Responding and Clarifying

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Responding and Clarifying An analysis of pues as a sequential marker in Mexican Spanish talk-in-interactions* Ariel Vázquez Carranza

This paper utilises the methodology of Conversation Analysis (CA hereafter) to report on the Spanish particle pues in Mexican Spanish talk. Two general sequential contexts are examined: 1) pues-prefacing in the second pair-part of an adjacency pair, i.e., in the second pair-part of an assessment sequence and in response to questions; and 2) turn-final pues and pues at the end of a turn-constructional unit. The analysis of assessment sequences shows that pues is used to treat the previous assessment as obvious and index epistemic independence; in addition, pues can be one of the elements used to formulate a delicate disagreement. In response to questions, pues either signals unstraightforwardness in answering or indicates that the answer is obvious which challenges the relevance of the question. Similarly, pues, in response to challenges, prefaces the obvious actions to fulfil the request, making the response a riposte. Turn-final pues and pues at the end of the turn constructional unit mark repair after interactional trouble. Finally, in a news delivery sequence, sí pues treats the previous talk as not news for the recipient. Keywords: pues, sequential markers, Spanish interactions

“[T]he meaning of a word is its use in the language.” Ludwig Wittgenstein (1958: 20)

1. Introduction Pues is perhaps the marker that has received more attention than any other Spanish marker (see, for example, Travis, 2005). It derives from the Latin adverb post (‘after’) (Alcina Franch and Bleuca, 1975; Goethals, 2002) and is categorised by general language dictionaries as a conjunction, adverb or interjection (RAE, 2001; COLMEX, 2011). Pues does not have a lexical meaning (Serrano, 2002);

Spanish in Context 10:2 (2013), 284–309. doi 10.1075/sic.10.2.05vaz issn 1571–0718 / e-issn 1571–0726 © John Benjamins Publishing Company

Responding and Clarifying 285

depending on the context, it can be translated into English as ‘so’, ‘then’ (Travis, 2005), ‘‘cos’ or ‘well’ (Stenström, 2006a; 2006b). Similar to other sequential markers (e.g., o sea, Vázquez Carranza, 2012) pues can occur in turn-initial, turn-medial, or turn-final position. As I will show later (in excerpts 2 and 9), pues may have different phonological realizations: e.g., [pus] and [ps]. Previous analyses of pues have drawn their observations from different types of data such as: constructed examples (Portolés, 1989; Santos Río, 2003); written texts (Martín Zorraquino and Portolés Lázaro, 1999; Goethals, 2002); sociolinguistic interviews (Páez Urdenta, 1982; Garcés Gómez, 1992; Martín Zorraquino, 1991; Porroche Ballesteros, 1996); and naturally occurring conversations (Stenström, 2006a; 2006b; Travis, 2005). As I will explain later, the present study utilizes spontaneous conversation as well but, in contrast to previous research, I analyse this type of data from the point of view of CA whose focus is the investigation of the structural organization of talk-in-interaction (hereafter talk) and the actions and activities carried out in talk itself (cf. Clift et al., 2006). In what follows, I offer a brief review of previous findings. Grammatically, pues can function as a causal conjunction1 (Portolés, 1989; Porroche Ballesteros, 1996; Goethals, 2002, Santos Río, 2003), as in the sentence: María está muy cansada, pues trabajó todo el día. Pues establishes a cause-effect relationship between the clauses by introducing a conclusion or explanation of María’s state (i.e. real-world causality at the sentence level [cf. Sweetser, 1990]). This use of pues is common in writing but rare in speech (Páez Urdenta, 1982; Garcés Gómez, 1992; Travis, 2005). In the corpora analysed here (see Subsection 2.1), pues is never used to indicate this type of causality; speakers express this relation by means of other conjunctions (e.g., porque). However, in the present analysis I will show that pues indicates real world-causality at the sequential level, i.e., in the second pair-part of an adjacency pair. Pues is a characteristic of ‘narrative’ sentences (Porroche Ballesteros, 1996; Martín Zorraquino, 1991) and is the most frequent comentador (Martín Zorraquino and Portolés Lázaro, 1999). The vast majority of studies have noted that pues initiates the answer to a question (Portolés, 1989; Martín Zorraquino, 1991; Garcés Gómez, 1992; Porroche Ballesteros, 1996; Martín Zorraquino and Portolés Lázaro, 1999; Santos Río, 2003). In general, these studies argue that pues indicates the relation between the question and the answer (Portolés, 1989; Martín Zorraquino, 1991), giving pues a continuative value (Martín Zorraquino, 1991); some have suggested that pues is a hesitation marker used when finding it hard to answer a question (Portolés, 1989; Garcés Gómez, 1992). Santos Río (2003) mentions that pues introduces a direct reply which is formulated as a natural or logical reply; for example: -Tengo sed. -Pues bebe agua. (Santos Río, 2003: 537). He also points out that pues can introduce a reaction © 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved

