Both sides of the interaction will evaluate each other's epistemic status before speaking,and the evaluation results will be expressed in the form of language.The assessment modes of mutual epi-stemic status by the initiator and the respondent in adjacency pairs have eight logical possibilities.Based on this,the paper attempts to explore the unified explanatory dimensions behind the many functional types of the Chinese responses in the information-seeking or informing sequence in previous studies.It is found that different response forms collectively reflect the respondent's recognition of the initiator's as-sessment:from the perspective of the recipient,when the assessments of each other's epistemic status are consistent,the response forms are generally simple and unmarked;when the two are inconsistent,the re-sponse forms usually have more complex on prosodic or syntactic features and are marked.The statistical data of the distribution of the two typical responses dui(对)and ou(噢)demonstrates the significance of epistemic authority in the selection of response forms.In addition,the perspective of epistemic status is hopeful to be a breakthrough on teaching appropriateness of Chinese responses.
interactionassessment of epistemic stanceChinese response
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
