A R T I C LHalonen
E
and Sorjonen: Using niin-interrogative to treat the prior speaker’s action
37
Using niin-interrogative to treat the prior
speaker’s action as an exaggeration
MIA HALONEN AND MARJA-LEENA SORJONEN
Discourse Studies
Copyright © 2008
SAGE Publications
(Los Angeles, London,
New Delhi and Singapore)
www.sagepublications.com
Vol 10(1): 37–53
10.1177/1461445607085584
R E S EA R C H I N STI TUTE F O R TH E L A N G UAG E S O F F I N L A N D
This article examines an interrogative construction with
ABSTRACT
which recipients in Finnish interactions treat the co-participant’s prior
action as having exhibited a stance that was overstated. A key element in the
interrogative is the intensifier niin which foregrounds the scalar character
of its head word (e.g. niin hirmune ‘so/that/as terrible’) and suggests that
the place it points to is too high on the scale. We will show that the niininterrogative can target something the co-participant explicitly mentioned
or only implied, and it can have in its scope either the prior turn or a longer
stretch of talk. Niin-interrogatives form one means for indicating that the
co-participant’s claim departed from some normal way of perceiving social
life, and they orient to a moral norm of walking the golden mean. As
compared to other ways of dealing with exaggeration, a niin-interrogative
allows the recipient to express her disagreeing stance in a fashion that
avoids an open conflict.
KEY WORDS:
disaffiliation, exaggeration, Finnish, intensifier, interrogatives,
questions
Introduction
The interplay between grammar and social action has been studied perhaps most
intensively with respect to interrogatives. Many studies have specified functions
other than requesting information for interrogatives in conversation. A function
that has come out in several of these studies is doing a disaffiliative action of some
kind, for example, presenting a complaint, accusation or challenge (e.g. Clayman
and Heritage, 2002; Egbert and Vöge, this issue; Günthner, 2000; Heinemann,
2006, this issue; Keisanen, 2006; Koshik, 2005; Monzoni, this issue). We will
contribute to this line of research by exploring an interrogative construction
with which recipients in Finnish interactions disaffiliate with the prior speaker
by treating her action as an exaggeration.
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38 Discourse Studies 10(1)
In his recent studies on precision of claims and descriptions in interaction,
Drew (2003, 2005) shows some ways in which a claim by a speaker may get
treated as imprecise, incorrect, overstated or exaggerated (see also Couper-Kuhlen
and Thompson, 2005). This kind of character of a claim may be manifested when,
as a response to the recipient’s minimal response, the speaker weakens her original
claim. In these cases the recipient thus only implies there having been a problem,
and the speaker orients to this implication by retracting her claim. We will focus
on cases in which the recipient’s action is more explicit: with an interrogative the
recipient more clearly expresses that the claim was exaggerated.
In our cases the speaker treats the co-participant’s prior action as having exhibited a stance (an evaluation of somebody or something) and simultaneously
implies that that stance was overstated. The overstated character of the other’s
stance is expressed by an interrogative which contains a phrase with the intensifier niin (e.g. onks se nyt niin hirmune ‘is she niin terrible’).1 From now on, we
call these interrogatives niin-interrogatives.
There is no one-to-one translation equivalent of niin in English in these cases.
However the usages come close to so, that or as (e.g. niin hirmune ‘so terrible’, ‘that
terrible’ or ‘as terrible [as that]’), depending on the context. Niin is anaphoric in
its character, that is, it points to the co-participant’s prior turn. There is a link
between niin-interrogatives and clause complexes such as anoppi oli niin hirveä että
mun piti lähteä kotiin, ‘the mother-in-law was so terrible that I had to go home’,
in which niin functions cataphorically (looks forward): in interrogatives, the
niin as if leaves it to the co-participant to fill in the ‘that’-part.
Intensifiers by definition modify gradient adjectives or other words that are
scalar in nature (e.g. in the case of hirmune ‘terrible’, one can be more or less
terrible). When used without an intensifier, the scale is backgrounded and the
description is understood as a plain description. The niin in the phrase foregrounds the scale by directing the recipient’s attention to a certain place in it,
and it makes the scale relevant for the action being done with the utterance.
It suggests that the place it points to is too high on the scale. In this fashion it
implies that the co-participant exaggerated. Niin-interrogatives form one means
for foregrounding that the co-participant’s description departed from some
normal way of perceiving reality and social life.
In some of our cases the participants are talking about culturally recognizable topics that often contain delicate aspects, such as the relationship between
daughter-in-law and mother-in-law. It is easy to see how there may be exaggeration
involved when talking about a topic like that. Even though participants in conversation have been shown to display considerable tolerance for extreme claims
(e.g. Drew, 2003; Edwards, 2000), with the niin-interrogative a conversationalist
treats something in the prior speaker’s talk as an exaggeration.
In the following we will first explore cases in which the interrogative is used
in conversations among friends and relatives. We will show that the explicitness
of an expression of stance by the interrogative recipient and what gets treated
as an exaggeration may vary, so that the construction may get used for ascribing
a stance to talk which at the first sight appears not to have exhibited such a
stance. In most cases the recipient of the interrogative does not contest the
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Halonen and Sorjonen: Using niin-interrogative to treat the prior speaker’s action
stance attributed to her action but responds to the suggestion that the action was
exaggerated. We will then discuss the use of niin-interrogative in institutional
settings by the professionals.
