Text types: Texts for social interaction

Overview

Keeping the interaction going

When two or more people construct a text together by taking turns at speaking, the text is called a dialogue or a spoken interaction. People who take part in spoken interactions use turns to keep the interaction going, and when the turn-taking stops the social interaction ends.

There are two main turn-taking patterns:

	two-turn pattern
	three-turn pattern

We use these patterns to initiate a turn and to respond to someone else's turn. 

There are other more dynamic turns we can use to keep the interaction going or to interrupt the interaction. We use these turns to do the following:

	keep track of the turns in the interaction
	challenge someone else's turn

On this page we are going to look at two-turn interaction patterns.

Two-turn interaction patterns

The basic turn-taking pattern in spoken interaction is the two-turn Initiation-Response pattern. In this pattern one speaker takes an initiating turn and another speaker responds, either positively or negatively. We use different kinds of initiating turns depending on whether our interaction is to exchange information or whether our interaction is to exchange a service of some kind.

Exchanging information 

We use these initiating turns when we are giving or asking for information:

	making a Statement
	asking a Question

When the initiating turn is a Statement, we usually use a declarative clause, although we can highlight or emphasise a Statement by using other clause types:

They're too spicy.	(declarative clause)
Remember they're too spicy.	(imperative clause)
Are they spicy or what?	(interrogative clause)

The response might be a positive Acknowledgement or a negative contradiction and is sometimes a clause fragment: 

When the initiating turn is a Question, we usually use an interrogative clause. The response is an Answer, which is usually in the form of a declarative clause, but sometimes only a clause fragment. We use a yes/no interrogative if we want yes or no in the Answer, or a wh interrogative if we want some missing information:

Often speakers respond to a yes/no interrogative with an Answer which is neither exactly yes or exactly no, but somewhere in between:

Although we usually use interrogative clauses to make a Question, we can highlight or emphasise a Question by using other clause types.

Exchanging a service

We use the following initiating turns when we are offering to do something for someone or asking someone to do something for us:

	making an Offer
	commanding or requesting

When the initiating turn is a Offer, we often use an interrogative feeling clause. The response might be an Acceptance, usually a formulaic expression of politeness, but it might also be a Refusal, which is sometimes a formulaic expression of politeness and sometimes a declarative:

If we want to make an Offer more polite, we use a yes/no interrogative with a modal verb, eg would. 

Although we usually use interrogative clauses to make an Offer, we can vary the intensity and politeness of an Offer by using other clause types.

When the initiating turn is a Command, the most straightforward way to make the Command is to use an imperative clause. If the other person agrees to carry out the Command, the response might be simply the action without any words spoken. The action may also be accompanied by a filler response such as OK. The response might also be a Refusal. This is usually a clause fragment:

A Command made with an imperative clause is very direct and can easily sound rude and abrupt if used in the wrong context, for example with someone who is older, or someone we don't know very well. If we want to make a Command more polite and turn it into a Request, we usually use a modal interrogative. Note that the responses to a Request can also be fine-tuned to make them more polite:

We can vary the intensity and politeness of a Command or Request by using other clause types.

When we make Requests we often do quite a lot of fine-tuning of our language in order to be polite. This is because Requests are really Commands in disguise. To disguise a Command we do the following:

	add a politeness marker, eg please
	use an interrogative clause instead of an imperative clause
	add a modal verb

For example the polite Request, Can I have one, please? can be fine-tuned to make it even more polite. Below is a progression of increasingly polite Requests. As these examples illustrate, to make a request more polite the speaker makes the beginning of the clause do more work.

	change the modal from can to may:    May I have one please?
	change the modal from present tense to past tense:    Could I have one please?
	begin with a thinking clause:    I wonder if I could have one please?
	begin with a thinking clause with a past tense modal:    Would you mind if I had one?