Yes–No Questions in the Third-Turn Position: Pedagogical Discourse Processes

Abstract

Yes–No (Y/N) questions are distinctive in calling for a bipolar response. Some Y/N questions predispose one answer over the other. Conversation analysts have examined the sequential relevance of this predisposition and found the institutional character of social actions enacted in Y/N questioning processes. Classroom interaction is one such setting in which the use of Y/N questions displays distinctive work practices by teachers. Particularly notable is how Y/N questions are located in the third-turn position in the three-turn sequence. Based on transcribed data selected from 36 hours of English as a Second Language sessions at U.S. universities, this study demonstrates that Y/N questions are used for pulling into view interpretive resources that are already in the room for students to recognize. At the heart of this contingent work by the classroom teacher is the way in which prior sequences are treated as relevant to the actions being performed in the current sequence.

Notes

¹See Koshik (2002, p. 1853–1854) for a more detailed discussion of Bolinger's argument (1957).

²See the appendix for transcript notations.

³This is also called a “triadic dialogue” (Lemke, 1990; Nassaji & Wells, 2000).

⁴This type of question is also known as a “display question” in applied linguistics (Lee, 2006; Long & Sato, 1983; Nunn, 1999) and “question with a known answer” in the education literature (Macbeth, 2000). Searle (1969) called this a “test question.”