Problems With Analyses Using Anticipatory Moves (dA1 & dK1)

Martin & Rose (2007: 238):

A third possibility is for exchanges to be initiated by primary actors and knowers who anticipate proffering goods or performing a service by offering first to do so, or anticipate professing information by first alerting their addressee that it is coming. These anticipatory moves in a sense delay the exchange of goods-and-services and information, and so are referred to by Berry as dA1 and dK1 moves (with ‘d’ standing for ‘delay’):

These dK1^K2^K1 sequences can be used in conversation to re-affirm a proposition that needs to be foregrounded, for example as part of an argument amongst Daniel’s comrades about who betrayed him to the authorities.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in terms of SFL Theory, the exchange between the waitress and Hendrik involves two speech functions, offer and command, with the response to the offer ellipsed. A more congruent rendering of the exchange would be:

• Can I get you some wine? (Offer)
• Yes. (response: acceptance)
• Please bring a bottle of your best dry red. (Command)
• I will. (response: undertaking)

Similarly, the exchange between Sannie and Llewelyn also involves two speech functions, command and question, with the response to the command ellipsed. A more congruent rendering of the exchange would be:

• Guess who's here. (Command)
• Okay. (response: undertaking)
• Who's here? (Question)
• Coetzee is here. (response: answer)

Importantly, contrary to the authors' analysis, with the metaphor unpacked, the first move involves goods-&-services ('A'), not information ('K').

See Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 137).

[2] To be clear, the exchange between Luke and Zako involves a rhetorical question: a question asked in order to create a dramatic effect or to make a point rather than to get an answer.

Problems With Obligatory Moves And With Primary vs Secondary Actor/Knowers

Martin & Rose (2007: 237-8):

We can interpret what is going on here as follows, drawing on work by Ventola (1987), who was in turn building on work by Berry (e.g. 1981). Minimally speaking, exchanges consist of one obligatory move. When negotiating goods-and-services, this is the move that proffers the goods or performs the service; when negotiating information, this is the move that authoritatively establishes the facts of the matter.

Berry refers to goods-and-services negotiations as action exchanges, and information exchanges as knowledge ones. And she refers to the person responsible for proffering goods or performing a service as the primary actor, and the person who has the authority to adjudicate information as the primary knower. On this basis, the waitress’s move below is nuclear A1 move, and Sannie’s is Kl:

Berry refers to the dialogue partner for primary actors as a secondary actor, who is the person who receives the goods or has the service performed for them; the secondary knower is the person who receives the information professed by the primary knower. Where exchanges are initiated by the secondary actor (requesting goods-and-services) or the secondary knower (requesting information), we find canonical two-part exchanges like the following:

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in the exchange of goods-&-services, the move that "proffers the goods" or "performs the service" is not the obligatory move, since these can be omitted in an exchange. These moves are responses to commands or offers, and responses are not obligatory. If there is an obligatory move in an exchange, it is the move that brings it into being, the initiating move.

[2] To be clear, this confuses semantics with context. Relations between interlocutors — primary vs secondary actor or knower — are a matter of tenor, the interpersonal dimension of context, the culture as a semiotic system. The moves they enact in an exchange are units in the interpersonal dimension of semantics, the language as a semiotic system.