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## Questioning Questions in Language, Culture and Cognition

Simon Borchmann Roskilde Universitet sub@ruc.dk

Sune Sønderberg Mortensen Roskilde Universitet sunes@ruc.dk

Louise Tranekjær Roskilde Universitet

louiset@ruc.dk

## 1. Why question questions?

Th e motivation for questioning questions arose in the research group Language, Culture  and  Cognition  in  2018  when  several  members  were  working  on material that included questions. In this work, a series of problems appeared, including: How do we classify questions based on their functions? What is the cognitive basis of questions? How do we account for the specifi  c functions that questions serve in activity types? Th e problems led to consideration as to whether there was a basis for a broader discussion of questions, and when the group invited to the open symposium Questioning Questions in Language, Culture  and  Cognition ,  it  turned  out  that  there  was  a  widespread  interest within  the  international  linguistic  research  community.  At  the  symposium held at Roskilde University on November 15, 2018, 14 papers were presented, and following the research group's call for papers for a special issue, several new proposals came along - each contributing to the classifi  cation, analysis and characterisation of questions. Th is indicates not only that there is a lively interest in questions, but also that there is a need to discuss and add to the existing  classifi  cations,  analyses  and  characterisations  of  questions.  In  this issue we have gathered the 11 most relevant contributions.

Questions have been investigated within language sciences from pragmatic, cognitive,  functional,  formal,  semantic,  conversation  analytic,  interaction analytic  and  sociolinguistic  approaches.  Question-response  systems  in  a variety of languages have been proposed (e.g. Heineman 2010, Stivers 2010). Indeed, a volume about questions has been published in the series Language, Culture  and  Cognition (de  Ruiter  2012)  (without  relation  to  the  research group at Roskilde University). Yet, the apparent need to discuss and add to the existing research can be seen as a result of a general development of linguistics and, specifi  cally, as a consequence of the specifi  c construal of the juxtaposition language, culture and cognition that provides the framework for this issue.

As  to  the  general  development, the pragmatic turn of the 70's involved a change from a focus on the forms of language to the use we make of the forms. At the same time, the empirical basis expands from limiting itself to a small set of constructed, well-formed sentences to include actual everyday language  use  in  various  forms.  Th ese  alterations  were  accompanied  by  an awareness of the diversity and change of language, both in terms of form and function and in terms of systems (Drucker 2012). Th ereby, the pragmatic turn fostered a series of new linguistic problems. While the fi  rst enlargement of the empirical basis was modest and generally confi  ned itself to literary prose and  conversation  (Linell  2004,  Borchmann  2019),  linguistic  forms  within more and more specifi  c genres, interaction types, institutions and activities were added. In parallel with the continuous expansion of the empirical basis, the analysis of language use develops into sophisticated distinctions between types of meaning, including abstract meaning, entailments, presuppositions, conventional implicatures, general implicatures and particular implicatures, and the linguistic object extends to also include genre and interaction typespecifi  c  meaning.  Th is  expansion  and  refi  nement  have  contributed  to  the recognition  of  the  diversity  of  language  use  and  the  complexity  of  formfunction  relations.  At  the  same  time,  it  raises  a  series  of  new  issues.  Th e pragmatic perspective thus creates a continuous need for new classifi  cations, analyses and characterisations.

All  articles  in  this  issue  can,  in  general,  be  regarded  as  addressing  the problems  that  the  pragmatic  turn  has  created  and  continuously  creates. Th us, the articles focus on the functions of questions. Th e empirical basis for classifi  cations, analyses and characterisations encompasses such diverse genres and types of interaction as psychotherapy, storytelling in aided communication, courtroom interaction, executive coaching, police interviews, political press interviews,  whiteboard  meetings  in  workplace  settings,  news  articles,  and pilot-to-pilot communication in soaring. Th e functions characterised include general functions as well as genre and interaction type-specifi  c functions and activity-crossing functions. Overarchingly, the contributions share an interest in the diversity of language use and recognise the complexity of form-function relations.

