Interactional Functions of Chinese Shell-Noun Expressions: A Study on Wentishi, Shishishang, Zheyang(zi) and Shemeysi
Date Issued
2012
Date
2012
Author(s)
Hsieh, Chen-Yu
Abstract
In the past few decades, an increasing number of researchers have studied language as social action as opposed to a pure mental capacity. The use of language, based on this premise, is treated as a dynamic interactive process instead of a fixed cognitive state. This perspective enables researchers to account for a number of phenomena in the interface of language and social interaction, such as turn-taking and stancetaking. A variety of linguistic devices have been reported to serve such social interactive ends; however, abstract nouns or shell nouns (Schmid 2000), albeit their pervasiveness and importance, are rarely investigated under this framework. The aim of the present study is thus twofold: First, we intend to investigate the use of shell nouns or shell-noun-based markers in Mandarin conversations, and second, with such an investigation, we attempt to showcase the complexity and interrelatedness of different levels of language use as social action.
Using a database composed of naturally occurring Chinese conversations, we inspect the use of four shell-noun-based expressions, wentishi, shishishang, zheyang(zi) and shemeyisi, in Mandarin conversations. Adopting the framework of Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics, we reveal in great detail how linguistic devices such as shell nouns function at different levels of social interaction.
The present study first presents the structural and distributional patterns of each marker. We find that lexico-grammatical patterns other than those outlined in Schmid (2000) can help link shell nouns to a proposition, and the co-interpreted shell noun and shell content are not necessarily produced by the same speaker. We also advance the research of shell nouns by pinpointing the preference of each shell-noun-based expression for particular turn locations, which is, as we argue, largely shaped by its structural and functional properties.
Based on the conversational data, we further put forth a new analysis for the interactional function of each marker, identifying the social act that they respectively support in interaction. We claim that while wentishi adjusts specific assumptions, shishishang marks generalizations that can strengthen one’s argument and the solidarity between interactants; the response token use of zheyang(zi) allows the recipient to negotiate the boundary of information and activities, whereas shemeyisi expresses the second speaker’s challenge against or doubt about the prior turn, prompting the prior speaker to make repair.
Finally, we propose that these markers most importantly function to facilitate the conversationalists’ act of stancetaking in managing knowledge and pursuing cooperation. Adopting the taxonomy proposed by Stivers et al. (2011b) concerning the key elements in the study of knowledge exchange and cooperation in interaction, we argue that while each expression indexes a particular speaker-hearer knowledge state and certainty, they are all exploited to claim speakers’ epistemic rights and disclaim their responsibility. Although most of them seem to imply a less cooperative stance in the course of interaction, they are in fact designed to save face and negotiate over “who agrees with whom”, so as to achieve a great extent of social cooperation in the end.
The present research contributes to both the study of shell nouns and our understanding of language as social action. In terms of shell nouns, the current thesis is, to our knowledge, not only the first thesis-level effort that investigates the set of nouns in a non-European language, but also one of the few studies that inspect their use in spoken interaction. With respect to language as action, we distinguish between different levels of social action and manifest the use of shell nouns at each level. By this study, we unveil the delicacy and complexity of language and social interaction.
Subjects
shell nouns
language as social action
Conversation Analysis
Interactional Linguistics
turn organization
stancetaking
intersubjectivity
epistemic rights
epistemic responsibility
social cooperation
face
Type
thesis
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