Formal terms for describing different ways to ask questions??
September 6, 2024 11:32 AM Subscribe
Are there formal grammatical or rhetorical terms for talking about different ways to ask a question? In my mind,
"Why is there a sock on the floor?",
"Did you leave a sock on the floor?", and
"Hey - there was a sock on the floor when I got home - any idea why it's there?"
all ask the same question, but with vastly different degrees of accusation (I already assume YOU did it and I want to convey my irritation more than get an actual answer) down to curious inquiry (I saw the sock, I think maybe you left it there, but am open to being proven wrong or hearing extenuating reasons). Do these different questioning formats have formal names?
Leading question vs. open-ended question.
posted by coffeecat at 11:50 AM on September 6 [2 favorites]
posted by coffeecat at 11:50 AM on September 6 [2 favorites]
"Presupposition" is a term in linguistics for the assumptions that are implied by a statement or question. The traditional examples for presuppositions are things like "Have you stopped kicking puppies?" (presupposes that you used to kick puppies) or "Why did you flip-flop on issue X?" (presupposes that you flip-flopped on issue X). But I think it might be useful to think of these questions in terms of presuppositions.
"Why is there a sock on the floor?" presupposes that if there is a sock on the floor, the listener should know why it's there. There is an implicature - though it's not necessarily absolute - that the listener is responsible for making sure there are not socks left on the floor.
"Did you leave a sock on the floor?" presupposes almost nothing. (Although all three questions rest on the assumption that socks should not be on the floor).
But we understand - perhaps based on Grice's Maxims - that the question is being asked because leaving a sock on the floor is, at least, a plausible thing for the listener to have done. (If there were a bank robbery, you'd be unlikely to ask your partner "Did you rob the bank?" unless it seems at least kind of plausible.)
Asking "Hey - there was a sock on the floor when I got home - any idea why it's there?" seems to be a question that's trying really hard to run away from those principles - like the speaker is trying so hard to avoid seeming accusatory that they want to make room for the possibility that a sock has materialized out of the ether.
posted by Jeanne at 11:54 AM on September 6 [11 favorites]
"Why is there a sock on the floor?" presupposes that if there is a sock on the floor, the listener should know why it's there. There is an implicature - though it's not necessarily absolute - that the listener is responsible for making sure there are not socks left on the floor.
"Did you leave a sock on the floor?" presupposes almost nothing. (Although all three questions rest on the assumption that socks should not be on the floor).
But we understand - perhaps based on Grice's Maxims - that the question is being asked because leaving a sock on the floor is, at least, a plausible thing for the listener to have done. (If there were a bank robbery, you'd be unlikely to ask your partner "Did you rob the bank?" unless it seems at least kind of plausible.)
Asking "Hey - there was a sock on the floor when I got home - any idea why it's there?" seems to be a question that's trying really hard to run away from those principles - like the speaker is trying so hard to avoid seeming accusatory that they want to make room for the possibility that a sock has materialized out of the ether.
posted by Jeanne at 11:54 AM on September 6 [11 favorites]
A general term for these in pragmatics is indirect speech acts. That in turn relies on the idea of speech acts, which is roughly what a speaker is doing with a statement: asking a question, giving an order, complaining, joking, and many more. What you're noticing is that English provides a very wide range of indirect speech acts.
A text on pragmatics will get into these, and so will studies on politeness-- e.g. here on my shelf, Politeness: Some universals in language usage, by Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson. They use "off record" as a technical term for asking for things indirectly.
Anna Wierzbicka has written some interesting books on cultural differences in pragmatics, e.g. pointing out that English speakers tend to value indirection, Slavic speakers tend to value direct statements.
posted by zompist at 2:03 PM on September 6 [3 favorites]
A text on pragmatics will get into these, and so will studies on politeness-- e.g. here on my shelf, Politeness: Some universals in language usage, by Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson. They use "off record" as a technical term for asking for things indirectly.
Anna Wierzbicka has written some interesting books on cultural differences in pragmatics, e.g. pointing out that English speakers tend to value indirection, Slavic speakers tend to value direct statements.
posted by zompist at 2:03 PM on September 6 [3 favorites]
The tricky thing about your specific examples is that none of them are actually real questions.
