Orð og tunga - 2020, Qupperneq 30

18 Orð og tunga
heyrast alls ekki eru sýnd sem x. Bandstrik aftan við bókstaf eða orðhluta innan
sviga tákna orð sem ekki er lokið við. Stutt þögn er sýnd með punkti innan sviga.
Umhverfishljóð, sem og líkamshljóð, eru gefin til kynna með tvöföldum sviga. Öllum
nöfnum og sumum staðarheitum er breytt. Tilvísun í númer samtals fylgir í sviga
aftan við heiti samtalsbútsins.
Lykilorð
samtöl, orðræðuögn, varnagli, orðaleit, þekkingarleg afstaða, sjálfsprottin sjálfs­
lagfæring
Keywords
Icelandic conversation, discourse particle, hedging, word­search, epistemic stance,
self­initiated self­repair
Abstract
This study focuses on a particular use of the interrogative pronoun hvað ‘what’ in
Icelandic conversation. Besides occurring in open questions (e.g. hvað er þetta ‘what
is this’), hvað can also be used as a discourse particle in repair sequences. Such
occurrences typically occur in turns that contain either numeral information (time,
number or quantity) or names and other specific labels.
The following two examples are drawn from the the spoken corpus ÍSTAL: (1) en
ég hef einmitt er með hvað tuttuguogeinstommu skjá niðri í vinnu ‘but I have just have
hvað twenty one inch screen down at work’, and (2) það heitir (þa­) (m­) eða þarna
(niðr­) (það) sem var niðri í bæ hvað þarna Mjölnisholt ‘it is called (i­) (m­) or there
(do­) (it) which was downtown hvað there Mjölnisholt’. In (1) and (2), hvað is used to
structure a repair sequence that aims at solving problems that have arisen in the flow
of the conversation. To be more specific, hvað functions as a repair initiator in self­
initiated self­repairs. It is argued, on one hand, that the main role of the particle is to
mark a minor inconsistency that may exist between what is said and what is actually
the case (1), and, on the other, that the speaker is doing a word­search (2).
The empirical data comprises around 20 hours of naturally occurring conversation
from the ÍSTAL database recorded in 2000. In total, there are 25 sequences that contain
an occurance of hvað as a discourse particle. The theoretical and methodological
framework is conversation analysis and interactional linguistics.
Þóra Björk Hjartardóttir
Íslensku­ og menningardeild
Hugvísindasvið Háskóla Íslands
Árnagarði v/Suðurgötu
IS­101 Reykjavík
thorah@hi.is
tunga_22.indb 18 22.06.2020 14:03:49