in  an  industrial  kitchen.  Th ey  are  not  professionals,  but  part  of  a community, whose members eat together at regular intervals and take turns at cooking.

We enter the interaction at a point when Tine (TI) and Tom (TO) have been discussing whether there is salt in the water. Just before this extract, Mette (ME) comes back into the kitchen, and Tom turns towards her:

```
Extract 2 samtalebank | 225_deller | 1190 01 TO: Mette det var rigtigt du ikk har Mette it was true you haven't 02 puttet ø::h salt i det vand her ° ikk[ å ] °, put u::h salt in this water right°
```

<!-- formula-not-decoded -->

In line 1, Tom makes an assumption, and asks Mette to confi  rm it. He does this with a negative declarative, and he frames his question with det var rigtigt 'it was true' . Th is is not an insertion sequence, in the traditional sense of this happening within another sequence of talk. It is rather inserted into an activity, where the continuation of the activity (cooking the potatoes) is dependent on the answer to Tom's question. In lines 3-4, Mette confi  rms. She does this with a type-nonconforming answer, by answering with a full clause, rather than the type-conforming no (Raymond 2003). By doing this, Mette asserts epistemic  authority  and  independence,  perhaps  countering  an  expectation that she would be the salt-responsible person (Heritage and Raymond 2005). Tom receipts this answer in the fi  rst possible position with a nej 'no' . Aft  er this there is a silence, during which the interactants are out of camera, but a few seconds later, Tom declares det har vi gjort nu; 'we have done that now' , and they proceed to other business (not shown). Th us, also in this case, participants seem to agree that the sequence is closed.

Th is  extract  resembles  extract  1  above:  Th e  question  makes  an  assumption in a non-interrogative format, the assumption is confi  rmed, and this confi  rmation is receipted, ending the sequence and proceeding to next matters. Th e diff  erence is, of course, that the token is nej rather than ja . Th is is due to the fact that nej is used consistently in Danish to confi  rm and receipt negatively formatted utterances (Heinemann 2005, 2015).

Th e nej in third position here accepts the answer as suffi cient, as having confi  rmed an already held position. Th e nej does not take any position as to the expectability or the aff  ective value of the answer, it just registers it as being enough and that the sequence can be closed. In other words, it aligns (accepts that the activity can go on) but does not affi liate.

## 6.3. Mm in third position

As mentioned above, we do not have many instances of mm in our data. For this  particular  particle,  it  also  turned  out  that  most  of  our  instances  were continuers,  and,  more  surprisingly  perhaps,  that  there  were  more  second position instances than third position ones. But we found a few third position mm ' s. Here is one, taken from a recording of three young people sitting in the living room of their common home, chatting.

At the time when we enter the conversation, the participants have been discussing a recent story in the media about a member of Jehovah's Witnesses and a politician who wanted to change a law. Prior to this, Pia has been the one claiming to know most about the case, and she has taken a quite pronounced stance  against  the  politician  who  was ve'  å  skabe  sig 'being  hysterical'  (not shown).

```
Extract 3 AULing | DK1/1 | 10 01 Carl:  Men hvorfor hæng- hang det i grunden sammen? But why is- was that connected actually? 02 Carl:  Fordi [ellers ] Because otherwise 03 Pia:        [Men det] gør det jo overhovedet ikk. But it is not at all. 04 Pia:  De:t bare ham der ↓ jo, It's just him who ↓ y'know, 05 (0.4) 06    Pia:  Altså ↑ hun er d ø d, Well/Y'know ↑ she is dead 07 Pia:  fordi Jehovas vidne ikk må:: because Jehovas witness are not allo::wed 08 Pia:  få blod°transfusion ikk,° to get blood °transfusion right,° 09 (0.5) 10 Carl:  ja[:, ] yeah:, 11 Emil:    [ m:, ] m:, 12 Carl:  °·mt·hh ↑ hh° 13 Pia:  O:g °*:-° Så, æ:hm= A:nd °*:-° Then, u:hm=
```

Carl's question in line 1 could be a rhetorical one ('it is not connected'), but Pia answers it as a real question. Even though the question is formatted as a request for an explanation (a 'why' question, Koshik 2003; Th ompson, Fox and Couper-Kuhlen 2015), the answer ends up treating the question more like a yes/no question, to which the answer is 'no' . Pia claims that there is no connection, and then accounts for it, again claiming and demonstrating her knowledge.

