Why Do You Ask?

The act of questioning is the primary speech interaction between an institutional speaker and someone outside the institution. These roles dictate their language practices. "Why Do You Ask?" is the first collected volume to focus solely on the question/answer process, drawing on a range of methodological approaches like Conversational Analysis, Discourse Analysis, Discursive Psychology, and Sociolinguistics-and using as data not just medical, legal, and educational environments, but also less-studied institutions like telephone call centers, broadcast journalism (i.e. talk show interviews), academia, and telemarketing. An international roster of well-known contributors addresses such issues as: the relationship between the syntax of the question and its discourse function; the kind of institutional work that questions perform; the degree to which the questioner can control the direction of the conversation; and how questions are used to repackage responses, to construct meaning, and to serve the institutional goals of speakers. Why Do You Ask? will appeal to linguists and others interested in institutional discourse, as well as those interested in the grammatical/pragmatic nature of questions.

Alice Freed is Professor of Linguistics, Montclair State University.
Susan Ehrlich is Professor of Linguistics, York University, Canada

1.: Susan Ehrlich and Alice F. Freed: The Function of Questions in Institutional Discourse: An Introduction
2.: Jack Sidnell: The Design and Positioning of Questions in Inquiry Testimony
3.: John Heritage: Questioning in Medicine
4.: Alex Hepburn and Jonathan Potter: Interrogating Tears: Some Uses Of 'Tag Questions' In A Child Protection Helpline
5.: Geoffrey Raymond: Grammar and Social Relations: Alternative Forms of Yes/No Type Initiating Actions in Health Visitor Interaction
6.: Elizabeth Stokoe and Derek Edwards: Asking Ostensibly Silly Questions in Police-Suspect Interrogations
7.: Susan A. Speer: Pursuing Views and Testing Commitments: Hypothetical Questions in the Psychiatric Assessment of Transsexual Patients
8.: Irene Koshik: Questions that Convey Information in Teacher-Student Conferences
9.: Janet Holmes and Tina Chiles: Is that right? Questions and Questioning as Control Devices in the Workplace
10.: Cecilia E. Ford: Questioning in Meetings: Participation and Positioning
11.: Srikant Sarangi: The Spatial and Temporal Dimensions of Reflective Questions in Genetic Counselling
12.: Steven Clayman: Questions in Broadcast Journalism
13.: Joanna Thornborrow: Questions and Institutionality in Public Participation Broadcasting
14.: Alice F. Freed: "I'm calling to let you know!": Company Initiated Telephone-Sales
15.: Anna Kristina Hultgren and Deborah Cameron: "How may I help you?" Questions, Control and Customer Care in Telephone Call Centre Talk