## 2. Language, culture and cognition

More specifi  cally, the motivation for questioning questions can be seen as a result of the perspective brought about by the juxtaposition language, culture and  cognition .  Th   is  perspective,  which  characterises  the  research  group Language,  Culture  and  Cognition,  involves  an  understanding  of  cognition that  diff  ers  from  the  one  on  which  cognitive  linguistics  has  been  based. Cognition is not regarded as an abstract and individual mental process, but as a concrete collective process in which the individual participates (Reed 1996). Epistemically,  cognition  is  'neither  copying  nor  construction';  cognition  is 'the process that keeps us active, changing creatures in touch with an eventful, changing  world'  (Reed  1996:13).  Hence,  cognition  is  not  something  that happens to us, but something we do; and it includes not only the use of our brain, but our entire perceptual system, including our eyes, head, body, arms and legs, and the opportunities it off  ers to move around in the environment and create information (Gibson 1986/1979). As a collective process, cognition is  distributed  (Hutchins  1995)  among  people  and  tools,  and  embedded in  more or less well-defi  ned activities or forms of life. Th at  is,  cognition  is a  culture-based  process  (Hutchins  1995).  Th e  basic  linguistic  assumption, then, is that language use is embedded in such culture-based processes and must be explained and described with reference to extra-linguistic  factors, including values   and social norms, culture-specifi  c habits and standards, tools and technologies, knowledge of the world and practical, non-linguistic and pre-linguistic experience and abilities. Th is relation of embeddedness is both functional  and  dynamic.  Th e  functional  aspect  implies  that  the  forms  and patterns we observe are assumed to be as they are because they serve a more or less general function, in a more or less well-defi  ned system. Th e dynamic aspect implies that the use of forms is ontologically primary, and that variance even on very short timescales can cause changes both within the system and of  the  system.  Th is  perspective  does  not,  however,  change  the  ambition  of identifying  regularities  in  form  and  function  and  discovering  systems.  But it  stresses  that  the  above-mentioned  extra-linguistic  factors  must  be  taken into account and, thereby, suggests an interdisciplinary approach relying on linguistics, psychology, sociology and anthropology.

Applying  the  outlined  perspective  to  questions  raises  a  series  of  new problems:  If  cognition  is  a  distributed,  culture-based  process,  what  is  the cognitive basis of questions? What are the functions of questions embedded in such processes? What is the relation between the forms and the functions of such questions? How can questions bring about change in and of systems? Not all the contributions in the issue share the theoretical basis of the outlined perspective, nor do they necessarily address the problems mentioned above in explicit ways. Moreover, since the issue does not strive for terminological uniformity,  in  some  articles  distributed  cognition  is  described  in  terms  of common  ground  management  or  intersubjectivity,  and  in  some  articles functions are described in terms of tasks. However, all the articles contribute to  the  solution  of  the  problems  that  the  perspective  language,  culture  and cognition raises, and as indicated by the cross-references, all the articles take views of one or more of the other articles into consideration.

## 3. Th emes and contributions

Th e  contributions  are  grouped  into  three  sections  under  three  overarching themes. Th e fi  rst section, Class, form and function , includes three contributions that  address  issues  related  to  classifi  cation  and  analysis  of  questions  and identifi  cation of stable relations between form and general functions.

Nielsen presents a systematic classifi  cation of speech acts. Based on four parameters of preparatory conditions, Nielsen expands Searle's rudimentary analysis of questions, and suggests ten distinct types of interrogative speech acts.  Th ereby,  the  article  gives  an  overview  of  the  diversity  of  the  subjectmatter, and raises a number of issues to be scrutinised in the subsequent 10 articles.

Borchmann points to a discrepancy between Searle's analysis of speech acts  and  the  semantic  structure  of  three  questions  in  an  everyday  activity. Tracing  the  discrepancy  back  to  the  cognitive  basis  of  Searle's  analysis, Borchmann  compares  Searle's  theory  of  intentionality  and  perception  to cognitive  ethnographic  observations  of  the  situations  that  gave  rise  to  the three questions. On that basis, Borchmann claims that Searle's analysis is based on intentionality and perception in idle, whereas the semantic structure of interrogative speech acts in an everyday activity is a product of intentionality and perception in operation.

Heim and Wiltschko take a starting point in the diversity of  form  and function  that  characterises  the  phenomenon  associated  with  questionhood within  linguistics.  In  continuation  of  this,  they  propose  a  decomposition of the illocutionary force of questions into two variables: commitment and engagement. Commitment covers the speaker's readiness to publicly commit to  the  truth  of  a  proposition;  engagement  can  be  defi  ned  as  the  speaker's expectation of how the addressee will respond to the speaker's utterance. Th ey then proceed to show how these variables are encoded in English syntax and intonation.

