Chapter 5 “ Finding Out About Others: the skill of questioning”
The aim of this chapter is to explore the function and effects of various types of questions in different social settings, the kind of things mentioned throughout the chapter is how questions are used in different careers, for example, lawyers, teachers, and doctors. One section of the chapter is titled “Purpose Of Questions” , in this section it states that Bolden ( 2009:122) pointed out: “ Questions and answers are among the most readily recognizable and pervasive ways through which participants achieve and negotiate their communicative goals”. We are told that questions have a variety of purposes but this will depend on the context of the interaction. Different situations that questions could be asked is; teachers to pupils to check their understanding during or after a lesson, doctors to make a diagnosis and salesmen/saleswomen to consumer to asses consumer’s needs and if these need are being satisfied. Also in the chapter, it discusses how in interview style situations questions can be asked to confuse and throw the person being interviewed off guard as they do not know what type of questions will be asked next.
Wilson (1990) states that there is also evidence out there to prove that when a long question is asked, a longer response is tended to be given instead of a short one. I found that I agreed with pretty much all the points being made in the chapter, the biggest difficulty I would say I had would be reading some of the more challenging words that I hadn’t seen before. To help myself out I used an online Education dictionary to help clarify the meanings to which I then wrote down in my notes for future reference.
