83
Azerbaijani interlocutor continues guessing. He says
Qurmaq [to start (a family)].
Ayşe says it is not correct. Kaan repeats his expression fully this time:
Ailə
qurmak (to start a family). Once again, Turkish interlocutor signals her
understanding of the proposition of her counterpart by uttering the same
interjection
Iı ıı! to disapprove what he proposed.
The following figure indicates the phonological features of two-folded
utterance-initial
Turkish interjection ıı ıı!
Figure 19: Intensity and pitch analyses of Turkish interjection
Iı ıı ----) signalling
understanding
Turkish interjection has two high toned elements in this context. It is a
two-folded interjection
Iı ıı!. First element
Iı is the interjection bearing a need for
realization or signal of understanding, which is “waiting for the other clues to be
provided by the counterpart”. Therefore, it has the highest pitch at the beginning.
The second high pitched element is the replicated version of Turkish interjection
Iı which functions as a backchanneling cue to encourage the counterpart to
continue his explanations.
84
Turkish two-folded interjection
Iı ıı! has a rising-falling intonation pattern
due to the reasons mentioned before.
It can be concluded from the figures that two-folded Turkish interjections
, ı ı, ıı ıı and
hmm hmm! signalling understanding have similar intonation
patterns. They all have rising-falling intonation patterns in order to function as
backchanneling cues.
4.2.1.2. Secondary Interjections
Ameka (1992) classifies interjections as primary and secondary
interjections. He distinguishes primary interjections by defining them as “little
words or non-words” which can not be used other way around. However,
secondary interjections can be used as words. One of the Turkish native speakers
participated in Taboo game session for the present study makes use of secondary
interjections such as
Yavrum be! and
Yavrum benim!
Forms of secondary interjections signalling understanding used by Turkish
native speakers
Signal Category
Forms of Interjections
Interjections signalling
understanding
Secondary Interjections
Yavrum be!
Yavrum benim!
Table 12:
Forms of secondary interjections signalling understanding used by
Turkish native speakers in terms of their signal
types in the analyzed data
4.2.1.2.1. Yavrum be(nim)!
In excerpt 15, Turkish interlocutor Serkan tries to explain guess word
‘Tac
Ma al’ (Taj Mahal). He starts his explanation by using discourse marker “
ani“
(Well) as a reference to (supposedly) shared knowledge (Gürbüz, 1995; Yılmaz,
2004) between interlocutors and describing the sultan/king who built Taj Mahal