The database comprises 10 cases from some 10 hours of recordings of interactions. Most of the data (six hours) are videotaped conversations between
university students, some two hours are telephone calls between friends and
relatives, and the remaining two hours are from different kinds of videotaped
institutional settings. The number of cases could indicate that niin-interrogatives
were a rare phenomenon. However, we – and other people with whom we have
discussed this – keep noticing these interrogatives in their daily lives, mostly
in somewhat intimate relationships. We believe that the relative scarcity of
instances in our corpus is due to the type of data corpora we had available, as
in most of the data available the participants are not intimate or very familiar
with each other.
Treating the prior action as exaggerated: the varying scope
of the niin-interrogative
The niin-interrogatives can respond to different types of actions, and they
can target something the co-participant explicitly mentioned or only implied.
Furthermore, the interrogative can have in its scope either the immediately
preceding turn or a longer stretch of talk. In all the cases the speaker shows in
which sense the recipient’s action was exaggerated. The head of the phrase (e.g.
hirmune ‘terrible’ in nii hirmune) presents the interrogative speaker’s gloss of an
exaggerated stance expressed by the other.
We will start with a case in which the interrogative is used to call into question
an assessment by the co-participant. We will then move to an example in which
the recipient challenges a complaint by her co-participant, and we will finish with
an instance in which the interrogative treats a story as unconvincing.
TREATING AN EXPLICIT ASSESSMENT AS EXAGGERATED
The first example comes from a gathering of four students. In the segment they are
tasting and evaluating candies. Jaana, who works in a candy shop, has brought
along different kinds of candies.2 In the course of the evaluation, one participant
challenges another’s assessment with niin-interrogative.
The interrogative (line 14) responds to a co-participant’s assessment of
the taste of a candy called väyrynen. Before the segment, Pekka has asked Jaana
whether she has brought any väyrynens; Jaana then describes the candies as
Pekka’s absolute favourite. The remaining two (Pasi and Malla) are not familiar
with the candy, and Malla states that she wants to see it but not to taste it. In line 6
she, however, puts a väyrynen in her mouth and starts to chew it. While she is
tasting it, two of the participants evaluate the candy, first Jaana (line 8) with a
two-part description that expresses acceptance but not any enthusiasm and then,
as a response to that, Pekka with a strong positive assessment. This assessment
is challenged by Malla in line 14.
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Discourse Studies 10(1)
(1) [SKK/123/Väyrynen]
1
2
3
4
5
6 –>
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14 =>
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22 –>
23 –>
Jaana: Mull_on kaks intohimoist ystävää niinku Pekka ja sit
I have two passionate friends ((‘of väyrynens’)) like Pekka and then
mum [pikkusysteri on kans sillee niinku
] @↑väy:rysiä@
my little sister too is like
@↑väy:rynens@
[
]
Pasi:
[ehh. hehe he he
]
Pasi:
ehh
Jaana: °Ain°a.
°Alwa°ys.
(0.2) M ALLA PUTS A VÄYRYNEN INTO HER MOUTH
Jaana: >Ne on sellast lakua.< tai siis< (0.2) lakritsisalmiakkia=
>They are like liquorice.< or I mean< (0.2) liquorice salmiac.=
=mu-st se on i↑ha ↑jees mut ei hirveen hyvää.
I- ELA it is quite PRT but not terribly good
=I think it’s quite okay but not terribly good.
(1.0)
Pekka: Mu-m [miele-st se on iha (.) tai:[vaallisen [hyvää.]
good
I- GEN mind- ELA it is just heavenly
To my mind it is just (.) heavenly good.
[
[
[
]
Pasi:
[Mm:,
[
[
]
[
]
Malla:
[ CHEWING THE CANDY ,
TURNING HER GAZE TO P EKKA
[
]
Jaana:
[ehh he]
Malla: Mikä täs
nyt [on niin ihmeellistä.
what this.in now is
special/wonderful
=What’s NYT NIIN special/wonderful in this.
[
Pasi:
[heh he
Jaana: [M(h)ä e-n] k(h)ans oikein käsitä.
NEG -1 too
quite understand
I
I don’t understand it quite either.
[
]
Pasi:
[heh heh ]
(.)
Pasi:
heh heh he.mt O:n tää aika maukas kyllä.
PRT
is this quite tasty
heh heh he.tch This is quite tasty.
(0.4)
Jaana: O:n se [ihan hyvää.
is it quite good
It is quite good.
[
Pekka:
[Mä e-n
kyl keksi mitääm muuta karkkii
NEG -1 PRT invent any
other candy
I
I can’t KYL think of any other candy
joka mai:stu-is tolle.
that taste- CON that.to
that would taste like that.
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Halonen and Sorjonen: Using niin-interrogative to treat the prior speaker’s action
The niin-interrogative (line 14) is a Wh-interrogative which, due to the question
word, on the surface asks for a specification of the grounds for Pekka’s prior
positive assessment. It targets the assessment iha tai:vaallisen hyvää (‘just heavenly
good’) but modifies it into ihmeellistä (‘special/wonderful’). Thus while the original
assessment concerned the taste, hyvää (‘good’), the interrogative portrays it as
one that attributed a special character to the candy.