286 Ariel Vázquez Carranza

which contrasts a fact previously established by the hearer; for instance: -A mí no me gusta. -Pues a mí me encanta. (Santos Río, 2003: 537). Some of the analysis that I present in Section 3 may work as talk-evidence for these two observations. Travis (2005) and Stenström (2006a; 2006b) analyse pues in spontaneous speech: the former uses a four-hour corpus of Spanish from Cali, Colombia; and the latter uses El Corpus del Lenguaje Adolecente de Madrid and El Corpus Oral de Referencia del Español Contemporáneo. Travis semantically analyses pues and suggests that it is used to “tie the utterance it marks with the preceding discourse”, with this general notion, she says, pues “add[s] extra information, to highlight an upcoming utterance, to mark repair, to preface responses and answers and to introduce direct speech” (p. 284). Travis argues as well that utterance-final pues marks topic completeness (in this respect, the findings presented in Section 4 of this paper, challenge her analysis from a CA perspective). Stenström mostly follows the work of Briz Gómez (2001) and Porroche Ballesteros (1996) providing different labels to the functions already mentioned in the literature. Her most relevant observation is that pues is used to return, after digression, to a topic previously treated. In general, pues has been analysed as a conjunction (Portolés, 1989; Porroche Ballesteros, 1996; Goethals, 2002, Santos Río, 2003) and as a discourse marker (Páez Urdenta, 1982; Garcés Gómez, 1992; Martín Zorraquino, 1991; Travis, 2005; Stenström, 2006a, 2006b). The research that has utilised spontaneous data has focused on the semantic meaning of pues in speech (Travis, 2005); and on the functions of pues in discourse (Stenström, 2006a, 2006b). Their approach has been that of Discourse Analysis (cf. Schiffrin, 1987). To my knowledge, no attention has yet been paid to the analysis of the sequential contingencies that surround the production of pues in talk, or to the structure and type of actions in which pues is involved in. Thus, this paper implements the linguistic ontology and epistemology of CA (cf. Clift et al., 2006; Stivers and Sidnell, 2013) to tackle these issues and extend our understanding of this Spanish particle. 2. This study I examine pues from a conversation-analytic perspective (i.e., Sacks, 1992; Schegloff, 2007). This means that I consider the three levels of talk organisation: turn-constructional unit (TCU hereafter), turn, and sequence. I define pues as a sequential marker. Sequential markers are “little objects that do a piece of sequential work” (Schegloff, 1987: 72); they convey some relation between turns (Heritage, 2002) or within TCUs.

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2.1 The Corpora Although I do not contrast the use of pues in different conversational settings, the corpora includes one corpus of mundane talk and another smaller corpus of institutional talk (cf. Drew and Heritage, 1992). I use mixed corpora to cover a wider range of registers and varieties of Mexican Spanish and conversational settings so as to suggest that my findings can be associated to Mexican Spanish in general. The corpus of mundane talk consists of 64 hours of video recording of naturally occurring Mexican Spanish conversations; from which 244 instances of pues and its phonological realisations were extracted. These recordings were collected in Toluca, State of Mexico, between 2009 and 2010. The conversationalists are members of two families; they were recorded during meal times or when friends came over to visit them. Although both are native families of Toluca, one family has ancestry from the state of Guerrero in the southwest of Mexico. The corpus of institutional talk consists of three episodes of the Mexican TV programme Tercer Grado2 which were broadcast in 2011; and an interview that the Mexican Federal Police conducted with a captured drug trafficker from Mexico City in the same year. From this corpus, 31 instances of pues were extracted. The transcriptions are presented following the Jeffersonian Notation (see appendix); they consist of two lines: the first line is the utterance in Spanish and the second line, it’s the English equivalent. 3. Analysis As prior studies have reported, pues is found initiating responses to questions; in CA terms, we can say that pues initiates the second pair-part (hereafter SPP) of a question-answer adjacency pair. In the following, I present the analysis of questionanswer adjacency pair and also the analysis of two other types of adjacency pairs that were identified in the corpora: assessment-agreement and request-response. In addition, the analysis pays particular attention to pues in turn-final and TCUfinal position. Following the CA approach to interaction, the analysis attempts to describe the development of social actions such as agreements, disagreements, answering, repair, and the recipiency of what is designed as news. 3.1 Pues in agreements Agreement sequences are interactional events where conversationalists display the accomplishment and negotiation of co-experience (Goodwin and Goodwin, 1987). Furthermore, the terms in which speakers agree are embedded in turn



design (e.g., Heritage and Raymond, 2005); for example, conversationalists use sequential markers to establish a position towards the assessment made (e.g., in English well, Pomerantz, 1984; Sacks, 1987; oh, Heritage, 2002). Taking this into account as well as the instances of pues observed in the corpora, this subsection focuses on pues in agreement and disagreement sequences. The following two excerpts are agreement sequences but only the SPP of the adjacency pair, in excerpt (2), is initiated with pues.

(1) AVC TC29 2:21

[Ma is informing Ch about the death of their friend’s brother] 01 Ma: .hh y se murió dormido .hh and he died in his sleep 02 Ch:=>M:↑ qué bonita muerte M:↑ what a nice way of dying 03 Ma:=>tsí:↓ Yes 04 Ch: Verdad? Qué [bonito porque así ya Isn’t it? how [nice because in that way05 Ma: [Le06 Ma: Le dio un infarto, yo creo He had a heart attack, I guess

In line 02, Ch makes an assessment and Ma agrees with it in line 03. This is an unmarked agreement, i.e., the speaker does not take any position towards the assessment. In excerpt (2), C is telling her comadre (M) about how she got ill (after going to a party) and about her visit to the doctor:

(2) [03] Pues V6 P2 3313

[A is M’s husband] 01 C: Nos vinimos a las cuatro de la mañana y We came back at four in the morning and 02 llegamos aquí a Toluca y un friazo comadre we arrived here to Toluca and it was so extremely cold comadre 03 que no se calentaba uno, y yo empecé a toser that one couldn’t get warm, and I started coughing 04 (.) [C covers and uncovers her mouth with right hand] 05 empecé a toser y sin decirle yo al doctor, I started coughing and without having said this to the doctor, 06 => qué cree que fue lo que me dijo, que era what do you think he said, he said it was 07 => un fuerte enfriamiento [el que yo tenía a severe cooling [what I had



