THERE’S A NEW SFP, SIA: INVESTIGATING THE FUNCTION OF SIA AS UPGRADING STANCE USING CONVERSATION ANALYSIS

Abstract

Sentence-final particles (SFP) such as lah, leh or sia are at the heart of the Singlish we Singaporeans speak. As such, SFPs have been studied widely by many researchers, except for the newcomer sia. The SFP sia has only recently gained popularity among young Singaporeans in the past decade. It is generally understood to have an emphatic effect, but one study has discovered that sia can function more ‘generically’ when it is used for phatic-marking or channelling purposes. This paper specifies the ‘emphatic effect’ sia has by concluding that sia is able to upgrade stances of four types: evaluative stance, affective stance, epistemic stance and alignment. To do so, this paper employs the use of Conversation Analysis (CA). Since SFPs operate on a discourse level, it is important to analyse sia in its context. Since CA foregrounds its emphasis on the participant’s perspective and sequential organization of talk, it helps us to understand the motivation behind each turn in any conversation. It focuses on what the participants are observably doing and what would have been observable to the participants themselves. Actions that take place before or after the utterance with sia often give us compelling evidence that sia was used to upgrade some type of stance. This paper also shows the close relationship sia has with alignment because of its ability to upgrade stances. Pomerantz’s work on second assessments informs us that upgrading stances within second assessments is the same as alignment. I use this finding to explore the possible existence of a ‘generic’ function of sia. I posit that sia has come to be associated with alignment because upgrading stances leads to alignment in second assessments. Thus, it is likely that this has caused sia to be associated with alignment, and therefore, come to index qualities like friendship and closeness.