Question-answer Sequences Research Articles

Learning Opportunity and EFL Teachers’ Questions

As postmethod EFL teaching method was proposed in 1999, ideas on teaching and learning be-came unthinkably various and dynamic. The views on teachers’ questions also changed a lot in postmethod period. The term of learning opportunity bridged teaching and learning in this situation. This article aims to explore the way that an expert teacher, an experienced teacher and a novice teacher provide learning opportunities for the students in their question-answer sequences. A CA approach is used to analyze three teachers’ questions based on four different students’ first responses: Right Answer, Partly Right Answer, Incomplete Answer and Refusal Answer. The results suggest that the expert teacher can provide more learning opportunities by strengthening students’ identities, extending students’ contributions, attracting students’ involvement and there is an insignificant relation between the type of questions and learning opportunities. It is suggested that EFL teachers can be more aware of the local and dynamic teaching context and promote more negotiation of meaning and students’ involvement.

Estratégias discursivas de mitigação na sequência discursiva de pergunta-resposta: a justificação no contexto de entrevista

Taking as reference an oral corpus of narratives of life experience collected in interviews, we will analyse the question-answer sequence and the justification sequence. As a pre-sequence that prepares the act of question, anticipating possible objections from the interviewee, justification constitutes an argumentative strategy, developed by the interviewer, at the service of interactional achievement. We will also study the interviewees' answers followed by justification, specifically those at the service of the mitigation of epistemic values, representing a strategy of mitigation and softening what is being said in the propositional content of the answer, reducing the epistemic obligations of the interviewee.

Turn-taking, timing, and planning in early language acquisition.

Young children answer questions with longer delays than adults do, and they don't reach typical adult response times until several years later. We hypothesized that this prolonged pattern of delay in children's timing results from competing demands: to give an answer, children must understand a question while simultaneously planning and initiating their response. Even as children get older and more efficient in this process, the demands on them increase because their verbal responses become more complex. We analyzed conversational question-answer sequences between caregivers and their children from ages 1;8 to 3;5, finding that children (1) initiate simple answers more quickly than complex ones, (2) initiate simple answers quickly from an early age, and (3) initiate complex answers more quickly as they grow older. Our results suggest that children aim to respond quickly from the start, improving on earlier-acquired answer types while they begin to practice later-acquired, slower ones.

Displaying knowledge through interrogatives in student-initiated sequences

This article presents an analysis of student initiatives in whole-class interactions. While prior research on question–answer sequences in classroom interactions has shown students to be rather passive recipients of knowledge, this article focuses on aspects of classroom interaction where students take a more active role. Following a conversation analytical approach to classroom interaction, this study investigates how students use interrogatives to initiate interactional sequences. The study draws on video recordings of 50 lessons, each about 45 min long, from three different upper secondary classrooms in Norway. It is argued that through the utterance design of the initiating interrogatives, the students present themselves as ‘someone who knows something’. The initiating interrogatives display epistemic stance (e.g. Heritage 2012a, b) in different ways; consequently, the student-initiated interrogative sequences perform different types of actions, from requests for clarifications to potential corrections. Thus, the student-initiating sequences contribute to both the topical and interactional development of whole-class interactions. This study contributes to the research field of classroom interaction as it nuances the interactional and epistemic asymmetry of classroom interaction; it also investigates a less examined interactional structure in classrooms: the student-initiated sequence.

Nieuwsfilmfragmenten in politieke televisie-interviews in talkshows

Abstract News video clips in political interviews in TV talk shows. A conversation analysis of the effects of the screening of a film on the first question-answer sequence This contribution deals with the effects of the increasing use of video clips on television interviews with politicians, in particular concerning the realisation of question-answer sequences after the screening of a video clip. It investigates how these clips support interviewers to achieve their main goal: to solicit newsworthy information in a manner that is comprehensible and attractive to TV viewers. A corpus of interview excerpts with video clips in a Dutch daily late-night talk show demonstrates that video clips can be an addition to or even a substitution of verbal options to fulfil five functions of political interviewer talk. It is shown how video clips are able to establish and disclose shared knowledge (common ground), secure topical focus, help maintain interviewer-neutralism, amplify the ‘liveliness’ of the interview and prevent politicians from being evasive in adversarial cases.

A simple da?: Affirming responses to polar questions in Russian conversation

This article examines affirming answers to polar (yes/no) questions in Russian, that is, responses that confirm or agree with the propositional content of the question. Drawing on a corpus of telephone conversations and using the methodology of Conversation Analysis, I analyze question-answer sequences that are initiated by polar interrogatives whose focal action is to seek information or confirmation of a particular state of affairs. In Russian, a simple affirmation can be accomplished via either a response token (da ‘yes’ or net ‘no’) or a repetition of the question's focal element (“echo repeat”). The article first examines responses that simply affirm the informational content of the question. Then, I analyze three ways in which affirmative responses may resist the question: by conveying an incongruent evaluative stance, an incongruent epistemic stance, or by disattending its action implications. This article sheds light on the organization of questioning and answering in Russian conversation and advances our understanding of agreement as a social action more generally.

