Bedeutungskonstitution in der Interaktion : die Partikel bien im gesprochenen Französisch

The paper is concerned with the semantics of the French particle 'bien' in spoken interaction. It argues that linguistic structures are shaped by their use in interaction and thus have to be described in relation to their interactional context. 'Bien' is commonly described as a modal adverb (e.g. Il est bien habillé. ‚He is well dressed‘) or as an adverb of degree (e.g. Il est bien grand pour son âge. ‘He is rather tall for his age’). In certain contexts, however, it appears to be used as a modal particle, as argued in this paper (e.g. C’est bien la première fois que ça m’arrive. ‘It‘s [MP] the first time that happens to me‘). The study shows that this use can be related not only to a number of syntactic and structural restrictions but also to specific sequential patterns, to a particular stance of the speaker toward the proposition expressed and to a specific discourse function. The latter consists in referring to contextual elements that are in contrast to the proposition of the current utterance. 'Bien' thus functions as a kind of contextualization cue and as an instruction to the hearer to take the proposition into account