6 Caught in the act: using the rank scale
to address problems of delicacy
Dave Willis
SOME PROBLEMS IN DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
When is a statement a question, and when is a question not a question? Or,
to be more precise:
How...does a hearer know when a declarative structure has the
function of a question, and how does he know that a clause does
or does not ask a question depending on where it occurs in a sequence
of clauses?
(Sinclair and Coulthard 1975)The question I want to examine here is very close to this. Sinclair and
Coulthard identify three major problems in the analysis of the apparently
loosely structured discourse of desultory or casual conversation. The third
of these they describe as ‘the ambiguity inherent in language’. This ambiguity,
they say,
...means that people occasionally misunderstand each other; more often
for a variety of reasons, people exploit the ambiguity and pretend to have
misunderstood:
Dad: Is that your coat on the floor again?
Son: Yes. (goes on reading)
The father is using the resources of the language to avoid giving a
direct command to his son; he uses a formulation which betrays irritation
but is as far as he can go towards the polite ‘Could you pick up your
coat please?’ However, because he uses an interrogative formulation,
his son is able to ignore the intended command and reply as if it were
a question.
(ibid.)Because of problems like this Sinclair and Coulthard decided to begin their
quest for a structural description of discourse in the classroom situation, in
which the teacher was in front of the class teaching, and therefore likely to
be exerting the maximum control over the discourse.