Introduction

Ye “also/too/as well” is one of the most frequently used adverbs in Mandarin Chinese. Previous studies mainly focus on the semantics and syntactic categories of ye, and generally believe that ye is a connective adverb which is used to conjoin at least two propositions P and Q, indicating similarity between two states of affairs (Eifring, 1995). Notably, there is a lack of research regarding ye expressions in interactional discourse. Consequently, how ye expressions are used by speakers in talk-in-interaction, and whether or not the use of ye to express similarity is attested in natural conversation, remain open questions. It has been proposed that ye can be taken as a lexical resource to express one’s aligned positioning, similar to the use of its counterparts me too/either in English (Du bois, 2007: 163; see also in Luo, 2013: 146).Footnote 1 Since there is no response or response element that is intrinsically affiliative or disaffiliative (Sorjonen, 2001), ye can only be used to display a speaker’s affiliation or stance (if any) in certain sequential positions. In view of this, this paper outlines an in-depth exploration of the use of ye in second positions in social interaction under the framework of interactional linguistics (see Couper-Kuhlen & Selting, 2018). The paper attempts to answer the following questions:

  1. (1)

    What social interactional achievement(s) do ye expressions help accomplish?

  2. (2)

    How do ye expressions contribute to realizing this/these social interactional achievement(s) in a discourse context?

To address these questions, we examine the two identified interactional functions of ye, (a) as a rapport-building device in an affiliative context, and (b) as a mitigation device in a disaffiliative context. In our examination, we show how the pragmatic continuum of ye and interactional motivations contribute to the two identified interactional functions. This paper deepens our understanding of the relationship between linguistic forms and the construction and maintenance of social rapport, showing that an interactive-analytic approach can shed new light on seemingly objective expressions in Chinese and beyond.

Brief review of previous ye studies

As a high frequency adverb, ye has received extensive treatment via diverse theoretical approaches. Given the vast literature involved, we can only provide a brief overview of some of the most representative accounts. Lü (1980: 595-597) summarizes the meaning of ye into four aspects: 1) indicating that two things are the same; 2) indicating that two consequences are the same; 3) strengthening the tone of a sentence with a preceding lian “even”; and 4) expressing a euphemistic tone. Based on these interpretations, the meanings and functions of ye have been studied by linguists from multiple perspectives. It has been argued that the core meaning of ye is to express similarity (e.g., Ma, 1982; Biq, 1994; Li, 1997), or more specifically to highlight similarity in differences (Shen, 1983) from which other meanings are derived. In contrast, other scholars have suggested that ye has multiple senses and thus should be interpreted in different ways, i.e., expressing juxtaposition, relevance, and modality (e.g., Zhang, 2001; Hole, 2004). Furthermore, the co-occurrence of ye as a focus sensitive particle with other constituents in a sentence has been discussed by researchers such as Shyu (1995) and Liu and Xu (1998). However, these studies mainly focus on the semantics of ye, and most of them use created examples at the sentence level which are not representative of the function and nature of ye in real spoken interaction.

Although some studies on ye have moved beyond the frameworks of formal syntax and semantics, a consensus regarding the pragmatic functions of ye has yet to be reached. For example, a number of studies on ye expressions have moved to explore its pragmatic functions from the perspective of modality, suggesting that the modal use of ye can be conceived as expressing mild tone (Ma, 1982), concessivity (Yang, 2020), or emphatic tone (Hole, 2004). He and Zhang (2016: 15) argue that the euphemistic use of ye from the traditional point of view is a modal trigger with interpersonal functions. It guides the hearer to infer the additional modal meaning by triggering the contextual assumption of the clause as shown in (1).

(1)

ni

ye

tai

bu

dongshi

le. (Cited from Ma, 1982)

 

2SG

YE

too

NEG

tactful

PRT

 

‘You are too untactful!’

Ye in example (1) implies that not only are “you” untactful, but also that there are others like “you” who are untactful. This is achieved through the use of ye which also weakens the strong tone of criticism in the sentence (Ma, 1982). Furthermore, Deng (2017: 653) suggests that ye can be used in an interactional context, not to describe the event itself but to express the speaker’s attitude, emotion, and cognition. He further provides a unified interpretation for ye’s modal and propositional usage using the notion of scalar implicature. However, it has been argued that ye does not have a scalar meaning no matter what utterance or context it presents, while the so-called scalar use of ye requires both the specific contextual assumptions and the speaker’s subjective settings (Xue, 2023: 331). Although previous studies have noted the interpersonal meaning of ye and pointed out that such a logical connective has extended to an (inter)-subjective use (He & Zhang, 2016), the data they used are based on carefully processed dialogs in literary works, which are not conducive in portraying the communicative function of ye in everyday spoken conversation.

Similarly, Li (2012) examines the discourse functions of the expression ye shi “also be” from the speaker’s perspective, which is derived from the grammaticalization of [modal particle ye+copula shi], proposing that ye shi has three functions: explanation, identification, and complaint. Among these, Li (2012: 90)’s identification refers to situations where interlocutors may not hold the same or similar views at the beginning of a verbal exchange but come to understand and then accept the other’s views after the addressees provide clarifications. While Li (2012)’s notion of identification is similar to our identified function of online alignment, Li (2012) examines ye shi as a whole and does not focus on the actual interactional functions of ye.

