CONSTRAINING FORCE OF INTERROGATIVE FORMS

Abstract

This paper deals with a specific kind of work that can be done by means of interrogative forms in face-to-face communication. By using the method of Conversation Analysis we show how participants in conversations can indicate to the interlocutors what kind of response they would ‘prefer– in relation to the action initiated by the first pair part. Some of the more important devices for achieving this effect are: choosing a particular grammatical form over the other, polarity of the interrogative or incorporating expressions which would give an utterance a certain bias. Thus constructed interrogatives are found to be more assertive or more constraining then their neutral variants.