In  line  8,  Pia  reaches  a  possible  completion  of  her  answer.  Th is  is receipted  by  the  questioner  with  a ja:, ('yes')  and  by  the  third  participant with m:, (with a slight rise in pitch). Both of these receipts treat the answer as complete and satisfactory, but the answer was not one that gave an explanation (which the 'why' in line 1 could have indicated); it was rather one that rejected a possible connection and gave evidence for that. Th at the sequence is treated as  complete here , is  witnessed  by  Carl's  little  lip  smack  and  loud  and  clear inhalation in line 11.

As in extract 1 above, ja:, is used as a third position receipt (line 10), but m:, is  also  used  (line  11). 2 So,  what  is  the  diff  erence?  One  observation is  that mm is  not  frequent in this position. Another is that it is the second recipient, Emil, who says mm .  He  is  the  one  who  did  not  ask  the  question and who has taken very little part in the discussion about this topic earlier. It would thus seem that mm is a more passive, less committed, token in this position (Jeff  erson 1983 notes a similar diff  erence in continuer position, and Gardner 2013 alludes to the same diff  erence in various positions). In extract 3, the diff  erence between Carl's ja:, and Emil's m:, might also be described as a diff  erence in their discursive identities (Zimmerman 1998) or their positions in the participation framework (Goodwin and Goodwin 2004), where Carl is positioned as the primary recipient and Emil as a secondary recipient.

So, m:, seems to accept the answer as having been suffi cient,  and  it thus aligns with the sequential project. However, it does not seem to express any stance and thus does not affi liate (Stivers 2008). Furthermore, it is issued from a secondary recipient position and seems thus to be less engaged and less committed than the ja and confi  rming nej tokens we saw in extracts 1 and 2 above.

## 6.4. Falling okay in third position

Th ird position is the most frequent environment of the Danish falling okay (Sørensen and Steensig in prep.). Extract 4 is an instance of this. A group of four women are sitting in the home of one of the participants (anonymised as Dorte) drinking coff  ee and talking. Th e topic at this point is the amount and quality of candy that their children get when participating in for instance Christmas arrangements. Sus has earlier told about candy from a company called 'Candinavia' and she has assessed this candy as really bad and full of chemicals. Dorte has told that her daughter went to an arrangement where the kids got a lot of candy.

```
Extract 4 samtalebank | moedregruppen1 | 1088 01 Dorte:  mt å det [var helt vildt ] mt And it was completely crazy 02 Sus:            [(det) var  oss ] fra [Candinavia; (That) was also from Candinavia 03 Dorte:                                 [å (m:) to (uhm) 04 (1.0) 05 Dorte: var det det_ Was it_ 06 Sus:   ja, det var det vi så (det) i avisen; Yes it was we saw it in the newspaper;
```

|   07 | (0.3)                                                                                  |
|------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|   08 | Dorte: ok ↓ ay_ ok ↓ ay_                                                               |
|   09 | Sus: men- Candinavia har vel nok andet end but Candinavia likely has other things than |
|   10 | kemisk affald de har oss: andre ting; chemical waste they also have: other things      |
|   11 | vil jeg tro; I assume                                                                  |

In  line  1,  Dorte  comments  on  the  amount  of  candy  and  her  utterance  is accompanied with a gesture displaying the enormous size of the candy bag her daughter brought home. In line 2, Sus comes in before Dorte has fi  nished her utterance and informs that the candy Dorte's daughter had received was 'also from Candinavia' . Dorte stops her telling and asks for a reconfi  rmation in line 5. Th is  question could be answered with a type-conforming 'yes' or 'no'  (Raymond 2003), but as  it  seems  to  express  a  surprised  stance  (Dorte has had no prior indication that the candy in question came from that illfamed company), it elicits more than just a 'yes' (that is, it addresses a prior 'knowledge  discrepancy' ,  Steensig  and  Heinemann  2013).  In  line  6,  Sus answers by providing a confi  rmation plus an account for how she knows this. Th is is received with a falling ok ↓ ay\_ in line 8. 3 Aft  er this, Sus mitigates her potentially  off  ensive  information,  by  saying  that  this  information  does  not necessarily mean that Dorte has accepted that her daughter was fed chemical waste. Aft  er this sequence, Dorte continues her telling.

So, we have here an insertion sequence (Schegloff   1972, 2007), consisting of a yes/no question, a request for re-confi  rmation (and more) in fi  rst position (line 5), a confi  rmation plus account in second position (line 6), and a receipt in third position (the okay in  line 8). We interpret Dorte's okay as expressing acceptance of the answer. But there may be something in the way that she says okay , or perhaps in the fact that the okay is slightly delayed (0.3 seconds) that makes Sus expand her answer and mitigate the off  ensiveness of her information.

