Positioning the Self and Others

This paper focuses on the discourse marker chestno govorya ‘honestly speaking’ as a device allowing speakers to create greater closeness between interlocutors and then drawing sharp social boundaries in positioning their own community in relation to others. The study is based on an ethnographically informed conversation analysis of 49 semi-structured interviews with members of Georgia’s Greek community and elucidates the links between the nano level of interaction and larger societal discourses