On 喀 haak3 in Cantonese talk-in-interaction: Some initial observations

This paper examines the Cantonese discourse particle喀haak3 by following aconversation analytic approach and drawing on audio-recordings of daily conversationand institutional talk, In particular, we focus on its interactional functions and attemptto provide a systematic account.We observed that in naturally occurring Cantonese talk-in-interaction, haak3 occursmore often in a long strength of talk such as story-telling, commenting, and explaining.Haak3 is used by both recipient and speaker to serve a range of interactional functions.When haak3 occurs in recipient’s turn, it is used to carry out sequentially fittedresponsive actions, such as answering, acknowledging and backchannelling. On theother hand, haak3 seems to serve a rather different range of interactional functionswhen it occurs in speaker’s turn. It can be produced in a turn-initial position to signalcontinuation when the speaker’s prior talk or the on-going conversation has beeninterrupted or put on hold. It can also be used after the speaker has made adecision/directive/comment for confirming his/her own prior action or displayingpositive stance to his/her own comment. In addition, haak3 is also used to mark theend of listing. These latter uses of haak3 as non-responsive actions are interesting inthat its functions have expanded to include stance indication and turn-takingmanagement. In this regard, the expanded functions of haak3 are comparable to theMandarin discourse particle dui as reported in the literature (Kuo 1998, Tsai 2001,Wang et al 2010, Yu 2004). It is hoped that our study serves to contribute to theunderstanding of the mechanisms involved in such function expansion.