Why Do We Think Politicians Are So Evasive? Insight From Theories of Equivocation and Deception, With a Content Analysis of U.S. Presidential Debates, 1996-2012

Politicians have a reputation for deception. Instead of blaming the politicians themselves, equivocation theory directs our attention to the situation in which politicians are asked questions. We draw on recent theories of deception detection—truth-default theory and information manipulation theory 2—to propose that a reason we think politicians are so evasive might be because, ironically, we believe them when they accuse their opponents of evasiveness in equivocal situations. We perform a content analysis of the question–answer sequences ( N = 810) in U.S. presidential debates 1996 to 2012. Our results indicate that politicians accuse each other of evasion to a significant degree. Meanwhile, they are not necessarily dodging questions to the extent that their overt allegations suggest. This study demonstrates how the predictions of equivocation theory and deception detection theories apply to the domain of U.S. presidential debates.

LEARNER INITIATIVES ACROSS QUESTION-ANSWER SEQUENCES: A CONVERSATION ANALYTIC ACCOUNT OF LANGUAGE CLASSROOM DISCOURSE

This paper investigates learner-initiated responses to English language teachers’ referential questions and learner initiatives after teachers’ feedback moves in meaning-focused question-answer sequences to analyze how interactional practices of language teachers, their initiation and feedback moves, facilitate learner initiatives. Classroom discourse research has largely neglected learner initiative in this pedagogically crucial arena. Addressing this pedagogical issue and drawing on sociocultural theory and situated learning theory, this qualitative study focuses on meaning-focused question-answer sequences to understand whether unfolding sequences, as structured by teachers, solicit learner-initiated participation. The data come from 10 videotaped and transcribed lessons from seven English teachers and their intermediate level students, at four private language institutes in Iran, which were analyzed within conversation analysis framework. Based on detailed analysis of classroom episodes, a very small number of learner initiatives was uncovered. The analysis revealed that several interactional practices by teachers (addressing the whole class, extending wait-time, encouraging student-student interaction, acknowledging response, giving positive feedback, and using continuers) tend to prompt learners’ initiation and learners can also create learning opportunities for themselves (following silence or following their own or other initiation). To characterize the findings, a typology of interactional acts that prompt solicited and unsolicited learner initiation is also provided. Some episodes are analyzed and the implications for teachers and teacher educators are also discussed.

Effect of question design on dietary information solicited during veterinarian-client interactions in companion animal practice in Ontario, Canada.

To establish the types of initial questions used by veterinarians in companion animal practice to solicit nutritional history information from owners of dogs and cats, the dietary information elicited, and the relationship between initial question-answer sequences and later nutrition-related questions. Cross-sectional qualitative conversation analytic study. 98 appointments featuring 15 veterinarians drawn from an observational study of 284 videotaped veterinarian-client-patient visits involving 17 veterinarians in companion animal practices in eastern Ontario, Canada. Veterinarian and client talk related to patient nutrition was identified and transcribed; conversation analysis was then used to examine the orderly design and details of talk within and across turns. Nutrition-related discussions occurred in 172 visits, 98 of which contained veterinarian-initiated question-answer sequences about patient nutritional history (99 sequences in total, with 2 sequences in 1 visit). The predominant question format used by veterinarians was a what-prefaced question asking about the current content of the patient's diet (75/99). Overall, 63 appointments involved a single what-prefaced question in the first turn of nutrition talk by the veterinarian (64 sequences in total). Dietary information in client responses was typically restricted to the brand name, the subtype (eg, kitten), or the brand name and subtype of a single food item. When additional diet questions were subsequently posed, they typically sought only clarification about the food item previously mentioned by the client. Results suggested that question design can influence the accuracy and completeness of a nutritional history. These findings can potentially provide important evidence-based guidance for communication training in nutritional assessment techniques.

Turn-timing in signed conversations: coordinating stroke-to-stroke turn boundaries.

In spoken interactions, interlocutors carefully plan, and time their utterances, minimizing gaps and overlaps between consecutive turns. Cross-linguistic comparison has indicated that spoken languages vary only minimally in terms of turn-timing, and language acquisition research has shown pre-linguistic vocal turn-taking in the first half year of life. These observations suggest that the turn-taking system may provide a fundamental basis for our linguistic capacities. The question remains, however, to what extent our capacity for rapid turn-taking is determined by modality constraints. The avoidance of overlapping turns could be motivated by the difficulty of hearing and speaking at the same time. If so, turn-taking in sign might show greater toleration for overlap. Alternatively, signed conversations may show a similar distribution of turn-timing as spoken languages, thus avoiding both gaps and overlaps. To address this question we look at turn-timing in question–answer sequences in spontaneous conversations of Sign Language of the Netherlands. The findings indicate that although there is considerable overlap in two or more signers’ articulators in conversation, when proper allowance is made for onset preparation, post-utterance retraction and the intentional holding of signs for response, turn-taking latencies in sign look remarkably like those reported for spoken language. This is consistent with the possibility that, at least with regard to responses to questions, speakers and signers follow similar time courses in planning and producing their utterances in on-going conversation. This suggests that turn-taking systems may well be a shared cognitive infrastructure underlying all modern human languages, both spoken and signed.

亲子阅读中成幼问答式会话序列组织结构分析

2岁至4岁幼儿与成人故事阅读片段的会话分析研究表明，2岁左右幼儿有时还不能真正理解并对提问作出应答，与成人会话主要是简单的短相邻对结构；3岁左右幼儿基本具备问答序列组织模式，能应用一定的言语交际策略对会话参与者提出的问题和要求作出应答，常直接使用他启修正体现自发的、本能的角色对等性要求和自我定位意识，因而，会话中出现较多的扩展结构；4岁左右的幼儿具备完善的问答序列组织模式，理解和表述更具逻辑条理性，故事阅读的会话序列中常出现非最小后扩展。可见，根据幼儿言语交际技能的变化，成人要相应的调整会话策略，以促进幼儿言语交际和社会化功能的发展。 The analysis of adult-child conversation during story-reading indicated that a child, between 2 and 3 years, could learn the question-answer sequences, and preferred simple and small adjacency pairs. It was not until the fourth year that recognition of being accountable for a meaningful answer became evident. More interaction tragedies would be used in conversation by 3-year-old children, such as inter-expansion and direct other-repair in appropriate response to the adult’s request, which meant awareness of self-position and social asymmetry. According to context and non-minimal post-expansion, advanced answers were noted in a 4-year-olde child’s story-reading discourse. Concluding comments suggested that more competent talking patterns should be formulated to promote the development of children’s conversation skills.

Sequence-Closing “Yeah” and Epistemics: Third-Turn “Yeah” Following Question-Answer Sequences

Sequence-Closing “Yeah” and Epistemics: Third-Turn “Yeah” Following Question-Answer Sequences

Leaning and recipient intervening questions in Mandarin conversation

In naturally occurring conversation, the recipient not only listens to the speaker, but also actively participates in the construction and negotiation of the ongoing talk. The recipient sometimes intervenes into the speaker's turn before it is brought to a possible completion, and one practice is initiating questions related to the ongoing talk. These questions have no direct contribution to the progress of the current project, and they impede the progressivity of the speaker's turn. While most research on recipient interventions focuses on the structure and function of the intervening sequences, this study examines the body movements involved in the production of the recipient interventions. Drawing on the methodology of conversation analysis and interactional linguistics, this article explores the role of body movements in the production of recipient intervening questions in Mandarin face-to-face conversation. A recurrent pattern of body movement co-occurs with the recipient intervening questions. That is, the recipient leans toward the speaker when initiating the question and holds the leaning body until the response is provided. Leaning visually displays the recipient's orientation to his/her question as disjunctive and disaligned with the speaker's ongoing turn and activity in progress. Holding of the lean is a resource usable by the recipient to mobilize response to the intervening questions. This study shows that leaning is relevant to the organization of the recipient intervening question–answer sequences in Mandarin conversation.

The case for multimodal analysis of atypical interaction: Questions, answers and gaze in play involving a child with autism

Conversation Analysis (CA) continues to accrue interest within clinical linguistics as a methodology that can enable elucidation of structural and sequential orderliness in interactions involving participants who produce ostensibly disordered communication behaviours. However, it can be challenging to apply CA to re-examine clinical phenomena that have initially been defined in terms of linguistics, as a logical starting point for analysis may be to focus primarily on the organisation of language (“talk”) in such interactions. In this article, we argue that CA’s methodological power can only be fully exploited in this research context when a multimodal analytic orientation is adopted, where due consideration is given to participants’ co-ordinated use of multiple semiotic resources including, but not limited to, talk (e.g. gaze, embodied action, object use and so forth). To evidence this argument, a two-layered analysis of unusual question-answer sequences in a play episode involving a child with autism is presented. It is thereby demonstrated that only when the scope of enquiry is broadened to include gaze and other embodied action can an account be generated of orderliness within these sequences. This finding has important implications for CA’s application as a research methodology within clinical linguistics.

