Rhetorical vs. nonrhetorical allo-repetition: The case of Romanian interrogatives

Abstract

This article provides a functional description of the main types of Romanian interrogative allo-repetitions, and attempts to place dialogic echoicity into the general perspective of current conversation analysis. In section 2, eight different forms of interrogative allo-repetitions are identified on the basis of their syntactic and intonational patterns, and are further classified into three main functional types: Echo Questions, Rhetorical Questions, and Rhechorical Questions. In section 3, a detailed analysis of each type's discourse function is provided, with the emphasis being placed on the rhetorical values of certain ‘marked’ structures which have not received attention so far. In the fourth section of the article, the three main types of interrogative allo-repetitions are considered from the viewpoint of the turndashtaking system and the adjacency pairs structures with which it is customary to operate in conversation analysis. The conclusion of the study is that echo questions serve a dual purpose in dialogue: they are repair mechanisms, as well as rhetorical devices. From the point of view of the conversation structure, the former are part of an insertion sequence whose main frame is composed of a questiondashanswer pair. From the viewpoint of the turndashtaking system, they select prior speaker as next. By contrast, the latter kind of echo questions represent dispreferred second parts of a three-part structure in which current speaker self-selects as next within his own conversational turn. Rhetorical allo-repetitive questions serve an exclusively rhetorical purpose in dialogue, and represent dispreferred second parts of an adjacency pair whose first part is nondashrhetorical. By contrast, rhechorical questions, which also serve a rhetorical purpose in dialogue, represent dispreferred second parts to an adjacency pair whose first part is rhetorical, or dispreferred third parts of a three-part structure whose first part is nondashrhetorical but its second is. From the view point of the turndashtaking system, rhechorical questions appear to invite the selection of the prior speaker as next, while rhetorical questions, by virtue of their illocutionary point, seem, on the contrary, to discourage such a selection.