186 Advances in spoken discourse analysis
5 T: Why would you want to be strong?
S: To make muscles.
T: To make muscles. Yes.
(data from Brazil, Coulthard and Johns 1980:151)
6 T: This one here, Afizah.
S: Some potatoes.
T: Good.
Exchange (5) is taken from an L1 classroom, (6) from an EFL classroom.
Both exchanges share at least one of the characteristics of much of classroom
discourse which distinguishes it from non-classroom verbal interchange:
the participant who elicits the response already knows what information to
expect in the response. Furthermore, if the information supplied in the response
does not match his expectations, he is in a position to re-initiate the exchange
until an acceptable response has been given. However, the type of response
elicited in (5) is rather different from that in (6). In (5) the student selects
from a limited but not predictable range of responses. In (6), however, the
student’s response is totally predicted by the situation in which it is given,
a language pattern drill. Thus, the third part of exchange (5) contains an
assessment of the meaning or communicative value conveyed in the response.
In (6) the assessment is of the performance of the form of the response.
This point is further illustrated in (7).
7* T: This one here, Afizah.
S: Well, it looks to me like some potatoes.
While the communicative value of the response is essentially the same as
in (6), in a drill where the elicited response is expected to be ‘some
potatoes’, it would be inappropriate, going beyond the bounds of acceptability
imposed by the teacher, of what is permissible linguistically at this particular
time.
THE FUNCTIONS OF INTONATION IN FEEDBACK
Given that an assessment of the acceptability of a response is a necessary
part of this type of exchange, in providing feedback after the response, the
teacher has three options open to him/her:
(i) to give a negative assessment—that is, to reject the response, indicating
it was unacceptable;
(ii) to withhold the assessment until some later stage of proceedings, or to
give a partial acceptance;
(iii) to give a positive assessment—that is, to indicate that the response
was acceptable.