To summarize, previous studies have carried out a relatively comprehensive description of the meaning of ye, laying the research foundation for this paper. However, existing research fails to reveal the role of ye in real spoken conversation. Although some studies partially touched upon the interpersonal meaning or euphemistic usage of ye in conversation, they only stay at the sentence level and have not conducted a longitudinal analysis of interactional functions of ye in sequences, nor have they examined the emergent mechanism(s) of those functions in an interactional context. This paper attempts to address these issues and fill the gaps under the framework of interactional linguistics.

Data collection and methodology

The data are drawn from the corpus of Mandarin Chinese conversations created by our research team. The corpus was transcribed from a total of about 97 h of audio and video materials, totaling ~1.77 million words. These materials were collected from themeless everyday conversations in private contexts, involving 2–3 participants in spontaneous, naturally occurring face-to-face interactions.Footnote 2 All the data were collected with informed consent of the participants. The transcription conventions are based on the GAT2 transcription system as detailed in Appendix A. Due to the high frequency of ye in the corpora, it was not necessary to examine each one. Hence, the first 200 instances of ye expressions were extracted for analysis (examples of repeated transcription and typos were removed), and they were re-organized as a sub-corpus of about 50,000 words. A quantitative and qualitative combined analysis was then carried out on these 200 instances of ye, focusing on ye’s interactional functions. During the process, the instances were sequentially numbered from 1 to 200 and were then manually coded by the researcher to mark for the functions they displayed. Finally, the instances of ye were categorized and quantified based on their different functions. As introduced above, Interactional Linguistics (IL) is the main framework adopted in this study to address the research questions as IL lays particular stress on how language structure and interaction shape each other (Selting & Couper-Kuhlen, 2001).

Ye for establishing online alignment

Our examination of the data shows that the interactional achievement of the speaker’s response with ye expressions in the interactional context is not merely to highlight the similarity or affinity among things, states, or evaluations, but to establish or seek to establish “online alignment” (Morita, 2005: 214)Footnote 3 among co-participants. That is, the interactional goal is to temporarily form a common stance or positioning in talk-in-interaction, displaying alignment with another speaker, and then to build and maintain a harmonious social relation with the addressee through communicative activities. As defined by Du Bois (2007: 163), “stance is a public act by a social actor, achieved dialogically through overt communicative means, of simultaneously evaluating objects, positioning subjects (self and others), and aligning with other subjects, with respect to any salient dimension of the sociocultural field”. Keisanen (2007: 254) further points out that all verbal means and paralinguistic features of language, as well as related linguistic structures, can be used for stancetaking. In Chinese conversation-analytic and interactional linguistic studies, ye is recognized as a linguistic element which can be deployed to express one’s stance that is aligned with the addressee not only in the institutional conversation context but also in ordinary conversations (e.g., Luo, 2013). However, when ye is deployed in the process of establishing online alignment, there are various ways in which such an achievement is accomplished. Consequently, different interactional functions are attributed to ye accordingly: a) when expressing agreement, ye can serve as a rapport-building device to create solidarity among participants; b) when expressing disagreement, ye is taken as a mitigation device to alleviate (apparently) conflicting stances. In the following two sections, we elaborate on how ye-formulated similarities are deployed to show affiliation, establishing stance alignment and creating solidarity among participants, and explore how such a similarity indicated by ye is used to mitigate dispreferred responses that are confronted with stance conflicts, maintaining social relations until the online alignment is re-built.

Ye as a rapport-building device

Ye-formulated similarities are frequently found in affiliative environments, accounting for 81.8% (90/110) of the surveyed data. In this case, ye is employed by speakers in response to a statement, evaluation, or assertion of the prior speaker to convey that they have common ground with co-participants. This interactional strategy, either explicitly expresses or implies that the speaker’s stance aligns with that of the other party and is the prominent path of establishing online alignment. In what follows, we will examine three cases to advance this argument: (1) ye for shared characteristics, (2) ye for listing, and (3) ye for supporting a claim.

Ye for highlighting shared characteristics to evoke common ground

As is well known, Chinese culture is typically characterized as collectivistic, while collectivism does not just exist within people’s minds, but rather manifests itself in talk in interaction (Wu & Tao, 2018). Seeking commonality rather than individuality is less likely to cause disagreement, and it is easier to reach a common position and establish an alignment. In response to a prior speaker’s utterance or comments, speakers can use ye expressions to offer affiliative responses in real-time, indicating that they share states, thoughts, or feelings with their recipients. By invoking a shared past and establishing a common ground for further talk, ye can help build interpersonal connections among interlocutors and result in positive reactions from co-participants. Excerpt (2) is a case in point.

Excerpt (2) “So sleepy”

01

Y: a(-)

chi

bao

le

jiu

hen

kun.

 

 PRT

eat

full

PFV

will

very

sleepy

 

 ‘Ah, I feel very sleepy on a full stomach.’

02→

M: wo

ye

hao

kun.

  
 

 1SG

YE

so

sleepy

  
 

 ‘I am so sleepy too.’

  

03

Y: a

duibuqi!

    
 

 PRT

sorry

    
 

 ‘Sorry!’

    

04

M: [haha

     
 

 [((laughter))

     

05→

L: [wo

ye

hao

kun.

  
 

 1SG

YE

pretty

sleepy

  
 

 ‘[I am so sleepy too.’

   

In excerpt (2), Y initiates an exclamation to her partners about her drowsiness after the meal in line 1, M then responds to this assertion in the form of a ye expression (line 2). On the one hand, the expression communicates that she is sleepy as well, and on the other, it establishes that her situation aligns with Y’s description. This allows M to put herself in a subordinate position. Y apologizes immediately in line 3, as she is worried that M’s judgment is negatively affected by her previous exclamation. But M does not take it seriously and laughs away Y’s embarrassment in line 4. At the same time, another participant L, includes herself in the group that has a shared characteristic of drowsiness caused by satiety through her ye expression in line 5, confirming that Y and M’s prior statements are not a particular case. Such a supportive move demonstrates the speaker’s in-group identity, sharing a common understanding or reinforcing a common stance (Wu & Tao, 2018). In this way, L is connected to Y and M through the overtly common feature of post-meal drowsiness, establishing solidarity among co-participants.

From excerpt (2), we can clearly see how ye is deployed to establish online alignment between two or more participants. Through ye expressions, speakers convey that they have the same characteristics or status as recipients, increasing the relevance of both the form and meaning of utterances (Zhang & Li, 2023). Hence, a common ground among participants is established, and it can be taken to implement further actions.

Notably, interrupting the turn or other party’s speech is initially an impolite turn competition behavior, but sometimes speakers’ interruptions are out of a rush to express their own opinions that are in line with the other party’s point of view, such as L in excerpt (2). It is ye that often occurs in this type of overlap based on cooperation, and its function to establish online alignment may temporarily eliminate the negative impact of the induced interruption.

In spoken conversation, speakers may often selectively repeat some words or elements of those who have spoken before to build their own utterances. That is, an utterance is derived from either the partial or the whole structure of the previous discourse (Du Bois, 2007: 140), and the analogy implied by the structural parallelism can induce resonances in multiple functional domains, including information transfer, cognitive processing, affective alignment, and interpersonal cooperation (Du Bois, 2014). In excerpt (2), L’s affiliative response in line 5 is exactly the same as the response of M to Y in line 2, shown as a repetition (Schegloff, 1997: 525) or an echo utterance in which speakers repeat all or part of a message of another speaker in order to realize particular communicative functions (Quirk et al., 1985: 835–838). L’s repetitive assertion here is clearly not only for the previous speaker Y, but also an endorsement of M. As echo utterances function to hold the floor, express one’s involvement, provide backstage response, express understanding, appreciate and support one’s words, “register receipt” and “target a next action” (Tannen, 2007: 15–17), the co-occurrence of ye and echo utterance expressing agreement and support can be attributed to the interactional function of building rapport. It seems that ye plays an important role in the construction of this type of echo utterance, not only operating on the coherence between the current utterance and the previous one but also linking the positioning of the speaker with a prior speaker, projecting a common ground or in-group identity among co-participants.

In the data examined for this paper, 37 out of 40 responses that highlight shared features are in the form of [first person pronoun + ye], which express the same thoughts or attitudes among participants. Generally speaking, the first-person pronoun is considered as an essential sign of subjective expression in language (Scheibman, 2002). This is based on the observation that the first-person pronoun is a marker of a deictic center from which one’s discourse is organized (Iwasaki, 1993). However, the first-person pronoun is also taken as a sign that objectifies the speaking self (Langacker, 2002). A speaker may put themselves on “the stage” through the use of the first-person pronoun to observe themselves objectively. We need to take into account both perspectives, where the first-person pronoun can be construed either objectively or subjectively. This explains why [I + ye] can be understood either as speakers informing addressees of their information, or as an interpretation of the stance taken by speakers and their affiliations with the previous speaker.Footnote 4

Therefore, in this type of interactional environment showing participants’ common characteristics, ye embodies both objective meaning and subjective use (cf. Lyons, 1981).Footnote 5Ye expressions are deployed not only to convey propositional information related to speakers’ own cognitive states, feelings, or attitudes but also out of interactional needs. The production of such an utterance at a given time is a reflection of speakers’ subjective intentions, revealing their stance towards a prior speaker’s turn, which has an effect on the development of the current topic and the subsequent course of conversation. As is suggested, stancetaking is not simply a static presentation of the speaker’s personal view, but a dynamic, emerging, and cooperative product of language in social interaction. Interactors both align with the ongoing course of action and associate with each other (Stivers, 2008) in response to local contingencies in interaction. Hence, stancetaking is a public action that is shaped by joint inputs from all participants, and as a result, stance is considered to be situated, inter-subjective, and collaborative (Kärkkäinen, 2006; Iwasaki, 2015).

Ye to list in-group items for promoting solidarity

In Chinese spoken conversation, Tao (2019: 65) defines list construction as the production of a set of formally similar and functionally related items in adjacent conversation units (either in the same speaker turn or in adjacent turns) that fall under a broad discourse theme. By listing comparable items, speakers indicate that their positioning is consistent with that of the previous speaker. In the context of lists, the inherent lexical meaning of ye allows for the creation of adjoining lists, and its logical properties illustrate that the use of ye always projects the existence of a conjunct that shares some similar features (Yang, 2000). As a result, ye expressions allow speakers to add items that are considered to be in the same group but not yet present in the list, inducing a parallel relationship between items already listed and the new additions. In this way, speakers show their agreement with what has been communicated and establish online alignment in talk-in-interaction. This listing process is demonstrated in excerpt (3) below.

Excerpt (3) “Bitter is ok as well.”

01

M: jiemei

ni(.)

ni

shi(.)

jiu shi(.)

suan(.)

suan(.)

suan

tian

ku

la

dou(.)

dou

keyi

ma?

 

  sister

2SG

2SG

COP

just COP

sour

sour

sour

sweet

bitter

spicy

all

all

ok

PRT

 

 ‘You, are you, that is, sour, sour, sour sweet bitter and spicy, all, are they ok?’

02

 [en

a(.)

suan

tian

la

dou

xing@

     
 

 umm

PRT

sour

sweet

spicy

all

ok

     
 

 ‘[Umm-huh, sour, sweet and spicy are ok?’

     

03

Y: [en

dui

          
 

 umm

right

          
 

 ‘[umm right.’

          

04

 hahaha

           
 

 ((laughter))

           

05

L: [meiyou

ku

          
 

 not

bitter

          
 

 ‘[Not bitter.’

          

06→

Y: [ha

ku

ye

xing

         
 

  ha

bitter

YE

ok

         
 

 ‘[((laugh)) Bitter is ok too.’

         

In excerpt (3), M initially asks Y if she can accept all four flavors, i.e., sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy (line 1), but then M removes “bitter” deliberately in her revised question (line 2), since she may suddenly realize that bitter is less acceptable than the other three flavors. Y’s affirmative response in line 3 overlaps with M’s turn and is completed before M, thereby she confirms that sour, sweet, spicy, and bitter are good, but L jokes that meiyou ku “there is no bitterness” (line 5) in terms of this confirmation, so Y further supplies that ku ye xing “bitter is ok as well” to close the list (line 6).

As pointed out by Couper-Kuhlen and Selting (2018: online chapter F), items in a list share, or present as sharing, some sort of sameness. Here “bitter”, as an item in the same group with similar properties as “sour, sweet, and spicy”, is activated by the speaker and introduced by the ye expression indicating that the new item “bitter” belongs to the same category as “sour, sweet, and spicy”. The use of ye not only increases the list of items, but also backtracks to confirm that the presupposed alternatives in the background, such as sour, sweet, and spicy, are of the same category as bitter and are thus all equally acceptable. Most lists are in fact constructed to consist of triple singles (Jefferson, 1990: 64). That is, if a third item is missing, speakers will be observed to display trouble, hold the turn, and search for it or generalized list completers are often provided by a recipient (Jefferson, 1990: 65, 67). However, lists with ye expressions are not necessarily the same. Instead, ye expression lists are open lists which are often co-constructed while the speaker is expressing agreement with the previous speaker by listing an item that shares common features with other listed items. It seems that expressing agreement or affiliation by listing in-group items is similar to the way of highlighting shared characteristics. However, the first approach is more explicit and direct, as there is no need for analogical reasoning to affirm what is previously communicated.

Ye to support a previous speaker’s views or actions

Alignment moves such as assessments, collaborative contributions, and collaborative completions index shared understanding, the ability to adopt the other’s point of view, and the ability to speak in the other’s voice (Dings, 2014). In addition to the two means discussed above, speakers in the interactional context can also coordinate and cooperate with each other by providing further supportive evidence in their own turns to express their positive attitudes towards prior discourse. van Eemeren (2010) points out that argumentative discourse is a specific communicative interaction between interlocutors to prove their own position or refute the other party’s. When speakers align with each other, the explanatory statement can naturally be reduced to a defense of the recipient’s stance. By adding further explanation, the supporting rationale introduced in the same argumentative direction by the ye expression can establish a connection with the previous speaker’s view or action. The rationale is not presupposed but arises gradually as the sequence progresses. This non-presuppositional property and the sequence advancing process are compatible with the additive meaning of ye, giving rise to the use of ye as a resource for supporting and maintaining one’s stance. Consider the following excerpt (4) to illustrate this. Y, L, and M are ordering dishes in a restaurant and they have ordered Mapo Tofu and Black Pepper Beef, then L notices “refreshing okra”.

Excerpt (4) “Order dishes”

01

Y: en

[xiang

chi(.)

enheng.

  
 

 uhm

want

eat

PRT

  
 

 ‘Uhm [(I) want to eat, umm-hmm.’

  

02

L:

[o

    
  

PRT

    
  

‘[Oh.’

    

03

M: na

jiu

jia

yi

ge

bei.

 

 then

just

add

one

CL

PRT

 

 ‘Add one more.’

04

L: [jia.

     
 

 add

     
 

 ‘[Add.’

     

05

M: [jia

yi.

    
 

 add

one

    
 

 ‘[Add one.’

    

06→

L: fanzheng

ye

bijiao

pianyi(.)

[shiwu kuai qian,

  
 

 anyway

YE

relatively

cheap

fifteen CL money

  
 

 ‘It is cheap anyway, [fifteen yuan.’

  

07

Y:

  

[hao ba

  
    

ok PRT

  
    

‘[All right.’

  

08→

L: guji

ye

hen

shao.

  
 

 probably

YE

very

few

  
 

 ‘Probably very few.’

  

09

M: en(.)

guji

hen

shao.

  
 

 umm

estimate

very

few

  
 

 ‘Umm, probably very few.’

  

In excerpt (4), Y indicates that she wants to add the dish “refreshing okra” in line 1. At first, L does not explicitly agree with this desire but M proposes to add the dish in response to Y’s utterance (line 3). Subsequently, L expresses her agreement with M’s proposal by repeating the verb jia “add” (line 4), and after M’s confirmation of the addition (line 5) L uses the ye expression to give further comments on the ordered food. That is, the dishes are relatively cheap (line 6) and their portion is small (line 8). Although these assessments are nearly interrupted by Y’s affirmation (line 7), they are recognized by Y and M in the following sequences. On the one hand, L’s additional description of the characteristics of dishes provides more positive evidence to support Y’s desire to add the dish and M’s decision to support this so as to rationalize their propositions; on the other hand, it implies that L’s stance aligns with Y and M’s. In such cases, the speaker introduces a positive event related to the current topic into the conversation through the use of the ye expression, serving as a supportive justification for the addressee’s view to eliminate contingent refutation and maintain the addressee’s stance and promote solidarity through which online alignment is established.

