76 Advances in spoken discourse analysis
Residual problems
This new analysis of exchange structure while being intuitively more acceptable,
obviously leaves several problems unresolved and creates others that apparently
didn’t exist before.
Informing moves
In what has gone before we have assumed and indeed implied that the
distinction between class 1 informing moves and class 2 eliciting moves
is unproblematic. However, there are times when it is unclear to which
category an item belongs, because it is difficult to describe/delimit the
boundary. For example, a high termination choice at the end of an informing
move certainly constrains the other speaker to make a contribution, as in
(37) and (38):
37 //r and so THEN // p i went to the MARket // //p REally//
38 //p its ALready FREEzing // //p GOSH //
and it is instructive to compare (37) and (38) with (37a) and (38a) which
are unproblematically heard as elicitations.
37a //r and so THEN // p you went to the MARket // //p YES //
38a //p you’re ALready FREEzing // //p SURE //
We are obviously on the borderline here—is it better to see utterances like
(37) and (38), which appear to constrain the next speaker to verbalize his
reaction to the information, as the most extreme type of inform, or the
mildest of elicit? As the class of items which follow high termination items
like (37) and (38) can also follow unproblematic informs and cannot follow
class 2 elicits, it does appear more sensible to categorize (37) and (38) as
informs, but there are still doubts.
Directing moves
We have so far not mentioned directing moves. Sinclair and Coulthard (1975)
proposed a basic two-move structure for directing exchanges in the classroom,
the initiating move realized minimally by a directive, the responding move
minimally by a react defined as the performing of the required non-verbal
action. The structure allowed for the occurrence, additionally, of an
acknowledgement of the directive, like ‘yes sir’, though actual instances are
rare and confined to exchanges between a teacher and a single pupil. Indeed
the following hypothetical example could only occur in a class taunting its
teacher:
39 Teacher: Open your books at page 39
Class together: //p CERtainly, sir //