A key element in making the interrogative into a challenge is the intensifier
niin. It draws attention to a specific place on the scale that Pekka’s characterization invoked and implies that the place is too high on the scale. This is the point
of the interrogative: it treats the co-participant’s assessment as an exaggeration,
and in so doing expresses disagreement. The utterance contains elements that
convey that no grounds for that high evaluation can be found. One of them is the
utterance particle nyt which implies an opposite stance, in this case that there is
nothing special in the candy (cf. Hakulinen, 1998).
The interrogative gets a response from all the participants, and these responses
position their speakers differently in relation to the interrogative. The primary
recipient Pekka responds only after the other two participants have responded,
one of them (line 16) affiliating with the interrogative speaker and the other
one (line 19) disaffiliating with her and displaying affiliation with Pekka. Pekka
(lines 22–3) responds both to the sequential implication of the interrogative form
(seeking specification and grounds for the assessment) and to its disagreeing
character. The response describes the candy as unique in its taste. In this fashion,
Pekka presents grounds for his prior assessment and implies disagreement with
the interrogative speaker. However, by not fitting his response syntactically to the
interrogative (e.g. ‘well it tastes . . .’) and keeping the specification at a general
level, Pekka orients to the interrogative as challenging and not so much as one
that truly had requested information about the taste. In so doing he also implies
a closure of the topic, and what follows after his turn is a stepwise movement to
another aspect of the candies.
In this case the recipient thus used a niin-interrogative to call into question the
co-participant’s preceding assessment as an exaggeration. The assessment was
produced in a context in which a co-participant had characterized the assessment
speaker as a passionate fan of the candies in question. With his assessment Pekka
as if acted out the role assigned to him by presenting a strong, exaggerated
evaluation. This is what the interrogative responded to.
TREATING AN IMPLIED EVALUATION AS EXAGGERATION
In the preceding example the niin-interrogative responded to an explicit evaluation
by the co-participant. The interrogative may also target an implication in the
prior turn. This happens in the next example which comes from a telephone
call between two sisters. Riitta has moved to a new town and evaluates it now
positively (line 1). Erja responds with an interpretation of the basis of her sister’s
satisfaction: what is good is to be in a bigger town (ihmiste ilmoilla, ‘among people’,
line 2). Riitta, however, presents (line 3) another reason for being satisfied with
her move, that of being out of sight of her mother-in-law. This reason is marked
as the primary one (ennen kaikkea, ‘above all’). The utterance implies a complaint
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Discourse Studies 10(1)
and invites Erja to see the relationship between the satisfaction and being away
from the mother-in-law. Erja responds with a niin-interrogative in lines 5–6.
(2) [SKK/074:13–14]
1
Riitta:
2
Erja
3
Riitta
4
5 =>
Erja:
6 =>
7
Riitta:
8
Erja:
9
10
Riitta:
11
Erja:
12
Riitta:
13
Riitta:
14
15
<mhhh.hhh> Huu huhh,.mhh On kyllä tosi
mukava olla teällä ↑mh
is PRT really nice
be here
<mhhh.hhh> Wow wow,.mhh It is really nice to be here ↑mh
.mk mhh Joo: on varmasti.hh .hhhh Ihmis-te
ilmo-i-lla,hh
PRT is certainly
person- GEN air- PL - ADE
.mk mhh Yeah it certainly is.hh.hhhh Among people,hh
Mm: hmh, Nii ja< (0.2) ennen kaikkee poissa
PRT
PRT
PRT and
before all
away
Mm: hmh, Yeah and< (0.2) above all out of
anopi
s(h)ilim-i-st(h)ä.hh heh [heh
mother-in-law. GEN eye- PL - ELA
si(h)ght of the mother-in-law.hh hah hah
[
[Joo:, on-k-s
PRT
is- Q - CLI
JOO :, is
se n(h)yt, nii h(h)irmune,.
she NOW
NII terrible
she N ( H ) YT , NII t(h)errible,.
Täh,
What,
On-k-s se nyt nii hirmune.
is- Q - CLI she now
terrible
Is she NYT NII terrible.
(1.0)
mhhh Noh, miten sen nyt ottaa.hhh
PRT
how
it now takes
mhhh Well, it depends on how one takes it.hhh
No [on se varmmaa aika ärsyttävä.
PRT is
she probably quite irritating
Well probably she is quite irritating.
[
[(Ei se-)
not it/she
((She)/(It) isn’t)
No o:n, .hhh Ja< (0.4) se ei sitte ku< siihen nytte<
Well she i:s, .hhh And< (0.4) (it)/(she) isn’t then as<
tuli vielä sen Matin< akkakaveri niin sanotusti. .hh
Matti’s< lady friend also came there so to say .hh
sinne asummaa ni se se vasta oli(h)hi,hi:rmune.hh=
to live there now she y’know w(h)as,te:rrible.hh=
The beginning of the niin-interrogative (line 5) already foreshadows disaffiliation.
