É AND SIM AS AFFIRMATIVE RESPONSES IN BRAZILIAN … · É AND SIM AS AFFIRMATIVE RESPONSES IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE APRIL 2014 CONCLUDING REMARKS › Sim was not found as a positive

AARHUS UNIVERSITET INSTITUT FOR ÆSTETIK OG KOMMUNIKATION

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É AND SIM AS AFFIRMATIVE RESPONSES IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE

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ANA PAULLA BRAGA MATTOS & EEVA SIPPOLA



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THIS PRESENTATION 1.  Introduction 2.  Background

› Response systems › Brazilian Portuguese

3.  Analysis › É › Sim

4.  Results

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AIMS › To provide an analysis of two types of responses to yes-no questions in Brazilian Portuguese (BP): sim and é.

› Contribute to the better understanding of the response system to yes-no questions in BP.

› More generally › Practical applications in language learning. › Contributions to studies in Portuguese Variation.

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RESEARCH QUESTIONS › Using conversation analysis, we examine sequences of questions and answers involving é and sim to answer the following questions:

› What are the functions and distribution of these responses? › What kind of pragmatic meanings can be found encoded

in them? › How do these results match the previous classifications

made about the response system of BP?

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BACKGROUND › Comparative studies (Sadock & Zwicky 1985:189) have identified three systems for short answers to yes-no questions in world’s languages:

› yes/no systems. ›  English: Yes[, I do]. No[, I don’t].

› agree/disagree systems ›  Japanese: positive particle when the answer agrees with the

question in polarity, a negative particle when the answer disagrees.

› echo systems ›  no special answer words, repetition of the verb

› Combinations/mixed systems are possible! (e.g. Sorjonen 2001)

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RESPONSE SYSTEMS IN BP › Brazilian Portuguese is normally considered to have an echo system, where the verb is repeated (Urbano et al 1993, Kato & Tarallo 1992)

› Ex. 1.

› But it has several other possibilities of affirmative responses to yes-no questions (e.g. Armstrong 2008)

› sim, ser–responses (including é), isso, etc.

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6 = Ele cantou? He sang-3S =’Did he sing?’ 7 *L: Cantou:: a gente dançou e tudo. Sang-3S the people danced-3S and all ‘Yes::. We even danced’. ((nod with the head))



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RESPONSES IN CONVERSATION ANALYSIS › Main concepts for analysis:

› preferred positive responses to yes/no question (Heritage and Roth, 1995),

› minimal responses (Hakulinen, 2001), › type-conforming responses (Raymond, 2003).

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DATA & METHODS › Data (Braga Mattos 2012-2014)

› Spontaneous conversations involving Brazilians (+1 non-native speaker) from different areas of Brazil.

› Number of persons: 9, length of interviews 3 hours. › All conversations were recorded and filmed (Sony-DSC-

W270).

› Methods › Data analysis and transcription in CLAN. › The program Praat was also used to analyse intonation. › The transcription conventions follow Jefferson’s (2004) with

a few changes.

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METHODS

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EXAMPLES WITH É

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EXAMPLES WITH É

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EXAMPLES WITH É

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EXAMPLES WITH É

13 CLAN



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EXAMPLES WITH É

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EXAMPLES WITH É

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EXAMPLES WITH É

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EXAMPLES WITH É

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EXAMPLES WITH É

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EXAMPLES WITH É

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EXAMPLES WITH SIM

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EXAMPLES WITH SIM

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EXAMPLES WITH SIM

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EXAMPLES WITH SIM

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EXAMPLES WITH SIM

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EXAMPLES WITH SIM

25 CLAN



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EXAMPLES WITH SIM

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CONCLUDING REMARKS › Sim was not found as a positive response to yes/no question in our data.

› Sim is used to agree, confirm, and emphasize what was said in the previous turn.

› É is used as a positive type-conforming response to yes/no questions.

› Echo system (with no special answer word) does not seem to be the most appropriated response system to characterize Brazilian Portuguese.

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REFERENCES ›  Armstrong, Meghan E. 2008. Pragmatic Restrictions on Affirmative Response Choice in Brazilian Portuguese. In Selected

Proceedings of the 10th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, ed. Joyce Bruhn de Garavito and Elena Valenzuela, 288-299. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.

›  Hakulinen, Auli. 2001. Minimal and non-minimal answers to yes-no questions. Pragmatics 11(1). 1-15. ›  Heritage, J. and Roth, A. 1995. Grammar and Institutions: Questions and Questioning in the Brasdcast News Media´, Research

on Language and Social Interaction 28:1-60. ›  Jefferson, G. 2004. Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. In G.H. Lerner (ed.) Conversation Analysis: Studies from

the first gener-ation. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 13–31. ›  Kato, Mary and Fernando Tarrallo. “Sim; respondendo afirmativamente em português”. In Mara Sofia Zanotto Paschoal &

Maria Antonieta Alba Celani (eds.), Lingüística aplicada: da aplicação à lingüística transdisciplinar. São Paulo:EDUC. ›  Raymond, Geoffrey. 2003. Grammar and social organization: yes/no interrogatives and the structure of responding.

American Sociological Review 68 (6). 939-967. ›  Sadock, J.M. and Zwicky, A.M. 1985. “Speech act distinctions in syntax”. In Shopen, T. (ed.) Language Typology and Syntactic

Description, Volume I, Clause structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 155-196. ›  Sorjonen, Marja-Leena. 2001. Responding in Conversation: A study of response particles in Finnish. Amsterdam: John

Benjamins Publishing Company. ›  Urbano, Hudinilson, Fávero, Leonor L., Andrade, Maria Lúcia and Aquino, Zilda G.O. 1993. “Perguntas e respostas na

conversação”. In Atalaiba Teixeira de Castilho (ed.), Gramática do português falado, Vol 2. Campinas, SP: Editora da UNICAMP, 75-98

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