Triple-Tiered Confusion: Mood Metaphor Masquerading as Context

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 69): 

In this example, the interviewer’s question Can you give us examples of where… involves three positions. At the literal level, it is a polar interrogative realising a complete proposition asking whether or not you can give an answer (Can you give…), which is responded to first by the candidate as yeah (in the right column). This proposition repositions a proposal that demands the candidate give us examples – i.e., a proposal to speak (a linguistic service) – to which the candidate responds second with sure (middle column). But this of course repositions the main aim of the Interviewer’s question which is to ask for information – what are examples of where you have supported colleagues… – an open proposition that the candidate responds to by saying since I’ve been working in my current role… (left column). In doing so, the candidate is negotiating all three interpersonal tiers at once, so as to manage the significant status differential inherent in job interviews.

Reviewer Comments:

This is yet another case of a grammatical metaphor of mood being reframed as a matter of “context” — specifically as a tenor system of POSITIONING, even though “repositioning” itself appears nowhere in the actual system network.

The move in question is straightforward: the interviewer issues a command for a linguistic service, but metaphorically realises it as a polar interrogative. Because grammatical metaphors are junctional constructs (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 283), the clause simultaneously realises both a question and a command, and the candidate responds to each:

• Initiation: command
  Realised metaphorically as interrogative:
  Can you give us examples of where…?

• Response to question: answer
  Yeah, sure.

• Response to command: undertaking
  Since I’ve been working in my current role…

Treating this junctional complexity as “three interpersonal tiers” is unnecessary ornamentation; the systemic-functional explanation is already built into the model of mood metaphor.