08 M:=> [((slightly nods)) Ps: sí::↑ [ Pues yes 09 me dijo Antelmo, verdad que tú me dijiste ((addressing A)) Antelmo told me, you told me, didn’t you? 10 “se me hace que tu comadre se enfermó por irse a la fiesta” “I think your comadre got ill from going to the party”

With her short narration, C prepares the ground for delivering the doctor’s diagnosis which refers to the temperature as the determining factor in her illness. In line 08, M agrees with the doctor’s evaluation. The agreement token, sí is preceded by a phonological realisation of pues: [ps]. Sí is produced with a long vowel and with final rising intonation. Pues sí is doing more than agreeing (unlike the agreement in excerpt [1]). Pues sí is indexing the notion that the doctor’s judgment, severo enfriamiento, was the obvious or logical outcome given the detailing that went before; hence pues sí is confirming an allusion (Schegloff, 1996); that is, what is agreed with pues sí has been conveyed in previous talk. Furthermore, pues sí also suggests that the previous talk (i.e., the cause of C’s illness) has been considered independently by the speaker as the subsequent talk shows, in lines 09 and 10. I argue that the difference between sí and pues sí is that the latter indexes some sort of obviousness on what the speaker is agreeing with. For a further example let us look at excerpt (3): it shows R, V and G who are playing with a device (D).

(3) [63] Pues (sí) V11 P7 1256

The device has the shape of a star; each point of the star is a different colour. The game consists of the device saying a list of colours; and every time the device says a colour the participant has to put the corresponding coloured point facing upwards. If the participant fails to do so, the participant loses and his/her turn ends. The excerpt starts when V’s turn begins.

01 D: Nuevo, juego, arranca New, game, starts 02 R: No [cerraste la puerta ((addressing G)) You[didn’t close the door 03 D: [Blanco [white 04 G: ((G turns to look at the door)) Sí. Yes. 05 D: Naranja, verde, rojo Orange, green, red 06 R: EL [Amarillo sí funciona? ((addressing G)) Does[the yellow one work?



07 D: [( ) ((the device makes the failure sound)) 08 V: NO HABLE::S DON’t TALK 09 R: he hehe 10 V: AY QUÉ MANCHADO:: HOW MEAN 11 R: (h) Por qué (h) (h) Why mean (h) 12 V: =Porque no debes de hablar porque ya no oímos =Because you shouldn’t talk because we cannot hear 13 D: Tienes diez [puntos You have ten[points 14 G:=> [Lo hizo a propósito [He did it on purpose 15 V:=>[Pues SÍ::: [Pues Yes (of course) he did 16 R: [(h) no lo hice a propósito (h) [ (h) I didn’t do it on purpose (h) 17 V:=>Pues sí:: por eso habló Pues yes (of course) he did that’s why he talked 18 R: hehe he 19 V: (Porque) no quería que ganara (Because) he didn’t want me to win 20 (.) 21 R: (h)Yo sería incapaz(h) (h) I wouldn’t do it (h) 22 V: AJA:::: “yo sería in capaz” Yeah right “I wouldn’t do it”

After V fails, she protests, in lines 08–12. V’s protest identifies R as responsible for her failure. Supporting the protest, G makes a judgment on R’s behaviour, lo hizo a propósito. V agrees with G’s judgment with pues sí (line 15) which she subsequently recycles, simultaneously with R’s disagreement. Pues sí does not only agree with G’s judgement but also implies that the judgement is indisputably obvious: the excerpt shows how R’s interventions (lines 02 and 06) occur at the same time as D talks which suggests that R’s actions were intended to distract V and make her fail. In both excerpts pues sí shows that the speaker treats the assessment/judgment as something evident/obvious given the prior talk; by so doing the speaker indexes epistemic independence (cf. Heritage and Raymond, 2005) in that the speaker has previously considered the matter presented in the previous talk.



3.2 Pues in disagreements Excerpt (4) shows V showing her mother (C) the new suitcase she bought.

(4) [57] Pues V10 P3 0541

01 C: Ah mira está bien grandota Oh look it’s really big 02 (.) 03 V:=>Pues es igua:l.=◦déjame traer de una vez el Pues it’s the same. =◦Let me go and get the 04 sacagrapas◦ ((V leaves the room)) the staple remover◦ 05 (4) 06 V:=>Pues es igual al tamaño de las otras ma’ ((V is in another Pues it’s the same size as the others mum room))

In line 01, V’s mother makes an assessment prefaced with a surprise element, ah mira. Her assessment is not only evaluating the suitcase but also showing that the size of the suitcase was not expected. V’s response is a disagreement prefaced with pues and followed by an assessment es igual. In line 06, V re-launches her disagreement and provides more detail; addressing C’s evaluation and surprise. That is, V counteracts C’s previous talk, implying that the size of the suitcase should not be a surprise because it is not bigger than the others. It is important to mention that the design of the disagreement does not include an explicit negation or rejection like ‘It is not bigger’ or ‘No, it is not’; so it is not a dramatically sharp disagreement but instead a delicate one.

