German ach and achso in repair uptake: Resources to sustain or remove epistemic asymmetry

Abstract

Using conversation analytic methodology, this article examines the use of the German tokens ach ‘oh’ and achso ‘oh I see’ in the uptake of repair. While achso has been studied from a functional-pragmatic perspective, no contrastive study of ach and achso exists. We investigate two questions: Do different forms of ach occur in the same sequential position? Are they associated with different interactional functions?

Keywords

• conversation analysis
• repair uptake
• response tokens
• interjections
• achso
• ach