出版社：Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto
摘要：Drew and Heritage (1992: 49) note that an important dimension of asymmetry in institutional discourse ‘arises from the predominantly question-answer pattern of interaction.’ This organization, it is suggested, provides little opportunity for the answerer (typically a lay person) to initiate talk and thus allows the institutional representative ‘to gain a measure of control over the introduction of topics and hence of the “agenda” for the occasion.’ In this paper, we critically examine this issue based on data drawn from a 2001 Ontario (Canada) provincial inquiry into the deaths of seven people as a result of water contamination in a small Ontario town. In particular, we argue that the power of cross-examining lawyers does not reside solely in their ability to ask controlling and restrictive questions of witnesses. Rather, we suggest that such interactional control is crucially dependent on lawyers’ ability to compel witnesses to produce straightforward, or what we will call, following Raymond (2003), type-conforming, answers to these controlling and restrictive questions.