As was the case with 'yes' and 'no' in extracts 1 and 2, this particle in third  position  receipts  an  answer  that  confi  rms  an  assumption  held  by  the questioner. In accepting the answer as suffi cient, it aligns with the activity. Sus' answer in extract 4 does not take an evaluative stance, so there is nothing Dorte can affi liate with. But, even though Dorte's question in line 5 was asking for a reconfi  rmation of something that had already been stated, it seemed to come from a position of knowledge discrepancy. By okay'ing this, the speaker seems to accept that this wider knowledge gap has now been bridged, or in Heritage and Raymond's (2012) terms, the epistemic move is from a more pronounced K- position to a K+ position, that is, the okay speaker experiences a change- of-state (Heritage 1984b; Heinemann and Koivisto 2016). However, this move does  not  occur  in  the  question  sequence  alone,  it  occurred  already  before the  sequence,  and  the  sequence  was  now  devoted  to  establishing  whether this  surprising information was really true and to get some justifi  cation or evidence for it. Another way of seeing this, is that okay does not only accept that the answer was good enough, it also indicates that there was something that was important to get cleared up.

To sum up, this okay marks possible sequence closing and it thus aligns with the activity, there is no affi liation or stance-taking. However, it does seem to address a bigger change of information state than the instances of 'yes' and 'no' (and 'mm') that we looked at above.

## 6.5. Nå in third position

Extract 5 shows nå in  3rd position. It comes from Trine Heinemann's large collection of private phone calls, from the days of the landline. KM has called Fie.

```
Extract 5 TH | 292-293 M2/10 (Heinemann 2017:250, transcription adapted) 01 KM: Har du Jens hjemme¿ Do you have Jens at home¿ 02 Fie:  Nej. No. 03 KM: Nå, Oh, 04 (0.5) 05 Fie:  Sku jeg ha det? Should I/Was I supposed to?
```

Th is extract comes right at the beginning of the call. From later in the call, we can see that KM had expected that Jens would be home because she tells that a meeting they were both expected to attend has been cancelled (not shown). So, she speaks from a position of not knowing, but assuming, that Jens is at home, when she in line 1 requests confi  rmation. She gets a fl  at rejection in line 2, and then receipts this with a Nå, in line 3. In line 5, Fie addresses the underlying assumption in the question and they discuss, half-jokingly, what they ought to know about Jens aft  er this.

Th   is shows that the nå -receipt functions as a sequence closing third, indicating that the answer was suffi cient. As was the case with ja , confi  rming nej and mm above,  this  particle  in  third  position  seems  to  align  with  the activity, including acceptance of the relative roles and epistemic positions (that Fie knew more and has the authority to assert that knowledge). But the answer is unexpected and the receipt with nå in third position seems to target that specifi  cally: it marks a big change-of-state in knowledge, from believing one thing and now knowing the opposite. It thus turns out that the participants do not totally share perspectives, in that KM can be seen as expecting that Jens would be home and that Fie challenges the grounds for such an expectation.

Heinemann (2017) argues that nå in this position is used recurrently when the answer is not the expected one. It seems that nå deals with a changeof-state in knowledge in a way that the other tokens do not, by marking the change as unexpected. Th is function seems to be quite similar to how rising okay is used in the same position.

## 6.6. Rising okay in third position

Th e last extract is one of our few instances of a rising okay occurring aft  er an answer to a question.

Th e two participants in this conversation, Preben (PRE) and Th omas (THO) work in the same company but do not seem to have known each other before this conversation took place. We enter the interaction aft  er Preben has told that he has been with the company for nine years, so he has seen many people leaving the company. Th omas' line 1 comes in response to this.

|   Extract | 6    | samtalebank | preben_og_thomas | 963                           |
|-----------|------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|        01 | THO: | bare imens jeg 'ar v æ ret der; just while I have been there;            |
|        02 |      | der °der° mange der er, there are many who are/have,                     |
|        03 |      | (0.2)                                                                    |
|        04 | PRE: | ja:,= yeah:,=                                                            |
|        05 | THO: | =stoppet å kom[me(t her)] =stopped and come (here)                       |
|        06 | PRE: | [ja hvor l] æ nge har                                                    |
|        07 | PRE: | du efterhånden v æ ret [her. you been here by now.                       |
|        08 | THO: | [(i) (in)                                                                |
|        09 | THO: | jeg har v æ ret der i ni måneder nu_ I've been there for nine months now |
|        10 |      | (0.2)                                                                    |
|        11 | PRE: | o:kay, o:kay,                                                            |
|        12 |      | (.)                                                                      |
|        08 | PRE: | ja,                                                                      |
|        13 |      | (.)                                                                      |

|   14 | PRE:   | der ka du se, there you see,                     |
|------|--------|--------------------------------------------------|
|   15 |        | (.)                                              |
|   16 | PRE:   | de:r mange [der g å r_ there are many who leave_ |
|   17 | THO:   | [ °hm:°. ° hm:°.                                 |

