Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T20:34:49.348Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Transformative answers: One way to resist a question’s constraints

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2010

TANYA STIVERS  and
MAKOTO HAYASHI
TANYA STIVERS
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Wundtlaan 1, 6525XD Nijmegen, The Netherlands, [email protected]
MAKOTO HAYASHI
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 2090 Foreign Languages Building, 707 S. Mathews Ave., Urbana, IL 61821 USA, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A number of Conversation Analytic studies have documented that question recipients have a variety of ways to push against the constraints that questions impose on them. This article explores the concept of transformative answers – answers through which question recipients retroactively adjust the question posed to them. Two main sorts of adjustments are discussed: question term transformations and question agenda transformations. It is shown that the operations through which interactants implement term transformations are different from the operations through which they implement agenda transformations. Moreover, term-transforming answers resist only the question’s design, while agenda-transforming answers effectively resist both design and agenda, thus implying that agenda-transforming answers resist more strongly than design-transforming answers. The implications of these different sorts of transformations for alignment and affiliation are then explored.*

Keywords

Conversation Analysissocial interactionalignmentaffiliationJapaneseevasion
Type
Research Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , February 2010 , pp. 1 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Atkinson, J. Maxwell, & Heritage, John (eds.) (1984). Structures of social action: Studies in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bolden, Galina B. (2009). Beyond answering: Repeat-prefaced responses in conversation. Communication Monographs 76:121–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyd, Elizabeth A., & Heritage, John (2006). Taking the patient’s medical history: Questioning during comprehensive history-taking. In Heritage, J. & Maynard, D. (eds.), Communication in medical care: Interactions between primary care physicians and patients, 151–84. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Penelope (in press). Questions and their responses in Tzeltal. Journal of Pragmatics.Google Scholar
Clayman, Steven, & Heritage, John (2002). The news interview: Journalists and public figures on the air. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drew, Paul (1984). Speakers’ reportings in invitation sequences. In Atkinson, J. Maxwell & Heritage, John (eds.), Structures of social action, 152–64. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Drew, Paul (1992). Contested evidence in a courtroom cross-examination: The case of a trial for rape. In Drew, P. & Heritage, J. (eds.), Talk at work: Social interaction in institutional settings, 470–520. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Drew, Paul (1997). ‘Open’ class repair initiators in response to sequential sources of trouble in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 28:69–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dryer, Matthew S. (2008). Polar questions. In Haspelmath, Martin, Dryer, Matthew S., Gil, David & Comrie, Bernard (eds.), The world atlas of language structures online. Munich: Max Planck Digital Library, chapter 116. http://wals.info.Google Scholar
Ehrlich, Susan, & Sidnell, Jack (2006). ”I think that’s not an assumption you ought to make”: Challenging presuppositions in inquiry testimony. Language in Society 35:655–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fox, Barbara A., & Thompson, Sandra A. (in press). Responses to WH- questions in English conversation. Research on Language and Social Interaction.Google Scholar
Golato, Andrea, & Fagyal, Zsuzsanna (2008). Comparing single and double sayings of the German response token ja and the role of prosody: A conversation analytic perspective. Research on Language and Social Interaction 41:1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, Charles, & Heritage, John (1990). Conversation Analysis. Annual Review of Anthropology 19:283–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, Sandra (1991). Evasive action: How politicians respond to questions in political interviews. In Scannell, P. (ed.), Broadcast talk, 76–99. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Hayashi, Makoto (in press). An overview of the question-response system in Japanese. Journal of Pragmatics,Google Scholar
Hayashi, Makoto (2009). Marking a ‘noticing of departure’ in talk: Eh- prefaced turns in Japanese conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 41:2100–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heinemann, Trine (2009). Two answers to inapposite inquiries. In Sidnell, Jack (ed.), Conversation Analysis: Comparative perspectives, 159–86. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heritage, John (1984a). A change-of-state token and aspects of its sequential placement. In Atkinson, J. Maxwell & Heritage, John (eds.), Structures of social action, 299–345. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Heritage, John (1984b). Garfinkel and ethnomethodology. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Heritage, John (1998). Oh-prefaced responses to inquiry. Language in Society 27:291–334.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heritage, John (in press). Constructing and navigating epistemic landscapes: Progressivity, agency and resistance in ‘yes/no’ versus ‘repetitive’ responses. In de Ruiter, Jan Peter (ed.), Questions: Formal, functional and interactional perspectives. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Heritage, John, & Raymond, Geoff (2005). The terms of agreement: Indexing epistemic authority and subordination in assessment sequences. Social Psychology Quarterly 68:15–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kärkkäinen, Elise (2003). Epistemic stance in English conversation: A description of its interactional functions, with a focus on I think. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levinson, Stephen C. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levinson, Stephen C (2000). Presumptive meanings: The theory of generalized conversational implicature. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raymond, Geoffrey (2003). Grammar and social organization: Yes/No interrogatives and the structure of responding. American Sociological Review 68:939–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sacks, Harvey (1992a). Lectures on conversation vol. 1 (Fall 1964-Spring 1968). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey (1992b). Lectures on conversation vol. 2 (Fall 1968-Spring 1972). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A. (1968). Sequencing in conversational openings. American Anthropologist 70:1075–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A (1996). Confirming allusions: Toward an empirical account of action. American Journal of Sociology 104:161–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A (2007a). A primer for Conversation Analysis: Sequence organization. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A (2007b). Seven operations implemented in same turn repair. Paper presented at meeting of the National Communication Association, Chicago.Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A; Jefferson, Gail; & Sacks, Harvey (1977). The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language 53:361–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A, & Lerner, Gene H. (2009). Beginning to respond: Well- prefaced responses to Wh- questions. Research on Language and Social Interaction 42:91–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stivers, Tanya (2005). Modified repeats: One method for asserting primary rights from second position. Research on Language and Social Interaction 38:131–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stivers, Tanya (in press). An overview of the question-response system in American English conversation. Journal of Pragmatics.Google Scholar
Stivers, Tanya; Enfield, N.J.; Brown, Penelope; Englert, Christina; Hayashi, Makoto; Heinemann, Trine; Hoymann, Gertie; Rossano, Federico; de Ruiter, J.P.; Yoon, Kyung-Eun; & Levinson, Stephen C. (2009). Universality and cultural specificity in turn-taking in conversation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 106:10587–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stivers, Tanya, & Heritage, John (2001). Breaking the sequential mould: Answering “more than the question” during comprehensive history taking. Text 21:151–85.Google Scholar
Stivers, Tanya, Enfield, N.J. & Levinson, Stephen C. (Eds.) (forthcoming). Question Response Sequences in 10 Languages. Special issue of Journal of Pragmatics.Google Scholar