Youngspeak: Spanish vale and English okay 131
Briefly, the interactional level is speaker- oriented, in that the speaker’s direc-
tive move triggers a reactive move from the hearer, while the interpersonal level
is hearer-oriented, since the speaker addresses the hearer without asking for a
response. The discourse level, finally, where the speaker structures his/her mes-
sage, is speaker-oriented.
3.1 The interactional level
When used as interactional markers vale and okay are either directive, often
added as a tag with a rising tone and asking for a reaction from the addressee, or
reactive, responding to a directive. As a directive, they can be used as a request,
as an appeal for feedback, or make up the first part of a closing exchange. As a
reactive, they can assent to, acknowledge, or close an exchange. In other words,
when the marker serves on the interactional level, it serves as a directive in the
initiating move of an exchange and as a reactive in the responding move. This
double function of vale is illustrated in Examples (1) to (3), with okay as the
equivalent in all three cases:
(1) request-assent
Marta: mira aquí tienes uno luego me lo traes vale
‘look here you’ve got one now you give it to me okay’
Juana: vale
‘okay’
(2) appeal-acknowledge
Paula: nos tenemos que pirar vale
‘we’ve got to run off okay’
Marina: vale
‘okay’
(3) closing
José: vale ciao
‘okay bye’
Pedro: vale ciao
‘okay bye’
Closing exchanges are unusual in both corpora, since the recordings are most
often simply cut off without a proper closing section. Closing exchanges typically
end telephone calls, which do not occur in the present corpora (cf. Stenström
1999).