Starting with the response particle joo (instead of e.g. the particle niin), Erja
claims to understand what Riitta said, but does not pick up the affiliation seeking
character of her utterance, thereby implying disaffiliation with her (see Sorjonen,
2001 on this very same joo). With the subsequent interrogative, she then voices
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Halonen and Sorjonen: Using niin-interrogative to treat the prior speaker’s action
an implication she heard in Riitta’s turn, namely an evaluation of the motherin-law as terrible. By virtue of being a polar interrogative, the utterance invites
the recipient minimally to affirm or reject the evaluation, and in this sequential
environment it could also be heard as looking for some elaboration on the issue
(e.g. the latest news of the conduct of the mother-in-law).
Similar to the preceding example, the niin-interrogative here contains the
utterance particle nyt. The nii treats the implied assessment by Riitta as an exaggeration, and the nyt sets up a preference for a negative answer. However, the nii
is accented, which suggests that the target of the challenge is only the extent to
which the mother-in-law is terrible and not that she is terrible: the accent modifies
the force of nyt. In this way the interrogative also looks for an explanation for
the implied evaluation. Hence Erja calls into question the way in which Riitta
perceives her mother-in-law, and in so doing disaffiliates with her. It should be
noticed that the scope of the interrogative gets changed very soon: as a response
to a repair initiator by her co-participant, Erja repeats her inquiry (line 8) but
now places the accent on the utterance-initial copula (onks, ‘is’). This suggests
that the entire assessment might be wrong.
The interrogative gets an evading response: Riitta (line 10) acknowledges the
stance by Erja but does not commit herself to it, thereby sustaining the stance
ascribed to her by Erja (see also Heinemann, this issue). However, she does not
elaborate on the issue and in this fashion implies a closure of the topic. The
response is met with a backdown by the co-participant, an agreeing assessment
in which Erja attributes the primary rights to assess the mother-in-law to her
sister (varmmaa, ‘probably’, line 11). However, she uses the adjective ärsyttävä
‘irritating’ which portrays the mother-in-law from the point of view of an observer, instead of ascribing a quality directly to the mother-in-law. In this fashion
she implies identification with her sister’s stance but still sustains the possibility
that somebody else might perceive the mother-in-law in a different fashion. Riitta
responds to this with an expression of agreement and then changes the topic to
her sister-in-law. However, she backs slightly down from her prior stance (her
sister-in-law is even more terrible than the mother-in-law, lines 14–15).
TREATING A STORY AS UNCONVINCING
It was quite straightforward to indicate what the interrogative addressed in the
previous two examples – either its target was the immediately preceding turn by
the co-participant (example 2), or a turn that could be understood as the relevant
prior turn (example 1). However, the interrogative can also be responsive to a
longer stretch of talk, as in the following example.
The segment comes from the same conversation as example 1. Before the
segment, Malla has brought up a fact that Pekka is nowadays a vegetarian.
Pekka has told that he became one while in non-military service (an alternative
to military service). A visit by an animal rights activist had an impact on his
decision even though in the end he based his decision on ecological reasons, not
on animal rights. At the beginning of the segment, the telling has come to its
possible end and the co-participants have provided non-serious completions of
the telling (lines 3 and 6). Malla now takes a turn which she starts with a niininterrogative (line 10).
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Discourse Studies 10(1)
(3) [SKK/123/Vegetarian]
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 =>
11
12
13
14
15
16
17 –>
18
19 =>
Pekka: et vois niinku (0.2) mielummin kasvattaa vain (.) viljaks
so one could like (0.2) rather grow it ((=‘feed’)) just (.) as crops
ihmi [sille, ]
for humans.
[
]
Jaana:
[ Tupa ]kaks. [mm, ]
For tobacco. mm,
[
]
Pekka:
[Ja niin ]ku (0.2) ja mitä tahansa (.)
And like (0.2) and whatever (.)
kasvik [sia. ]
vegetables.
[
]
Pasi:
[°Hamppua° ]
°Hemp.°
Jaana: N(h)o
n(h)iim, se oli [niinku (.)£lähinnä kri]tiikkiä£,
W(h)ell o(h)kay, it was like
(.)£mainly critique£,
[
]
Pekka:
[Nii no se (.) (------) ]
Yeah well it (.) (-----)
Pekka: °Ni° nii:,
°So° yea:,
Malla: Mut käv-i-k se nii helposti;= e-m_mä ainakaa: (.) niink- (0.2)
NEG -1 I at.least
like
but go- PST - Q it easily
But did it go NII easily;=at least I don’t (.) lik- (0.2)
tai mu-st tuntuu e mä tiiän tosi paljon tommosii just et (.) niinku
or I-ELA feels
I know really many such.PL just so
like
or I feel that I know really many exactly that kind of ((‘cases’)) so (.) like
ei ne oo mitään uusia juttuja et (.) nyt ku
Pekka
NEG they be any
new stories so
now when name
they aren’t any new stories so (.) now that Pekka
kertoi mulle näin
niin @ahaa:, m(h)inä-ki [rupeen..h]h
I -too
start
told
me
this.way so PRT
told me this so @oh I see:, I’ll start too ((‘being a vegetarian’))@
[
]
Pekka:
[Ymhy, ]
Malla: et kyl mä nyt tiiän ne
mut (.) voi-t sä nyt tehä sen sitte
can-2 you now do
it then
so PRT I now know them but
so I do know them but (.) can you now do it.
noiv
vaan..hh ja nyt sä sit
syö[-t vaa. ]
in.that.way just
and now you then eat-2 just
just like that then.h and now you then just eat.
