66 Advances in spoken discourse analysis
14 M: Have you brushed your teeth yet?
C:Yes
M: No you haven’t
though, as here, they normally presuppose an asymmetrical status relationship.
For this reason such exchanges in adult—adult interaction tend to be heard
as aggressive:
15 A: What time did you come in last night?
B: About midnight
A: No, you didn’t...
Other descriptions of interaction appear not to have recognized a similar
three-part eliciting exchange, even though our discussion of misapprehension
and insertion sequences above suggests that they certainly do occur. Nevertheless
we want to argue that all eliciting exchanges have the potential of a three-
part structure, while accepting that a two-part realization may, and in the
case of polar responses often does, occur. As we can see in the following
General Practitioner consultation, three-part exchanges are in fact by no
means uncommon, though the third move is very different in kind from that
in classroom discourse:
16 Doctor, I: And what’s been the matter recently
Patient, R: Well I’ve had pains around the heart
Doctor, I: Pains—in your chest then
Patient, R: Yes
Doctor, I: Whereabouts in your chest
Patient, R: On the—heart side, here
Doctor, F: Yes
Doctor, I: And how long have you had these for
Patient, R: Well I had ’em a—week last Wednesday
Doctor, F: A week last Wednesday
Follow-up
At this point we will start to draw on the description of intonation outlined
in Coulthard (this volume, Chapter 2) and presented in detail in Brazil
(1985/1992) in order to look in more detail at the options for the third part
of the exchange.
One of the teacher’s major functions in responding to pupil replies is that
of distinguishing right from wrong; so, and as we would expect, occurrences
of high key ‘yes’ are frequent:
17 T: Would you say then that P: Yes sir T: //pYES //
your pen was doing some work
18 T: Would you say then you’re P: energy sir T: //pYES //
using something