Okay as a marker for coordinating transitions in joint actions: Effects of participant role and age in Swiss German and Swiss French interviews

Abstract

Joint actions like everyday conversations feature the use of speech particles like back-channels or discourse markers to coordinate transitions from one part of the action to another. Transitions can be either horizontal (within tasks or subtasks; i.e., moving from one step to the next in a task) or vertical (between tasks or subtasks). In English, okay is typically used to coordinate vertical transitions. In institutionalized joint actions, okay is used especially by institutional representatives to manage the joint action. Little is known about these uses of okay in other languages, or about when okay may have diffused into those languages. We investigated the use of okay as a vertical coordination marker in Swiss German research interviews and Swiss French job interviews. Okay was consistently used as a vertical transition marker in both settings, especially by interviewers. Younger participants used okay more often than older participants. The findings suggest that okay may have diffused into other languages not only as a marker of agreement, but also as a marker for coordinating transitions.