Advances in Spoken Discourse Analysis

Listening to people reading 229

The return to engaged mode:

//r the deCISion caused UProar //o aMONG a GROUP

//r of ENGland FANS //

can be compared with the corresponding passage in the reading of the
bulletin:

//r the deCISion //p CAUSED UProar //r+ aMONG a GROUP

//p of ENGland FANS //

If we ignore the differential treatment of among a group, we have here two
engaged readings which differ principally in what they assume the hearer
needs to be told. For the reporter—and he assumes for his colleague—
uproar among fans following a decision against their team is not news. For
the newsreader—and she assumes for her listeners—it is.
A similar assumption of insider understanding that there is nothing new
in what is being reported underlies much of the rest of the extract:

//o and THIS in TURN //r TRIGGered //r an ANGry reSPONSE

//o from SOME //r opPOSing suPPORTers //r in an adJOINing SECtion

//p of the STAND //

When the colleague reads back the report for checking, he begins with
referring tones, which, according to the criteria we have proposed, places
the performance some way along the continuum towards full engagement:

//r+ supPORTers CLASHED //r+ DURing PLAY

//r+ at the NATional STAdium //p HERE toDAY //

It is noticeable, however, that all content words are given prominence,
in what seems like a fairly mechanical way, without regard to how they
may or may not indicate selection. An explanation of this might be that
this is an interaction, not about the football world and what has happened
in it, but about the language the reporter has just dictated. It follows
from the general meaning attaching to referring tones that they are regularly
used for making sure that a supposition is true. Within this general
significance, we can separate out two uses to which they can be put.
They are exemplified by:

Am I right in thinking supporters clashed?

Am I right in thinking that what you said was ‘Supporters clashed’?

It is the second of these that seems most closely to parallel what is happening
in the reading-back activity, and since the focus is language rather than
sense, the factors which make content words non-selective are not operative.
We have to include, in the data that we recognize as engaged interaction
about language.
Once more, however, we find that the speaker is not consistent in his
stance: