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論文
Variations of Responses to Negative Yes/No Questions on the
CNN Larry King Live ShowHARUKAWA, Shuko(University of Hyogo)

１．

Introduction

Many Japanese learners of English regard English negative yes/no questions as the mostchallenging form of question in the English language because the way to answer an English
negative yes/no question is the opposite of the way to answer a Japanese negative question,
which makes it quite easy to make mistakes. Harukawa (2012) illustrated that English
native speakers did not necessarily respond according to the rules of English grammar.
The examples which were found from corpora and from a textbook make it clear that many
English negative yes/no questions were found which were answered with neither “yes” nor“no” to the given proposition, but instead, as an answer to the interrogator’s presupposition.
Also, it was revealed that irregular responses occurred when native speakers responded tonegative yes/no questions which had a negative bias. This irregular method of responding
sometimes happens when an interrogator answers to negative yes/no questions.
Based on the previous study, this communication research using a negative yes/noquestion was done from a new angle. For yes/no questions, the response should always
be either an affirmation or a negation (Leech & Svartvik, 1998). However, in authentic
conversations, yes/no questions are not always answered by “yes” or “no” (Imai & Nakajima,1978). It is not rare to hear a response from a native speaker that begins neither with “yes”
nor “no,” when responding to a negative yes/no question, even though grammatically it
should start with “yes” or “no” and should then optionally be followed by a sentence which
provides more details or additional information. In this study, the forms of the responses tonegative yes/no questions and affirmative yes/no questions in actual conversations will bequantitatively examined. Negative yes/no questions and the responses to these questions
which do not follow the prescriptive grammatical rules will be thoroughly examined andanalyzed from the viewpoint of communication.
２．

Literature Review

The purpose of this section is to review the results of previous studies about English
negative questions and answers, in addition to studies about the communicative aspects ofnegative questions.
In communicative grammar, Leech and Svartvik (1998) compared declarativeand interrogative sentences and analyzed yes/no questions from the perspectiveof communications. They found that responses are caused by both declarative andHARUKAWA, Shuko

28

interrogative sentences in conversation, and the responses give the speaker the informationthat they need (p. 184). For a yes/no question, only one of two answers is possible, anaffirmation or a negation (p. 185). Machida (2010) inspected multiple ways to answer
negative sentences in English. He pointed out that the issue is not simply a conflict between
a negative sentence and a positive sentence. According to Machida, a negative sentence
exists as an expression that shows that the situation described in a positive sentence isassumed to be false. Therefore, negation is an act of denial that denies the entire situationor condition (p. 18).
Horn (1989) and Takahara (2003) referred to the function of negation. A negative yes/noquestion has a complicated function that is interpreted semantically due to other words inthe context (p. 281).
Terakado and Sato (2008) studied the differences between Japanese, English, and Germanin the way of responding to negative yes/no questions. They found that the differences
originate from the speaker’s situational assessment, which becomes a presupposition
when a negative question is addressed. Affirmative interrogatives are the same in English
and Japanese, but for negative yes/no questions, the difference is that in Japanese, whena question is constructed, there is no presupposition that the expected response will beaffirmative (p. 89). They argued that usually an expected situation is expressed as anaffirmative sentence, and a negative sentence appears only when an unusual situationarises. An affirmative sentence usually expresses the way things are or the way that things
exist in a normal situation. However, negation is not merely the opposite of affirmation
because all judgments in language are subject to value judgments, and affirmation andnegation in language are fundamentally dependent on the value judgments of the speaker(p. 97).
Murata and Narita (1996) also argued that the function of negative questions is notneutral. Instead, negative questions are always either positively biased or negatively biased.
When a negative yes/no question has a positive bias, the speaker believes or at least expects
that a positive answer is correct. On the other hand, when a negative yes/no question has anegative bias, the speaker believes or at least expects that a negative answer is correct. For
example, the following three sentences have a negative bias because the interrogators ofthese questions expect that the responses will be negative (p. 7 - 8).
(1) Don’t you believe me?
(2) Can’t you drive straight?
(3) Hasn’t the train left yet? [p. 7 - 8]
A negative bias occurs when the speaker faces a situation in which he/she expects anaffirmative answer, but it is not given. For example, if a person had a very doubtful
expression on his/her face, the other person might say (1) above. This utterance canVariations of Responses to Negative Yes/No Questions on the
CNN Larry King Live Show29

be interpreted as “I thought that you believed me.” This kind of question indicates theinterrogator’s surprise, disappointment, or confusion (p. 8).
Clancy (2002) stated that negative questions are often delivered in stimulusresponse situations. The function of negative questions is often a means of expressing
surprise or disbelief. (p. 88 - 90).
Kodani (2002)

researched through drama how questions and answers are

performed in dialogs. He found that negative questions have two kinds of usages: one
is to confirm the affirmative concept (“yes” is expected) and the other is to confirm
a negative concept (“no” is expected). It is clear which usage is used according to
the context and its situation. The answer is “yes” if the respondent approves of the
proposition, and the answer is “no” if he/she is opposed to the proposition (p. 188 189).
Kamio and Takami (1998) cited to negative questions as one of three special featuresof English utterance style. The “territory theory” states that manifestation of territory
is found in human language (p. 3). For example:(4) a. That lady is my mother.
b. Isn’t that lady your mother?
c. You went to Okinawa last summer.
Sentence (4)a only consist of the information that the speaker knows, but (4)b consistof information that both the speaker and the listener share. On the other hand, (4)cconsists of information that only the listener knows. According to Kamio and Takami,
information belongs to the speaker’s and/or the listener’s “territory” because theinterrogators of these questions expect that the responses will be negative. They
claimed that in negative English questions, the extent of “territory” differs between
the speaker and the listener.
Kamio (1979) argued that the territory theory has an important element in irregularresponses for negative yes/no questions because in English grammar, fundamentally,
when a question is answered with “yes,” it means “correct,” while “no” means“incorrect.” When the territory is shared by the interrogator and the respondent, therespondent who agrees with the content of the proposition answers “yes” to show his/her agreement about whether the proposition is correct or incorrect. In other words,
it sometimes happens that the respondent is affected by the interrogator’s intent andknowledge because they have common information and the respondent already knows
the truth of the proposition when the interrogator asks with a form of a negative
question (p. 213-231).
Bald (1980) surveyed the functions which “yes” and “no” have as responses in English
conversations, what they mean, and the correlations with intonation. Bald found that

HARUKAWA, Shuko

30

with the exception of one type of context, and as long as the choice of intonation does notcounteract it, “yes” and “no” signal agreement and disagreement, respectively, in all of
the instances that they examined (p. 190). He explained that the most neutral context
calling for a response is a yes/no question. However, negative yes/no questions usually
imply surprise or disbelief (p.191). Also, Bald found a tendency that “yes” responses occur
far more frequently than “no” responses. One reason is that there is a preponderance of
positive statements in his data and “yes” usually tends to occur after positive statements.
But another factor is represented by the type of text. For example, an interview situation
prompts the interviewee to agree rather than disagree with the interviewer (p. 190).
In pragmatics of communicative competence, the most influential concepts are the“cooperative principle (Grice, 1975, 1989).” The “cooperative principle” is a principle about
the specific context of an utterance, especially when not expressed with words. In negative
questions, both semantic and pragmatic presuppositions are implied in the speaker’s
utterance. In communication, even in negative questions, the cooperative principle isfundamentally observed by speakers and listeners involved in the dialog. Higashimori and
Yoshimura (2003) recognized that Grice’s cooperative principle is one of the most recognizedtheories in pragmatics. Grice claimed that a normal conversation is generally a collective
action, and that both speaker and listener recognize some purposes and directivity in theirconversation. Although the purposes can change from being clear to unclear, and maychange as the conversation progresses, there are purposes and directivity at each stage of aconversation (p. 25).
The cooperative principle appears in unique ways in conversations. A conversational
maxim is composed of the following four rules which were proposed by Grice (1975, 1989):
1. Maxim of Quality
Be Truth・Do not say what you believe to be false.
・Do not say things for which you lack adequate evidence.
2. Maxim of Quantity
Quantity of Information
・Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current
purposes of the exchange).
・Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
3. Maxim of Relevance・Be relevant.
4. Maxim of Manner
Be Clear ・Avoid obscurity of expression.
・Avoid ambiguity.
・Be brief (avoid being unnecessarily verbose).
・Be orderly.

