Hart, William, Suh, Kyunghee, & Oh, Yeonglim. 2017. “OK in Emergency Dispatch Encounters”. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 25(2), 1~28. This paper investigates the discourse marker OK in 911 emergency calls, paying special attention to how its use is embedded in the context of the request-offer sequence through which the caller and the dispatcher display distinctive orientations in terms of goals, rights, and responsibilities. In line with previous research, it was found that the use of this marker displays multifunctionality, which for callers is manifested in the function OK not only as a response token but also as an affiliative signal of cooperation in the acknowledgment and acceptance of directives and updates on the status of the emergency response. For dispatchers, this multifunctionality is found in the activation of a bidirectional looking function of the marker which orients backward in acknowledgment of information elicited and provided in previous turns, while simultaneously orienting forward in anticipation of an impending directive, request for information, or status update in the turn that follows.

• Hart, William(University of Seoul & Hankuk University of Foreign Studies) The first author
• Suh, Kyunghee(University of Seoul & Hankuk University of Foreign Studies) The corresponding author
• Oh, Yeonglim(University of Seoul & Hankuk University of Foreign Studies)