[
]
Jaana:
[Eik sun ] tee ikinä
Don’t you ever fancy
mieli [ees. ]
it
even.
[
]
Pekka:
[Mut ] [e(h). heh.hh
]
But
e(h). heh.hh
[
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Halonen and Sorjonen: Using niin-interrogative to treat the prior speaker’s action
20
21 =>
22 =>
23 =>
Malla:
[Tai varmaan Kirsi ] vaikuttaa [silleen et, (0.2) mut.
]
Or surely Kirsi has an influence so that, (.) but,
[
]
[
]
Pekka:
[ei se ei se ollu nii iso ]
NEG it NEG it be
big
It wasn’t it wasn’t NII big
juttu koskaan. #nn# (.) se et #% ni%# (.) ei se
PRT
NEG it
thing ever
it so
big thing ever. #nn# (.) the fact that (.) it doesn’t
>ei se< tunnu nii isolta jutulta jättää sitä (.) lihaa poi:s.
NEG it feel
big
thing leave the
meat out
>it doesn’t< feel NII big thing to leave the (.) meat out.
The beginning of the turn in line 10 already projects a contrastive line of talk
(mut, ‘but’). The interrogative contains the proposition ‘it happened NII easily
for you’. However, that is Malla’s inference – Pekka himself did not describe the
manner of changing his lifestyle. Furthermore, the adverbial phrase nii helposti
‘NII easily’ implies that Pekka has exaggerated the easiness of the change. Malla
doubts the story and challenges Pekka’s way of describing the change.
This interrogative differs from the one in example 2 (onks se n(h)yt nii
h(h)irmune ‘is she nyt nii terrible’) in three ways: there is no particle nyt that
would imply an opposite stance, it is in the past tense and the clause is not a
predicate nominal clause. In example 2, with the predicate nominal clause in the
present tense, the evaluation was presented as one of a permanent character of
the mother-in-law, and the questioner called into question the entire evaluation.
Here, through its clause type and tense, the interrogative challenges the manner
in which the co-participant had described the process of changing his lifestyle
but not the fact that a change had happened.
Contrary to the previous examples the questioner here proceeds to continue
her turn after the interrogative. The continuation provides evidence for doubting
the story. Malla implies that she has knowledge of similar situations and in this
fashion challenges the special status of the information Pekka has. She finishes
her turn with another interrogative (lines 15–16) which sustains her prior action,
calling into question the other’s action as an exaggeration (noin vaan, ‘just like
that’, syöt vaan, ‘you just eat’, line 16).3
As in example 1, the primary recipient responds only after the other participants have responded. He (lines 19, 21–23) contests the implications of the
interrogative by treating them as an exaggeration (nii iso juttu, ‘nii big thing’, nii
isolta jutulta, ‘nii big thing’, lines 21–2, 23). Simultaneously, he implies a positive response to the interrogative. In the subsequent talk, argumentation on the
issue continues.
The target of the interrogative was in this case thus an implication which its
speaker heard in the talk by her co-participant. However, the prior talk did not
appear to contain any single place where the teller himself would have presented
the change in lifestyle as easy, or even described its manner, unless we take the
fact that he talks exclusively about the basis for the change as implying that there
were no problems in making the change itself. There are, however, elements
(data not shown) that the interrogative speaker may be targeting with her turn.
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Discourse Studies 10(1)
When the topic was launched (by the interrogative speaker Malla),4 one of the
participants, Jaana, posed an inquiry, sä sait herätyksen sivarissa eiks ni, ‘you were
awakened in the non-military service weren’t you’. Pekka’s non-serious answer
to that was nii sain. Jussi Aaltonen kääns mut, ‘yes I was. Jussi Aaltonen converted
me.’ This question–answer pair activates the cognitive frame of conversion and
suggests an analogy between becoming a vegetarian and religious conversion
which may in general be perceived as a sudden, passive and unintentional event –
something which is easy when it happens to happen.
The preceding examples contain both polar and Wh-interrogatives. They all
attribute a stance to the co-participant and treat it as exaggerated through the
intensifier niin. In this fashion they themselves exhibit stance-taking such that
they display, to a varying degree, disaffiliation with the co-participant. Through
their overall design, by being interrogatives, they seek a response from the
co-participant and make it possible to treat the interrogative as a request for
specification and accounts. This dual character of the interrogative can be seen
in the way they are responded to. However, even though there are elements of
providing information in the responses (specifications) the recipients orient more
strongly to the stance-taking character of the interrogative and work to close
down the topic.
Interrogatives and exaggeration in institutional settings
The previous examples all are from conversations between friends or relatives.
Niin-interrogatives are also used in institutional settings, especially by the
professionals. There they occur in contexts which are often constructed as
antagonistic, as in interviews with politicians in the media, or in more friendly
tuned settings as a way of doing a confrontation.
In group therapy sessions, a niin-interrogative may be used by the therapist
to confront the patient’s claim. The following example comes from a morning
circle of group therapy in addiction treatment. In these sessions each patient
has an extended pre-allocated turn for telling how they feel that morning. After
the round, the therapist comments on the patients’ turns. The niin-interrogative
in line 11 is the therapist’s first turn after the round and it targets Matti’s turn
(shown in lines 1–10 almost in its entirety).
