Misreading Mood Metaphor in Classroom Discourse

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 67-8):

In this stretch, the Who can tell me? is an interrogative realising a question, and so would typically realise an open proposition – in this case a proposition focusing on who can tell the teacher the answer. However in this instance, a compliant response would not simply involve someone responding with ‘I can’, and leaving it at that. Like in the previous example, what is being aimed at is for someone to tell the teacher why the electron is accelerating (this is clearer if we fill in the ellipsis in the example: Who can tell me why the electron is accelerating?). With the Process in the ranking clause tell, we again have a linguistic service; the teacher is commanding someone to tell them the answer – i.e., this turn also realises a proposal. But as above, the command is to speak, and so the ultimate goal is in fact to give information – i.e., it is negotiation a proposition. This gives us two sets of repositionings.

Reviewer Comments:

This analysis underplays the ritualised conventions of classroom discourse. In this institutional context, Who can tell me? does in fact license the response I can, typically signalled non-verbally through a hand-raise. This is the expected first move in a compliance sequence. The student’s spoken response follows only after being nominated (e.g., Tony?).

By overlooking this, the text misrepresents the staged interactional logic of the exchange. It flattens the process of participation management and role allocation that is central to institutional dialogue.

Acknowledging the ellipsis in this exchange is crucial. The exchange structure might be more accurately represented as follows:

1. Initiation: statement
   The electron by definition is accelerating.

2. Initiation: question
   Why is it accelerating?

3. Initiation: question
   Who can tell me why it is accelerating?
   Response: answer
   (Tony’s hand-raise signals the response I can.)

4. Initiation: command
   Tony tell me why it is accelerating
   realised metaphorically as interrogative:
   Tony can you tell me why it is accelerating?
   Response: undertaking
   It changes direction.

Response: acknowledgement

Right.

What is here presented as “contextual repositioning” is more accurately described as a metaphor of mood: an ellipsed command (tell me) metaphorically realised as an ellipsed polar interrogative (can you tell me?), framed within a recognisable exchange structure.