Heritage2021

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Heritage2021
BibType ARTICLE
Key Heritage2021
Author(s) John Heritage, Chase Wesley Raymond
Title Preference and Polarity: Epistemic Stance in Question Design
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Preference, Polarity, epistemic stance, Question design
Publisher
Year 2021
Language English
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Journal Research On Language and Social Interaction
Volume 54
Number 1
Pages 39-59
URL Link
DOI
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Institution
School
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Howpublished
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Abstract

This article considers the use of negative polarization in polar (yes/no) questions. It argues that question polarity is used to take an epistemic stance toward the probability or improbability of the state of affairs referenced in the question and that taking such a stance is effectively unavoidable. Focusing on negatively polarized questions (NPQs), four main kinds of evidence are adduced that NPQs are associated with the questioner’s stance that the question’s underlying proposition is unlikely: (a) self-repair to reverse or otherwise adjust polarity; (b) evidence from the prior talk from which the question is occasioned; (c) contexts in which a particular state of affairs is relevant but has remained unstated; (d) overall structural organizational features of talk (e.g., conversational closings) that militate against the likelihood of affirmative responses. Finally, the article proposes that question design represents a distinct organizational layer vis-à-vis the preference-organizational characteristics of actions, and it appears to function in distinctive ways in relation to recruitment- and affiliation-relevant questions (e.g., requests, offers, etc.) by comparison with information-seeking questions. Data are drawn from corpora of British and American English conversations.

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