Responding to children’s answers: questions embedded in the social context of early childhood education

This article presents analysis of question–answer sequences during problem inquiry between a teacher and two children in an early childhood crèche in New Zealand. Conversation analysis is used to reveal which questions the teacher asks, how children answer the questions, and the teacher’s responses to the child’s answers. Although adults’ ‘effective’ questions were identified and promoted in the REPEY study much less attention has been given to how adults respond to children’s answers. It is imperative to investigate the sequences of talk which follow a question in order to establish how teaching and learning is co-constructed in context, one utterance at a time and as a joint project between teacher and child. The findings suggest that task problems and emotional problems are treated in a similar way during problem inquiry, highlighting the complexity of interactions when teachers are providing both emotional care and educational support for young children.

Mutual adaptation in parent-child interaction

During the early years a young child gradually becomes a member of a culture by learning how to understand and then produce relevant social practices – particularly through interaction in conversation. This paper examines how one child adapts to the practices surrounding the production of questions and answers. Adopting a longitudinal case-study approach and employing conversation analysis, consideration is given to the question-answer practices this child produces during asymmetric conversations across the period when she is acquiring conversational skills (from 12 months to 3 years 7 months). Through a micro-analytic examination of extract examples across this period, it becomes clear that although initially a child can learn the format of question-answer sequences, it is not until the third year that some recognition of being accountable for the form of an answer becomes evident. Between the ages of 2 and 3, we observe that this child is called to account for answers that are deemed inappropriate or odd. Concluding comments consider these practices as forms of social adaptation within asymmetric interactive contexts. Keywords: child-parent-interaction; asymmetric interaction; learning conversational skills

Two preferences in question–answer sequences in language classroom context

Discussing two preferences associated with question–answer sequences, this study examines student responses to teacher questions in primary school English-as-a-foreign-language classes. The paper starts out with a reconsideration of institutional context, with a focus on classroom context from a conversation analysis perspective. We then introduce two generic preferences related to question–answer sequences: the preference for progressivity and the preference for a selected recipient to speak. Turning to our analyses of 22 primary school English classes in Japan, we found that unlike mundane conversation and some other contexts of institutional interaction, the participants prioritised the preference for a selected student to respond over the preference for progressivity, although the co-existence of the two preferences appeared to be context-free.

Pursuing Answers to Questions in Broadcast Journalism

When an individual issues a question, an answer is normatively expected. If an answer is not produced, the questioner may pursue it. However, sometimes it is not the absence of an answer that is at issue but whether that answer is deemed adequate (i.e., fitted to the action and/or topical agenda set by the question). Broadcast interactions (e.g., news interviews, political debates) are a perspicuous environment for investigating sequences in which responses to questions are provided but not always treated as answers. This article investigates how pursuits of answers are designed and what they accomplish within such contexts. Three key elements of a pursuit's design are described: namely, its recognizability as a pursuit; its fittedness to the previous response; and its sanctioning implications. The analysis sheds light on a central means by which individuals can hold others accountable for responding and by which a specific form of trouble in question-answer sequences is repaired.

Agency in response: The role of prefatory address terms

Although sequence-initiating or first actions normatively constrain what is done in response, there are various methods through which interactants manage to exert agency from within the sequence-responsive position. One such method operates at the level of action selection, as when interactants produce disaligning or dispreferred responses that were not solicited by the prior action. Another method operates at the level of the framing of action, as when the response (whether aligning or disaligning, preferred or dispreferred) is portrayed as motivated independently of the prior action. This paper examines prefatory address terms as a resource by which responses can be cast as independently motivated rather than sequentially occasioned, acquiescent, or coerced. It also explores how the generic sense of “independence” achievable through this practice is particularized in specific cases, how it inflects the character of the action in progress, and bears on self-presentational and relational concerns. Particular attention is devoted to request sequences and the portrayal of services as offered rather than granted, and question–answer sequences and the portrayal of claims as volitional rather than acquiescent.

Asking different types of polar questions: The interplay between turn, sequence, and context in writing conferences

Using video recordings of one-on-one writing conferences as data, this conversation analytic study provides a sequential analysis of student-initiated question–answer sequences and demonstrates that the building of social interaction is contingent upon the composition of a turn as well as its position in the larger sequence. In particular, the article focuses on the distinct sequential environments in which students use yes/no interrogatives and yes/no declaratives. In the context of writing conference, the epistemic asymmetry between the participants is made relevant throughout the session; in general, the teacher is in a more knowledgeable position, whereas the student is in a less knowledgeable position concerning writing practices. Nonetheless, students invoke a different degree of knowledge gap between the participants by using different forms of polar questions. This article illustrates how students convey their epistemic positions with different syntactic structures and how such distinct positions are ratified in the unfolding sequence. The analysis of this study contributes to finding new aspects of question–answer sequences and pedagogical practices.