In lines 1-5, Th omas agrees with Preben's observation that many people are leaving the company by asserting that he has seen the same 'just during the time'  he  has  been  there.  In  lines  6-7,  Preben  acknowledges  this  and  asks Th omas how long he has  been  in  the  company eft  erhånden 'by  now' .  Th is highlights Th omas' (potentially short) association with the company and, by implication, Preben's longer seniority and, consequently, his higher epistemic authority to make claims about what happens in the company (Heritage 2013). Th omas could answer this by just giving a phrasal answer (for instance, '(for) nine months'), but he chooses to answer with an entire clause. Th e  choice of a clausal rather than the more obvious and no-problem formatted phrasal answer (Fox and Th ompson 2010; Th ompson, Fox and Couper-Kuhlen 2015) together with the fact that the participants use diff  erent adverbs to refer to the workplace (Th omas uses 'there' in lines 1 and 9 and Preben uses 'here' in line 7) might indicate that Th omas does not totally go along with the epistemic claims that Preben makes, and that he claims some degree of epistemic independence (Heritage and Raymond 2005). We thus have a situation aft  er Th omas' answer in line 9, where Th omas has given the requested information, but in a format that might not align with Preben's implicit epistemic claims.

In line 11, Preben receipts this with a (slightly) rising okay , followed by a 'yes' (line 13) and 'there you see' (line 15) and a repetition of his original wording (which was not shown) of the situation at the company 'there are many who leave' (line 17), choosing 'leave' rather than Th omas' 'stop' from line 5.

Th e okay is  thus  part  of  a  sequence  closing  move  by  Preben,  one that acknowledges the answer and accepts it as suffi cient.  Th e  fact  that  the question was a request for information, with an open slot - Preben did not know the answer - that has now been fi  lled, means that Preben's information state has been changed. In accepting the answer as suffi cient, the okay thus also indicates a change-of-state. But, rather than just accepting the answer and closing the sequence, Preben uses the okay as part of a longer turn that makes Th omas' answer the basis for a re-assertion of Preben's original claim and of his  superior  epistemic  authority.  Th e  two  participants  share  a  perspective on the situation,  that  it  is  one  where  many  people  come  and  go,  and  they thus affi liate ,  but  Th omas' answer does not totally align with  the  epistemic stance in Preben's question in that it claims some degree of independence, and, similarly, Preben's receipt does not fully align with the epistemic stance in Th omas' answer, in that he uses it for further elaboration and for claiming higher epistemic authority.

## 7. Discussion

We have now seen instances of six functions of our particles in third position aft  er  answers  to  questions,  and  we  begin  to  get  a  picture  of  the  diff  erences in their usages in this particular position. Table 2 summarises our analytic results.  We  have  highlighted  the  functions  that  diff  erentiate  the  individual tokens and their variants the most.

Table 2: Summary of the interactional functions of the particles in third position.

| Function\Particle                                      | ja       | Confirming nej   | mm        | Falling okay   | nå               | Rising okay   |
|--------------------------------------------------------|----------|------------------|-----------|----------------|------------------|---------------|
| Information sufficient, acceptance of sequence closure | yes      | yes              | yes       | yes            | yes              | not fully     |
| Alignment with activity                                | yes      | yes              | yes       | yes            | yes              | not fully     |
| Polarity in question and answer                        | positive | negative         | positive  | neutral        | neutral          | neutral       |
| Commitment to role of recipient                        | yes      | yes              | not fully | yes            | yes              | yes           |
| Signalling change- of-state                            | no       | no               | no        | to some degree | to a high degree | yes           |
| Affiliating with stance or perspective                 | neutral  | neutral          | neutral   | neutral        | not fully        | yes           |

Th e main divide seems to be between the particles that mainly orient to an answer as having given a suffi cient confi  rmation of an already held assumption on the one hand, ja , nej and mm , and the particles that orient to the stance, okay and nå , on the other.

Th e internal diff  erence between the 'suffi cient confi  rmation' particles ( ja,  nej and mm )  lies  in  the  polarity  of  the  question  and  answer,  which diff  erentiates confi  rming nej from ja and mm ,  and in the degree of commitment to the discursive positioning as a primary recipient, which diff  erentiates mm from ja and nej .

