Chapter 4: Results and Discussion
4.1 Hao Bu Hao
4.1.3 Ostensible Tag questions
4.1.3.6 Disagreeing with Assessments
Another context where the non-canonical hao bu hao tag occurs is one in which it is exploited to disagree with other speakers’ assessment of something, which is yet another social action that is tied up with the notion of epistemics. Again, we will inspect real examples after we lay the groundwork.
Among the presumably endless things that people do with language, making assessments is a common and natural behavior to observe. The occurrence of making assements is so prevalent that it finally entered the enterprise of Conversation Analysis in Pomerantz’s seminal work in 1984. Assessments, as Pomerantz (1984: 57) argues, are “products” of participation; they are based on speakers’ knowledge of what they assess. With an assessment, whether it is a compliment to a student, a complaint about the government’s policy, criticism about a movie, or one’s self-deprecation, a speaker claims knowledge of that which he or she is assessing. If the speaker claims no access to, or insufficient knowledge of the assessable, assessments cannot be made. On the
assesser and the recipient, then the initial assessment provides for relevance of the recipient’s “second assessment” (Pomerantz, 1984:61). A succession of an initial assessment and a second assessment is provided in the excerpt below.
(40) [20180911: Japanese Guy Kicks Comfort Woman Statue]
1 Q >就是<(.) 第一果菜>市場< 是
>jiushi
diyiguocaishichang shi>EMP
First.Fruits.&Vegetables.Wholesale.Market be2 考驗 吳音寧 的 能力. 那 看 起來
kaoyan Wuyinning de nengli na kan qilai test Wu Yinning GEN competence then see rise.up
3 這 件 事情 今天- 因為 前面
[都
不zhe jian shiqing jintian yinwei qianmian [dou bu this CL thing today because front
[all
NEG4 出面 嘛.
[如果
她 都 不 出面 你 當然chumian me
[ruguo ta dou bu
chumian ni dangran show.up PRT [if she all NEG show.up you of.course5 可以 繼續 打.
keyi jishu da can continue hit 6 Xie 喔.
ou PRT
7 Q 你 打 說
[妳 [是 神隱 [啊.
妳 領 那麼 多.ni da shuo
[ni [shi shenyin [a
ni ling name duo you hit say[you [be disappear [PRT
you get that more8 >然後< 妳 又 說
[妳 [多
有[能力.
妳 又>ranhou ni you shuo [ni [duo
you[nengli
ni you>and
you yet say[you [how
have[competence you even
9 在 [臉書 上 發]-
zai
[lianshu
shang faat
10 Z [不(.) 不 是 喔]. 不 是 她 解決
[bu
bu shi ou bu shi ta jiejue[NEG
NEG be PRT NEG be she solve11 的 喔. 是 她.. 是 她 搞 亂 了. >今天<
de ou shi ta shi ta gao luan le
>jintian
NOM PRT be she be she do mess PRT >today12 出面 是 別人 幫 她 擦 屁股 解決.
chumian shi bieren bang ta ca pigu jiejue show.up be others help she wipe ass solve
13 所[以]1 妳 要 了解 <H 更 深
[[的
suoyi ni yao liaojie
<H geng
shen [[de so you need understand<H more
deep[[NOM
14 東西 好 不 好H>]2.((He raises his finger))
15 Q [<H 對 H>]1. [但是
[<H dui [danshi
[<H right [but
16 但是]2 但是 我們 今天 看 到 的 是
danshi danshi women jintian kan dao de shi
17 她 出面 她 論述 能力 清楚 她 [提出 ta chumian ta lunshu nengli qingchu ta
[tichu
she show.up she expound competence clear she[propose
18 她 的 需求]3.
ta de xuqiu she GEN need
19 Z [她 講
[ta jiang [she talk
20 → 得 也 實在 亂七八糟]3 >好 不 好<
de ye shizai luanqibazao
>hao
bu hao CSC YE really messy>good
NEG good21 講 得 也 是 啊. 亂七八糟 啊.
jiang de ye shi a luanqibazao a talk CSC YE be PRT messy PRT
Q: ‘(I mean) Taipei First Fruits & Vegetables Wholesale Market is a touchstone of Wu Yinning’s competence. It seems that this thing- Because she refused to show up previously. If she doesn’t show up, of course you can keep criticizing her.’