Th e second section, Multifunctionality and context , comprises fi  ve contributions,  four  identifying  and  describing  genre-specifi  c,  interaction type-specifi  c or activity-crossing functions of questions,   and one focusing on deceptive or evasive answers from a verbal as well as non-verbal analytical perspective.

Tranekjær  explores  how  team  leaders  in  an  industrial  laundry  facility use  the  multifunctionality  of  questions  as  an  interactional  resource  to simultaneously ensure, on the one hand, the participation and understanding of migrant employees and, on the other, the progression and effi ciency of the meeting and the production more generally.

Th e  article  by  Mayes  and  Clinkenbeard  also  addresses  the  way  in which questions can be used to manage the opposing agendas of securing intersubjectivity and  progression, though  within  the context of aided communication.  Th ey  show  how  questions  can  be  used  as  a  recipient resource to support and progress the narrative production of speakers with communication disabilities.

Finkbeiner  investigates  how  the  illocutionary  force  of wh -headlines  that is, a specifi  c syntactical form in a specifi  c sequential position - is to be specifi  ed,  and  how it can be accounted for. Finkbeiner suggests an analysis of wh -headlines as both backward- and forward-referring means that fulfi  l the two main functions of headlines, namely, to arouse the reader's interest and to direct the reader's attention to the subsequent text. Th e object is wh -headlines in German; however, a similar phenomenon may be observed in other languages, including English, Swedish, Danish and French.

Collin's case study of simulated investigative interviews in a Danish police training  context  combines  pragmatic,  pragma-dialectical  and  functional grammatical perspectives. Specifi  cally, the study focuses on the functions of reconstructive speech acts in the interviews, i.e. questions involving repetition, paraphrases  or  (re)formulations  of  previous  statements  made  by  the  mock suspects being interviewed. Collin documents  how  the  reconstructive questions  play  an  important  part  in  the  interactional  management  of  the two quite diff  erent activity types going on concomitantly, viz., the interview activity and the training activity.

Archer  illustrates  how  a  multi-channel  approach  to  the  analysis  of questioning, incorporating the study of facial  expressions,  body  movements  and gestures in addition to traditional linguistic and interactional approaches, can generally augment the analysis and be particularly instrumental for detecting and describing deceptive and evasive language use. Investigating questioning sequences  from  two  diff  erent  interview  contexts,  a  police  interview  and  a political press briefi  ng, Archer discusses a variety of salient cues in the verbal and non-verbal behaviour of the interviewees as they respond to potentially incriminating questions.

Th e third section, Systems, variation and change , includes three contributions each suggesting or adopting a global perspective on questioning sequences, and  accounting  for  the  relation  between  the  local  and  the  global  level  of dialogical systems that serve specifi  c purposes.

Graf, Dionne and Spranz-Fogasy make a programmatic argument for an interdisciplinary  approach  to  the  transformative  potential  of  questions  in executive coaching sessions, proposing a model for the analysis of both local and global change patterns, based on the combination of conversation analysis and psychological coaching theory.

Mortensen approaches and challenges the well-described issue of discursive control and coercion in questioning through comparing the uses of questions by  prosecutors  and  lawyers  in  American  and  Danish  trial  examinations. Applying structural-functional as well as pragmatic classifi  cation criteria, close to  800  trial  questions  are  studied  and  analysed  from  both  quantitative  and qualitative  perspectives.  Mortensen  discusses  how  the  observed  diff  erences refl  ect legal cultural diff  erences between USA and Denmark, and diff  erences in how question control and coercion can be understood in the two linguistic and languacultural contexts.

Finally,  Worsøe  and  Jensen's  article  explores  the  change  potential  of questions  in  psychotherapy  sessions  from  an  interactional  and  ecological perspective, providing insight into the way in which the atypical, yet recurrent, phenomenon  of  clients  posing  questions  to  the  therapist  infl  uences  the dialogical and asymmetric relation between the participants.

## References

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- Gibson, James J. 1986/1979. Th e ecological approach to visual perception . New York: Psychology Press.
- Heinemann,  Trine.  2010.  Th e  question-response  system  of  Danish. Journal  of Pragmatics 42, 2703-2725.
- Hutchins, Edwin. 1995. Cognition in the Wild . Cambridge, Massachusetts: Th e MIT Press.
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- Stivers,  Tanya.  2010.  An  overview  of  the  question-response  system  in  American English conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 42, 2772-2781.