Table Of ContentTag Questions
in Conversation
A typology of their interactional
and stance meanings
Ditte Kimps
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83
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
Tag Questions in Conversation
Studies in Corpus Linguistics (SCL)
issn 1388-0373
SCL focuses on the use of corpora throughout language study, the development
of a quantitative approach to linguistics, the design and use of new tools for
processing language texts, and the theoretical implications of a data-rich discipline.
For an overview of all books published in this series, please see
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General Editor Founding Editor
Ute Römer Elena Tognini-Bonelli
Georgia State University The Tuscan Word Centre/University of Sienna
Advisory Board
Laurence Anthony Susan Hunston
Waseda University University of Birmingham
Antti Arppe Michaela Mahlberg
University of Alberta University of Birmingham
Michael Barlow Anna Mauranen
University of Auckland University of Helsinki
Monika Bednarek Andrea Sand
University of Sydney University of Trier
Tony Berber Sardinha Benedikt Szmrecsanyi
Catholic University of São Paulo Catholic University of Leuven
Douglas Biber Elena Tognini-Bonelli
Northern Arizona University The Tuscan Word Centre/The University of Siena
Marina Bondi Yukio Tono
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
Jonathan Culpeper Martin Warren
Lancaster University The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Sylviane Granger Stefanie Wulff
University of Louvain University of Florida
Stefan Th. Gries
University of California, Santa Barbara
Volume 83
Tag Questions in Conversation
A typology of their interactional and stance meanings
by Ditte Kimps
Tag Questions in Conversation
A typology of their interactional
and stance meanings
Ditte Kimps
KU Leuven
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8
the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Cover design: Françoise Berserik
Cover illustration from original painting Random Order
by Lorenzo Pezzatini, Florence, 1996.
doi 10.1075/scl.83
Cataloging-in-Publication Data available from Library of Congress:
() / (-)
isbn 978 90 272 0043 3 (Hb)
isbn 978 90 272 6433 6 (e-book)
© 2018 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Company · https://benjamins.com
Table of contents
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Typographical conventions in the examples
Key to transcription conventions
chapter 1
Introduction
chapter 2
State of the art and aims of study
. Overview table
. Functional studies
.. Form-based typologies
.. Interactional typologies
.. Stance typologies
.. Some problems with the existing functional typologies
. Prosodic studies
. Innit and invariable tag studies
. Variational and comparative studies
. Socio- and psycholinguistic studies
. Aims of this study
chapter 3
Corpora, data and methodology
. Corpora: COLT, LLC and ICE-GB
. Data extraction: Building a dataset
. Data processing
.. Prosodic annotation
.. The tagging and categorization process 44
.. Distribution of speaker characteristics and
conversation types
. Data analysis
Tag Questions in Conversation
chapter 4
TQ properties
. The TQ construction: Anchor + tag
. Mood and modality
.. Mood types
.. Types of modality
.. A-events, B-events and AB-events
. Polarity patterns
. Conversational features
.. Adjacency pairs
.. Turn position
.. Responses to TQs
. Prosodic features
.. Tone units
.. Tones on anchor and tag
. Th e prototypical TQ and (un)markedness of
options within properties
. A note on how to interpret these properties
chapter 5
Speech functions
. T owards a systematic description of the
speech functions of English TQs
. Speech function types of TQs 94
.. Questions 97
.. Statements
.. Statement-question blends
.. Responses
... TQs responding to a statement
... TQs responding to a wh-interrogative
... TQs responding to a polar interrogative
... TQs responding to a TQ
.. Desired actions
.. Ambiguous TQs
. Comparison of the speech function types and their features
.. A brief overview of the speech function types
.. A flowchart approach to the classification of TQs into
speech functions
.. Comparing speech functions in relation to their
main properties
Table of contents
chapter 6
Stance typology of TQs
. T owards a systematic description of the stance types
conveyed by English TQs
.. TQs and modal particles
.. TQs and the notion of common ground
. TQs as markers of common ground perception and negotiation
.. Signalling a breach in common ground
... Signalling a breach in and reconstructing
common ground
... Signalling and exacerbating the breach
.. Establishing common ground
. Comparison of the stance types and their properties
.. A brief overview of the stance types
.. The speaker–hearer commitment continuum
.. Comparing stance types in relation to their properties
chapter 7
TQs across the three corpora
7.1 Distribution of speech function types in ICE-GB, LLC and COLT
7.2 Distribution of TQ stance types in ICE-GB, LLC and COLT
7.3 Distribution of TQ properties in ICE-GB, LLC and COLT
7.4 Explaining the differences between ICE-GB, COLT and LLC
7.4.1 A real time language change?
7.4.2 Possible impact of speakers’ age
7.4.3 Possible impact of speakers’ gender
7.4.4 Possible impact of conversation types
7.4.5 Possible factors combined
7.5 Some concluding remarks
chapter 8
Conclusions and prospects for future research
References
Appendix
Name index
Subject index
Acknowledgements
This book, a revised version of my PhD thesis, could not have been written with-
out the input and encouragement of many people. First of all I want to thank my
supervisor Kristin Davidse for taking me on first as an MA student and later as a
PhD researcher, when I was appointed on the FWO-Flanders Research Founda-
tion project grant G.0560.11, of which Bert Cornillie was the co-promoter. I thank
both my supervisors for their detailed and constructive feedback, which stimu-
lated me to think through my arguments and elaborate my own approach. I also
owe a great debt of gratitude to Gerard O’Grady who introduced me to the study
of prosody, both instrumental and auditory.
I am very grateful to a number of other people for their careful comments
on the manuscript and their help with the publication process. In their capacity
as members of my doctoral examination board, Jean-Christophe Verstraete and
Gisle Andersen provided valuable suggestions. Karen Axelsson generously gave
much appreciated comments on my PhD thesis. As acquisition editor of John
Benjamins, Kees Vaes offered friendly advice and guidance. Elena Tognini-Bonelli
and Ute Römer, the series editors of Studies in Corpus Linguistics Series, kindly
accepted the manuscript for review. Jonathan Culpeper, who chose to break his
anonymity as reviewer, made many helpful suggestions for revision. Any errors
which remain are, needless to say, entirely mine.
Thanks must also go to Bas Aarts, Sean Wallis, Knut Hofland, and Benedikt
Szmrecsanyi for making the corpus data analysed in this book available to me, and
to Wim Van der Elst for getting me started in R and for his advice on statistics.
Writing this book has been both demanding and gratifying, and I am grate-
ful to have received invaluable support and advice from a number of linguists
and researchers at various stages in the writing process: Hendrik De Smet, Steven
Schoonjans, Peter Dirix, Wendy Elvira-García, Koen Jaspaert, Liesbet H eyvaert,
Pedro Gras Manzano, Lise Fontaine, Bert Oben, Caroline G entens, Natalia
Pericchi, Sol Sansiñena, KatrienVerveckken, Frauke D’hoedt, Stef Spronck,
Nikki van de Pol, Liisa Deth Theilgaard, Gunell Tottie, Sebastian Hoffmann, and
Donka Farkas.
To my family and friends, I must express my gratitude for their time and
encouragement, and for bringing me happiness.
Through the process of writing this book Johnny and my children, Manno and
Aloxe, have been an invaluable support and it is to them that I dedicate this book.
