Acceso usuarios
Madrid, España
This study draws on the theory and method of interactional linguistics (Couper-Kuhlen/Selting 2018) to characterize some uses of eh beh ([ɛˈbɛ]), a combination of particles commonly used in spoken Italian. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of the uses of eh beh is based on different corpora of spoken Italian, as well as excerpts from radio and television programs. Preliminary results indicate that eh beh appears mainly as turn-preface, but it can also be the only component of a turn-at-talk. The particle is mostly found at the beginning of responsive turns (i.e., second parts of an adjacency pair) that tend to question the assumptions on which the action they respond to is based, conveying thus the epistemically privileged status of the participant. This combination also appears at the beginning of turns that initiate post-expansions, i.e., turns whereby participants resist the closing of the current sequence. The article will focus in particular on the use of eh beh in these two sequential contexts. This study shows that eh beh is a flexible resource that allows participants to a) position themselves epistemically in relation to their co-participants and b) manage topics and conversational sequences.
