Caught in the act 1192 we should introduce offer as another possible head act in the Answering
move. This will enable us to distinguish between a tentative response
which requests confirmation and a response which claims authority which
will be realized as a reply.
This in turn enables us to make a further distinction. After an Answering
move with offer as head, a Follow-up move is obligatory. After an Answering
move with a reply as head a Follow-up is optional. Some situations, the
classroom is certainly one, will be characterized by the fact that this option
is regularly taken up.
THE ANALYSIS APPLIED TO DIRECTIVE EXCHANGES
Berry (1981) goes on to transfer the notion of K1/K2 roles in informing and
eliciting exchanges to deal with directive exchanges. Instead of a primary
knower (K1) and a secondary knower (K2), directive exchanges involve a
primary doer (A1) and a secondary doer (A2). Just as K2 requests information
so A2 requests action. And just as K1 can either withhold and at the same
time define knowledge (DK1) or supply knowledge, so A1 can either define
and withhold action (DA1) or carry out an action. This gives exchanges as
follows:
A: Let me open the door for you. (DA1)
B: Thank you. (A2)
A: (opens door) (A1)
B: Thanks. (A2f)
A: Will you open the door please? (A2)
B: (opens door) (A1)
A: Thanks. (A2f)This analysis also allows for the most typical directive exchanges—those in
which an undertaking is given to carry out an act at some future date, but
which have, for the time being, no A1 element:
A: Will you come tomorrow please? (A2)
B: Yes, of course. (DA1)In place of the A1 element there is an agreement on the part of one of the
participants to carry out some action in the future. Such an agreement is
equivalent to a commissive. Searle would say it ‘counts as’ a commissive.
The exchange here is incomplete, however. Just as a K1 move is obligatory
after a DK1 so A1 is obligatory after DA1. J.D.Willis (1987) suggests that
for this reason an exchange with DA1 but no A1 should be regarded as a
bound exchange. The full exchange would be A2; DA1...A1, with the A1
supplied when B does in fact come tomorrow.
After re-examining Berry’s proposals for informing and eliciting exchanges
and after having found a mechanism at the rank of act which makes the K1/