Partiklid jah, jaa ning jajaa naaberpaari järelliikmena müügiläbirääkimistes
The Particles jah, jaa and jajaa as Second Parts of Adjacency Pairs in Telemarketing Calls

Summary/Abstract: In Estonian telemarketing calls the particles jah, jaa and jajaa make up a separate turn of an adjacency pair, occurring as its second part used in answer to asking confirmation or affirmation, to accept an offer or proposal, and to accept an end signal. The particle jah is a type-conforming answer to a question offering answer and to an offer. It is also the main agent of repair in a repair sequence. The marketeer will initiate a repair sequence by clarification or reformulation and in most cases the client will confirm their version by using the particle jah. In telemarketing calls the type-conforming answer to effect repair is thus jah, not jajaa, which was used not even once. In our material repairs were accomplished only by affirmations or confirmations on the part of clients, which means that repairs were initiated exclusively by the marketeers. Why no client ever initiated a repair is a subject beyond this paper. The hypothesis that jaa could perhaps be a phonetic or pragmatic variant of jah was not proved by our material. On the contrary, there is reason to believe that the particle jaa has a usage environment of its own. The use of jaa in answer to a statement is relatively frequent as compared to reactions to other first parts of the adjacency pair, which indicates that for the particle jaa reaction to a statement may be a homeplace.

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