68 Advances in spoken discourse analysis
Reformulations in mid-key, where the key choice marks the item as additional
information or as a suggested, contextually meaningful, paraphrase are quite
common:
24 A: What time is it
B: Ten o’clock
A: // TIME to GO //
and we can see the teacher in the following example exploiting the option
after a high key evaluative repetition:
25 T: Why do you put petrol in
P: To keep it going
T: //p to KEEP it GOing //p so that is will GO on the ROAD //
A common option in non-classroom discourse is low key which, when co-
selected with ‘yes’ or a pure repetition, indicates that the move is doing
little more than acknowledge receipt of information.
26 D: Whereabouts in your chest
P: on the heart side
D: //p YES //
27 A: What’s the time
B: ten o’clock
A: //p ten o’CLOCK //
If the speaker reformulates in low key he is indicating that he doesn’t feel
he is adding any new information but simply verbalizing an agreement that
the two versions are situationally equivalent in meaning:
28 A: What’s the time
B: ten o’clock
A: //p BED time //
A REVISED DESCRIPTION OF EXCHANGE STRUCTURE
The theoretical discussion presented in the first section of this chapter and
the new, intonation based, analytical insights presented on pages 66–8 above
have prepared the ground for a critical re-evaluation of the account of exchange
structure presented in Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) and a subsequent modification
of the descriptive apparatus.
In identifying formal categories for the original analysis much reliance was
necessarily placed on assumed contextual meanings which derived from
apprehensions about what goes on in classrooms. In so far as the categories
were labelled on a semantic basis it was hardly to be expected that they would
always be appropriate for other types of discourse. Moreover, it was unlikely
that discourse generated in the highly institutionalized setting of the classroom
would exemplify the full range of options open to interactants in other situations.