Function of rising tag (question)s

[Duncan Powrie]

I've become convinced over the years that rising intonation tags are too "extreme" to function reliably for the purposes of "checking when one is not entirely/over 50% etc sure of the truth of a statement" - falling tags seem sufficient for checking purposes regardless of "percentages sure", why "sit on the fence" when you can either sound surer or just simply use a yes/no question if you're THAT unsure! - that is, that rising intonation tags impart way too much "emotion" to continue being taught as they are without a radical reappraisal of their function (and effect).

The sort of contexts where I imagine rising tags have a role to play are as follows:

[Worried mother to daughter who recently brought home an "undesirable" boyfriend and has intimated she is considering marrying him:] You're not thinking of marrying him, are you?!

[Colleague to another colleague who has just "come out" (said he is gay):] You aren't, are you?!

(Note that the auxiliary, NOT "not", is contracted by the mother - so it is like a veiled imperative).

There is more than "checking" going on here - or, if it is checking, it is of a "last chance" type, affectively VERY loaded!

I just know that EFL materials must be making a real dog's dinner of this area when students (ironically, those who KNOW a lot about me - maybe they were "practising") come up and almost "blow me away" i.e. take my head off with the force of their "questions" thus:

You're from London, AREN'T YOU (?!?!?!)? (Yes, yes, I am, calm down!)...all that is needed here is FALLING intonation, or a soft SINGLE WORD checker like "right" (and I am loathe to put a question mark after that "right"!). By the way, these students are NOT ones that I have taught myself!

I feel I need to review this area again soon, so any thoughts would be appreciated to help me get back into it or avoid reinventing the wheel. I hope I have given you guys a bit more to work with (that is, fulfilled my side of things or got you thinking) a little more than metals56's recent flurry of "exam-style" questions!

I "am coming" from/recall Tsui's English Conversation (in Oxford's Describing English Language series, you know, the range that was kick-started by Sinclair's Corpus Concordance Collocation!) is good (=provocative - she takes on Quirk et al's analyses and seems to come out on top!)...I wish I had my Brazil books with me (but stuff that Jenkins said in The Phonology of English as an International Language has kind of made me wary of him a bit now, not that she was concerned with tags specifically).

Generally, most books, when they discuss tags don't always make the direction of intonation explicit (see, for example, the pathetic treatment given them in the COBUILD Grammar). Hmm Swan is okay, but...any reading suggestions?

[Lorikeet]

An interesting take on tag questions. I don't have the same feeling you do about intensity, though.

You check this board frequently, don't you? (rising intonation--I would expect you to but I'm not sure. I might even be surprised if you didn't.)

You check this board frequently, don't you? (falling intonation--I notice that you post often, like me and figure you must be checking it often. I expect you to agree with me.)

You went out to eat last night, didn't you? (rising intonation--I think you told me yesterday that you were going out to eat, but I'm not sure you actually did it, so I'm checking.)

You went out to eat last night, didn't you? (falling intonation--I tried calling you and no one answered. I even went to your house but the house was dark. )

I'm not sure these are the best examples (I'm just about ready to begin teaching) but I'm sure someone will be able to tear them apart .

By the way, I think this is also something I have heard mentioned as a difference between men's and women's usage in English, in that women (as far as I can recall) seem to use them more than men. Is that something you have noted?

[metal56]

<You're from London, AREN'T YOU (?!?!?!)? (Yes, yes, I am, calm down!)...all that is needed here is FALLING intonation, or a soft SINGLE WORD checker like "right" (and I am loathe to put a question mark after that "right"!). By the way, these students are NOT ones that I have taught myself! >

Duncan

Try teaching falling tags without the question mark at firs, I do-it really shouldn't be there anyway. Also try to get away from decontextualised examples and instead try a bit of the discourse approach i.e. give a prologue to the tags and follow the statements by:

"I thought so."

"I didn't think so."

You could also check out the equivalent forms in the L1, as many languages use the same or similar. Spanish is great for tag learning, it only has "si" or "no".

[Duncan Powrie]

Thank you both for your replies!

Lorikeet, I haven't thought much about gender re. tags, but then, there isn't much in the literature to prompt such speculation, is there(?)! (=I don't think so, and I am sure you will agree with me; falling intonation there, despite the "intensity", although I suppose I could also use a steep rise, but I am UNSURE AS TO WHAT THE FUNCTION WOULD BE IF I DID SO). Where did you get the notion regarding gender differences?

Similarly, I can't quite determine what the function is of "You check this board frequently, ^ don't you? ^", apart from that you might have a problem (i.e. would be "surprised") if I said...no...AHA (sound of penny dropping) maybe the function of a rising tag is to say:

1) You had BETTER do or be doing what is (positively) expressed in the statement preceding the (negative) tag, or, conversely,

2) You'd better NOT be doing what is NEGATIVELY expressed in the statement before the (positive) tag.

Actually, the penny didn't drop just then, I have had this thought many times before and it is now almost a conviction...hence the post...that rising tags just seem to be inviting conflict or challenging way too much for native speakers to use them as often or carefreely as some pedagoical treatments suggest they do (and obviously, the "risks" increase when non-native speakers "have a go").

So, I think I would prefer to not teach rising tags at all, or would only present the type of contexts as in my first post, and then, only at quite a high learner level for mainly receptive purposes. If somebody can convince me that rising intonation is necessary or preferable to single word, relatively "mute" tags (as per Spanish, good point metal!) or yes/no questions (really "asked", with uncertainty/hesistancy plainly signalled by facial expression, quavering of voice etc), I may change my mind...

Just a few more thoughts...(answers to) negative questions come into the picture also...and falling intonation tags can "coerce" or "force" just as much as rising, but seem much less confrontational about it!!

Ultimately there just don't seem to me to be any options for the answerer in responding to rising tags...are they an extreme form of rhetoric or coercion? If so, then their meaning/use/function needs to be more clearly contextualized, and their use by learners proceed with more caution than current approaches (which just vaguely allude to "presumptions" or "certainty" or expectations/HOPES on the part of the asker, as if these will not necessarily constrain the answerer ABSOLUTELY).

Oh, one last thing, metal, I agree with you absolutely about no question marks for falling tags (a full stop is a better visual reminder of the required intonation route to follow, isn't it.). I didn't use a question mark when I shouldn't've, did I?! (I really hope I didn't and will die of shame if I did!!!).

[Duncan Powrie]

Duncan

Try teaching falling tags without the question mark at firs, I do-it really shouldn't be there anyway. Also try to get away from decontextualised examples and instead try a bit of the discourse approach i.e. give a prologue to the tags and follow the statements by:

"I thought so."

"I didn't think so."

Hey, I thought the two examples I gave provided more than enough context (from which one can more easily begin to discern function, speaker attitude etc). I also assumed that the question the students asked me would be taken as having a steep rise (hence the question marks etc). I should've marked it with rising arrows, maybe ^....^. Anyway...

You agree with me, don't you?! (NO, too OTT!!)

You agree with me, don't you. (c*cky and presumptuous of me)

Don't you agree with me? (strange, need to research negative again, definitely wary of saying this smacks of native speaker behaviour)

Do you agree?(!)/You agree...right? (no too "steep" or "concerned" rise, unless it is in your character to be playful) Hmm the former of these last question types doesn't even need a rise in intonation to work, so perhaps yes/no Qs and falling tags have a lot in common - they are reasonably "unmarked", and what will make yes/no Qs more marked might be more facial expression, hesitancy rather than "sweeping" intonation (I made similar point in above post)...this seems to me at least to have strong implications re. rising tags>>> This last way of asking seems like the best choice to me, considering that I am "not sure". Yes, let's call this "unmarked"...quite what rising tags mark, I'm not sure...are you?! Seems these rising tags are "challenges" indeed!

[metal56]

If I were you, Duncan, I'd even forget the comma in falling intonation (comment or invitation tags, after M Lewis). The pause in those type of tag sentences is often hardly discemable and the comma just confuses the issue.

[Lorikeet]

It's a long story, but on the way to the bank today to cancel an account because the stupid bank no longer has anyone alive answer their phone, I was roleplaying the conversation I was going to have with the bank teller. As part of my discussion (in my mind, I'm not bad enough to say it out loud...yet) I said something like, "Well, that's my choice, isn't it (falling intonation)!" After that, I wound up thinking about tag questions again instead of the bank .

Unlike what you think about the tags, Duncan, it seems to me that the rising tags do indeed indicate a question--a "Do you agree?" type question. You're with me so far, aren't you? (rising) (I'm not sure if you are or you aren't, but I hope so.)

For me, the falling tags don't really ask for a response in the same way. They are more rhetorical. "Well, John really screwed up this time, didn't he? (falling intonation). (I think he screwed up. I expect you agree with me.)

However, there seems to be different baggage with a negative in the first part. I'm thinking of your example, "You aren't thinking of marrying him, are you?" And of course, the intonation I'm imagining in that example carries with it a sort of threat

Well thanks for making my trip to the bank more interesting anyway .

[Duncan Powrie]

Thanks for replying at length again, Lorikeet!

I kind of understand what you are saying when you say that rising tags are "Do you agree" (or rather, "seeking confirmation of something we are unsure of"...falling tags are the "Do you agree" forms par excellence, aren't they ), but I suspect they form a scale that extends from that into the more emotionally loaded contexts I gave earlier (which we seem to be have problems with categorizing functionally ). So, I am just a bit wary of teaching this item, because the intonation can start giving it way too much emotional weight that makes it begin to seem to bear (to the "real listener") no relation to what the learner has assumed the function will be taken to be (phew!) - ultimately (they think) "seeking confirmation of something they are unsure of" i.e. checking. And as I said before, there are other ways to seek what is ultimately "the information that will be contained in a reply"...

Of course, I am not trying to make the learner's task so simple that I'd want to start covering up data that did not fit my theory...it's just that the examples that I have heard, OUTSIDE of pedagogical contexts, have always been far more, let's just say, "interesting" than standard accounts would have us believe (by the way, those examples I gave are verbatim, real ones that I heard!).

Your "You're with me so far, aren't you?" is maybe not that functionally "damaging", if we are "good friends" and we both know we can take a joke, but if that were not so, I don't know how I would take it (it implies that I am stupid, doesn't it, and the degree of implication will differ according to how psychotic I am - or how b*tchy you can be, I guess ).

Now, the kind of ways in which a student will use rising tags (if we make them feel they are important features of language, used in such and such a way/context) will probably not threaten anywhere like so much as I have implied...but I am still left a bit puzzled at the things I've heard, especially when I consider that there seem to be easier ways to say (ask) the same thing...if we are wrong (and I must stress, only IF), what, do you think, will be the cumulative effect of all this teaching on everyone's English? And how will learners be perceived as speakers (who may be relying on "conscious" processes/memory a bit too much, and "overapplying" themselves, rather than letting their "natural" personality shine through)?

I am wondering if the way we percieve and teach this area is not too based on received wisdom, that's all...I rather suspect that rising tags wither away and die, in a way, and when they are used subconsciously (at least by native speakers), they are used only appropriately (as indeed are all items re. prescription vs description). Oh I am not saying you are a prescriptivist, because you seem so open to debate and/or are trying to convince me of the error of my ways (teach me, tiger!)...and please don't worry too much about the influence I will have, not enough people will read this, and I don't have much input in my current job anyway to affect things for good or worse (hmm maybe that's why I vent whatever frustrations I have here?).

metal, sorry to always treat you last, I do appreciate your input! Yes, I have sometimes taken out punctuation myself when teaching (or rather, writing up on the bb what I've heard in a class), because as you say, the comma can confuse the issue of how long to pause after falling tags. Do you think they should be retained with rising tags, though (I am imagining a pause could well be there, for added "dramatic effect"). Certainly, your recommendations would make the intonation and meaning of (falling) tags clear whether the transcription is meant to reflect speech and guide speech based upon it, or to be read (that is, it gets the balance just right re. how much detail to show or to omit, for most conceivable purposes!). I can only beg forgiveness by saying that the written side of my brain rather takes over in this forum, but I will endeavour to tame it and its bad habits in the pursuit of clarity!

[Duncan Powrie]

(In an effort to help weld this bubbling can of deadly chaos boreworms shut) I guess that rising tags just have more functions (which maybe some genius will be able to subsume under an umbrella term for us all) than falling ones, is all! The problem remains, though, of which of these functions/uses in context we should present to learners that will give some indication of the umbrella term (and not just one or two potentially sub-functions); and these functions should be as different as possible, I think, from the functions of other question forms that students will probably already be familar with.

(Richards makes a similar point re. teaching (aspects of the) Present Perfect vs. Past Simple in an essay in his The Context of Language Teaching - that in pedogogy we should widen the functional/meaning-use distinctions between forms as far as possible, and when we present forms that have "overlap", we should try to find a clearly different function for the "new" form so students won't (initially at least) be confused as to which form to use to express a function. His dictum runs something like: "One form, one function (for as long as possible)" - as opposed to "Two forms, one function" (obviously). By the way, the word "possible" implies that distortion or dismissal of the facts is not an option).