Variations of Responses to Negative Yes/No Questions on the
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31

Kato (2004) claimed that Grice’s cooperative principle was an epoch-making discovery
because it focuses on conversation as the primary subject. Kato said that Grice deserves
high praise for taking conversation analysis to a new level where it is treated as a dynamic
exchange.
The “relevance theory (Sperber & Wilson, 1986, 1995)” is also influential concept ofcommunication. The relevance theory is the theory that when an utterance is spoken, thelistener will search for meaning, and having found the meaning that fits his/her expectationof relevance, will stop processing the utterance. As Kato (2004) indicated, this theory
emphasizes interpretation of utterances, with the implicatures proposed by Grice (1975,1989). Sperber and Wilson (1986, 1995) proposed a new relevance theory, which is derived
from the inference model proposed by Grice (1975). Kato (2004) stated that fundamentally,
the relevance theory aims to explain how inference functions as an utterance areinterpreted (p. 88). Sperber and Wilson argue that in language communication, the listenerunderstands the speaker’s intentions from inference which is drawn from the context which
was obtained from the interpretation of the linguistic meaning of the speaker. Higashimori
and Yoshimura (2003) also proposed that the relevance theory is a corrected inference model
because inference plays a crucial role in an utterance interpretation (p. 11). Sperber andWilson (1995) proposed a theory of “communicated assumption,” in which transmitting anassumption occurs when both speaker and listener actualize the assumption. Carston (1998)
explained that communicated assumption means that a speaker makes an assumption
so that the listener may take up on the true intentions of the speaker out of various
possibilities of recognition. According to Carston (1998), communicated assumption is an
assumption in which the speaker shows clear intention that the speaker is going to convey
to a listener. Sperber and Wilson (1995) stated that utterances serve as a starting pointof a listener’s inference, and lead towards a certain direction. In verbal communication,
the inference about what the speaker is going to transmit is initiated by an utterance
as a stimulus. In utterance interpretation, Higashimori and Yoshimura argued that thecontributions the linguistic meaning makes are very limited. Consequently, they claimed
that it leads to a new subject of pragmatics and inference playing a more significant role (p.
6).
In rules of conversation, speech- act is equally important as Grice (1975, 1989) and
Sperber & Wilson (1986, 1995). Austin (1962) coined the term ‘speech- act’ and conceived the
speech-act theory as a new norm. It is indicated that the act with utterances was extracted
from the illocutionary force.
locutionary act - the act of saying something
Illocutionary act - making an assertion, giving an order, and promising to dosomething. To execute an illocutionary act is to use a locution witha certain force. It is an act executed in saying something,HARUKAWA, Shuko

32

perlocutionary act - An act is executed by saying something. Notice that if one
successfully executed a perlocution, one also succeeds in executing
both an illocution and a locution.
In the theory of speech acts, attention has especially focused on the illocutionary act, muchless on the locutionary and perlocutionary act. Three classifications of a speech act called
the locutionary act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary act affected the world not only
linguistics but sociology, informatics, and other disciplines as well.
３．

Hypothesis

In this study, the validity of the following hypothesis is examined: In naturalconversations among English native speakers, negative yes/no questions areanswered by various responses without yes/no at a higher rate than affirmative yes/no questions, even though yes/no questions are answered by yes/no grammatically(Leech & Svartvik, 1998). The forms of the responses to negative questions in actual
conversations will be quantitatively examined.
４．

Method of Study

Two hundred affirmative yes/no questions with answers and 200 negative yes/noquestions with answers were extracted from dialogs. The questions were categorized
as to whether the form of each question was “responses with yes/no” or “various
responses without yes/no to question. The conversations for this research were fromthe Larry King Live Corpus, from January 1 to May 10th, 2008.
Conditions of the questions (cf. Imai & Nakajima, 1978):
They must
1. Include a negative word such as “not.”2. Be a yes/no question.
(A clear polar answer is expected when the question is uttered.)
3. Be followed immediately by an answer.
4. Be answered clearly and specifically when the question is in a conversation inwhich several people are engaged.
5. Not be an alternative question which has the word “or.”５．

Results and Analyses

Generally, negative yes/no questions have a much lower frequency of occurrence thanaffirmative yes/no questions. In addition, in many cases, negative yes/no questions became
questions with no answers because they turned out to be self-questioning sentences that the
speaker uttered to him/herself or because the explanations were given by the speaker after theVariations of Responses to Negative Yes/No Questions on the
CNN Larry King Live Show33

question, to either reinforce or reinstate what the speaker tried to ask.
“Sure” and “absolutely” were also common answers, and the questions that transpired
from them were categorized as various responses without yes/no because those answers
were not polar answers. “It does,” “we do,” etc. were also common answers, and the questions
that led to such responses were categorized as responses with yes/no because these answers
imply the answer of “yes.” The results are shown below:
1. Affirmative
yes/no questions:
2. Negative
yes/no questions:

Various responses without yes/no 114 (57.0%)
Responses with yes/no

86 (43.0%)

Various responses without yes/no 147 (73.5%)
Responses with yes/no53(26.5%)

1-1Examples of “Various responses without yes/no to affirmative yes/no questions”① Interviewer: Do you want to hold it?
Interviewee: Feel this here.
② Interviewer: Do they have a pouch?
Interviewee: They have a pouch.
1-2Examples of “Responses with yes/no to affirmative yes/no questions”③ Interviewer: Did you ride a long way?
Interviewee: No. Around the circle once before …
④ Interviewer: Are you saying she is out of it?
Interviewee: No, I would never say that …
2-1Examples of “Various responses without yes/no to negative yes/no questions”
1

Interviewer: Don’t most men feel that way?
Interviewee: Well, there's of course that issue…

2

Interviewer: Hasn’t he now explained it all?
Interviewee: I think this will be coming up in a debate...

2-2Examples of “Responses with yes/no to negative yes/no questions”
3

Interviewer: You’re not afraid?
Interviewee: No, I'm not afraid.

4

Interviewer: Governor, wasn‘t the Democratic party generally regarded
as the party of the little guy?
Interviewee: Yes, they might be.

Affirmative yes/no questions were numerous and appeared in 200 conversations which
met all the conditions between January 1st and February 15th in LKL Corpus. On the other
hand, as for the negative yes/no questions, it took a very long time to extract and review
suitable questions more than four months duration.
A two-way chi-squared test was conducted on the frequencies of responses with yes/no andHARUKAWA, Shuko

34

various responses without yes/no in affirmative yes/no questions and negative yes/noquestions. Table 1 below shows that the frequency of various responses without yes/nowas statistically significant, and within various responses without yes/no, negative yes/noquestions had a greater frequency than affirmative yes/no questions. Also, Table 1 showsthat the difference between various responses without yes/no and responses with yes/noamong negative yes/no questions is larger than the difference between various responses
without yes/no and responses with yes/no among affirmative yes/no questions (χ2 = 12.007,
df = 1, p < .01).
Table 1

Cross-Sectional Models of Answers and Questions

AnswerResponses with
yes/no to

Variousresponses
withoutnmeanRate of Answer
Rate of Questionnmean
Rate of Answer
Rate of Question

QuestionAfﬁrmative
Negative
86
53
69.5
69.5
61.9%
38.1%
43.0%
26.5%
114
147
130.5
130.5
43.7%
56.3%
57.0%
73.5%

yes/noNote. The Rate of Answer shows the number of Responses with yes/no or Various responses
without yes/no as answers in percentage. The Rate of Question shows the number ofAffirmative or Negative responses in percentage.
Because affirmative questions tend to be neutral in the interrogator’s presupposition (i.e.
not biased in presupposition), respondents can respond to them without being affected fromany bias given. However, because negative questions are always biased either affirmatively
or negatively, respondents have a high probability of being affected by the bias. Therefore,
negative yes/no questions were answered by various responses without yes/no at ahigher rate than affirmative yes/no questions.
Before the guests arrive at the studio, they prepare themselves in order to give as muchinformation as possible that is beneficial for their own good within the limited time of the
program. As a result, it can be speculated that the guests of Larry King Live often respondskipping the word “yes” or “no” and instead explain their answers in detail, in an effort togive more information in the limited amount of time available.
The purpose of the Larry King Live television program is not to have a conversation, but
to ask and answer questions. The cast of the program have mixed desires about what theywant to achieve by appearing on the program. They are strongly expected to provide theviewers with a lot of information by responding to the questions instead of having aVariations of Responses to Negative Yes/No Questions on the
CNN Larry King Live Show

