The discourse marker nu: Israeli Hebrew impatience in interaction

Abstract

This study investigates the nonlexical item nu, borrowed into Hebrew from European languages, particularly Yiddish and Russian. The corpus examined consists of audio-recordings of thirty casual conversations between friends and family members, Nu was found to be the second-most prevalent interpersonal discourse marker (Maschler 1994a) in this database. The tokens of nu in the corpus function (i) to hasten a nonverbal action, (ii) to urge further development within a topic, (iii) to grant permission to perform an action, or (iv) as a keying discourse marker providing a joking/provoking tone. The relationships among these functions are explored by reference to three continua constraining the use of nu: (1) 'sequentiality', (2) 'key', and (3) 'metalanguage', Finally, nu is discussed in relation to the often positive perception of impatience in Israeli culture.

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