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Part of
Between Turn and Sequence: Turn-initial particles across languages
Edited by John Heritage and Marja-Leena Sorjonen
[Studies in Language and Social Interaction 31] 2018
► pp. 371–412

Chapter 13
Turn-initial voilà in closings in French

Reaffirming authority and responsibility over the sequence

| University of Basel & University of Helsinki

French has several ways of responding positively to a previous turn, such as oui, ouais, d’accord, tout à fait, exactement, bien sûr, voilà, etc. This chapter deals with voilà, offering a general overview of its uses in interaction before focusing on voilà in turn-initial position in closing environments. Analyses reveal that voilà is not equally used by all of the participants in social interaction, but rather by speakers whom the co-participants recognize as experts and/or responsible for the on-going activity. Stand-alone voilà achieves sequence closing in unproblematic ways and retrospectively asserts the speaker’s epistemic, organizational and moral authority over the sequence. By contrast, turn-initial voilà often occurs in a context where the co-participants disalign with the projected closing. The use of voilà addresses a possible emerging competition by further expanding the on-going action and thereby controlling possible next sequential slots. In these competitive contexts, stand-alone voilà and turn-initial voilà are used by speakers to re-affirm their authority over the sequence. Turn-initial voilà followed by a new turn constructional unit (TCU) orients to the possible progressivity of the activity, whereas turn-initial voilà with a continuation within the same TCU expands the on-going sequence and creates new opportunities for the co-participants to realign with it.

Keywords: voilà, French in interaction, sequence closing, epistemic authority, responsibility, resistance, competition, disalignment, multimodality
Article outline
  • 1. Introduction
    • 1.1 Why voilà?
    • 1.2Previous literature on voilà
    • 1.3Data and focus of this study
  • 2.Overview: Varieties of voilà
    • 2.1Within the TCU, in self-repairs and word searches
    • 2.2 At the end of unfinished turns
    • 2.3At the end of complete turns
    • 2.4At the completion of larger units, after other particles and responding to no uptake
    • 2.5As a response to requests for information and confirmation
    • 2.6At sequence completion, as a stand-alone particle
  • 3.Turn-initial vs. stand-alone voilà in three sequence closing environments
    • 3.1 Voilà after a collaborative completion
      • 3.1.1Stand-alone voilà
      • 3.1.2 Voilà + repetition of the collaborative contribution in the same prosodic unit
      • 3.1.3 Voilà + partial repeat of the collaborative contribution in a new TCU
    • 3.2 Voilà after response tokens/acknowledgements by the co-participants
      • 3.2.1Stand-alone voilà after an acknowledgment by the co-participant (oui, d’accord)
      • 3.2.2Turn-initial voilà followed by a new TCU in a polemic environment: Moving to the next new sequence
      • 3.2.3Turn-initial voilà with a continuation in the same TCU
    • 3.3 Voilà after a competitive exchange
      • 3.3.1Multiple stand-alone voilà in expanded and delayed closings
      • 3.3.2Turn-initial voilà in a context of epistemic competition
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 19 July 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slsi.31.13mon
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[no author supplied]
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