(4) [Myllyhoito/PR11]
1
Matti:
2
3
Matti:
4
5
6
7
Matti:
Lauantai oli iha mukava vielä ettäh, (0.5) toi ei(h)line oli iha hirvee.
Saturday was still just great so, (0.5) ye(h)sterday was just terrible.
(0.8)
en tiä mikä oli fiilis, (0.3) tosi, (1.0) se illa
I don’t what was the feeling, (0.3) really, (1.0) the evening
ryhmä (oli mun piti) välilä lähtee sieltä menee.
group (was I had to) leave it now and then.
(1.0)
käydä pihalla ja, (1.5) tulla takasi (jotenki).
go to the yard and, (1.5) come back (like).
(1.0)
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Halonen and Sorjonen: Using niin-interrogative to treat the prior speaker’s action
8
Matti:
9
10
Matti:
kiukkusena.
angry.
(2.3)
mutta kyllä, hyvin tuli nukuttuu ja taas o iha erilai(sta).
but really, I slept well and it’s again just different.
— talk omitted, Matti transferring the turn to Risto who begins his report —
11 =>
Ther:
12 =>
13
14 =>
Ther:
15 –>
Matti:
16 –>
17
18 –>
Matti:
19 –>
20
21
Ther:
22
23
Matti:
24
25
26
Ther:
mitä-s:? #öö# mitä-s
sitte Matti herra-l
oli
what- CLI then name mister- ADE was
what- CLI
wha:t? #uh# what did mister Matti have
niin, (0.8) negatiivista sitte.
negative
then
NIIN , (0.8) negative then.
(0.8)
su
ryhmä-kokemukses[sa.
your group-experience.in
in your group experience.
[
[e(h)em mää tiä
mää jotenki
[not
I
know I
somehow
[I d(h)on=t know I somehow
kuvitteli että (siel),
imagined that there
imagined that (there),
(0.5)
yks tyyppi katso? tai kyllä se katteli mua
one bloke looked at? or surely he was lookin’ at me
koko ajan kun se puhu niitä juttujaan,
all the time when he talked his stories,
(0.8)
joo?,
yeah?,
(0.5)
se jotenki niinku osu niin se? (0.3) jotenki niinku
it somehow like hit me erm he? (0.3) somehow like
arvosteli (siinä) mun puhetta scriticized (there) what I said s(1.8)
°ahaa°?
°I see°?
The niin-interrogative and its continuation targets the patient’s description of his
feelings in the AA meeting and describes them as negative (lines 11–12 and 14). The
turn gets an ironic tone from the address term herra, ‘mister’, accompanying the
first name Matti (on this segment, see Arminen and Halonen, in press).5 The
utterance looks for a specification of the feelings and the event that caused them.
With the intensifier niin, the therapist treats the descriptions by the patient as
overstated or as indicative of an over-reaction.
In his response starting in line 15, the patient treats the interrogative as a
request for specifying the events that caused his feelings. Simultaneously, he responds to the stance implied by the therapist by slightly backing down from his
description (display of uncertainty, laughter and a hint at paranoia). He then
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47
48
Discourse Studies 10(1)
moves into a further detailing of the evening. A little later the therapist (data
not shown) guides the patient to see that his interpretation of the situation
was misguided, and the sequence ends with the participants laughing off the
trouble together (see Arminen and Halonen, in press). The therapist thus used
the niin-interrogative to launch a sequence during which he confronted the
patient’s description of his feelings, these feelings being hearable as resisting
the AA meetings and the addiction treatment more generally. With the niininterrogative the therapist implied right at the beginning that the patient might
have taken too strong a stance to the events he had described.
In the following example the niin-interrogative is used by a host of a political
TV discussion to challenge a politician, the leader of the main party in opposition
(Paavo Lipponen, Social Democrats), just before she has interviewed the prime
minister (Esko Aho, Central Party; lines 1–3 ). With the niin-interrogative the host
asks Lipponen reasons for the political parties not having found agreement on the
so-called Pekkasen paperi (‘Pekkanen’s paper’, Pekkanen being the surname of the
author of the report) which contains suggestions for an employment program
during the on-going depression (on this segment, see also Berg, 2003).
(5) [TV 2/Ajankohtainen kakkonen 29.11.1994]
1
EA:
2
3
4
=>
5
=>
6
7
8
9
Host:
PL:
ee sen jälkeen kun minä palasin #öö# palasin sairaslomalta niin
er after I’ve been back #er# been back from the sick leave
ei ole käyty sellasia (.) keskusteluja joissa olisi (.) olisi tämän
there haven’t been such (.) discussions in which ((we)) would (.)
paperin ympärillä (.) ympärillä yritetty eteenpäin mennä.
would have gone forward around this paper.
