Some Interactional Uses of Shiba in Responsive Position

Abstract

Shiba (是吧) works as a tag question, mainly used to request confirmation and seek agreement or affiliation in Mandarin everyday interactions. Adopting the methodology of conversation analysis, this paper explores the interactional uses of shiba in response positions. The analysis of shiba in two types of sequence environments. First, after acts that seem to convey information, participants use shiba to indicate they have received the information and display the other party to continue elaborating on the topic. Second, in spontaneous suggestion sequences, participants can use shiba to formally affirm and accept the information in a suggestion, thereby indirectly declining it.