Th e  'stance-oriented'  particles, okay and nå ,  orient  to  the  epistemic stances displayed or implied in the question and/or answer, albeit to diff  erent degrees.  Falling okay can  orient  to  an  earlier  epistemic  discrepancy,  but  it accepts that the epistemic balance has now been fully re-established. Nå and rising okay in  third  position  seem  to  indicate  that  there  are  still  unsolved issues  concerning  the  epistemic  balance  or  authority. Nå is  not  necessarily fully  affi liative  in  that  it  indicates  diff  erences  in  the  perspectives  taken  by the  participants  while  still  aligning  with  the  activity  by  accepting  that  the answer was suffi cient and the sequence can be closed. Rising okay , in contrast, seems to affi liate  in  that  it  accepts  the  stance  and  perspective  taken  by  the co-participant, but it may not be fully aligning in that it does not accept the answer as fully following the activity that the original question was part of, and it  indicates  that  further  work  might  be  necessary.  Th is  can  be  seen  as refl  ecting that the rising okay is most oft  en used as a continuer, displaying that more talk is expected (Sørensen and Steensig in prep.). However, we have not yet investigated nå in third position in detail, so the exact diff  erences between nå (with diff  erent prosodic patterns) and rising okay may turn out to be more nuanced than what we have been able to establish so far.

## 8. Conclusion

Analysing  free-standing  particles  would  seem  to  be  less  complex  than analysing constructions with internal syntax or morphology. In the case of particles, one word does one action. But what might seem like vagueness in meaning potential, leading to vague descriptions, forms a system of diff  erent actions  and  stances,  when  free-standing  particles  are  described  in  contrast to each other. In this article, we propose such a system for choosing between the tokens in Danish, and that a distinction between 'suffi cient confi  rmation' particles and 'stance-oriented' particles can be made.

Th e  web-dictionary,  Ordbog  over  Dansk  Talesprog  (Dictionary  of Spoken Danish, ODT n.d.), is the only project about Danish particles and interjections  that  is  comparable  to  ours,  in  that  it  uses  data  from  talk-ininteraction. ODT lists a number of functions that can be used to distinguish the interjections that they describe. For the particles described in this article and also treated in ODT, the function topic shift (' emneskift  e') distinguishes okay from the other particles, and negative attitude ('negativ attitude') sets nej 'no' and ' okay with a negative valence' (our translation) off   from the other particles. In order to distinguish the other tokens, no systematicity is suggested (so far).

We  have,  through  our  preliminary  analyses  of  six  usages  of  these particles in a specifi  c position, found criteria that can distinguish all of the particles.  Th ey  are  certainly  not  the  only  relevant  criteria  and  they  do  not account for the particles used in other positions or for other prosodic variants of  the  particles.  However, we propose that we can fi  nd relevant criteria for distinguishing free-standing particles and interjections in interaction, which carry out actions of their own, by examining them in their sequential context and by trying to fi  nd evidence in the way the interaction unfolds.

## Notes

- 1 The equals sign '=' means that two words are spoken without any pause between them.
- 2 The reason that the positive tokens ( ja:, and m:, ) are chosen is that Carl and Emil respond to the main point of Pia's answer ('she is dead') rather than the 'because' part ('because Jehovah's Witnesses are not allo::wed to get blood°transfusion°') which is syntactically and interactionally sub-ordinated the main clause ('she is dead'), see Steensig (1998).
- 3 More precisely, this okay is categorized as 'falling' because the second syllable has a lower pitch than the fi  rst even though the second syllable has a level tone (indicated by the underscore after the word, '\_').

## References

- Barth-Weingarten, Dagmar. 2011. Th e fuzziness of intonation units: Some theoretical considerations and a practical solution, InLiSt - Interaction and Linguistic Structure , vol. 51.
- Barth-Weingarten, Dagmar. 2013. From 'intonation units' to cesuring - an alternative approach to the prosodic-phonetic structuring of talk-in-interaction, in: Szczepek Reed, B. & Raymond, G. (eds.), Units of Talk - Units of Action ,  John Benjamins, 91-124.
- Barth-Weingarten,  Dagmar.  2016. Intonation  units  revisited  -  cesuras  in  talk-ininteraction , John Benjamins.
- Christensen,  Lisa  &  Robert  Zola  Christensen.  2014. Dansk  grammatik [Danish Grammar], Syddansk Universitetsforlag.
- Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth & Margret Selting. 2018. Interactional Linguistics. Studying Language in Social Interaction , Cambridge University Press.
- Drew, Paul & Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen (eds.). 2014. Requesting in Social Interaction , John Benjamins.
- Emmertsen, Sofi  e & Trine Heinemann. 2010. Realization as a device for remedying problems of affi liation in interaction, Research on Language & Social Interaction , vol. 43(2), 109-132.
- Fox, Barbara A. & Sandra A. Th ompson. 2010. Responses to wh-questions in English conversation, Research on Language and Social Interaction , vol. 43(2), 133-156.
- Gardner, Rod. 2013. Conversation Analysis and Recipient Behavior, in: Chapelle, C. A. (ed.), Th e Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics , Blackwell.
- Goodwin, Charles. 1986. Between and within: alternative and sequential treatments of continuers and assessments, Human Studies vol. 9, 205-18.
- Goodwin, Charles & Marjorie Harness Goodwin. 2004. Participation, in: Duranti, A. (ed.), A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology , Blackwell, 222-244.
- Hansen, Erik & Lars Heltoft  . 2011. Grammatik over det danske sprog [Grammar of the Danish language], Det Danske Sprog- og Litteraturselskab.
- Heinemann, Trine. 2005. Where grammar and interaction meet: Th e preference for matched polarity in responsive turns in Danish, in: Hakulinen, A. & Selting, M. (eds.), Syntax and Lexis in Conversation: Studies on the use of linguistic resources in talk-in-interaction , John Benjamins, 375-402.

- Heinemann, Trine. 2009. Two answers to inapposite inquiries, in: Sidnell, J. (ed.), Conversation Analysis: Comparative Perspectives , Cambridge University Press, 15986.
- Heinemann, Trine. 2015. Negation in interaction, in Danish conversation, Skrift  er om Samtalegrammatik , vol. 2(12).
- Heinemann, Trine. 2017. Receipting answers that are counter to expectations: Th e polar question-answer-Nå sequence in Danish, Research on Language and Social Interaction , vol. 50(3), 249-267.
- Heinemann, Trine & Aino Koivisto. 2016. Indicating a change-of-state in interaction: cross-linguistic explorations. Journal of Pragmatics , vol. 37, 251-290.
- Hepburn, Alexa & Galina B. Bolden. 2013. Th e  conversation analytic approach to transcription,  in:  Sidnell,  J.  &  Stivers,  T.  (eds.), Th e  Handbook  of  Conversation Analysis , Wiley-Blackwell, 57-76.
- Heritage, John (1984a). Garfi  nkel and Ethnomethodology , Polity Press.
- Heritage, John. 1984. A change-of-state token and aspects of its sequential placement, in:  Atkinson,  J.  M.  &  Heritage,  J.  (eds.), Structures  of  social  action:  Studies  in conversation analysis , Cambridge University Press, 299-345.
- Heritage,  John.  2012a.  Epistemics  in  action:  Action  formation  and  territories  of knowledge, Research on Language and Social Interaction , vol. 45(1), 1-29.
- Heritage, John. 2012b. Th e epistemic engine: Sequence organization and territories of knowledge, Research on Language and Social Interaction , vol. 45(1), 30-52.
- Heritage, John. 2013. Epistemics in conversation, in: Sidnell, J. & Stivers, T. (eds.), Th e Handbook of Conversation Analysis , Wiley-Blackwell, 370-394.
- Heritage,  John  &  Geoff  rey  Raymond.  2005.  Th e  terms  of  agreement:  indexing epistemic authority and subordination in assessment sequences, Social Psychology Quarterly , vol. 68, 15-38.
- Heritage,  John  &  Geoff  rey  Raymond.  2012.  Navigating  epistemic  landscapes: Acquiesence, agency and resistance in responses to polar questions, in: de Ruiter, J. P . (ed.), Questions: Formal, functional and interactional perspectives , Cambridge University Press, 179-192.
- Hilmisdóttir,  Helga.  2007. A  sequential  analysis  of  nú  and  núna  in  Icelandic conversation ,  Department of Scandinavian Languages and Literature, University of Helsinki.
- Hoey, Elliott M. & Kobin. H. Kendrick. 2017. Conversation Analysis, in: de Groot, A. M. B. & Hagoort, P . (eds.), Research Methods in Psycholinguistics: A Practical Guide , Wiley-Blackwell, 151-173.
- Houtkoop, Hanneke & Harrie Mazeland. 1985. Turns and discourse units in everyday conversation, Journal of Pragmatics , vol. 9, 595-619.
- ISK  = Iso  suomen  kielioppi [Th e  Big  Finnish  Grammar].  2004.  Hakulinen,  A., Riitta  Korhonen,  Maria  Vilkuna,  Irja  Alho,  Vesa  Koivisto  (eds.),  Suomalaisen Kirjallsuuden  Seura.  http://scripta.kotus.fi  /visk/etusivu.php,  visited  on  April  22, 2018.
- Jeff  erson,  Gail.  1983.  Notes  on  a  systematic  deployment  of  the  acknowledgement tokens 'Yeah' and 'Mm hm' , Tilburg papers in language and literature , vol. 30.
- Jeff  erson, Gail. 2004. Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction, in: Lerner, G. H. (ed.), Conversation Analysis: Studies from the fi  rst generation , John Benjamins, 13-31.

- Knudsen, Anette Dahl. 2015. 'O( ↑ )kay(?), ↑ Ohkay' -En Prosodiafh   ængig ytringspartikel? ['O( ↑ )kay(?), ↑ Ohkay' -A prosody dependent discourse particle?], Skrift  er om Samtalegrammatik , vol. 2(1).
- Koshik, Irene. 2003. Wh-questions used as challenges, Discourse Studies , vol. 5, 5177.
- Mondada,  Lorenza.  2013.  Th e  conversation  analytic  approach  to  data  collection, in: Sidnell, J. & Stivers, T. (eds.), Th e Handbook of Conversation Analysis ,  WileyBlackwell, 32-56.
- Mortensen, Janus & Sune Sønderberg Mortensen. 2009. Okay i engelsk og dansk [ Okay in English and Danish], in: Th erkelsen, R. & Jensen, E. S. (eds.), Dramatikken i grammatikken . Festskrift   til Lars Heltoft  , Institut for Kultur og Identitet, 208-304.
- ODT. No date. Ordbog over dansk talesprog [Dictionary of Spoken Danish]. http:// odt.hum.ku.dk, visited on April 22, 2018.
- Pomerantz, Anita. 1984. Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: some features of  preferred/dispreferred  turn  shapes,  in:  Atkinson,  J.  M.  &  Heritage,  J.  (eds.), Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis , Cambridge University Press, 57-101.
- Pomerantz, Anita & Bernard J. Fehr. 1997. Conversation analysis: An approach to the study of social action as sense making practices, in: van Dijk, T. A. (ed.), Discourse as social interaction , Sage Publications, 64-91.
- Raymond, Geoff  rey. 2003. Grammar and social organization: Yes/No interrogatives and the structure of responding, American Sociological Review , vol. 68, 939-967.
- Sacks, Harvey. 1984. Notes on methodology, in: Atkinson, J. M. & Heritage, J. (eds.), Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis . Cambridge University Press, 2-27.
- Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Schegloff   & Gail Jeff  erson. 1974. A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation, Language , vol. 50(4), 696-735.
- samtalegrammatik. 2018. http://samtalegrammatik.au.dk, visited on April 22, 2018.
- Schegloff  , Emanuel A.. 1972. Notes on a conversational practice: formulating place, in: Sudnow, D. (ed.), Studies in social interaction . Free Press, 75-119.
- Schegloff  , Emanuel A.. 1982. Discourse as an interactional achievement: some uses of 'uh huh' and other things that come between sentences, in: Tannen, D. (ed.), Analyzing Discourse: Text and Talk , Georgetown University Press, 71-93.
- Schegloff  ,  Emanuel  A..  2007. Sequence  Organization  in  Interaction.  A  Primer  in Conversation Analysis , Cambridge University Press.
- Schegloff  , Emanuel A. & Harvey Sacks. 1973. Opening up closings, Semiotica, vol. 8, 289-327.
- Szczepek  Reed,  Beatrice.  2010.  Intonation  phrases  in  natural  conversation:  A participants'  category?  in:  Barth-Weingarten,  D.,  Reber,  E.  &  Selting,  M.  (eds.), Prosody in Interaction , John Benjamins, 191-212.
- Sidnell, Jack. 2013. Basic conversation analytic methods, in: Sidnell, J. & Stivers, T. (eds.), Th e handbook of conversation analysis , Wiley-Blackwell, 77-99.
- Sidnell, Jack & Tanya Stivers (eds.). 2013. Th e Handbook of Conversation Analysis, Wiley-Blackwell.