(5) [36] Pus V11 P6 1507 [V and R talk about a man who is R’s friend. R has just told a story about the time when he was mean to this man, V’s response to the story is the assessment in line 01.] 01 V: Pobrecito viejito Poor old bloke 02 R:=>((clears throat)) pus no es tan viejito Pus he is not that old 03 tiene como:: he is around 04 (3) ((counts with his fingers)) 05 R: Tiene como treinta y nueve casi cuarenta he is around thirty nine almost forty 06 (.5)



07 V: A poco::? Really? 08 R: Mhm:: 09 (4) 10 V:=>pues sí se ve medio cáscara Pues he does look quite old 11 R: Cuando yo estaba allá él tenía treinta y seis… When I was there he was thirty six…

In excerpt (5), line 02, R disagrees with V’s previous talk. R’s disagreement is prefaced with a phonological realisation of pues: pus. R’s turn is a partial disagreement since R also assesses the man in question as an old man (i.e., no es tan viejo). In a similar way, V indexes a delicate rejection of R’s disagreement by deploying, in line 10, a further evaluation prefaced with pues: her second assessment reveals a different level of evaluation; that is, V’s second assessment is evaluating how old the man looks, as opposed to her first assessment in line 01, where she evaluates the real man’s age. Excerpts (4) and (5) show pues as part of the TCUs that constitute a dispreferred response to an assessment. The turn that pues prefaces fulfils the characteristics that Pomerantz (1984) identifies in disagreement turns, i.e., delays, partial agreement/disagreement. In this case, pues has a similar role to the particle ‘well’ in English (Pomerantz, 1984; Sacks, 1987). That is, pues is one of the TCUs that the Mexican Spanish speakers of this study use to convey disagreement in a delicate manner. 3.3 Pues in answers to questions In this subsection, wh- and polar question are examined.

(6) Entrevista al “Diego” — Policía Federal Mexicana (5:16) [This excerpt shows a fragment of the interview that the Police held with a captured drug-trafficker a.k.a. “El Diego”.] 01 IR: Por qué es tan importante Juárez, Why is Juárez so important, 02 por qué disputarse Juárez Why do you fight over Juárez? 03 (.) 04 DT:=>Pues es una de las plazas más importantes para Pues it is one of the most important territories for 05 trasiego de la droga. drug trafficking.



In excerpt (6), the wh- question makes relevant a causal answer. The answer is prefaced with pues. The answer is delivered straightforwardly without hesitation. The analytic question raised here is why is pues used by the speaker and not porque which is the default causal conjunction to respond to a content question (such as ¿por qué?)? I argue that it is because of the topic of the question: In Mexico it is very well known that Ciudad Juárez is an important city for transporting drugs from Mexico into the United States. In this case, although both parties know about this fact, the nature of the interaction (i.e., police interview) calls for obvious questions, so by using pues, the drug-trafficker treats his answer as obvious/evident and challenges the relevance of the question. A similar example is excerpt (7) which is an instance of a polar question:

(7) [39]Pues V17 P3 2108 [San Ángel is a colonial neighbourhood of Mexico City well known for its Tiangüis del Arte (‘art market’)] 01 G: …deberías ir a San Ángel (.) a vender tus pinturas …you should go to San Ángel (.) to sell your paintings 02 I: hehh a dónde, al Tiangüis del Arte? hehh where, to the art market? 03 G:=>Pus sí:: Pues yes

In line 03, G confirms that he unmistakably refers to Tiangüis del Arte. This pues functions in the same way as the one prefacing agreements — challenging the relevance of previous talk. Further instances of this phenomenon are found in excerpt (8):

(8) [90] Pues V14 P2 0740 [B has a son, Antelmín. B is V’s sister. G and V are husband and wife and they live abroad and are both English teachers; G and V are visiting their family for a few days in Toluca.] 01 B: A ti te voy a dar la chamba de I’m going to give you a job 02 que les des clase a Antelmín de- de that you give Antelmín English lessons 03 inglés esta semana this week 04 G: Sí Yes 05 B: En lugar de lo que le pago a Diana Instead of paying Diana



06 te lo pago a ti I pay you 07 V: Va con Diana? He goes with Diana? 08 B: Sí: Yes 09 G:=>AY Y POR QUÉ va con Diana:: AY AND WHY does he go with Diana 10 B:=>pues a quién más veo↓ Pues who else I can go to 11 G:=>Pues a nosotros:: Pues to us 12 B: Ash, aja ((moves hands indicating far distance)) Yeah right 13 G: Ah bueno ya Oh okay right

In line 10 when B responds to G’s question, her response is prefaced with pues and is formulated as a question (a quién más veo). B’s response conveys that she sends Antelmín to Diana (a neighbour) because that is her only option since G and V live far away; so pues is being used to mark the response as obvious. Similarly, in line 11, G prefaces his answer with pues. Here again pues is prefacing the obvious answer, nosotros, and displaying disagreement: who else better to teach B’s son than them. A further example of this practice is excerpt (9), the only difference here is that pues is not the first TCU of the turn; but similar to excerpt (6) and (8) this example illustrates the causal use of pues at the sequential level.

(9) [60] Pus V16 P4 1432 [N is a five year old. He and his mother are visiting G’s family. In G’s house they have a cat. This moment of the interaction is preceded by N’s mother announcing that they are leaving i.e. finishing their visit.] 01 N: Y el gatito aquí se va a quedar? ((addressing G)) And the kitten is going to stay here? 02 G:=>Sí pus aquí vive Yes pus he lives here

The confirmation elicited by the question consists of sí, then pus, followed by a statement. Pus makes the statement an account of the confirmation, i.e., pus has a causal function. The speaker uses pues to convey that his statement is something obvious or logical (i.e., the cat will stay there because the cat lives there) and by so doing G challenges the relevance of the question.



