CLAUSE AS EXCHANGE
4.1 The nature of dialogue
In the last chapter we set out an interpretation of the clause in its function as amessage, analysing it as a two-part structure with the elements Theme and Rheme. We shall now turn to another aspect of the meaning of the clause, its meaning as an exchange. Here the principal grammatical system is that of MOOD (for a simple version of this system, see Chapter 1, Figure 1-9 on p. 23).
Simultaneously with its organization as a message, the clause is also organized as an interactive event involving speaker, or writer, and audience. Let us use the term ‘speaker’ as a cover term for both speaker and writer. In the act of speaking, the speaker adopts for himself a particular speech role, and in so doing assigns to the listener a complementary role which he wishes him to adopt in his turn (see Halliday, 1984a; Martin, 1992: Chapter 2). For example, in asking a question, a speaker is taking on the role of seeker of information and requiring the listener to take on the role of supplier of the information demanded. Here is a short extract from a conversation between a mother and her nine-year-old daughter:
Text 4-1
Daughter: Mummy, Boof keeps scaring me. Keeps getting into my bed, and kind of like he’s going to bite me.
Mother: He won’t bite you, darling.
Daughter: Well, I’m still afraid of him ’cause he’s bitten me.
Mother: Just push him off.
Daughter: I’m trying really hard but he doesn’t go off.
Mother: Boof, you stay away from Jana.
Daughter: I’m scared because I’ve had an experience where Boof has bit me.
Mother: When?
Daughter: When I was young at Bay’s house, I was swimming and he jumped up and bit my bum.
Mother: Oh, yeah. All right, we’re gonna — (Text 78)
Like all interactants, mother and daughter ‘co-author’ the text: they take turns at this interactive process, each time adopting a speech role and assigning a complementary one to the other, as in . . .where Boof has bit me. — When? — When I was young . . . .
The most fundamental types of speech role, which lie behind all the more specific types that we may eventually be able to recognize, are just two: (i) giving and (ii) demanding.
Either the speaker is giving something to the listener (a piece of information, for example, as in Boof keeps scaring me) or he is demanding something from him (as in When [has Boof bit you]?). Even these elementary categories already involve complex notions: giving means ‘inviting to receive’, and demanding means ‘inviting to give’. The speaker is not only doing something himself; he is also requiring something of the listener. Typically, therefore, an ‘act’ of speaking is something that might more appropriately be called an interact: it is an exchange, in which giving implies receiving and demanding implies giving in response.
Cutting across this basic distinction between giving and demanding is another distinction, equally fundamental, that relates to the nature of the commodity being exchanged: see Figure 4-1. This may be either (a)goods-&-servicesor (b) information. Examples are given in Figure 4-2.
If you say something to me with the aim of getting me to do something for you, such as ‘kiss me!’ or ‘get out of my daylight!’, or to give you some object, as in ‘pass the salt!’, the exchange commodity is strictly non-verbal: what is being demanded is an object or an action, and language is brought in to help the process along. This is an exchange of goods-&-services. But if you say something to me with the aim of getting me to tell you something, as in ‘is it Tuesday?’ or ‘when did you last see your father?’, what is being demanded is information: language is the end as well as the means, and the only answer expected is a verbal one. This is an exchange of information. These two variables, when
T h e n a t u r e o f d i a l o g u e
Commodity exchanged
role in exchange (a) goods-&-services (b) information
(i) giving ‘offer’ ‘statement’
would you like this teapot? he’s giving her the teapot
(ii) demanding ‘command’ ‘question’
give me that teapot! what is he giving her?
Fig. 4-1 Giving or demanding, goods-&-services or information
Table 4(1)Speech functions and responses
initiation [A/B] response
Expected [C] Discretionary [D]
give [M] goods-&-services [X] offer acceptance rejection
shall I give you this teapot? yes, please, do! no, thanks
demand [N] command undertaking refusal
give me that teapot! here you are I won’t
give [M] information [Y] statement acknowledgement contradiction
he’s giving her the teapot is he? no, he isn’t
demand [N] question answer disclaimer
what is he giving her? a teapot I don’t know taken together, define the four primary speech functions of offer, command, statement and question. These, in turn, are matched by a set of desired responses: accepting an offer, carrying out a command, acknowledging a statement and answering a question. See Table 4(1).
MOVE
INITIATING ROLE
COMMODITY
INITIATION TYPE
RESPONDING TYPE
RESPONDING TYPE initiate
respond give M
demand N goods-and-services X
information Y
open
response request
expected discretionary
statement question A B
C D
C D MX: offer
NX: command MY: statement NY: question
proposal proposition move
(in exchange)
Fig. 4-2 The semantic system of SPEECH FUNCTION
Of these, only the last is essentially a verbal response; the others can all be non-verbal. But typically in real-life situations all four responses are verbalized, with or without some accompanying non-verbal action (Table 4(2)). Examples:
Speaker: Listener (becoming Speaker in his turn):
Would you like this teapot? Yes, I would. No, I wouldn’t.
