Guttural Utterances

Oh, hello. You have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Katie Knickerbocker calling from Bozeman, Montana.

Hello, Katie. Welcome.

Hi, Katie. Welcome to the program.

Hi, thanks. I had a question. It came up, I guess, a couple months ago.

I asked my husband a question, just something simple like, where’s the dustpan?

And he replied by shrugging his shoulders and saying, mm.

And it just kind of struck me as odd that I knew exactly what he was saying just by the tone of that little phrase.

And I was kind of thinking about other stuff, like phrases like nuh-and-huh that we know just kind of by the tone or by the inflection of someone’s voice.

And I was wondering, is there a name for that type of phenomenon, like a shorthand for speaking?

Katie, those are just another kind of interjection.

There are other things that they can be called as well, but interjection is the more common thing and probably the one you’re most likely to know from your own education.

Some linguists might call them inserts. They might call them a type of vocalism.

But the main thing that’s interesting about all of these kind of guttural utterances is that they tend to be used in back-channeling.

I mean, we will use them in normal conversation and normal discourse to answer questions.

But usually you encounter them, say, on the telephone when you’re talking and the other person is letting you know that they’re listening and they go, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh.

And those sorts of things, that kind of back-channeling is so necessary that we do have semantic contact.

These sounds that aren’t quite words, they have meanings.

They have yes and no and I don’t know and maybe and really and all these other kind of nuances that are important to speaking.

It’s really just another perfectly normal form of communication.

How about feedback markers?

I’ve also heard that term used.

That’s right.

Feedback markers are exactly what they’re called when they’re used in conversation.

But, Katie, the scenario that you set up for us, you and your husband talking, and he just replied with, right? Is that what he said?

Yeah.

That’s a little outside of normal back-channeling or normal discourse.

It’s just him taking that semantic meaning, I don’t know.

But here’s the key to it.

It’s less emphatic. It’s less forceful.

If he said point-blank no, no, or if he just said no, you’re more likely to be offended.

And so by using something a little milder, a little softer, he can make sure that you understand that his no isn’t a refusal to help you.

And he’s not dismissing your question as being ignorant or irrelevant.

He’s just simply saying, I don’t know.

No more semantic value to it than that.

Well, I don’t know. Did he help you?

Were you trying to clean something up and he just said, ?

Well, I just asked where it was.

He didn’t know.

And he said that way.

And it was strange because it kind of came off a little flippant, like, well, you should know.

I don’t know if that’s just a husband and wife thing.

But I thought it was interesting that those sounds like implied words and everyone would have recognized that.

Yeah, yeah.

It’s got a value.

Most dictionaries include all forms of these.

You’ll find 40, 50, 60, depends on the dictionary, interjections of these types.

Oh is the one that everyone knows.

We can write it out in letters, but really it’s best said.

What’s really interesting about a lot of these is they have what’s called a glottal stop in them.

That thing that comes after the oh, or an you know?

A lot of them have that sound that they all share.

There’s a fellow by the name of Steve Parker, and he’s looked into these, and he calls these affirmation grunts.

And he’s analyzed these affirmation grunts in hundreds of languages, and he’s written papers on this stuff.

It’s really interesting to me.

I’ll put a link to one of them online.

The paper is amusing.

The title of the paper is amusing as well.

Toward a Universal Form for Yes or Rhinoglottophilia and the Affirmation Grunt.

Sounds like a crazy band that you do not want to play at your wedding.

I want to wait for the movie.

But in any case, so a lot of studies have been done.

It’s because there is meaning there.

There’s an important contribution to conversation that’s happening when somebody makes that utterance.

Excellent.

Also, you’ll have to call this segment of the show Away with Grunts.

Yeah.

Martha and Grunts, sure.

I’ve never heard that before.

All right.

Thank you, guys.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Thanks for calling, Katie.

You’re welcome.

Wow.

Who knew there was so much to say about grunts?

Really?

Really?

Really.

If you’ve got a question about guttural utterances, give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

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