.hh puheenjohtaja Lipponen (.) miksi se on niin <hirvittävän vaikeaa>
chairman
why it is
terribly
difficult
.hh chairman Lipponen (.) why is it NIIN <terribly difficult>
(.) sopia asioi-sta (.) joi-sta
kaikki ovat lähes yhtä mieltä.h
agree issue- ELA
which- ELA all
is
almost one mind
(.) to agree upon issues (.) which all are almost of the same opinion.h
(1.5)
ei-hän sitä ole vielä todettu ollaan-ko yhtä mieltä ennen kun
not- CLI it
is yet
stateted are. PAS - Q same mind before
it hasn’t been yet y’know stated whether ((we)) are of the same opinion
on (.) neuvoteltu. (.) eli varsinaisia neuvotteluja ei Pekkase-n (.)
is
negotiated
PRT proper
negotiations not Pekkanen- GEN
before we have (.) negotiated. (.) so proper negotiations haven’t over the
paperista ole käyty. (.) olemme< käyneet tällasia (.) a↑lustavia keskusteluja
Pekkanen paper been had. (.) we have< had this kind of (.) preliminary
discussions
Lipponen has not been present in the discussion earlier, and consequently the
niin-interrogative does not target anything he would have said. However, in
the introduction to the program, the Pekkanen’s paper and the incapability of
the political parties to find agreement have been mentioned as one of the main
topics to be discussed by the hosts. The niin-interrogative rests on this introduction
and it treats Lipponen as a key actor in the so far unsuccessful process of finding
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Halonen and Sorjonen: Using niin-interrogative to treat the prior speaker’s action
solutions to the depression. The interrogative portrays the situation as negative
(hirvittävän, ‘terribly’), and it contains two presuppositions which are contrasted
(‘terribly difficult’ and ‘almost all are of the same opinion’, conveyed by the relative clause). In this fashion it gets the force of an accusation. The intensifier
niin adds to the strength of the difficulty and implies (through implicating that
a line has been crossed) that the situation is ridiculous, thereby adding to the
challenge of the turn. On the surface the interrogative looks for an account for
the contradictory state of affairs. Through its person marking – the zero person construction which leaves it unspecified for whom it is difficult to agree
(e.g. Laitinen, 2006; Sorjonen, 2001) – the utterance may be treated as a request that Lipponen specifies not only the difficulties he or his party has but the
problems by some other participants in the process.
In his response Lipponen rejects the presupposition conveyed by the relative clause, that is, the claim that all would be of the same opinion of the issue
(line 7 onwards). This state of affairs is formulated as general knowledge (through
the clitic particle – hän suffixed to the negation verb) and thus as something
also the host should know (see Berg, 2003). The denial of the presupposition on
which the inquiry rests nullifies the ‘why’ inquiry and its claim of the parties
having exaggerated with the difficulty, implied by the [niin + X] phrase.
Conclusions and discussion
In this article we have focused on interrogatives that contain a phrase with the
intensifier niin (e.g. onks se nyt nii hirmune, ‘is she NIIN terrible’). These interrogatives respond to an action by the co-participant, treat it as having attributed
a stance (evaluation) to something and express that this stance is exaggerated
or overstated – out of proportion so that it does not correspond with the facts of
real life. It is the presence of the intensifier niin in the interrogative which
expresses the moral implication of the stance being exaggerated: it foregrounds
the scale that the adjective or other head word of the phrase makes relevant and
suggests that the co-participant has gone too far on the scale.
With the format of her utterance, a conversationalist sets a certain type of
sequential context with its rights and obligations for dealing with an exaggeration
or overstatement by the co-participant. Thus a recipient may make the prior
speaker infer that her (the prior speaker’s) claim was overstated and leave the next
action to her (e.g. by responding with a silence or minimal acknowledgement;
cf. Drew, 2003). With the niin-interrogative, by contrast, the recipient expresses
that the claim was overstated and in so doing displays disaffiliation with the
speaker. However, as compared to metalinguistic utterances which name the
action by the co-participant (e.g. you are exaggerating) and in so doing open a
space for a quarrel (cf. Sacks, 1992), a niin-interrogative allows the recipient
to express her disagreeing stance without stating it explicitly. She is as if able to
keep herself more in the background and foreground the responsibility by her
co-participant who is put in a position of a respondent – the niin-interrogative
allows the recipient to avoid an open conflict at least temporarily.
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49
50
Discourse Studies 10(1)
By virtue of its form (an interrogative), the niin-interrogative on the surface
looks for a specification and an account by the prior speaker. This is especially the case with the Wh-interrogatives; however, the sequential context of
polar interrogatives makes relevant a response other than a mere affirmation or
negation. In their responses the recipients orient to the challenging force of the
interrogative, within the structural frame of responding to an interrogative. Thus
they provide accounts and specifications but do not elaborate on the issue in a
fashion that would treat the interrogative as a pure request for information.
In the cases we have taken up the speaker of the interrogative can be understood to orient to a moral norm of walking the golden mean. We suggest that
this orientation is due to the fact that the interrogative treats what was said
and how it was said as an exaggeration and that it deals with issues that are
morally loaded in the Finnish culture and, for that matter, more generally in at
least mainstream western cultures. For example, extract 2 had to do with the
relationship between female relatives, mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law. This
is a relationship which is treated as delicate and affective to the extent that it is
a cliché, and the adjective hirmunen, ‘terrible’, is almost a cliché in the context
of describing mothers-in-law.
