@article{Gubina2025, author = {Gubina, Alexandra}, title = {Countering prior interactional conduct with responsive doch in German talk-in-interaction}, journal = {Research on Language and Social Interaction}, volume = {58}, number = {1}, issn = {1532-7973}, doi = {10.1080/08351813.2025.2451003}, pages = {85 -- 107}, year = {2025}, abstract = {This article explores the German response token doch, which, as earlier studies claim, rejects negatively polarized utterances and reaffirms the opposite. The study demonstrates that doch can be used in response to the Other's conduct to mark a contrast to the Other's understanding or push back against the Other's challenging what the doch-speakers said before. When doch concerns the speaker's own prior conduct, it indexes a "change-of-mind," contradicts a produced or projected disaligned/disaffiliative/dispreferred action, and (re-)establishes consensus between the participants. The analysis shows that doch can be used after turns that do not contain grammatical or lexical negation. The results of the study reveal that a response token doch has a core meaning of indexing a contrast, contradiction, or counter to the Other's or the doch-speaker's prior conduct. The study concludes by discussing the implications of the results for our understanding of responsivity and negative polarity. Data are in German.}, subject = {Pragmatik}, language = {en} }