182 A Grammar of Spoken English Discourse
hatred that terrorist acts engender. The initial state does not, however, lead
to any expectation that there will be a mention of Northern Ireland. Mh’s
choice of initial high key projects his view that the target state which will
be achieved by example (31) is contrary to the discourse expectations.
The medial high key/termination intensifi es the contrast by focusing
attention on the fact that we lived through terror is information which is
wholly unexpected in the context.
Example (32) illustrates the most common independent key values
realized by a medial high key/termination.
(32) because ↑THEY \KNOW // that the VAlue of \TERrorism //
c n v w d N P+ N
to \/↑THEM // /↑IS // as i was SAying a MOment or \/↓TWO
P N v w n v v' phr
ago // it s ↑NOT SIMply the ACT of \/TERror // [Dc-19]
(N) (V) a+ a d N P N #Dc’s choice of initial high key projects her understanding that the target state
to be realized by the production of her increment will be contrary to the
previous expectations. Within the increment she produces two medial high
key/terminations attached to a pronoun and a copula respectively. Her read-
ing highlights the distinction between them (the terrorists) and everyone else
and by so doing Dc implies that the terrorists are irredeemably opposed
to everyone else. The local meaning generated by the co-occurrence of the
copula with the medial high key/termination appears to rule out the possibility
of a negative value being attached to the copula; in other words, re-enforcing
both the target state achieved by the increment and by the entire text.
To sum up, it appears, as with high key/termination in increment initial
position, high key/termination in increment medial position may realize
simultaneous high-key and high-termination values but that the high-key
value may in a particular context also realize no more that ‘unnecessary,
but harmless contrastive implications’. It further appears that high key/
termination in medial position is more likely than increment initial high
key/termination to realize a redundant high-key value; in the co-constructed
context of the increment the hearer knows that that no unnecessary
contrastive implications are attached to the high termination.
Table 7.9 illustrates that high key/termination in increment fi nal position
may realize an independent high-key value. However, the independent
high-key values in fi nal positions were all realized in minimal increments