35

conversation with the host.
Since the respondents in the TV program such as Larry King Live are conscious of theaudience and of Larry King, their utterances are not ordinary. We cannot find any natural flow ofdaily conversation as playing catch in the conversation. Because broadcasting shows arebasically “unusual” environment as the conversation does not look natural.
Negative yes/no questions are never neutral in presupposition. Instead, they always have
either a positive bias or a negative bias (Murata & Narita, 1996). Thus, since respondents areaware of the expected answer, they usually feel that instead of simply answering “yes” or“no,” it is more important to explain the proposition.
Many instances of responses to negative yes/no questions were found in which the
respondent did not directly answer “yes” or “no.” In fact, the interrogatives which were
responded with “yes” or “no” were rare. Therefore, it was found that the basic rules ofnegative questions such as whether the proposition is correct or incorrect do not always
function. Also, it was found that the rules of negative questions as yes/no interrogatives are
not always observed by native speakers in everyday conversations.
It was revealed that, as I mentioned Bald (1980), he found a tendency that “yes” responses
occur far more frequently than “no” responses. One of the reasons is that an interview
situation prompts the interviewee to agree rather than disagree with the interviewer (p.
190). If an interviewee response is not “yes,” he/she thinks that he/she wants to explain why
the response is not “yes” without directly saying “yes” or “no.”Thus, as a result, there are many cases where yes/no questions do not function
grammatically as to be answered by yes/no. Instead, they function as to be answered byvarious responses without yes/no. In fact, in conversations, negative yes/no questions
prompt more responses without “yes” or “no” than affirmative questions.
However, the results show that contrary to my expectations, among affirmative yes/noquestions, the frequency of responses with yes/no was not as high as I had expected.
The situations in the conversations help account for the high frequency of various responses
without yes/no in both affirmative and negative yes/no questions. Since Larry King Live is a
television program with a very large audience, and it is a talk show with a journalisticemphasis, it is considered that the guests strive to answer all of the questions directly,
considering the program’s potential influence.
６．

Conclusion

In this study, the function of a negative yes/no question was investigated from a
new angle of communication. Harukawa (2012) illustrated that an irregular method of
responding sometimes happens when an interrogator answers to negative yes/no questions.
By analyzing these irregular responses from the viewpoint of communication, many English
yes/no questions were found to have been answered with neither “yes” nor “no” to thegiven proposition, instead they answered the interrogator’s presupposition. Also, it was

HARUKAWA, Shuko

36

revealed that irregular responses occurred when native speakers responded to negative yes/noquestions which had a negative bias.
In this research, the forms of the responses to negative yes/no questions and affirmative
yes/no questions in actual conversations were quantitatively examined. The outcome ofthe hypothesis was that negative yes/no questions are prone to be answered by various
responses with yes/no at a higher rate than affirmative yes/no questions in conversation,even though yes/no questions are supposed to be answered by yes/no grammatically (Leech& Svartvik, 1998). The above hypothesis was quantitatively verified by a chi-squared test .
How often the respondent responded without answering with “yes” or “no” was analyzed.
The results of analyses are that the respondents responded to the interrogator’s
presuppositions as soon as the respondent understood the interrogator’s presuppositions.
Since the respondents in the Larry King Live television program are conscious of theviewers and an influential host such as Larry King, the respondents (especially politicians andentertainers) tend to focus on what they want the viewers to know about them, how their
responses may affect their image, and how honest they are perceived to be, based on their
responses. Therefore, the respondents are keen to find the presuppositions in the questions.
If the respondents respond knowingly according to the interrogator’s intention, they respond to
the interrogator’s presupposition instead of responding to the proposition. For example, inthe case where the presupposition is correct or affirmative, if the respondent’s response is
not “yes,” he/she explains why the response is not “yes” without directly saying “yes” or “no.”It was revealed that, as mentioned in Bald (1980), “yes” responses occur far more frequently than“no” responses. One of the reasons is that an interview situation prompts the interviewee toagree rather than disagree with the interviewer (p. 190). If an interviewee’s response is
not “yes,” he/she thinks that he/she wants to explain why the response is not “yes” without
directly saying “yes” or “no.”This paper revealed that English native speakers sometimes respond to negative yes/noquestions with answers that are not always grammatically correct, according to the rules ofprescriptive grammar. This paper also illustrated that negative yes/no questions are
sometimes answered not by polar answers “yes” or “no”, but by sentences without directly
saying “yes” or “no.”Although it seems that this research has a close relation with speech-act ofAustin (1962),also, politeness of Brown and Levinson (1987), it is necessary to investigate
the concept of them more deeply from now on. It is hoped the better result of research is
obtained about English communication using negative questions, refer to these studies.
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Terakado, S. & Satou, T. (2008). Difference of idea between Japanese, German andEnglish to negative interrogative. Claritas (English language and literatureassociation of Aichi University of Education), 21, 80-98.
Data:
Larry King Live Corpus (Borrowed from Professor K.Yagi at Kwansei Gakuin University)