Conveying Listenership Status Through Multiple duis in Mandarin Chinese Conversation

Abstract

This study explores the use of multiple reactive tokens (duis) in responsive turns in Mandarin, particularly in the sequential and interactional environments that project them in daily interactions. Data analysis of over 100 unscripted conversations between two or three native speakers indicate that an increase in the number of duis co-occurring corresponds to a higher level of listenership, resulting in a hierarchy of displayed stances ranging from neutral to active to affiliative. I argue that almost no practice of multiple duis in conversation is guaranteed to work mechanistically and automatically, as it requires at least a two-party collaboration. Multiple duis as reactive tokens in interaction are systematic, conversationally strategic, and sequentially as well as socially organized. Furthermore, they are recurrent patterns at the discourse level that must be recognized as routine practices in conversation, as their format can help accomplish unique interactional tasks that exhibit strong coherence and utility at the interactional level.