Page 63 - Gabrijela Kišiček and Igor Ž. Žagar (eds.), What do we know about the world? Rhetorical and argumentative perspectives, Digital Library, Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana 2013
P. 63
umentation as poliphony: one speaker, several voices 63
(16) A: Are you coming?
B: I promise to come.
Perhaps in some Greek tragedy, but not in everyday conversation.
There is something not quite right; either there is too much of somet hing,
or else something is missing. What is my point, then?
The most common answer to question (15) – if we remain in the af-
firmative register – would undoubtedly be, either:
(17) Yes
or
(14’’) I am coming,
but hardly (14’). If we answer by (14’) there is, in its relation to the ques-
tion, a dissymmetry, a surplus in our answer, a surplus which indicates
that something may be missing in the conversation string. Let us compare
the following two bits of conversation:
I II
(16’) A: Are you coming? (16) A: Are you coming?
B: I am coming. B: I promise to come.
What is the difference between the two? In the first version, B gives
a straightforward answer to A’s question, confirming his/her arrival. In
the second version, B does not give a straightforward answer to A’s ques-
tion, but performs an act of promise, thus solemnly obliging him/herself
to come. What does this (difference) mean?
If one observes more closely B’s answer in the second vers ion, one no-
tices that B does not answer A’s question at all. A did not ask him/her
to promise to come, but only whether s/he was coming or not. It thus
becomes obvious that in the second version, B is answering some other
question, that B is reacting to some other (previous) intervention in the
conversation, which is absent from the given fragment of conversation,
but is interpretatively presupposed by the presence, by the very utterance
(the very use) of the performative prefix.
The “basic structure” of the second version of the dialogue should
have therefore been polylogical, and not only dialogical, something we
could reconstruct as follows:
(16’’)A: We are throwing a surprise party tomorrow evening.
Are you coming?
B: Yes, I am.
C: That would be a surprise! You never come!
B: I promise to come.
(16) A: Are you coming?
B: I promise to come.
Perhaps in some Greek tragedy, but not in everyday conversation.
There is something not quite right; either there is too much of somet hing,
or else something is missing. What is my point, then?
The most common answer to question (15) – if we remain in the af-
firmative register – would undoubtedly be, either:
(17) Yes
or
(14’’) I am coming,
but hardly (14’). If we answer by (14’) there is, in its relation to the ques-
tion, a dissymmetry, a surplus in our answer, a surplus which indicates
that something may be missing in the conversation string. Let us compare
the following two bits of conversation:
I II
(16’) A: Are you coming? (16) A: Are you coming?
B: I am coming. B: I promise to come.
What is the difference between the two? In the first version, B gives
a straightforward answer to A’s question, confirming his/her arrival. In
the second version, B does not give a straightforward answer to A’s ques-
tion, but performs an act of promise, thus solemnly obliging him/herself
to come. What does this (difference) mean?
If one observes more closely B’s answer in the second vers ion, one no-
tices that B does not answer A’s question at all. A did not ask him/her
to promise to come, but only whether s/he was coming or not. It thus
becomes obvious that in the second version, B is answering some other
question, that B is reacting to some other (previous) intervention in the
conversation, which is absent from the given fragment of conversation,
but is interpretatively presupposed by the presence, by the very utterance
(the very use) of the performative prefix.
The “basic structure” of the second version of the dialogue should
have therefore been polylogical, and not only dialogical, something we
could reconstruct as follows:
(16’’)A: We are throwing a surprise party tomorrow evening.
Are you coming?
B: Yes, I am.
C: That would be a surprise! You never come!
B: I promise to come.
