142 Advances in spoken discourse analysis
The informing move is of particular importance in the Sinclair— Coulthard
system because of the assertion that ‘exchanges are basically concerned
with the transmission of information’ (Coulthard and Montgomery, 1981:99).
Exceptions to this are the Organizational exchanges, which are concerned
with the organization of a conversation rather than its content, and certain
Direct exchanges.^4
The other exchanges, however (Elicit, the three bound-Elicits, and Inform),
are seen as ‘information units’ and must contain an obligatory informing
move at the appropriate ‘slot’: I R/I or R. It follows that the structure
elicitin gI
acknowledging Ris impermissible, even though it may appear to be a theoretical possibility.
How, then, are we to interpret the following exchange, where an eliciting
move is acknowledged but no information is given?
Example 11 move e.s
Interviewer: How do you intend to elicitin gI
achieve this?
Politician: That’s a very interestin gacknow- R
question ledging
Intuition here seems to accord with theory in classing this exchange as
deviant, and so we reject the analysis given above. Rather, the second utterance
is in fact the pre-head of an informing move. If no informative occurs as
head of the move, both the move and the exchange are incomplete. The
analysis would look like this:
Whilst it is essential for an exchange to contain an informing move, that
move cannot occur at F. Consider the following exchange from our data: