Professional Communication: Collaboration between Academics and Practitioners

9 - Theoretical Interpretations of Questions and Power Relations

9 Theoretical Interpretations of Questions and Power Relations Jinjun Wang Questions have long been recognized by linguists as a potentially powerful device in casual conversation and, in particular, in institutional dialogue. Although linguists have realized questions and power relations, no literature has been concerned with the theoretical exploration of questions as a possible powerful tool in conversation and dialogue. This chapter undertakes to discuss questions and power relations from three theoretical orientations: social semiotics, social cognition and psychology, and systemic-functional linguistics. It is shown that, in social semiotics, questions are regarded as social semiotic acts and the context of questioning conveys power and solidarity. In social psychology and cognition, the question/answer sequence is the effect of shared knowledge and cognitive schema. The expectation of answers aids in the production of orderliness, which signifies power and solidarity. In systemic-functional linguistics, a question as an initiating speech function is able to realize unequal social status. The chapter focuses on the theoretical exploration of questions and power relations and supports its argument with data analysis. The collected data, which are mainly from film scripts, works of fiction, textbooks, magazines, audio materials and the Internet, are concerned with six speech genres: courtroom cross-examination, news interview, medical encounter, classroom encounter, service encounter, and child and parent/adult talk. Although most of the collected materials are not naturally occurring recording data, they are representative of and bear great similarities to natural spoken data. Question and power relations This section offers a brief explanation of the relationship between question and interrogative, the concept of power, and the research on questions and power relations. 150 Jinjun Wang Question and interrogative In a commonsense way, questions and interrogatives are usually interchangeable. Yet it is possible to distinguish one from another from three different perspectives. When a question is regarded as a grammatical category, it is usually called an interrogative in form. Close (1975), Crystal (1987), and Biber et al. (1999) classify questions in English syntactically into three kinds: A question is a sentence with the subject and first verb in the verb phrase inverted, i.e. a Yes/No question, e.g. (1) Did he say that? A sentence starting with a question word, i.e. a Wh-question, e.g. (2) What did he say? A sentence ending with a question, i.e. a tag question, e.g. (3) He said that, didn’t he? According to their definition, a question is an interrogative in form. When a question is regarded as a semantic category, it expresses a desire for more information, usually expecting a reply from the listener. Quirk et al. (1972, 806) describe three major classes of question according to the answer they expect: Yes/No questions are those ‘that expect affirmation or negation’, e.g. (4) Do they often travel? Wh-questions are those ‘that typically expect a reply from an open range of replies’, e.g. (5) Who else was John looking for? and alternative questions are those ‘that expect as the reply one of two or more options presented in the question’, e.g. (6) Does she like to eat apples, or pears? When a question is regarded as a discourse category in systemic-functional linguistics (SFL), it is typically or congruently1 realized by the interrogative mood2 in seeking new information as in (7) ‘How can I get there?’ In SFL, mood choices can realize speech function categories. The interrogative mood affords a typical or default realization of questions. Additionally, however, this mood can carry out speech functions other than questions, such as an offer in (8) ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’ or a command in (9) ‘Pass me the salt, will you?’ The concept of power in discourse Power is rather difficult to define, as power is investigated in various disciplines, such as religion, politics, philosophy, linguistics, cultural studies and so on. In this chapter, power is considered in discourse. Althusser and Foucault were among the earliest theorists to describe power as a discursive phenomenon. Althusser (1971) describes power as a discursive phenomenon and holds that power operates through discourse by constructing Theoretical Interpretations of Questions and Power Relations 151 particular subject positions for people to occupy. Foucault (1980) regards the concept of power as a complex and continuously evolving web of social and discursive relations. The attitudes of Foucault and Althusser towards power have a decisive influence on critical discourse analysis (CDA). Critical...