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Part of
Enabling Human Conduct: Studies of talk-in-interaction in honor of Emanuel A. Schegloff
Edited by Geoffrey Raymond, Gene H. Lerner and John Heritage
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 273] 2017
► pp. 79–104

Responses to Wh-question challenges

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This chapter builds on my previous studies of wh-questions that convey reversed polarity assertions, for example, “When have I.” used to convey “I never have” (Koshik 2003;2005). These questions challenge the grounds for a prior claim or action, suggesting that there is no basis for that claim or action and the question is therefore unanswerable. This chapter focuses on responses to these challenges. At times questioners leave no sequentially appropriate space for a response. However, when recipients do respond, responses that reject the challenge provide grammatically type-conforming answers to the questions, treating the questions as answerable. Responses that align with the challenge either treat the question as unanswerable or they accept or agree with the assertion conveyed by the challenge.

Keywords: conversation analysis, reversed polarity questions, wh-questions, responses to challenges
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Reversed polarity questions
    • 1.2Type-conforming and non-conforming responses
  • 2.No sequentially appropriate slot for response
  • 3.Non-conforming responses that align with the challenge
    • 3.1Accepting the challenge
    • 3.2Agreeing with the challenge
    • 3.3Agreeing with a challenge to a non-present party
    • 3.4Treating the question as unanswerable
  • 4.Rejecting the challenge with type-conforming responses
    • 4.1Rejecting the challenge by answering the question
    • 4.2Backing down
  • 5.Type-conforming joke response
  • 6.Summary and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 24 May 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.273.05kos
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