Paralanguage units in initial and response dialogue replicas

Abstract

In compiling a dictionary of paralinguistic units, it is important to study the behavior of those units in a dialogue. The main focus of the paper is exactly on that behavior .The article demonstrates that Russian paralinguistic units are used in initial and response dialogue replicas. Of the three main categories of paralinguistic units the work considers two. They are single sounds or sequences of sounds that do not belong to the natural language but which in a specific act of communication can acquire meaning. Besides, authors consider linguocultural emotional complexes and some instrumental sounds that accompany certain actions, often together with their linguistic designations.

It is shown that paralinguistic replicas in a dialogue have two or more functions: they serve to convey information and are also a means of maintaining dialog, i.e. a marker of phatic communication. The article describes the behavior of many paralinguistic units in dialogues of various types, the semantics of those units as well as their functions in initial and response replicas. The paper sets some important theoretical and practical tasks related to paraa linguistic units of the Russian language. It is argued that without solving those issues, it is difficult to build a good dictionary of Russian paralanguage units.