- Steensig,  Jakob.  1998.  Om  fordi  i  forskellige  sætningstyper  i  dansk  talesprog  [On fordi  ('because')  in  diff  erent  clause  types  in  spoken  Danish],  in:  Kristensen,  K. (ed.), Selskab for Nordisk Filologi i København. Årsberetning 1996-1997 . Selskab for Nordisk Filologi, 179-192.
- Steensig,  Jakob.  2001. Sprog  i  virkeligheden  -  Bidrag  til  en  interaktionel  lingvistik [Language  in  reality  -  Contributions  to  an  interactional  linguistics],  Aarhus University Press.
- Steensig, Jakob. 2011. Turn-taking in conversation, in: Andersen, G. & Aijmer, K. (eds.), Pragmatics of Society , de Gruyter Mouton, 499-532.
- Steensig,  Jakob.  2012.  Conversation  Analysis  and  Affi liation  and  Alignment,  in: Mortensen,  K.  &  Wagner,  J.  (eds.), Th e  Encyclopedia  of  Applied  Linguistics: Conversation Analysis , Wiley-Blackwell.
- Steensig, Jakob. 2015. Konversationsanalyse [Conversation analysis], in: Brinkmann, S. & Tanggaard, L. (eds.), Kvalitative metoder: en grundbog , Hans Reitzel, 321-347.
- Steensig,  Jakob  &  Birte  Asmuß.  2005.  Notes  on  disaligning  'yes  but'  initiated utterances  in  German  and  Danish  conversations:  Two  construction  types  for dispreferred responses, in: Hakulinen, A. & Selting, M. (eds.), Syntax and lexis in conversation: Studies on the use of linguistic resources in talk-in-interaction ,  John Benjamins, 349-374.
- Steensig,  Jakob,  Karen  Kiil  Brøcker,  Caroline  Grønkjær,  Magnus  Glenvad  Tind Hamann, Rasmus Puggaard Hansen, Maria Jørgensen, Mathias Høyer Kragelund, Nicholas  Hedegaard  Mikkelsen,  Tina  Mølgaard,  Henriette  Folkmann  Pedersen, Søren Sandager Sørensen & Emilie Th olstrup. 2013. Th e DanTIN project - creating a platform for describing the grammar of Danish talk-in-interaction, in: Petersen, J. H. & Henrichsen, P . J. (eds.), New Perspectives on Speech in Action. Proceedings of the 2nd SJUSK Conference on Contemporary Speech Habits , Samfundslitteratur Press, 197-225.
- Steensig, Jakob & Trine Heinemann. 2013. When 'yes' is not enough - aft  er a yes/ no question, in: Szczepek Reed, B. & Raymond, G. (eds.), Units of talk - Units of Action , John Benjamins, 207-241.
- Stevanovic,  Melisa  &  Peräkylä,  Anssi.  2012.  Deontic  authority  in  interaction:  the right to announce, propose, and decide, Research on Language & Social Interaction , vol. 45(4), 297-321.
- Stivers,  Tanya.  2004.  'No  no  no'  and  other  types  of  multiple  sayings  in  social interaction, Human Communication Research , vol. 30, 250-293.
- Stivers,  Tanya.  2008.  Stance,  alignment  and  affi liation  during  storytelling:  When nodding  is  a  token  of  preliminary  affi liation. Research  on  Language  in  Social Interaction , vol. 41, 31-57.
- Stivers,  Tanya,  Lorenza  Mondada  &  Jakob  Steensig  (eds.).  2011. Th e  Morality  of Knowledge in Conversation , Cambridge University Press.
- Sørensen, Søren Sandager. In preparation. Prosodic featues of ja and nej in Danish. Unpublished MA thesis. Aarhus University.
- Sørensen, Søren Sandager & Jakob Steensig. In preparation. Prosodic, phonetic and sequential  variation  in  Danish  epistemic  OKAY,  in:  Betz,  E.,  Deppermann,  A., Mondada, L. & Sorjonen, M.-L. (eds.), Okay across Languages , John Benjamins.
- talkbank.org. No date. Samtalebank corpus. https://samtalebank.talkbank.org, visited on April 22, 2018.

## Jakob Steensig & Søren Sandager Sørensen Scandinavian Studies in Language, 10(1), 2019 (63-84)

- Th ompson, Sandra A., Barbara A. Fox & Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen. 2015. Grammar in Everyday Talk. Building Responsive Actions , Cambridge University Press.
- Wiggins,  Sally.  2002.  Talking  with  your  mouth  full:  Gustatory mmms and  the embodiment of pleasure, Research on Language and Social Interaction , vol. 35(3), 311-336.
- Zimmerman,  Don  H..  1998.  Identity,  context  and  interaction,  in:  Antaki,  C.  & Widdicombe, S. (eds.), Identities in Talk , Sage Publications, 87-106.