Responding to informings in Icelandic talk-in-interaction: A comparison of nú and er það

The aim of this paper is to compare two different responses to informings in Icelandic talk-in-interaction: the response particle nú and the minimal clausal er það ‘is it’. The two tokens can occur in very similar environments and they often co-occur in the same sequence. The empirical data comprises around 15 hours and 15 minutes of naturally occurring conversation. The conversations include everyday conversations, phone-calls and phone-ins on the radio. The theoretical and methodological framework is interactional linguistics.
The study shows, that nú and er það have two different functions: while nú is used to index genuine or pro forma surprise, er það is used to index genuine or pro forma doubt. Both tokens respond to informings that are somehow significant in the given context, and, in that way, nú and er það constrast with the acknowledgment tokens já ‘yes’ and mm. Furthermore, an analysis of er það shows that the token often occurs in potentially delicate environments such as in discussions about health and alcohol abuse. By using er það, the recipients index that the informing is significant at the same time as they give the speaker the possibility to elaborate on the topic.