Request for confirmation sequences in German

Abstract: In request for confirmation (RfC) sequences, interlocutors negotiate their social positions regarding access and rights to knowledge. The article presents an overview of a quantitative analysis of 200 RfCs and their responses in German conversations to highlight the relevant linguistic resources speakers of the language deployed to position themselves vis-à-vis a confirmable proposition. In German RfCs, modal particles and tags play an important role in expressing the requester’s epistemic stance; explicit inference marking is used less frequently. Responses usually include response tokens (among others doch as a token specialized for disconfirming negatively formatted RfCs) and an expansion. The article shows that such expansions do important work to tailor the response to the situated informational needs of the requester in a cooperative way beyond the constraints of type-conformity.

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Request for confirmation sequences in German ; volume:10 ; number:1 ; year:2024 ; extent:23 ; Open linguistics ; 10, Heft 1 (2024) (gesamt 23)

Contributors, Places and Time

• Creator: Deppermann, Arnulf ; Gubina, Alexandra ; König, Katharina ; Pfeiffer, Martin

Further information

• DOI: 10.1515/opli-2024-0008
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2408021920483.620836279030
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 14.08.2025, 10:55 AM CEST