108 John Connolly
(‘LEAVE DISCOURSE INTERACTION D 1 ’), which terminates the dis-
course.
The opening delimiter of the transaction in our example is followed by a
statement of the topic of the transaction concerned. After that we have the
sequence of exchanges, of which our example shows the eighteenth, i.e.
Ex 18 , which is enclosed between the delimiters ‘ENTER EXCHANGE
Ex 18 ’ and ‘LEAVE EXCHANGE Ex 18 ’. The opening delimiter is followed
by a statement of the topic of the exchange in question, after which are set
out the series of moves of which the exchange consists. As the illustrative
discourse is a dialogue, it is necessary to begin the description of each
move with a specification of who is the speaker (PSp in Hengeveld’s nota-
tion) and who is the addressee (PAddr). For instance, in the case of move
M 101 , the speaker is shown to be participant P 1 and the addressee the par-
ticipant P 2. Next comes a statement of the essence of this move, which is
for the speaker to convey to the addressee a series of two messages, i.e.
m 151 and m 152. This is accomplished by means of acts A 151 and A 152. (An
act is abbreviated A in Hengeveld’s notation.)
The description of an act requires at least three lines. A simple example
is found in act A 151. Firstly, we need a specification of the essence of the
act, which in this case is that the speaker asserts a particular message (m 151 )
to the addressee. Secondly, we need a statement of the illocutionary force
of the act, for which purpose in the present paper we employ Searle’s
(1976) categories. In the current example, the illocutionary force of the act
from the point of view of both the speaker and the addressee is ‘representa-
tive’. Thirdly, the discourse processes of reference and ascription are
acknowledged. The line ‘REFER(x 251 , x 252 )’ states that the individuals x 251 ,
x 252 (which are primarily constituents of the representational level, and
given lexical shape as JayN and KayN at the expression level) are referring
to certain phenomena in the context. These referents are enumerated in the
contextual description. Thus, the interactional level serves as a bridge be-
tween language and context, and hence fulfils the function of the pointers
mentioned in Connolly (1998: 184).
The line ‘ASCRIBE (f 201 ) AS PER p 171 ’ serves to assign the property
f 201 (another constituent of the representational level, given lexical shape as
likeV at the expression level) to the individuals x 251 and x 252 , in the manner
indicated in the representational level proposition p 171. This proposition is
shown in outline form in (15a), with the corresponding expression-level
structure (up as far as the clausal layer, and in outline form) being given in
(15b), while the outline propositions and expression-level structures for the
second, third and fourth acts in the exchange are shown in (16–18). Formu-