Xie: ‘Oh.’
Q: ‘(For example,) you can criticize her for not showing up and earning so much money and yet bragging about how competent she is. And on Facebook she even-’
Z: ‘No, no. She didn’t solve (the problem with the market). Rather, she screwed it up! The reason why she could show up (in the council) today is that someone else has solved the problem for her. You have to understand the details, ok?’
Q: ‘Yes.’ ‘But, but, but what we see today is that she showed up, that her thoughts were clear, and that she put forward her needs.’
Z: ‘What she said is a mess, ok? That was a mess.’
Before we examine how hao bu hao can be used to disagree with someone else’s assement, some background information helps us get a grasp on this segment. In response to Taipei City Government’s attempt to rebuild the Taipei First Fruits &
Vegetables Wholesale Market ( 台 北 第 一 果 菜 市 場 ), general manager of Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Company, Wu Yinning (吳音寧), put forth a proposal which, according to a councilor, could save up to 1.1 billion dollars. This plan, however, was rejected. Because of the tension between Wu and the mayor and the fact that Wu refused to attend Taipei City Council, the attempt to rebuild the market entered into a deadlock. On the day when this episode of Facenews was broadcast, Wu finally showed up in the council.
Now let us see how the action of disagreeing comes into being in this dialogue.
Prior to this excerpt, speaker Q (邱明玉) has said that, judging from Wu’s debut in the council, she is actually quite good at public speaking and that one should do her justice.
When Q (邱明玉) enters this excerpt, she tries to elaborate on her comment on Wu by making a contrast between Wu’s image some time ago and the competence that she now demonstrates. However, before the first part of Q’s (邱明玉) elaboration reaches its completion (line 9), speaker Z (鍾小平) cuts in in line 10 implicating that Wu makes no contributions to ceasing the whole event and hence derserves no credit. Note that Z
in lines 13-14. Sticking to her own perspective, Q (邱明玉) manages to recapture the floor in line 15 and makes an initial assessment of Wu. Noteworthy is the two-part format of her utterance: a source of experience (in this case, vision, as indicated by the resultative verb compound kan-dao ‘see-arrive’), followed by the assessment itself.
Now that an initial assessment has been made and the assessable is a public figure who is known to all of the conversationalists, a second assessment, realized as either agreeing or disagreeing, becomes relevant in the next turn. As the excerpt shows, Z (鍾 小平) makes a premature second assessment in lines 19-21 that overlaps with Q’s (邱 明玉) talk in lines 17-18.
Just as Q’s (the first speaker) assessment is her claim of access to Wu, Z’s (the second speaker) assessment is his claim of access to Wu as well (Pomerantz, 1984:62).
In lines 19-21 Z (鍾小平) disagrees with Q (邱明玉) using the quadra-syllabic idiomatic expression luanqibazao ‘extremely messy’ (which describes the manner in which Wu spoke in the council), together with the functional word ye. According to Chu (1998:102), the “modality adverb” ye is closely connected with the speaker’s subjective opinion or attitude towards a state of affair. Often occurring in negative contexts, it can be roughly translated as ‘on the contrary’. To be specific, it is functionally equivalent to the English parenthetical expression I think that is inserted into clauses. Signaling contrast to the interlocutor’s assumption, ye can be said to entail
‘I BEG TO DISAGREE’ (Chu, 1998: 107). By producing lines 19-21, Z (鍾小平) not only talks about some referent but reveals his own knowledge of it, registering his construal as a conceptualizer. In other words, he reveals himself.
One thing about the disagreeing hao bu hao that merits closer inspection is its strength, which is inextricably linked to its “appearance.” According to Pomerantz (1984), weak disagreements, which are more common, go hand in hand with delay devices such as silences, hesitating prefaces (e.g., well), requests for clarification (e.g.,