In excerpts (2) (3) and (4) above, speakers convey their agreement with the previous utterance through different practices, such as highlighting shared characteristics (excerpt 2), listing in-group items (excerpt 3), and supporting prior talk with evidence (excerpt 4), which show their high involvement in the current topic. These various practices illustrate ye’s interactional function as a rapport-building device to establish online alignment. In the following section, we examine ye expressions used to convey a speaker’s opposing stance and analyze the role and interactional functions of ye as a conflict mitigation device.

Ye as a conflict mitigation device

Just as alignment in Du Bois’s (2007) stance triangle can be divided into two sides, i.e., “align” and “disalign”, the notion of affiliation also has a counterpart, i.e., disaffiliation. In the excerpts above (2–4), the use of ye can be categorized as affiliative and is harmonious in nature from the speakers’ stance perspectives. In addition to affiliation, our data also show the use of ye expressions for similarity in conflicting talk or disagreement sequences, i.e., contexts of disalignment. Research has shown that the speakers always manage to use practices that serve to maximize opportunities for affiliative actions and minimize opportunities for disaffiliative ones (Heritage, 1984). When the asymmetric dispreferred action arises in response to an initial action, speakers usually try to soften the disagreement in order to decrease negative effects that do not support the accomplishment of the activity and threaten social solidarity (Schegloff, 2007). Given the relevance of agreement and disagreement, the production of weak agreements may be disagreement implicative (Davidson, 1984: 112). Accordingly, weak agreements are usually deployed to implement a disapproval-based action to reduce the likelihood of a dispreferred response, such as disagreement or refutation. Following this line, we find that the speaker often uses a ye expression to alleviate implicit conflicting stances and dissolve an apparent disagreement. This usage of ye can be divided into two types: (1) controlling explicit opposing views, and (2) alleviating implicit disagreements. In the following two subsections, we further explore how ye expressions invoking similarity are used to mitigate (apparent) conflicts among participants.

Ye for controlling explicit opposing views to maintain harmonious relations

Controlling an opposing view refers to the practice of the speaker using the lexical resource ye to mitigate an explicit conflict caused by the stance conflicts between interlocutors with the intention of weakening the degree of disalignment and/or re-establishing online alignment. As has been discussed in the extensive conversation-analytic literature, dispreferred responses may be expressed in attenuated or mitigated form (Schegloff, 1988; Kendrick & Torreira, 2015). Ye expressions can be deployed in a second position as opposed to the first pair part based on the previous speaker’s statement or attitude.

In excerpt (5), W tells Y that she will go home immediately and asks Y to recommend a low-brain-power film for her to watch during dinner.

Excerpt (5) “Marvel movies”

      

01

Y: manwei de

ni

kan

wan

le

ma?

 

 Marvel ASSOC

2SG

watch

finished

PFV

PRT

 

 ‘Are you done with the Marvel series?’

02

W: kan

wan

le

a!

  
 

 watch

finished

PFV

PRT

  
 

 ‘Done!’

     

03

Y: manwei

de

dou bu yong dongnao

  
 

 Marvel

ASSOC

all not need think

  
 

 ‘Marvel series movies are low brain power.’

  

04

  manwei de

yao dongnao

ma?

   
 

 Marvel ASSOC

need think

PRT

   
 

 ‘Does the Marvel series require you to think?’

  

05

 [haha

     
 

 [((laughter))

     

06

W: [ta(.)

bu

shi

xiju

a.

  
 

  3SG

not

COP

comedy

PRT

  
 

 ‘[They are not a comedy.’

  

07→

Y: ye

suan

xiju

ba

   
 

  YE

be-considered

comedy

PRT

   
 

‘They might be considered as a comedy.’

  

08

W: manwei

dianying

you

bu

xiafan

 
 

 Marvel

film

and

not

interesting

 
 

 ‘Marvel series movies are not interesting.’

  

Y asserts that Marvel movies do not require a lot of brain power from viewers (line 3), which meets W’s requirement. Thus, Y recommends that W watch Marvel movies during dinner. However, W produces a negative judgment against the Marvel series (line 6). The short pause after the reference indicates that W is searching for how to reasonably reject Y’s recommendation. In the following line 7, Y does not agree with W’s assertion in the previous turn, and instead, she gives her own opinion that the Marvel series movies can be regarded as comedy films. Xue (2023) suggests that the ye-utterance in an acceptance context points to the status of being no higher or worse than the threshold expectation assumed, hence even though what is uttered could be accepted, the validity of that utterance is weakened. In other words, the pragmatic scale of the item modified by ye is lower than that of a general situation. This allows for the realization of the subjectively small quantification of the item modified by ye, which is in this case Marvel movies. In line with this view, due to the presence of ye, Y’s utterance triggers an implicit analogy alternative treated as the comparing item, which occupies the point of threshold expectation, and is derived from pragmatic accommodation. Although an implicitly referenced alternative is unclear, the discourse suggests this to be a film with prototypical comedy features and which is located at a higher point on the pragmatic scale of being classified as a comedy. Compared to this triggered alternative, although Marvel series movies have some of the same characteristics found in comedy films, they are not typical comedies. That is Marvel series movies are positioned at a lower point on the scale and are barely regarded as comedy films, let alone prototypical comedies. Thus, the reliability of Y’s utterance is downgraded, making the conflict between Y’s and W’s stancetaking less obvious. The downgrading of Y’s utterance reliability can also be concluded from the collocation of ye and ba “PRT” in the sentence, as a sentence containing sentence-final particle ba expressing assertion shows the speaker’s compromise by weakening the credibility of the utterance and transferring the decision power to the other party, thereby establishing online alignment with the recipient (Gao, 2016).

