A Revised Description of

Exchange Structure

David Brazil and Malcolm Coulthard

Why was the Exchange structure
revised?
 When trying to apply the descriptive apparatus
(Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975) to other types of
discourse, some of the categories which were
labelled semantically were felt to be inappropriate.
 A critical re-evaluation of the account of exchange
structure was felt necessary.
 It was unlikely that the discourse generated in the
highly institutionalised setting of the classroom
would exemplify the full range of options open to
interactants in other situations.
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The original exchange:
 In the original description the structure of the
exchange was expressed in terms of three
elements I R F.
 The formula for all exchanges: I (R) (F)
indicated that all well-formed exchanges
consisted minimally of two and maximally of
three elements.

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Matrix for definitional criteria:
 Predicting Predicted Move type
 Yes No Initiation
 No Yes Response
 No No
Follow-up
 Yes Yes
?

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The revised exchange:

 I (R/I) R (F)
 This new formula can account for examples
like the following:
T: Can anyone tell me what this means?
P: Does it mean “danger men at work”?
T: Yes
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