A miks sa torusse ei räägi? Miks-küsilausetega tehtavad suhtlustegevused argitelefonivestlustes
Social actions conducted by why-interrogatives in Estonian everyday telephone conversations

Summary/Abstract: This paper analyses interrogatives formed with the why pronoun in Estonian everyday telephone conversations. Why-interrogatives are regularly defined as questions asking for reasons for or accounts of actions. This paper, however, demonstrates that only a small fraction of why-interrogatives are actually used for questioning. The data come from the Corpus of Spoken Estonian of the University of Tartu. Altogether 41 why-interrogatives were analysed using the approach of interactional linguistics. The primary social actions conducted by why-interrogatives are the following: question, reproach, command, suggestion, complaint and challenge.The study reveals that why-interrogatives are multifunctional, used to carry out several social actions concurrently. The question form makes it possible for the recipients to interpret why-interrogatives as questions (by giving a neutral answer) or as some socially dispreferred actions, such as reproaches, challenges etc (by justifying themselves). Why-interrogatives demonstrate the speaker’s negative stance towards a preceding action.

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