Article published In:
Journal of Historical PragmaticsVol. 10:1 (2009) ► pp.84–107
“Oh” in Shakespeare
A conversation analytic approach
The use of “oh” in conversation has been widely studied. These studies demonstrate various uses of “oh” in different sequences. For example, John Heritage (1984) has identified six different sequences in which “oh” is used as a “change-of-state token”. Ian Hutchby (2001) has demonstrated how “oh” can be used ironically in disputations.
This study compares the observations concerning “oh” in spoken modern English with “oh”/“O” in The First Folio and Early Quartos of William Shakespeare. This comparison demonstrates that all of the identified contemporary uses of “oh” were also used in the Elizabethan English of Shakespeare. Furthermore, the Shakespeare corpus includes some previously unidentified uses of “oh” (for example, “oh” prefacing a refusal to a request) that augment our understanding of “oh”.
Keywords: oh, discourse markers, Shakespeare, pragmatic markers, conversation analysis
Cited by (14)
Cited by 14 other publications
Lutzky, Ursula
2021. The sociopragmatic nature of interjections in Early Modern English drama comedy. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 22:2 ► pp. 225 ff. 
Culpeper, Jonathan & Samuel J. Oliver
2020. Chapter 2. Pragmatic noise in Shakespeare’s plays. In Voices Past and Present - Studies of Involved, Speech-related and Spoken Texts [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 97], ► pp. 12 ff.
Murphy, Sean, Jonathan Culpeper, Mathew Gillings & Michael Pace-Sigge
2020. What do students find difficult when they read Shakespeare? Problems and solutions. Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics 29:3 ► pp. 302 ff.
Qin, Huang & Roberto A. Valdeón
2019. Intercultural pragmatics and the translation of English interjections and expletives into Spanish and Chinese. Babel. Revue internationale de la traduction / International Journal of Translation 65:3 ► pp. 337 ff.
King, Jeremy
2018. Chapter 6. Hasta perder la última gota de mi sangre. In Language Variation and Contact-Induced Change [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 340], ► pp. 127 ff.
Marcus, Imogen
2018. Introduction. In The Linguistics of Spoken Communication in Early Modern English Writing, ► pp. 1 ff.
Heinemann, Trine & Aino Koivisto
2016. Indicating a change-of-state in interaction: Cross-linguistic explorations. Journal of Pragmatics 104 ► pp. 83 ff.
Brinton, Laurel J.
2015. Historical Discourse Analysis. In The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, ► pp. 222 ff.
Andersen, Gisle
2014. Relevance. In Corpus Pragmatics, ► pp. 143 ff.
Heritage, John
2013. Turn-initial position and some of its occupants. Journal of Pragmatics 57 ► pp. 331 ff.
Heritage, John
2018. Chapter 6. Turn-initial particles in English. In Between Turn and Sequence [Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 31], ► pp. 155 ff.
Jucker, Andreas H. & Irma Taavitsainen
2012. Pragmatic Variables. In The Handbook of Historical Sociolinguistics, ► pp. 293 ff.
Jucker, Andreas H.
Jucker, Andreas H.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 21 november 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.