Here are some examples of a real question: "Why is there a sock in the freezer?" or "Did you put a sock in the freezer?" or "Hey there's a sock in the freezer, do you know why?" Those are real questions: they are being asked because the asker hopes to learn something they don't know. To solve a mystery. Because the freezer is a weird place to see a sock and we would honestly have no idea what purpose a sock might have in the freezer, but there might be a real and interesting reason, so the asker would genuinely be asking a question.
But "why is there a sock on the floor of our shared space" is NOT actually a question. Nobody asks that question with the intent to learn anything, because the actual answer is obvious. There's a sock on the floor because someone in the home was careless. Either they chose to drop it there, or they left it where an agent of chaos like a pet or toddler could throw it there, and then they also chose not to pick it up.
So asking about floor-socks, or other obvious things like that, is never actually a question. When you already know the answer, it's not a question, it's a veiled accusation. In a domestic context, it ALWAYS means, "I want to let you know that you you left a sock in an incorrect and annoying place, because you were being (check all that apply) careless / lazy / messy / inconsiderate / other."
So really, all three of your sample questions are accusatory and will ultimately lead to conflict, because the real problem isn't the phrasing. The actual problem is that someone needs to be asked (yet again) about floor socks, because they keep leaving socks on the floor. And we all have homes and wear socks, so we all know "why" (because they don't care), so this will never be a question because it's only a question if you actually don't already know the answer.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 3:20 PM on September 6 [4 favorites]
Here are some examples of a real question: "Why is there a sock in the freezer?" or "Did you put a sock in the freezer?" or "Hey there's a sock in the freezer, do you know why?" Those are real questions: they are being asked because the asker hopes to learn something they don't know. To solve a mystery. Because the freezer is a weird place to see a sock and we would honestly have no idea what purpose a sock might have in the freezer, but there might be a real and interesting reason, so the asker would genuinely be asking a question.
But "why is there a sock on the floor of our shared space" is NOT actually a question. Nobody asks that question with the intent to learn anything, because the actual answer is obvious. There's a sock on the floor because someone in the home was careless. Either they chose to drop it there, or they left it where an agent of chaos like a pet or toddler could throw it there, and then they also chose not to pick it up.
So asking about floor-socks, or other obvious things like that, is never actually a question. When you already know the answer, it's not a question, it's a veiled accusation. In a domestic context, it ALWAYS means, "I want to let you know that you you left a sock in an incorrect and annoying place, because you were being (check all that apply) careless / lazy / messy / inconsiderate / other."
So really, all three of your sample questions are accusatory and will ultimately lead to conflict, because the real problem isn't the phrasing. The actual problem is that someone needs to be asked (yet again) about floor socks, because they keep leaving socks on the floor. And we all have homes and wear socks, so we all know "why" (because they don't care), so this will never be a question because it's only a question if you actually don't already know the answer.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 3:20 PM on September 6 [4 favorites]
I don’t have an answer for you, but your question makes me think you might enjoy Suzette Haden Elgin’s work - start with The Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defense.
posted by wheatlets at 3:37 PM on September 6 [1 favorite]
posted by wheatlets at 3:37 PM on September 6 [1 favorite]
Yes. The art and science of asking questions is part of pedagogy and has been thoroughly theorized. One thing to search on is Bloom’s Taxonomy, a way of ordering knowledge and questions from “lower-order” (identification, recall of facts, mastery of knowledge, comprehension, ) to “Higher-order” (analysis, critical thinking, evaluation, extension). You will find a huge body of research and writing by searching on “Bloom’s Taxonomy.”
Second, you might like to check out the resources of the Right Question Institute.
posted by Miko at 7:05 PM on September 6 [1 favorite]
Second, you might like to check out the resources of the Right Question Institute.
posted by Miko at 7:05 PM on September 6 [1 favorite]
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In terms of the specific examples, the "why is there a sock on the floor?" could be a "loaded question" (so, one that contains an implicit assumption). "Did you leave a sock on the floor?" would be an information-seeking direct question. The "Hey - there was a sock on the floor when I got home - any idea why it's there?" would be an indirect question and an example of pragmatic softening (which itself is a politeness strategy -- if you are interested in those, there branch of linguistics that deals with those is Pragmatics; that branch also deals with implicature, which I think is also relevant to what you are asking about).
posted by virve at 11:47 AM on September 6 [3 favorites]