Questions and Epistemic Stance in Contemporary Spoken British English

This volume explores a model of epistemic stance, according to which speakers can communicate each single piece of information either as known/certain or uncertain or unknown. It presents a qualitative analysis of extracts from the Spoken British National Corpus 2014 to support the idea that questions come from two distinct epistemic positions: the Unknowing and the Uncertain; this latter ranges along two poles: Not Knowing Whether and Believing. In the epistemic continuum, Unknowing questions express a lack of knowledge and range from open to closed and dual wh-questions. On the other hand, Uncertain questions express a lack of certainty and range from maximum uncertainty (Not Knowing Whether-questions advancing a doubt) to minimum uncertainty (Believing-questions advancing a supposition). Both Unknowing and Uncertain questions can be directed either at the answerers Knowing or Believing position, depending on their aim. The volume will appeal to scholars concerned with the topic of question design and epistemic stance from a theoretical and analytical perspective, as well as those interested in applying these findings in their teaching practice. Table of Contents 6 List of Tables 13 List of Figures 15 Acknowledgements 22 Introduction 24 Part 1: KUB Model and Conversational Analysis on Questions and Responses 34 1 Knowing, Unknowing, Not Knowing Whether and Believing 35 2 Theoretical Framework, Aims, Methodology 54 Part 2: Unknowing and Uncertain Questions 68 3 Wh-Questions 69 4 Alternative Questions 88 5 Polar Interrogatives 127 6 Tag Questions 148 7 Declarative Questions 156 8 Borderline Questions between Unknowing and Not Knowing Whether 161 9 Questions Addressed toward the Believing Position 178 Part 3: More on Uncertain Questions 206 10 Dubitative Questions 207 11 Rhetorical Questions 233 12 Quantitative Analysis of the Speakers’ Epistemic Positions in a Dialogue 253 Overall Conclusions 278 References 318 KUB Bibliography 334