In general, the main characteristic of responses where pues indexes obviousness is that they are straightforward responses, i.e., without hesitation and/or delays. The following excerpts illustrate a different usage of pues. The position of the particle is the same as the examples above but the composition of the response is different. (10) Entrevista al “Diego” — Policía Federal Mexicana (5:16)

01 MP: Cuál eran los objetivos que usted tenía? What were your goals? 02 (1.5) 03 DL: e:h pues eliminar a:: todos los elementos que- hh. e:h pues to eliminate all the members that hh. 04 conforman el Cartel de Sinaloa ahí en belong to the Sinaloa Cartel that are there in05 .hh en la plaza de Ciudad Juárez .hh in the territory of Ciudad Juarez

In excerpt (10) the characteristic that is highly noticeable is the fact that the response is not straightforwardly delivered: there is delay (line 02) and hesitation (e.g., the cut-offs in lines 03 and 04). Schegloff and Lerner’s (2009) observation on ‘well’ in the same sequential context suggests that the particle “serves as an alert to the questioner… that the response will be in some respect not straightforward” (p. 101). So, pues has the same function, for instance: (11) [94] Pues V15 P2 0416

[R asks B how long it takes her to get to her job.] 01 R: Cuánto te haces de aquí a allá? How long does it take from here to there? 02 B:=>Pues sin tráfico cuarenta minutos con Pues without traffic forty minutes with 03 tráfico hasta una hora y media, dos horas traffic up to one and a half hours, two hours 04 R: Qué horror That’s awful

R’s question is designed to elicit the duration of B’s journey. B’s response indicates that the duration of her journey depends on a constraint, i.e., traffic, making her response more elaborate and less straightforward. Pues in polar questions also prefaces unstraightforward answers:



(12) [45]Pues V9 P2 1954

[N has mentioned that he took some books that he wanted to sell to a second-hand bookshop] 01 V: Y qué te dijeron, sí te las compraban And what did they say, did they say they’ll buy them? 02 N: los libros? ((addressing N)) the books? 03 V: Aja 04 (.5) 05 N:=>Pues seleccioné unos pero ps sí no no Pues I selected some but ps yeah no no 06 como fueron los que fui seleccionando,[ps since they were the remaining ones [ps 07 V: [mhm 08 N: .h pues::- (.).hh fui a una y me dijeron (“no estos no”… Pues I went to one bookshop and they say (“no these no”) 09 y fui a otra y me dijeron que como no eran de: and then I went to another one and they said that because 10 no eran números (.) comerciales they were not (.) popular volumes 11 V: Aja 12 N: de novelas literatura así like novels literature and the like 13 V: Aja 14 N: que sería difícil así that in that case it would be difficult

In excerpt (12), V launches a question, initially formulated as wh- question but then reformulated as a polar question. By so doing, the speaker constrains the answer of the co-participant which can be either ‘yes’ or ‘no’. N initiates repair in line 02 which is accomplished by V in line 03. Then there is a micro pause before N initiates his reply which is prefaced with pues. N’s turn has delays, hesitations, and cut-offs which are characteristics of unstraightforwardness in responding. The main feature of unstraighforwardness is the fact that the response does not align with the options established by the question, i.e., ‘yes’ or ‘no’. In sum, pues-prefacing in response to polar and wh- questions is used to signal that the answer is not going to be straightforwardly delivered: there may be delays, hesitations or the like, which all together make an unstraightforward response. At the same time, pues can be used to challenge the relevance of previous talk by indexing that the response is obvious; in which case the response is delivered straightforwardly. In general, pues signals answering, and as the following section



will show, it is not only used when responding to questions but also when responding to other actions such as challenges. 3.4 Pues-prefacing in response turns to challenges The following are excerpts of request sequences: (13) [44] Pues V9 P2 1622

[The excerpt shows S, who is three years old, and his mother (M); they are at home, M is talking to other members of her family who have come to visit. There is a storm outside.] 01 M: …y ya se fue hace un año? ((talking to G and V)) …and he left a year ago? 02 G: [((nods affirmatively)) 03 V: [((nod affirmatively)) 04 S:=>MAMÁ, me anda de la popo MUM, I’ve got to poo 05 M:=>Pues ve al baño córrele, me gritas Pues go to the toilet hurry, give me a shout 06 y voy a limpiarte and I’ll go clean you up 07 S: No: ( ) No 08 M: Te ayudo ((M stands up)) I’ll help you 09 S: es que me van a asustar los relámpagos The thing is that the lightning is going to scare me 10 M: Ven vamos Come on let’s go

S’s announcement (line 04) cuts short the interaction between M and the other co-participants. The announcement conveys an indirect request. M is being challenged to leave her guests and take the boy to the toilet. M confronts the challenge by delivering a riposte to the boy’s request: M deploys a three-part list (Jefferson, 1991) of instructions: ve al baño córrele, me gritas, y voy a limpiarte. These actions describe what the boy ought to do. By delivering these instructions, M resists accomplishing the request. Furthermore, M’s response challenges the relevance of the announcement by casting doubt on S’s problem solving skills.3 Pues marks as obvious the items it prefaces; it treats previous talk as a challenge and questions its relevance.



