Multi-unit questions in institutional interactions: Sequential organizations and communicative functions

Abstract

This article deals with multi-unit questioning turns used in different genres of institutional interactions. Analyzing in detail a corpus of about 400 multiunit questions from health care interactions, court trials, police interrogations, and social welfare office talks from Sweden and Finland (all in the Swedish language), a number of sequential patterns are established. Some of these sequential organizations revolve around the interplay between declarative and interrogative units. Several interrogatives in a series usually narrow down questions, for example, by suggesting candidate answers to the initial more general questions. However, many multi-unit questioning turns are concluded with an appended generalizing question.The communicative functions of these different question delivery structures are summarized. We argue that the theory must be sensitive to differences between communicative activity types. However, on the general level, we propose that designing a multi-unit question is an attempt at solving a complex communicative task, which typically involves several, possibly mutually conflicting, demands on the speaker. For example, in court trials, the avoidance of leading questions must be balanced against the need for precise answers. At the same time, the use of an appended generalizing unit might be formulated to secure anything that could count as an acceptable response.

When once is not enough: Politeness of multiple requests in oral proficiency interviews

“…These formulae are absent from the second version, as illustrated in Extracts (7) and (8) ness is shifted upwards from conventional indirectness in the first version to directness in the second version. Referentially, we see the common sequential pattern whereby the second version either stands in a periphrastic relationship to the first (Extract [7], 'question paraphrase', Linell et al 2003) or casts the candidate's task in a more explicit or specific form (Extract [8], 'funnel strategy', Linell et al 2003). But in contrast to the request sequences with same directness, it is also possible to hear the first versions as prefatory to the second.…”

“…Such requests play an important role in the OPI as some actions regularly demanded of candidates include self-introductions, descriptions of objects and events, direction giving, or narratives of past and future events. Secondly, under some interactional conditions, question speakers in ordinary conversation (Schegloff 1980;Gardner 2004) and institutional discourse (e. g., Heritage and Roth 1995;Linell, Hofvendahl, and Lindholm 2003) reissue the question so that multiple questions are performed on the same or a similar referential point. In other words, the question is 'repeated' in some way, though not usually exactly.…”

Interactional formats and institutional context: a practical and exploitable distinction in interviews

“…For example, asking elaborate multiunit questions can provide a range of potential responses to participations and manage difficult tasks in institutional contexts (Linell et al 2003;Puchta and Potter 1999). This attention to strategies for engag ing with particular interactional moments dovetails with this paper's analytic aims.…”

Oppilaiden kaikupuheen tehtävät kielellisesti epäsymmetrisissä luokkahuonekeskusteluissa

“…Ohjaajan ensimmäinen moniosainen kysymysvuoro (ks. Linell, Hofvendahl & Lindholm, 2003) sisältää ensin kaksi hakukysymystä (mitä muut teit kun tipun ja frisbee. Vaikka tällaisessa kysymysrakenteessa kysymyksen sisältämän tehtiin-verbin toistaminen olisi tavanomainen myöntävä vastaus kysymykseen, ohjaaja hyväksyy Marin toiston vastaukseksi dialogipartikkelilla joo.…”