Meaning in Interaction: The Case of actually

One aspect of the relationship between meaning and interaction is explored here by taking the English particle actually, which is characterized by flexibility of syntactic position, and investigating its use in a range of interactional contexts. Syntactic alternatives in the form of clause-initial or clause-final placement are found to be selected by reference to interactional exigencies. The temporally situated, contingent accomplishment of utterances in turns and their component turn-constructional units shows the emergence of meaning across a conversational sequence; it reveals syntactic flexibility as both a resource to be exploited for interactional ends and a constraint on that interaction.*

1. Grammar and interaction

The meaning of any single grammatical construction is interactionally contingent, built over interactional time in accordance with interactional actualities. Meaning lies not with the speaker nor the addressee nor the utterance alone . . . but rather with the interactional past, current and projected next moment.

(Schegloff et al. 1996:40)

In their introduction to a collection of papers entitled Interaction and Grammar (Ochs et al. 1996), Schegloff, Ochs and Thompson set a powerful agenda for students of language use in proposing that the study of linguistic structures could be richly informed by consideration of their place in the wider context of social interaction. They develop a line of inquiry launched in the pages of Language in 1974 by Sacks et al. with their foundational paper on turn-taking in conversation, a work that established the turn-at-talk as a primary unit of analysis for the study of talk-in-interaction.¹

By identifying components of the turn—the turn-constructional units (henceforth TCUs; Sacks et al. 1974:702–4)—as sentential, clausal, phrasal, and lexical in type,² Sacks et al. anchored their work firmly at the intersection of grammar and interaction; however, the potential for work thus adumbrated remained largely unexploited until the studies in Ochs et al. 1996. In an introduction marking a significant reengagement of interactional research with grammatical considerations, Schegloff et al. claim that ‘an important dimension of linguistic structures is their moment-by-moment evolving interactionalproduction’ (Schegloff et al. 1996:39, emphasis added).

In what follows I explore the theoretical and methodological implications of this claim by taking the turn and its component TCUs as the frame of reference in examining a single lexical item in English talk: actually. This choice is grounded in two related factors. First, previous treatments of actually are revealing of the two main analytical perspectives to which items of this type have traditionally been subject; second, and crucially, actually is characterized by a striking feature—flexibility of syntactic position—hitherto analytically neglected in studies of its use. This flexibility is a valuable resource for anyone seeking an analytical payoff for taking the TCU as the object of attention.³

After examining studies of the function of actually in either the sentence or utterance, I examine naturally occurring talk, analysis of which necessitates reference to the turn as the object of investigation. Actually is deployed in four different positions in the turn. Extended analysis of the distinctions in placement in British English data reveals that this syntactic flexibility is exploited by interactional exigencies.⁴

2. Actually: sentences, utterances and turns-at-talk

Actually has hitherto been characterized in both grammatical and pragmatic terms.⁵ Grammatically identified as an adverbial emphasizer, Quirk et al. propose that it ‘has a reinforcing effect on the truth value of the clause or part of the clause to which it applies’ (1985:583) and classify it with the other modal subjuncts certainly, clearly, definitely, indeed, obviously, plainly, really, surely, for certain, for sure, and of course as also functioning as a disjunct, clause-initially or -finally, commenting on the form or content of the clause and ‘expressing the comment that what is being said is true’ (1985:583).⁶ Pragmatic characterizations range in emphasis and scope. Watts (1988) and Smith and Jucker (2000), proposing a relevance-theoretic account, focus on the modification of propositional attitudes achieved by actually. Goldberg (1982) and Lenk (1998) discuss actually as part of a group of discourse markers or particles for their...