One Type of Polar, Information-Seeking Question and Its Stance of Probability: Implications for the Preference for Agreement

ABSTRACT

There is little doubt that Sacks’s notion of the “preference for agreement” is generally valid. However, that it is valid does not tell us how it is valid. This article further unpacks the preference for agreement by conversation-analytically grounding one of its many underlying mechanisms. Specifically, this article examines the practice of formatting an action—in this case, a type of information seeking—as a positively formatted polar interrogative without polarity items (e.g., Did you go fishing?). This article demonstrates that doing so enacts a speaker stance that the question’s proposed state of affairs (e.g., that the recipient went fishing) is probable and thus that a response is more likely to constitute affirmation than disaffirmation. Additionally, this article describes the preference-organizational effects of such formatting on some aspects of response construction. Data are gathered from videotapes of unstructured, face-to-face conversations, included 289 interrogatives, and are in American English.

Earlier versions of this manuscript were presented to UCLA’s Center for Language, Interaction, and Culture’s working group (May, 2019) and York University’s Centre for Advanced Studies in Language and Communication (June, 2020). I am indebted to John Heritage for comments on previous drafts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Space prevents an extended review of CA’s conceptualization of stance relative to others’ (for review, see Du Bois, 2007; Englebretson, 2007; Jaffe, 2009; Wu, 2003). From a CA perspective, Wu (2003) defined stance generally as “a speaker’s indication [through vocal, nonvocal, and verbal conduct in interaction] of how he or she knows about, is commenting on, or is taking an affective or other position toward the person or matter being addressed” (p. 3; see also Heritage, 2012).

² The relevancies of social action and turn format are also interdependent insofar as changes in the latter contribute to changes in the former (e.g., Heritage, 2002b).

³ The discrepancy between Robinson’s (2020) 249 cases and the present 289 cases is explained by the fact that, for purposes of measuring response timing, Robinson additionally excluded 40 questions because “they were brought to an initial transition-relevance point … but then extended before a response (verbal, vocal, or nonvocal) was begun.” These questions were retained in the present analysis.

⁴ Just as the focal questions are not normally used to inquire into accountably improbable states of affairs, Heritage’s (1998) analysis of Oh-prefaced responses to inquiry suggests that these questions are also not normally used to inquire into accountably certain states of affairs. Thus, the focal questions may be accountable for inquiring into “merely probable” states of affairs.