Stance-taking via ya′ani / ya′anu: A discourse marker in a Hebrew-Arabic language contact situation

Abstract

ABSTRACTWe explore two stance-taking patterns in casual Hebrew conversation involving ya′ani/ya′anu, a discourse marker originating in colloquial Arabic. In the first, ya′ani/ya′anu, the same as Arabic yaʕni (lit. ‘it means’), frames reformulations of prior discourse serving to enhance interpersonal involvement and mutuality regarding the interlocutor's stance toward what has been said, thereby constructing intersubjectivity. The second pattern consists of a prosodic variant, ya′ani/ya′anu, functioning as a double-voiced ironic hedge. The latter is an innovation of Hebrew, brought about by its functional association with Hebrew ke′ilu ‘like’. The two uses of ya′ani/ya′anu elucidate two different processes that discourse markers in language contact situations may undergo: persistence of lexically motivated metalingual meaning, and extension of lexically unmotivated meaning. The considerably low frequency of ya′ani/ya′anu vis-à-vis ke′ilu is explained by its devaluated social meaning in current Israeli discourse, as an index of nonhegemonic religious and ethnic groups such as Arabs and Mizrahi Jews. (Discourse markers, language contact, stance-taking, (re)formulations, irony, metalanguaging, indexicality, intersubjectivity)*