Caught in the act 115(R) K2: Salisbury.Both of them request information—in the case of (I) K2, an answer to a
question, and in the case of (R) K2, confirmation of an answer. This explains
why an F move is obligatory in the classroom, but not as a general rule. The
witholding of acknowledgement after a ‘real’ question would not be in any
way unusual:
(I) K2: What’s that you’ve got?
(R) K1 : A pair of scissors.
(I) K2: My kitchen scissors?
(R) K1: Yes.
(F) K2f: Oh.In an exchange with (I) DK1, however, an (F) K1f is obligatory. If it is
missing something must be done to repair the omission. In the classroom
pupils usually make the repair by interpreting the lack of (F) K1f as a
negative evaluation.
Berry’s analysis is, then, a revealing one. But it rests on the initial identification
of the questioner as K1 or K2. How would the analysis work with the
following exchange:
Father: What time did you get in last night?
Son: Eleven o’clock.
Father: Yes.There is nothing in the father’s question to reveal his K1 status. At this stage
he has simply asked a question. From the analyst’s point of view there is no
reason to identify that question as (I) DK1. It is the third move in the exchange,
the father’s ‘Yes’, which reveals the true status of the opening move.
Berry’s K1/K2 distinction was designed to elaborate the Sinclair/ Coulthard
analysis to account for different types of initiation. But if we look back to
the original Sinclair/Coulthard classroom analysis we find that there already
is an element in the analysis which can be invoked to account for this
difference. We looked above at the way the exchange structure is realized
through moves, but we did not look at the next rank in the scale, the rank
of act.
The typical teaching exchange has been exemplified as:
T: What is it?
P: Pair of scissors.
T: Pair of scissors. Yes, pair of scissors.
In this example each move consists of a single act. The Opening move is
realized by an elicitation. This requires a verbal response, which is provided
in the Answering move which is realized by a reply. This is followed by a
Follow-up move realized by an evaluate. Sometimes moves are more elaborate
than this. Here: