Heritage2026
| Heritage2026 | |
|---|---|
| BibType | ARTICLE |
| Key | Heritage2026 |
| Author(s) | John Heritage, Jeffrey D. Robinson |
| Title | On the perimeter of preference: Low-stakes polar questions |
| Editor(s) | |
| Tag(s) | EMCA, Polar question, Grammatical form, Interrogative, Information seeking, Preference, Response timing, Socio-relational risk |
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| Year | 2026 |
| Language | English |
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| Month | |
| Journal | Journal of Pragmatics |
| Volume | 262 |
| Number | September 2026 |
| Pages | 42-59 |
| URL | Link |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.pragma.2026.05.011 |
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Abstract
It is widely accepted that positively framed polar questions invite affirmative responses, and that this contributes to the implementation of preference organization. This article investigates the limits of such implementation with the aim of determining the perimeter of preference. Across American- and British-English corpora of ordinary conversation, we collected all positively framed polar questions that were answered with vocal, unmitigated disaffirmation (e.g., No) within 300 ms, a timeframe characteristic of preferred answer types. Using Conversation Analysis and descriptive statistics to inductively examine our core collection of 121 sequences, we identify three properties of what we term ‘low-stakedness’ in positively framed polar questions: The questions: (1) implement the action of information seeking (vs. recruitment, etc.); (2) are formatted as interrogatives (vs. more conducive formats, e.g., declaratives); and (3) propose states of affairs about facts in the world (vs. recipient or third-party conduct/actions). We argue that these ‘low stakes’ questions evoke low levels of socio-relational risk, which infuses many manifestations of preference organization. We conclude that, in the case of these ‘low stakes’ questions, question design, per se, does not contribute to preference-organizational features of responses. We examine boundary cases suggesting that, as socio-relational risk increases, so too do the pressures of preference organization.
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