Hence, when the speaker produces an utterance that is obviously contrary to the previous speaker’s stance, the presence of ye induces contextual assumptions through which the opposing view sounds mild. The use of ye in this context functions to maintain the initially friendly interaction between the speaker and the recipient while making the weakened view easier for the recipient to accept, thus contributing to re-establishing online alignment among co-participants.

Ye for alleviating implicit disagreements to weaken the disalignment

As Schegloff (1988) observes, dispreferred actions can be produced with preferred turn formats and preferred actions can be produced with dispreferred turn formats (cf., Heritage, 1984: 267–268; Lerner, 1996: 305). In Chinese spoken interaction, alleviating implicit disagreements is an exact case in point, which is a practice that the speaker employs when expressing a view or action contrary to the recipient’s. The act of alleviating implicit disagreements is shaped by offering a preferred response accompanied by a downgraded operation on wording. Unlike controlling explicit opposing views, in some cases, speakers use the ye expression to produce an opinion consistent with the previous speaker’s stance while deploying relevant lexical resources to downgrade the utterance. The result is a kind of weak agreement or concessive affiliation. By doing this, speakers not only highlight their epistemic independent status towards the object under discussion but also pave the way for implementing a dispreferred action or changing the topic, projecting the forthcoming disagreement in the sequence. For example, in (6), Y describes to W the writing style of “grand narrative” movies that she likes (omitted due to limited space), then W recommends Y watch the film The World is a World of the Past.

Excerpt (6) “Grand narrative”

01

W: na

wo

tuijian

ni

kan renjian zhengdao shi cangsang

   
 

 then

1SG

recommend

2SG

see world right-way COP change

   
 

 ‘I recommend you watch The World is a World of the Past,’

   

02

 juedui

you

ni

xiang

yao

de

dongxi

   
 

 absolutely

have

2SG

want

require

CSC

content

   
 

 ‘which definitely has what you want.’

   
 

((40 lines omitted where W introduces the main content of the film in detail))

   

43

W: zhe jiu

shi

ni

yao

de

da

xushi

   
 

 this just

COP

2SG

demand

CSC

grand

narrative

   
 

 ‘This is the grand narrative you want,’

   

44

 [juedui

shi

ni

yao

de

xu

da

xushi(.)

wo gen ni

jiang

 

 absolutely

COP

2SG

demand

C

narrative

grand

narrative

1SG to 2SG

speak

 

 ‘[Definitely the grand narrative you want, I tell you.’

45

Y: [((laughter))

         

46→

 qishi

ting(.)

yinggai

ye

ting

hao

de

zhe

zhong

da

xushi

  
 

 actually

quite

should

YE

quite

good

C

this

type

grand

narrative

  
 

 ‘Actually quite, this type of grand narrative should also be very good,’

 

47

 ai buguo

youde

shihou

kan

da

xushi

kan jiu

le

  
 

 hey but

some

moment

see

grand

narrative

see long

CRS

  
 

 ‘But sometimes if I see grand narrative too much,’

  

48

 wo

ye

xihuan

kan

yixie:(.)

bu yong dongnao

de

pianzi

  
 

 1SG

YE

like

see

some

not need use-one’s-brain

ATTR

film

  
 

 ‘I also like seeing some: films that are low-brain-power.’

 

In this excerpt, Y first agrees with W’s previous description of the film The World is a World of the Past with grand narrative features (line 46). However, compared to W’s comments of the film in line 44, Y’s assessment is relatively mild. She uses an inversion sentence containing ye with model particle yinggai “should” embedded to downgrade W’s utterance that is modified by juedui “absolutely”. We argue that Y’s purpose in doing this is to make a preparation for the subsequent reverse, as Y intends to produce a contrasting statement in the following discourse. At the initial position of line 47, Y uses the topic transition signal ai “ah” (see Yu, 2022),Footnote 6 which has the function of implying topic change (Li, 2019), followed by the weak adversative buguo “however”. By saying that she not only likes “grand narrative” films but also likes low-brain-power films, a new topic is introduced and the remaining discourse is focused on this new topic.

We can see that when ye is deployed in such an interactional environment, the validity of the utterance it involves seems to be downgraded as the item (i.e., the recommended film) modified by ye is located at a relatively lower point on the pragmatic scale of the likelihood of being good. By using ye, the speaker’s agreement is downgraded, conveying their implicit disagreement, and based on this the disalignment between the current confirmation and the upcoming contrasting statement is weakened. This interactional strategy of transferring from weak agreement to disagreement can mitigate the negative impact of face-threatening acts or affiliation destruction resulting from stance conflicts between two participants.

