Syllabically matched resonance in sound and category

From a conversation-analytic perspective, this article describes how “creative” formulation of resonance is effectuated through dialogic engagement in Korean conversation. It examines various forms of word play and categorisation work accomplished from dialogically engaging a prior utterance, whose features are reproduced in the subsequent utterance, such that resonance arises in an array of “creative” co-construction of adjoined utterances (e.g. in creating playful word play, empathic uptake or a sonorous repetition indexing allusive stance and heightened affect). Syllabic matching figures saliently in this process, shaping resonant sound sequences whose patterning endows talk with “poetic” qualities, sometimes bearing on the organisation of sequence and topic. The findings indicate that the syllable-matching practice furnishes Korean speakers with the means to accomplish “doing being creative” in organising recognisable actions and an undercurrent of flow of talk, through having the dialogical potential of a prior utterance maximally tested, explored and expanded on in syllabic terms.