Give me that teapot! All right, I will. No, I won’t.
He’s giving her the teapot. Oh, is he? Yes, he is. No, he isn’t.
What is he giving her? A teapot. I don’t know; sha’n’t tell you.
Table 4(2)Typical realizations in grammar of speech functions
Initiate: full clause Respond: elliptical clause
AMX (I’ll . . ./shall I . . .?) CMX (yes; do)
BMX (I’ll . . ., shall I?) DMX (no; don’t)
AMY declar CMY (oh; is it?)
BMY declar + moodtag DMY (no it isn’t)
ANX imper CNX (yes; I will)
BNX imper + moodtag DNX (no I won’t)
ANYP interrog: yes/no CNYP (yes/no)
DNYP (don’t know/won’t say)
ANYQ interrog: WH- CNYQ group/phrase
DNYQ (don’t know/won’t say)
In moving into the role of speaker, the listener has considerable discretion. Not only can he give any one of a wide range of different responses to a question, or carry out a command in different ways; he may refuse to answer the question altogether, or to provide the goods-
&-services demanded. The speaker on his part has a way of forestalling this: he can add a (mood) tag, which is a reminder of what is expected, for example will you?,isn’t he?, as in:
Give me that teapot, will you? He’s giving her the teapot, isn’t he?
This is the function of the tag at the end of the clause. It serves to signal explicitly that a response is required, and what kind of response it is expected to be.
As long as what is being exchanged is goods-&-services, the choices open to the listener are relatively limited: accept or reject the offer; obey or refuse the command. He may hedge, of course; but that is merely a way of temporarily avoiding the choice. Now, in the life history of an individual child, the exchange of goods-&-services, with language as the means, comes much earlier than the exchange of information: infants typically begin to use linguistic symbols to make commands and offers at about the age of nine months, whereas
T h e n a t u r e o f d i a l o g u e
it may be as much as nine months to a year after that before they really learn to make statements and questions, going through various intermediate steps along the way (cf. Halliday 1984a). It is quite likely that the same sequence of developments took place in the early evolution of language in the human race, although that is something we can never know for certain. It is not difficult to see why offering and requesting precede telling and asking when a child is first learning how to mean. Exchanging information is more complicated than exchanging goods-&-services, because in the former the listener is being asked not merely to listen and do something but also to act out a verbal role — to affirm or deny, or to supply a missing piece of information, as in:
It’s Tuesday. — Oh, is it?
Is it Tuesday? — Yes.
What day is it? — Tuesday.
What is more significant, however, is that the whole concept of exchanging information is difficult for a young child to grasp. Goods-&-services are obvious enough: I want you to take what I am holding out, or to go on carrying me, or to pick up what I have just dropped;
and although I may use language as a means of getting what I want, the requirement itself is not a linguistic commodity — it is something that arises independently of language.
Information, on the other hand, does not; it has no existence except in the form of language.
In statements and questions, language itself is the commodity that is being exchanged; and it is by no means simple for a child to internalize the principle that language is used for the purpose of exchanging language. He has no experience of ‘information’ except its manifestation in words.
When language is used to exchange information, the clause takes on the form of a proposition. It becomes something that can be argued about — something that can be affirmed or denied, and also doubted, contradicted, insisted on, accepted with reservation, qualified, tempered, regretted and so on. But we cannot use the term ‘proposition’ to refer to all the functions of the clause as an interactive event, because this would exclude the exchange of goods-&-services, the entire range of offers and commands. Unlike statements and questions, these are not propositions; they cannot be affirmed or denied. Yet they are no less significant than statements and questions; and, as already noted, they take priority in the ontogenetic development of language.
Nevertheless, there is an important reason why, when we are considering the clause as exchange, it is useful to look at propositions first. This is the fact that propositions have a clearly defined grammar. As a general rule languages do not develop special resources for offers and commands, because in these contexts language is functioning simply as a means towards achieving what are essentially non-linguistic ends. But they do develop grammatical resources for statements and questions, which not only constitute ends in themselves but also serve as a point of entry to a great variety of different rhetorical functions. So by interpreting the structure of statements and questions we can gain a general understanding of the clause in its exchange function.
We will continue to use the term ‘proposition’ in its usual sense to refer to a statement or question. But it will be useful to introduce a parallel term to refer to offers and commands.
As it happens, these correspond more closely to the everyday sense of the word
‘proposition’, as in I’ve got a proposition to put to you; so we will refer to them by the related term proposal. The semantic function of a clause in the exchange of information is a proposition; the semantic function of a clause in the exchange of goods-&-services is a proposal.