The distribution of ye in establishing online alignment

In the data, there are various usages of ye to (re-)establish online alignment. However, as shown in our data, those practices have significant differences in their frequency as shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Distribution of interactional functions of ye expressions.
Full size table

Of the 200 ye instances, 110 demonstrate online alignment construction, all of which are employed as the second response in an interaction. Among them, 90 instances of ye can be treated as a means of building rapport among co-participants, while the other 20 instances are deployed as a mitigation device for alleviating (potential) conflicts between the interlocutors. The former function (81.8%) is 4.5 times higher than the latter one (18.2%). In detail, in the cases where ye is used as a rapport-building device, the practice of highlighting shared characteristics is the most frequent (40/110), accounting for 36% of the total, which is not much different from the sum of the practices of listing in-group items (21.8%) and supporting a previous speaker’s views or actions (23%). In contrast, in the cases where ye is used as a mitigation device, the practice of controlling explicit opposing views (9.1%) is equal to/on par with the practice of alleviating implicit disagreements (9.1%), but they are all less frequent than the rapport-building cases.

We propose several reasons for these distribution differences. First, interactional efficiency. Since speakers can directly show their in-group identity and explicitly convey their alignment with the previous speaker’s stance, it is more direct and efficient to reveal shared characteristics in the course of establishing online alignment, which is in line with the economic principle of language use. Furthermore, listing in-group items and supporting a previous speaker’s views or actions may be subject to different views from the recipient regarding the additional listed item and supplementary justifications, and in these two cases, the positive correlation between the added information and the previous information needs to be identified by the recipient through analogical reasoning. That is, the recipient is required to put more effort into processing the position expressed by the ye-expression. When things are equal, less processing effort is exerted and an utterance becomes more relevant (Sperber & Wilson, 1995). As a result, the two practices of listing in-group items and supporting a previous speaker’s views or actions are more indirect than highlighting shared characteristics for online alignment construction. Second, the derivation of basic practice. As we have discussed, the practices of listing in-group items and supplying positive evidence are like “twins”, they are employed to convey that the speaker’s stance aligns with the interlocutor’s and both are carried out under the condition that the participants have a common ground. Therefore, it is essential to evoke a common ground on which the speaker implicitly demonstrates affiliation with the recipient by listing an in-group item or providing supportive evidence for the recipient’s view. Third, the asymmetry of responses. There is no doubt that agreement, appreciation, and confirmation of a previous utterance are preferred responses. By contrast, disagreement, resistance, and refutation of the recipient’s turn are dispreferred. Participants are more likely to give a preferred response to maintain a friendly relationship and promote the conversation. This essentially explains why ye expressions are more often deployed to build rapport in interaction rather than to mitigate conflict.

It is worth noting that although ye has the interactional function of building online alignment, this does not mean that ye is an agreement marker or can casually induce consensus among co-participants. In the data, 90 instances of ye expressions do not have the interactional function of establishing online alignment. This indicates that the interactional meaning of ye pertains to the specific sequence position. As proposed in positionally sensitive grammar (Schegloff, 1996: 108), the same linguistic entities in different sequences may exhibit various interactional functions. In other words, ye occurs in different sequences (both types and positions) that are interactively relevant to the implementation of different social actions and may perform different, or even diametrically opposite, interactional tasks.

Ye as a pragmatic device indicating similarity and for establishing online alignment

Given the seemingly diverse range of functions, one may ask if there is a unified account for the use of ye expressions in conversational interaction. We believe that such an account is viable. Inspired by the pragmatic continuum of Plural NP + dou “all” expressions in conversation proposed by Wu and Tao (2018), we attempt to establish a continuum of the generalized similarity indicated by ye based on the pragmatic continuum of rapport to address how ye expressions contribute to establishing online alignment and achieving a unified interpretation for different interactional functions of ye.

As a pragmatic notion, rapport concerns harmonious social relations and needs to be actively maintained and managed in social interaction (Spencer-Oatey, 2000). What is reflected by the patterns of ye used in the second position in the data can be understood as a continuum of harmonious social relations. In Fig. 1, which represents the pragmatic continuum, affiliative responses are positioned on the left. The farther left a response is positioned, the more harmonious relation it builds. Likewise, disaffiliate responses are positioned to the right of the continuum. The farther right a response is positioned, the less harmonious relation it builds.

Fig. 1: The pragmatic continuum of ye expressions in interaction.
figure 1

This figure shows how the semantics of ye and its interactional meaning can be interpreted as a whole.

Full size image

Since the core meaning of ye is to indicate the (arbitrary) addition of similar items, the relation between what is introduced in the ye expression and what has been previously uttered becomes analogous as ye is used to connect these two parts. Thus, by employing ye expressions speakers not only illustrate that they belong to the same group as recipients by making a homogeneous comparison between themselves and recipients, but also backtrack to, and confirm, the aforementioned items by listing and affirming a new in-group item (e.g., excerpts (2)–(4)). Moreover, since the semantic properties of ye can retroactively project a proposition or state of affairs with similar characteristics as the current proposition (Zhang, 2010), when speakers produce an utterance containing ye they naturally go back to the previous discourse for pairing. This connection back to previous discourse through the ye expression involves speakers relating current utterances to preceding ones, mapping the preceding proposition (i.e., the left conjunct of ye, P) by adding a new proposition that indicates a similarity or an explanatory relation between the two clauses. Hence, by using ye expressions speakers show their understanding and identification of views or actions involved in the previous speakers’ utterances by providing more supporting explanations or justifications, i.e., supplementary arguments which align with those in the preceding discourse.