I've identified what I think would be good contexts (ALARMED mothers, SHOCKED/even homophobic friends) for rising tags, and have kind of worked out how the "checking" function could (better?) be accomplished by "closed" Yes/No Qs or even falling tags. As for "Expressing surprise", it can be signalled by all sorts of devices, notably repetition, negative questions, even ironical use of falling tags etc, not, I suspect, necessarily by rising tags so much if at all. Notice that these other ways of "checking" and "expressing surprise" etc would not affect or constrain the OTHER PERSON in the conversation as much as my - and I feel even Lorikeet's - examples using rising tags would; in fact, they might even reassure them or help keep the conversation going! Also, repetition and negative questions etc would seem to me to be much more clearly (or imaginably) tied to the preceding discourse - a point raised by metal56. All I need now is to find a better functional label (or umbrella term)...(hint hint)

[Duncan Powrie]

I'll keep this brief, and won't mind if I don't get any more replies, honestly! It's just, I feel compelled to present evidence when I notice some that seems to be contrary to my theories (see, for example, my posts in the "Genderless Pronouns" and "Cognitive and contrastive linguistics in TEFL" threads).

Anyway, in the Adult Education Forum's "Verb Tense Mystery!" thread, I noticed I'd written:

I don't suppose it's been brought out on CD-ROM, has it?

(Background: I was talking about Swan's Practical English Usage, which I've bought FOUR copies of during my "travels"!).

I seem to recall from my thinking that this connects up with indirect questions, but my main reason in writing this latest post is again, to ask what everybody would feel the function of this example of a rising tag is (possibly versus the examples I gave before in this thread concerning worried mothers etc...but then again, maybe they are the same?).

How's "HOPE sthg is/isn't the case (=actually the same as the situation as expressed in the statement preceding the tag)"? Or maybe the (standard) "checking" name for the function is actually a sufficient umbrella/catch-all term (although it still seems a little too "blunt" to me)?

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

[tomtoledo]

The discussion of rising tags has inspired me to think about how I use them myself. I find myself using rising tags frequently with my students, and I believe I'm just checking when I feel pretty sure that something is true. I don't think that I hope the statement before the tag is true. I don't associate it with any strong emotion at all.

Examples:

You were absent yesterday, weren't you?

You gave me that paragraph, didn't you?

-- Tom

English Zoom!!! Free Story-Based Grammar / Listening Practice, with phrasal verbs, gerunds & infinitives, and clause structures.

[Duncan Powrie]

Hi Tom!

Can I just ask, if you feel something is pretty sure to be true, why the need to check at all, or at least, why not use a falling tag question? (I'm a bit surprised that you wouldn't be able to remember or be almost 100% sure that students were absent only yesterday, or had given you some homework!).

And are you totally sure you have not just got into the "habit" of using rising tag questions yourself with students purely so they get practice listening to them (and presumably trying to produce them themselves on the basis of your examples)?

If you don't mind me saying either, I think your examples could be construed as "hectoring" a little! But your input is welcome, and noted (and if enough teachers tell me I'm misled, I may begin to believe it and revise my opinions accordingly!).

[tomtoledo]

Hi Duncan,

You pose some interesting questions. Certainly, ESL instructors can at times be guilty of modifying their language to fit what the books say we should teach. I honestly don't think that's the case here. The rising tags seems to come naturally to me in some situations.

Judging from the students' usually calm, nondefensive responses to me when I use rising tags, I doubt that hectoring is involved. Certainly a lot has to do with tone of voice, facial expressions, and my usually cordial relationship with my students.

Tom

[Duncan Powrie]

Thanks for replying again, Tom, and clarifying things further for me. It's really helpful for me to know that you've found this language feels natural to you, and that the students are happy with what you're teaching (and I guess you haven't noticed any strange or "exaggerated" (intonation-wise) usage in your students' production?).

Anyway, obviously I do need to teach rising tags at some point, and on the basis of responses here so far, it seems I should (still) be listening out for the kind of examples that I may have been too hasty in dismissing, or imagining did not exist in sufficient "natural" quantities (in short, perhaps "blocking out", even?).

As for sources of data, I probably don't use rising tags as much as I could (should?) be in my own speech, but I do tend to notice them in my writing; with writing, however, there is a temptation to start imagining the intonation could be different (due no doubt to the ambiguity of the standard orthography in conveying intonation in tags and questions, and generally). Either way, I am not sure that I can trust my intuitions alone.

So, perhaps you guys can be my extra sets of ears, and make a note of any good examples you hear, especially outside the classroom - I would be inclined to trust spontaneous i.e. unelicited, native speaker non-teacher use the most . Obviously, if you do feel like posting something, please make sure that that it's reasonably fresh in your memory, and that it's something you heard first-hand yourself; and a brief summary of the characters and foregoing context before the tag occured (see the examples I gave in my above posts to get an idea of what I'm after regarding level of detail) would be very useful if not essential. You might also like to note the intonation pattern, and if it seemed at all atypical, exaggerated, or unusual, what you perhaps think the function of the tag was. Thanks!

[fluffyhamster]

Update: function of tags was recently broached on the Adult Education forum.
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... php?t=2610