Questioning and Answering Practices across Contexts and Cultures: (323 Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

This book showcases innovative research about the multi-functional and dynamic interrelatedness of questioning and answering practices in institution- and culture-specific interactions ranging from under-explored to extensively researched ones: South-Korean talk shows, Japanese interviews, Chinese news interviews, police-civilian interactions in the USA, Italian interviews and courtroom examinations, Japanese parliamentary debates and Prime Minister’s Questions in the UK Parliament. Challenging the view that questions are asked with the purpose of seeking information and eliciting answers, these studies open up new research avenues through insightful investigations and critical scrutiny that problematize the question-answer paradigm, through which meanings are conveyed, negotiated and/or contested, and through which relationships are established, maintained and/or challenged. Significant findings show that questioning and answering strategies are shaped by the specific norms and constraints of particular communities of practice, while at the same time they are shaping the very same communities of practice. This book will appeal to interdisciplinary scholars and practitioners across the linguistic, media, political, legal and social sciences.

Review :
How and why questioning and answering patterns vary across cultures is a perennial topic for the language sciences. This volume makes an important contribution to this task. It offers innovative explorations of a considerable range of question-answer patterns in institutional genres through empirically diverse and theoretically cutting-edge studies. A most welcome addition to the literature, opening new research avenues. The nine contributions to this volume are well-researched and accessible studies adding to the existing body of literature on questioning and answering practices. The volume is organized in a logical way such that the chapters flow thematically from one to the next, even across the different parts of the book. While this volume could serve as a university-level textbook, several chapters in it could also stand alone as weekly readings. [...] Truly a compelling collection of studies in questioning and answering practices in a refreshingly diverse array of contexts and cultures. This volume provides an introduction to topics that may be unfamiliar to junior scholars, while also laying the groundwork for future work in pragmatics in the variety of contexts and cultures it surveys. Questioning is one of the most pervasive and significant forms of social interaction in all the contexts of our social and civic lives. This volume offers a rich set of studies of language- and culture-specific questioning practices. An impressive and insightful, culturally eclectic, collection, guided by Cornelia Ilie’s immense experience and scholarship in this field. Why should you definitely read this book? Here is the answer: It is a compelling collection of theoretically and empirically very interesting studies that reveal how question-answer sequences work similarly/differently in various institutions across many cultures. This engaging book bears the mark of Professor Cornelia Ilie’s long-standing expertise in the analysis of questions and answers. It both enhances and sharpens our understanding of the ways in which the acts of asking and answering questions can reinforce, as well as challenge, socio-cultural discourse styles. Undoubtedly, this volume will become a benchmark for the ongoing research literature.