Article published In:
Australian Review of Applied LinguisticsVol. 20:1 (1997) ► pp.1–20
Discourse and rank
The unit transaction in the oral interview (or what is the purpose of this conversation anyway?)
The number of ranks required for an adequate discourse analysis may vary between genres and can be explained with reference to the social purpose of that genre. Stages of generic structure were attributed to eight language testing interviews on the basis of apparent interviewer purpose, and this attribution was subsequently justified by the distribution of speech function types and mood choices between them. A problem in analysing the major section of the interview was whether to model it as a group of recurring elements at the level of stage, at the level of exchange, or at an intermediate level. The intermediate level of transaction was adopted, allowing for an model which recognises the common purpose and speech function patterns of the stage but also allows an account of how conversational exchanges group to construct both dialogic and monologic texts with or without the characteristics of other recognisable genres. Such an analysis is especially useful in assessing learners’ ability to engage in extended conversational discourse.
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