90 Advances in spoken discourse analysis
Yes/no questions
According to Quirk et al., yes/no questions are usually formed by placing
the operator before the subject and using ‘question intonation’, that is a rise
or fall—rise. Another typical characteristic of yes/no questions is the use of
non-assertive forms ‘any’, ‘ever’, etc., which denote neutral polarity that
leaves open whether the answer is ‘yes’ or ‘no’. However, Quirk et al. point
out that a yes/no question can be biased towards a positive or a negative
answer. For example, assertive forms such as ‘someone’ may be used, in
which case the question has a ‘positive orientation’, e.g. ‘Did SOMEONE
call last night?’, ‘Has the boat left ALREADY?’ These questions are biased
towards a positive answer. They indicate that the speaker has reason to believe
that the answer is ‘yes’; he is asking for confirmation of his assumption
(1972:389). This means that the expected answer is ‘yes’ and thus a ‘no’
answer would be contrary to that expectation. As for questions like ‘Isn’t
your car working?’, Quirk et al. suggest that they have negative orientation.
This negative orientation, however, is complicated by an element of surprise
or disbelief. The implication is that the speaker had originally hoped for a
positive response, but new evidence suggests that the response will be negative.
There is therefore a combination of old expectation (positive) and new expectation
(negative) (1985:808). The expected answer is ‘no’, and ‘yes’ would be
contrary to his expectation. Quirk et al. further remark that because the old
expectation tends to be identified with the speaker’s hopes and wishes, negatively
orientated questions often express disappointment or annoyance. The examples
they give are ‘Can’t you drive straight?’ and ‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?’
From Quirk et al.’s analysis of yes/no questions so far, we can detect
three problems. Firstly, if the classification of questions is made on the
basis of the answer they expect, then there should be three classes of questions:
one class expecting a ‘yes’ answer, a second expecting a ‘no’ answer and
a third with no expectations. However, it should be noted that there are
three classes of questions only in terms of the predicted form of the answer.
In terms of the communicative choice realized by the answer, there are only
two classes of questions because a ‘yes’ answer to a positively biased question
realizes the same communicative choice of confirming the speaker’s assumption
or expectation as a ‘no’ answer to a negatively biased question. This can be
supported by the fact that sometimes negatively biased questions can get a
‘yes’ or a ‘no’ answer, both realizing a confirmation. For example, the
question ‘You mean he didn’t recognize you?’, which is negatively biased,
can be responded to by ‘Yes’, meaning ‘you are right, he didn’t recognize
me’, or ‘no’, also meaning ‘you are right, he didn’t recognize me’. Both
answers confirm the speaker’s assumption. Hence, both negatively and positively
biased questions belong to the same functional class: questions whose discourse
function is to elicit confirmation.
Secondly, if we are looking at the function or the communicative choice
realized by the expected answer and not its form, then a ‘yes’ answer to the