The Conversation Analytic Approach to Particles in Mandarin Chinese

Existing studies mainly approach the particles in mandarin Chinese from the perspective of linguistic ontology, covering their grammatical distributions and the moods expressed.These explorations are mainly confined to static research, overlooking the sequential contexts in which particles are employed.Particles are frequently used in spoken discourses or mundane conversations in which their complex interactional imports are instantiated and accomplished.Therefore, it is necessary to find a research methodology which can provide researchers with scientific procedures to systematically unravel the interactional imports of various particles in mandarin Chinese.Inspired by the conversation analytic approach to particles in Western academia, this article proposes that the Chinese particles be investigated with conversation analysis as its method.The specific procedures are expounded to provide researchers with a framework by means of which the interactional imports of particles in mandarin Chinese can be comprehensively and exhaustively explored.