Finnish particles mm, jaa and joo as responses to a proposal in negotiation activity

•Finnish particles mm, jaa and joo are used as responses to proposals.•As far as accepting a proposal is concerned, the particles constitute a continuum.•The least encouraging mm does not imply willingness to elaborate on the proposal.•Jaa implies orientation to incompleteness of decision-making.•The most encouraging joo functions as a go-ahead sign in response to a proposal.

Negotiation activity, as a form of social interaction, is founded on a proposal sequence. A proposal projects an acceptance or a rejection as the possible next action, and response particles occurring in this position may be heard accordingly. In some languages, response tokens have been identified as weak agreements, and in some cases they may even function as pre-rejections. This study examines Finnish response particles as a resource in negotiation. Using conversation analysis, we analyse the particles mm, jaa and joo which form whole turn-constructional units as responses to proposals. Our data come from psychological interaction tests and encompass 119 sequences with a proposal and an accompanying particle response. The study shows that, despite sharing some functions on a general level, the particles are not interchangeable as far as accepting and committing oneself to a proposal are concerned. Indeed, they constitute a continuum with mm at one end as the least encouraging response particle and joo at the other end as the most encouraging. However, even the most encouraging particle joo is not sufficient to accomplish acceptance of the proposal on its own, but an explicit acceptance or further development of the proposal is needed after the joo.