The niin-interrogative in example 3 also deals with a culturally central topic,
a change in lifestyle (becoming a vegetarian). Lifestyle issues are potentially
delicate, even though the change would be for the better. If the change is for
worse (e.g. getting addicted to drugs or alcohol), it is of course a tragedy and a
delicate matter. But also a change for the better for example stopping smoking
or maybe also becoming a vegetarian, might be a delicate matter at least for the
other participants who may have been thinking about doing the same but have not
started to act yet or have not succeeded in their efforts. Furthermore, considering
the amount of self-help books and lifestyle as a permanent topic in magazines,
the changes are not supposed – or perhaps not even ‘permitted’ – to be easy.6
The descriptions that the niin-interrogatives topicalize as exaggerated may
thus have to do with a delicate subject matter. The interrogative seems to challenge at the same time both the truthfulness of the description (is the motherin-law bad at all, was the change easy at all) and the way of talking, the possible
exaggeration. The deeper level stance they exhibit is that one should stay in the
middle of the road, neither criticizing nor praising too much – the extreme ends
of the scales are ‘not in use’. The niin-interrogatives show that the action of
telling about something or describing something is itself morally accountable
(cf. Drew, 1998).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This study was carried out within the research project Language and Social Action,
supported by the Academy of Finland within an ESF framework. We thank Maria Egbert,
John Heritage, Tine Larsen, Chiara Monzoni, Maria Vilkuna, Monika Vöge and especially
Jakob Steensig for valuable discussion of the issues raised in this article. An earlier version
of this article was delivered at the annual meeting of Finnish conversation analysts in
Oulu, at Max Planck Institute, Nijmegen, and as part of a panel on questions at ICCA-06
in Helsinki, and we are grateful for the participants in these events for comments.
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Halonen and Sorjonen: Using niin-interrogative to treat the prior speaker’s action
A P P E N D I X : A D D I TI O N A L TRA N S C R I PTI O N A N D G LO S S I N G SYM B O LS
#
£
@
<
1
2
ADE
CLI
CON
ELA
GEN
NEG
Q
PAS
PL
PRT
PST
creaky voice
smile voice
animated voice
the prior word is finished a little abruptly (e.g. tai siis<)
1st person ending
2nd person ending
adessive (approximate meaning ‘at, on’)
clitic particle
conditional
elative (‘out of ’)
genitive (possession)
negation verb
interrogative suffix
passive
plural
particle
past tense
N OTE S
The order of authors has been drawn by lot.
1. Historically, niin is a pronominal form; it is an instrumental case form of the
demonstrative se, ‘it; that; the’ (in plural) which is the main device for anaphora. It is
also used, for example, as a response token (see e.g. Sorjonen, 2001).
2. Silenti (2000) discusses examples 2–3 in her master’s thesis, and we have benefited
from her discussions.
3. The turn also contains elements that index an ironic stance: Malla changes the code
from a colloquial variety into a more standard one (careful pronunciation of the final
sounds, e.g. kertoi and näin (line 13; cf. Lappalainen, 2004).
4. The issue of Pekka being a vegetarian was brought up by Malla. She then asked
whether he has now become healthier.
5. As Arminen and Halonen (in press) state titles of this type are rarely used in Finnish.
According to them, the therapist portrays the patient as vain or as somebody who
presents himself as a ‘very important person’.
6. This comes out often in the media. In January 2006, a hostess of a TV-show on Finnish
TV2 interviewed a woman who had, after a history of drug abuse, violent behavior
and a long sentence in prison, changed her life, quitting both drugs and violence.
The last question the hostess asked was: ‘Has it been easy to make the change?’
Making this question the last one, as the climax of the show, which then ended with
a definite ‘no’ and a close-up picture of the extremely solemn looking interviewee, was
revealing. That is what the show was about, about the hard struggle to change.
REFERENCES
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Halonen and Sorjonen: Using niin-interrogative to treat the prior speaker’s action
earned a PhD in Finnish linguistics from the University of Helsinki, and
is working as a post-doctoral researcher at the Research Institute for the Languages of
Finland, Helsinki. Her area of specialization is linguistic construction of interactional
practices which she has studied both in conversations among friends and in institutional
interactions, especially in group therapy interactions. She is especially interested in the
expression of epistemic stance in interaction, and she has studied, for example, utterance
particles, negation and responding to compliments in Finnish. She has published on
these issues both in English and in Finnish. She is currently investigating the acquisition of
Finnish as a second language by second generation immigrant school children. A D D R E S S :
Research Institute for the Languages of Finland, Sörnäisten rantatie 25, FIN-00500
Helsinki, Finland. [email: [email protected]]
MIA HALON EN
MARJA-LEENA SORJONEN
received her PhD from UCLA, and is Professor of Spoken
Finnish at the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland, Helsinki. She specializes
in the interplay between interaction and grammar, and in linguistic variation. Her
publications in English include Responding in Conversation. A Study of Response Particles
in Finnish, and co-authored ‘Constituting and Maintaining Activities across Sequences:
and-Prefacing as a Feature of Question Design’ with John Heritage; ‘Institutional Dialogue’
with Paul Drew; ‘Searching for Words: Syntactic and Sequential Construction of Word
Search in Conversations of Finnish Speakers with Aphasia’ with Marja-Liisa Helasvuo
and Minna Laakso, and ‘Life-style Discussions in Medical Interviews’, with Liisa Raevaara,
Markku Haakana, Tuukka Tammi and Anssi Peräkylä. A D D R E S S : Research Institute for
the Languages of Finland, Sörnäisten rantatie 25, FIN-00500 Helsinki, Finland. [email:
[email protected]]
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