Solidarity in Indonesian conversation: The discourse marker kan

Abstract

This paper examines the use of the Indonesian discourse marker kan in conversation, employing both qualitative and quantitative methods. Kan appears to be similar in function to interrogative tags and to the hedge you know\ however, it occurs far more frequently in casual Indonesian conversation than similar markers in other previously studied languages. The functions of kan can be characterized äs solidarity-building activities: requesting agreement, marking conjoint knowledge and extending common ground. These functions are explicitly marked with greater frequency in Indonesian conversation due to differences between Indonesian and Western cultural values, which lead to differences in conversational style.

Gender and the use of pragmatic particles in Indonesian

“…The corpus consists of slightly under 20,000 words, and contains 250 instances of kan, 373 of iya, and 727 of ya (Tables 1 and 2). This is several times more frequent than for comparable markers in published English or Swedish samples (Holmes 1983(Holmes , 1986Nordenstam 1992;Wouk 1998;Wouk forthcoming).…”

“…They have not been the subject of detailed study, with the exception of ya/iya (Wouk forthcoming) and kan (Wouk 1998). Textbooks of Indonesian do, however, often give descriptions of their uses.…”

“…Colloquial Indonesian, like other languages, has a wide variety of pragmatic expressions, mainly monosyllabic particles. They have not been the subject of detailed study, with the exception of ya/iya (Wouk forthcoming) and kan (Wouk 1998). Textbooks of Indonesian do, however, often give descriptions of their uses.…”

“…These descriptions are necessarily incomplete, especially for ya, which has far too wide a range of infrequently found uses to be discussed in a single paper. For a more detailed discussion of the uses of kan, see Wouk (1998). For a more detailed discussion of the uses of ya, see Wouk (forthcoming).…”

Some introductory notes on the development and characteristics of Sabah Malay

“…Examples in English include 'you know', 'isn't it' and 'actually'. There is not much information on discourse particles in Malay varieties, although an increasing amount of literature is gradually improving this situation (Goddard 1994;Wouk 1998Wouk , 1999Wouk , 2001Ewing 2005;Stoel 2005;Sneddon 2006). …”