However, as shown in excerpts (5) and (6), when ye is deployed as a mitigation device to alleviate conflicts in a specific context, it is often manifested as the speaker’s subjective judgment of similarity. That is, in some instances in the data, similarity is vague, hypothetical, or unverifiable—all traits of subjective evaluations. Such a subjective similarity is realized when the item modified by ye is assumed to be on the same pragmatic scale as the reference object or general situation according to the speaker’s assumption. Moreover, in actual interaction, analogies are always considered to be rather vague and subjective, relying on the speaker’s personal experience and cognition, and whether the so-called similarity can be verified is not a concern to the speaker. Furthermore, as shown in excerpts (5) and (6), ye can be used by the speaker to express disagreement with the previous utterance. When ye occurs in a context of disaffiliation, it appears to conflict with the interactional achievement of establishing online alignment. While this is, in fact, a merely provisional disalignment, the speaker’s ultimate goal is to re-establish online alignment by mitigating divergence in the ongoing interaction. This process of re-establishing alignment is schematized as the big blue arrow in Fig. 1. The mitigation function of ye reduces the effectiveness and credibility of the evaluation which it modifies, assisting the recipient to adjust or re-accept the new perspective. Therefore, we argue that ye is a pragmatic device whose specific interactional meaning at any point in interaction can only be revealed by its interactional context and contingent talk (Morita, 2015).

From the different practices of ye for establishing online alignment discussed above, it can be seen that ye has evolved from indicating similarity between propositions or states of affairs to triggering paralleled item(s) in the background, then to connecting two related events that are similar in argument orientation, and finally has extended to implying similarity between the evaluated item and the hypothetical reference or threshold expectation. We call these four cases direct analogy, backtracking analogy, argumentative direction analogy, and hypothetical analogy. Hence, the property of ye expressing similarity undergoes generalization, expanding from indicating similarity in logical semantics to indicating pragmatic similarity. Consequently, the similarity indexed by ye acquires a broader range as shown in the schemata of Fig. 1.

Therefore, the semantics of ye and its interactional meaning are mutually reinforcing. More accurately, they are appropriate to be regarded as a continuum, the former represented on the left side of the continuum is more objective and concrete, while the latter on the right side is more subjective and abstract (see dotted arrows shown in Fig.1). The use of ye has developed a subjective feature, which also reflects the driving role of subjectification in semantic change (Traugott & Dasher, 2002).

As discussed above, the interactional meaning of ye derived from its generalized core meaning, and the particular position in which it is deployed in sequences cannot be fully explained by ye’s inherent nature. In contrast, the speaker’s interactional purpose and intention seem to be critical. The essence of establishing online alignment is an interaction among participants’ stances or positions, whose nature is the interaction of communicative purposes, such as the implementation of a specific activity. In the interactional context, if the speaker in a responsive position wants to keep and expand the current topic or tries to change the recipient’s point of view by giving a judgment that is different from the previous discourse, the speaker can deploy ye with the function of rapport-building or mitigation to achieve the pragmatic purpose under the cooperative principles and politeness requirements of communication.

In addition, the principle of progressivity is a universal linguistic practice of concern to all language societies (Couper-Kuhlen & Selting, 2018). Yao and Liang (2024) suggest that the likely positions of interactional resources that can extend and push the current action or restart a previous action are the positions of action promotion, which can appear in both initiating and responsive turns. In the responsive position of conversation, sometimes speakers intend to align with their recipients’ understandings, attitudes, or emotions and quickly establish online alignment in conversation to promote the progress of the conversation and the implementation of an action. To achieve this interactional task, ye is economically applicable because ye expressions can contribute to establishing interpersonal connections among co-participants, highlighting the speaker’s enthusiasm for the current topic, narrowing the communicative distance with the recipient, and bringing in positive feedback. By contrast, in those positions that may hinder the progress of conversation, speakers can use ye expressions to mildly express disalignment or inconsistent positioning, contributing to reducing the negative impact of blocking conversation and rebuilding rapport. Interestingly, due to these, someone may deliberately disguise their positions, aligning with the recipient’s stance. However, this does not affect the progress of the conversation. By contrast, it shows that establishing online alignment can be used as a means to achieve a particular communicative purpose and that ye is one of the linguistic resources that can be deployed. Such an interactional use of ye, which is biased towards the speaker’s intersubjectivity, no longer focuses on the similarity between states of affairs but pays more attention to the shapes of interactional relations among participants and the implementation of target action.

Conclusions

Drawing on naturally occurring data, this paper investigates the interactional functions of ye from the perspective of interactional linguistics. It examines how to build online alignment through the use of ye and reveals how ye functions as a pragmatic device to indicate similarity and establish online alignment.

We find that ye expressions can occur in both affiliative and disaffiliative interactional environments. Their uses primarily exhibit two functions: 1) as a rapport-building device to create solidarity among co-participants; and 2) as a mitigation device to alleviate (apparently) conflicting stances. Both patterns function to establish online alignment, with different features shown in practices. To be more specific, through ye expressions, the speakers can not only build rapport by highlighting shared characteristics, listing in-group items, or supporting a previous speaker’s views or actions but can also mitigate conflicting talk by controlling explicit opposing views or alleviating implicit disagreements. We also provide a unified account within the pragmatic continuum of rapport-building and generalized similarity to answer how ye expressions help accomplish the social interactional achievement of online alignment in a discourse context.

Our findings show that the meanings and functions of language resources are adapted to and shaped in the social interaction in which they occur, and this interaction is constituted and modified by the meanings and functions developed and performed in turn. From our analysis, we can gain a better understanding of the meaning and functions of ye in Chinese spoken conversations, and it sheds new light on seemingly objective expressions in Chinese and beyond.