Excerpt (14) shows V, R and G playing a card game. According to the rules the participants should display the cards in order on the table. V is saying aloud the card to be displayed next. (14) [60] Pues V11 V11 P4 1038

01 V: Ocho Ocho Ocho Eight Eight Eight 02 G: ((puts the card on the table)) 02 V: Nueve Nueve Nueve Nine nine nine 02 G: ((puts the card on the table)) 05 V: Diez [Diez Diez Ten [Ten Ten 06 R [((puts the card on the table)) 07 V: Reina Reina Reina ((puts a card on the table)) Queen Queen Queen 08 R:=>No hablen no [hablen no hablen No talking no [talking no talking 09 G: [((puts a card on the table)) 10 V: ((puts a card on the table)) 11 V: heh hhh. 12 (1) 13 V:=>Pues entonces despierten despierten, Genaro Pues so wake up wake up wake up, Genaro (3) 14 R: Voy yo It’s my turn

R’s petition (line 08) is hearable as a complaint objecting to the fact that V is calling the cards out loud. V’s formal response to the complaint is prefaced with pues. V’s response is a riposte to the complaint: on the one hand she justifies why she is calling the cards (i.e., she would not need to be calling the cards if the game players were paying attention to the card that is next); and on the other it is explicitly indicating the action that needs to be accomplished by the others in order for her to stop calling the cards. Similarly, in excerpt (13), the speaker treats the previous turn as a challenge and delivers the obvious actions that the co-participants need to do for the fulfilment of the request. In sum, pues may preface instructions directed to requests that situate the speaker before a challenge. The turn prefaced with pues constitutes a riposte which indicates the evident actions that will solve the demand. Ripostes, as the excerpts show, are delivered straightforwardly without hesitation or delays. Furthermore, similarly to pues-prefacing in responses to questions, pues expresses causality at © 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved


the sequential level; in this case, the SPP is the solution to the request contained in the first pair-part. 3.5 Turn-final and TCU-final pues Travis (2005) suggests that turn-final pues marks topic completion. Excerpt (15) is one of the instances that the author presents to support her claim. The author uses different transcription conventions; here I present the excerpt in a Jeffersonian format. S and A are telling their co-participants about the wallpaper in an apartment they visited. (15) Travis (2005: 280)

01 S: como papel regalo, lo han pegado todo en la pared Like wrapping paper, they’ve stuck it on the whole wall 02 A: [Contact] ((adhesive paper)) [Contact] 03 S: [Pero ] en contact [But ] in contact 04 A: [Contact ] [Contact ] 05 S:=>[En contact, así de] Walt Disney, pues [In contact, like something from] Walt Disney, pues 06 J: [Toda la pared ] [On the whole wall ] 07 A:=>[Supuestamente papel] de colgadura, pues [Supposedly wallpaper], pues 08 I: Sí Yes 09 S: Eso. That’s it.

According to Travis, pues in lines 05 and 07 “mark[s] the utterances they follow as final, as a point that should be taken to conclude what the speaker has to say about the topic under discussion…” (p. 280). It is difficult to argue from a conversation analytic perspective that pues marks topic completion because there is not any evidence of topic shift. Furthermore, her conception of turn positioning differs from the one adopted in CA.4 In CA terms, it appears that S and A have trouble with their description; i.e., their description is not straightforward. Both instances of pues are located in a turn that reformulates previous talk. Taking this into account, the turns with pues attempt to make clearer their description and terminate the problematic nature of



their telling. So, turn-final pues may not mark the end of a topic but of an action. To support this view I present the following examples. (16) [66] Pues V11 P8 0418

[R, V and G are talking about R’s Christmas dinner. R has mentioned that he had green spaghetti; V and G in previous lines have enquired about that type of spaghetti.] 01 G: A:h hemos comido verde pero cuando Oh we’ve eaten green spaghetti but when 02 el espagueti es verde the spaghetti is green 03 (.5) 04 G: que es de espinacas it’s made of spinach 05 V: ((nods)) 06 (3) 07 R: Creo que es de espinacas I think that one it’s made of spinach 08 G: o sea el espagueti crudo es verde I mean the uncooked spaghetti is green 09 R: Ah ( ) sale así verde Oh ( ) it turns green 10 V: M:: No yo no he comido así verde M:: no I haven’t eaten green spaghetti like that 11 G:=>Sí:: hemos hecho espagueti verde Yes we have cooked green spaghetti 12 V: No no no, no que sea blanco y con el guiso No no no, not that it is white and when cooked 13 se haga verde it turns green 14 G: Ah no eso no Oh no, like that no 15 (2) 16 V: Eso no. Like that no. 17 (.) 18 V:=>a eso me refiero pues That’s what I mean pues 19 (2) 20 G: No. y qué más? pavo con relleno cremosito No. and what else? turkey with a creamy filling 21 R: ((nods))



In line 12, V treats G’s disagreement as problematic (Stivers, 2004); indicating that she refers to a different type of spaghetti. In lines 16 and 17, V initiates a re-closure of the sequence namely confirming her previous statement by recycling G’s last turn (except for the ah no which is what makes G’s previous turn repair) and restating that that is the type of spaghetti she referred to with her statement back in line 10. V’s turn has pues in final position. The excerpt shows that pues is deployed after some trouble in conversation, specifically just after the speaker clarifies previous talk, i.e., after repair. In the following excerpt, M and G are talking about two TV shows: (17) [129] Pues V17 P2 2548

[M is telling G about two reality shows, ‘La Academia’ (‘The Academy’) and ‘Me quiero enamorar’ (‘I want to fall in love’); the TV programs are produced by two television companies in Mexico: TV Azteca and Televisa respectively. Both companies are always competing for ratings, especially over these type of shows. In line 06, G says ‘Telerisa’, a term that people use to refer pejoratively to the TV company.]

01 M: Fíjate ahora sí le robó este::(3) le robó You know this time it took the:: (3) it took 02 cámara (.5)La Academia (.5) al programa de::= the spotlight (.5) La Academia took the spotlight from= 03 G: =Telerisa =Telerisa 04 M: No. Se llamaba:: =Me quiero enamorar hh. No. it’s called =Me quiero enamorar hh. 05 G:=>Pero de Televisa pues But from Televisa pues 06 M: de Televisa, sí. From televisa, yes 07 (1) 08 M: Porque ahí no estuvo… Because there it wasn’t…

At the end of line 02, M delays the completion of her TCU. G takes this occasion to offer a candidate completion (Lerner, 1989, 2004), line 03, which is rejected by M in line 04. In line 05, G initiates repair targeting the rejection of his candidate completion, and his turn is ended with pues. In line 06, M confirms G’s candidate. The analysis shows that in line 02, M aims for the name of the TV show (Me quiero enamorar) not for the name of the TV company that produces it (Televisa). Since G’s candidate completion is the name of the TV company, his candidate is



declined in line 04. Still, because the TV show that M refers to in line 04 (Me quiero enamorar) is indeed produced by Televisa, G initiates a repair of the rejection by re-launching his candidate completion, which is then confirmed by M in line 06. The two previous instances show that the context in which turn-final pues is deployed is one where the speaker has done clarification work. In excerpt (16) V clarifies the type of spaghetti she is referring to as the one she has not tried, and in excerpt (17) G interactionally (by means of repair) establishes that his candidate completion is not totally wrong. This evidence suggests that turn-final pues addresses previous trouble in the interaction; and that turn-final pues precedes the resolution of a difficulty as in (16), or the potential resolution as in (17) (it is ‘potential’ because the resolution is there to be confirmed by M). Turn-final pues, then, marks clarification (as it literally does in (16) [a eso me refiero..]) and the resolution of, trouble, i.e. the completion of repair. Furthermore, despite the fact that the different varieties of Spanish may have different linguistic practices in conversation (e.g., Márquez Reiter, 2011) the analysis has shown that turn-final pues to mark repair is a shared practice between the Colombian corpus of Travis (2005) and the Mexican corpus of the present study. Excerpt (18) shows further evidence of pues marking repair in this case in TCU-final position. The excerpt is taken from the Mexican TV programme Tercer grado. It shows Carlos Loret explaining the type of helicopter that recently crashed with the home secretary of Mexico on board. (18) Tercer grado 243 338

01 C: … que esos helicópteros tienen, ciertos …that these helicopters have, certain 02 instrumentos que les permiten detectar instruments that allow them to detect 03 sólido, no? tierra, cemento, montaña, solid, no? earth, cement, a mountain 04 =>lo que sea pues no? de tal suerte que anything pues no? so that 05 no choquen ya sea que estén en una ciudad they don’t crash when they are in the city 06 ya sea que estén en un despoblado… or if they are in a deserted area…

At the beginning of line 04, Carlos deploys the last element of his explanation which is ended with a TCU-final pues. In this case, the trouble is that the concept ‘solid’ can include a vast number of items, it can be ‘anything’. The TCU, lo que sea pues (‘anything pues’) is addressing the problem by giving a resolution which makes it clear what he refers to with the term ‘solid’. Furthermore, the ‘no?’ that



follows both ‘solid’ and ‘anything pues’ suggest that both TCUs are being treated as equivalents. A different use of TCU-final pues is introduced with the following excerpt, featuring G and his siblings, N and A (excerpt 19). Their cousin Ramón has recently called, G and N talked to him on the phone consecutively. (19) [49] Pues V9 P2 3243

01 G: Y qué te dijo Ramón cuando le hablaste ((addresing N)) And what did Ramón tell you when he called 02 (2) 03 G: No te dijo nada? Didn’t he say anything? 04 (.) 05 G: A mí me contó que este año (no bebió) He told me that this year (he didn’t drink) 06 =que no- que ya no toma =that he doesn’t drink any more 07 N:=>SÍ [pues, desde hace un año YES[pues, since last year 08 A:=> [Ah, sí pues hace un año [Oh, yes pues it’s been a year 09 (1) 10 N: desde hace un año que lo internaron since last year when he was hospitalised 11 A: .hhh En diciembre no? .hhh In December no?

G’s question in line 01 seeks for any news; however, he does not receive any response. In line 03, G launches a request for confirmation which accommodates to the lack of response of his previous question (no te dijo nada?). His request is not responded to either. So, having failed to produce any information from N, G delivers a news report, a mí me contó que este año no bebió, que ya no toma (line 05). N and A respond to the report with sí pues; this construction indexes that G’s report is not news for them. That is, the way N and A respond to the news report by delivering a confirmation makes G’s news delivery a failure. N and A even give further detail on the matter, desde hace un año, which also indicates that they already knew. Furthermore, the particle ah (similar to oh in English, Heritage, 1984) that prefaces A’s turn, suggests that the speaker has undergone the process of remembering or identifying information that she already knows. It is important to mention that this type of TCU-final pues was found only in interactions between members of the family that has ancestry from the State of Guerrero.



In sum, turn-final pues and TCU-final pues may precede the clarification and resolution of trouble and mark the completion of repair. The construction sí pues, in a news delivery sequence treats the previous news report as not news at all. 5. Conclusions In an attempt to contribute to a wider understanding of pues, the present analysis has examined the particle as a sequential marker. The analysis has offered evidence to suggest that: – Pues sí, as the SPP of an agreement sequence, addresses the first-pair part as obvious, indexing epistemic independence. – Pues can also be one of the devices used to formulate delicate disagreement. – Pues-prefacing in responses to questions indicates that the response is obvious, challenging the relevance of the question. Pues can also be one of the elements to signal unstraightforwardness in responding. – Pues-prefacing in responses to challenges makes the turn a riposte, signalling that there are obvious actions to be performed to accomplish the request. – Pues-prefacing in straightforward responses to questions and challenges are instances of pues expressing causality at the sequential level. – Turn-final pues and TCU-final pues index clarification and resolution of a problem in interaction; i.e., pues marks the completion of repair. – Finally, sí pues as the response to a news delivery indicates that the information delivered does not count as news for the recipient but as something that the recipient already knows. In terms of actions in talk, this paper only reports on a selection of actions (e.g., responding and clarifying) which were identified from the corpus. Further investigations could examine different types of responses to different types of actions or describe and explore the different types of repair in which pues is involved; for example, in excerpt (20): (20) [45]Pues V9 P2 1954

01 V: Y qué te dijeron, sí te las compraban And what did they say, did they say they’ll buy them? 02 N: los libros? ((addressing N)) the books? 03 V: Aja 04 (.5) 05 N: Pues seleccioné unos pero ps sí no no: Pues I selected some but ps yeah no no-



06 =>como fueron los que fui seleccionando,[ps since they were the remaining ones [ps07 V: [mhm 08 N: .h pues::- (.).hh Fui a una y me dijeron (“no estos no”… Pues I went to one bookshop and they say (“no these no”)…

The second pues of line 05, ps, is prefacing a TCU whose production is abandoned. So we could argue that ps and pues, at the end of line 06 and at the beginning of line 08 respectively, are projecting a continuation (*) of the TCU, such as: como fueron los que fui seleccionando ps *no me los compraron. This observation suggests that the turn-initial pues in line 08 is not a restart of the answer but of a projected continuation of the TCU. Further research on this type of turn environments could reveal the systematicity, not only of pues, but also of other so-called muletillas (e.g., este). Despite the fact that the data analysed in this paper is Mexican Spanish data, the aim of the analysis is not to claim that the practices reported here are only particular to that variety of Spanish or to the contexts examined (for example, in 3.5 the analysis shows that turn-final pues is used to do repair in the Colombian and Mexican data). Further research could explore the use of pues across the different varieties of Spanish identifying the similarities or differences of the interactional contingencies in which pues is deployed. Overall, and similar to other studies (e.g., English well, Schegloff and Lerner, 2009; actually, Clift, 2001; oh, Heritage, 2002; so, Raymond, 2004; Japanese ne, Tanaka, 2000; German achso, Golato, 2010, etc.), this paper has demonstrated that sequential markers are contingently attached to actions in talk. In general, the analysis of pues has offered a systematic view of the production of the particle in naturally occurring conversations, looking at how it relates to the organisation of particular actions: responding to the obvious and clarifying previous talk.

Notes * This article is part of an investigation on sequential markers in Mexican Spanish talk-in-interactions. I am most grateful to Rebecca Clift for her thoughtful and helpful comments on the first draft of this article, especially for her observations on Conversation Analysis, and to Rosina Márquez Reiter for her insightful editorial suggestions. I would like to thank as well the two anonymous Spanish in Context referees for their contributions. I benefited also from discussing some of the issues presented in the article with Verónica del Carmen Villafaña Rojas. Finally, special thanks to Diana Freeman and Kaili Clackson for their useful observations on my English. Any errors remain my own.


306 Ariel Vázquez Carranza 1. There are cases where pues is considered an adverb because it can be substituted by other adverbs (e.g., entonces) or adverbial expressions (e.g., por lo tanto); see Portolés (1989) and Santos Río (2003) for further discussion. 2. It is a live broadcast debate programme where renowned Mexican journalists discuss and analyse the current news. 3. One of the reviewers of this paper mentioned that M seems to be following a sort of ‘script’, a habitual way of dealing with this type of situation. This argument also supports the obvious nature of the three-part list (i.e., the ‘well-known’ procedure to follow) deployed by M. 4. For example, in the excerpt bellow, Travis argues that the position of pues is “turn-medial”. However, in CA this would be turn-initial pues: S: A: S:

Esto se puede pagar mensual, this 3ref can-3sg pay-inf monthly …o semestral, … o annual. … Sí? Mhm. Pues, Cuando se paga semestral o anual when 3ref pay-3sg six-monthly or yearly (THROAT) se puede dar cheque, 3ref can-3sg give-inf check o en efectivo.

S: ‘You can pay this monthly, or six-monthly, or annually. OK?’ A: ‘Mhm’. S: ‘Pues, when you pay six-monthly or annually, you can pay by check, or in cash’. (Travis, 2005: 241)

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Appendix: Transcription conventions => Signals the specific part of the excerpt discussed in the text. (1) The number indicates a pause in seconds. (.2) The number indicates a pause in tenths of a second. (.) The dot indicates a micro pause. [ Square bracket indicates the point at which overlapping starts. = The lines connected by two equal signs indicate that the second line is followed the

first with no discernible silence between them, or was “latched” to it.



↑↓ Indicate a marked falling or rising intonational shift. : Indicates that the prior sound is prolonged, the more colons the grater the exten-

sion of the stretching.

“word” The utterances between quotation marks indicate that the talk was produce with an

intonation that denotes reported speech.

.hh Indicates in-breath. hh. Indicates out-breath. hh Indicates laugher the more “hs” the longer the laughter. (h)word(h) Words between h’s indicate laughter infiltrated in the speech. Wor- It indicates that a word is cut off. Or that a statement or account is cut off. WORD Capitals indicates increase of volume. (guess) Words in parentheses indicate a best guess as to what was said. (word) Words in parentheses in the second line of the transcription, i.e. the English equiv-

alent, indicate a closer meaning to the original.

( ) Empty parentheses indicate that something has been said but not heard by the tran-

scriber.

((word)) Words in double parentheses indicate descriptions of transcription events. °word° Degree sings indicates that the talk is soft or quiet. word? Question mark indicates question intonation.

Author’s address Ariel Vázquez Carranza 39 Richard Avenue Wivenhoe, Colchester United Kingdom CO7 9JQ [email protected]

