104 Advances in spoken discourse analysis
Despite the difference between these two types of Elicit:inform, I do not
want to set up a separate subcategory to account for the classroom type, for
two reasons. Firstly, the response prospected by both types is the same.
Secondly, whether the speaker wants to know the answer or to know if the
addressee knows the answer or not is not signalled in the Elicitation itself.
Even in the classroom, it is sometimes difficult to decide which is the case.
Any experienced teacher will agree that very often the former is taken to be
the latter by students. This kind of knowledge-checking Elicit:inform is not
identifiable by the analyst or even the addressee. Very often, it is not until
the speaker produces a third move that the addressee or the analyst knows
whether the speaker already has the answer to the Elicitation. In other
words, it is only in retrospect that we are able to say which type of Elicitation
has been performed. As we are dealing with the prospective classification
of utterances, the difference discussed above does not justify the setting up
of a separate subcategory.
Elicit:confirm
The second subcategory is Elicitations which invite the addressee to confirm
the speaker’s assumption. It can be realized by tag interrogatives (both
reversed polarity tags and copy tags), declaratives, positive and negative
polar interrogatives. The following arrowed utterances are all instances of
Elicit:confirm.
39 (C:4:14)
→ S: // p i THINK you did that THIS year // r + DIDn’tyou //
G: Oh yeah.
40 (B:B:A:1:2)
→ F: // p JOHN would know // r+ WOULD he //
H: Yeah, John would know.
41 (B:E:A:4:3)
→ X: // p these ARE students in the ENGlish department //
H: That’s right, they’re all English majors.
42 (B:D:A:1:2)
→ C: // p the WHITE building // r+ where they have the psyCHOlogy
department and everything //
D: Psycho, law, you name it, oh they’re all in there.
43 (B:F:A:1:3)
→ E: // p DIDn’t ah // r YEVtuSHENko // r+ write a POem about that //
F: Yeah, that’s right.
44 (B:B:A:2:1)
→ X: // p is that YOU HENry //
Y: Yes, that’s right, yeah.