Misconstruing A Dialogic Response As Monologue

Martin (1992: 509):

Interpersonally, mode mediates the semiotic space between between monologue and dialogue.  Text [4:2] for example begins as a conversation (What do you have to do… — Well…) but unfolds as a monologue [4:2c-hhh].  The interview genre in other words involves changes in mode — from dialogue to monologue and back to dialogue again. As is typical of textual meaning the changes manifest themselves as a kind of wave.  Putting this in general terms, mode mediates NEGOTIATION. 

[4:2]	Question:
	1.	a.		What do you have to do in the showing area,
		b.		with the dog on the lead?
	Response
	2.	c.		Well, you always walk
		d.		with the dog on the left-hand side,
		e.		the reason being is [[the judge is standing in the centre of the ring]].
	3.	f.		So, therefore, you need to get yourself between your dog and the judge.
	4.	g.		The dog (!) must be able to see the dog at all times.
	5.	h.		So, usually when a class is going into the ring,
		i.		the first thing he does is:
				…

Blogger Comments:

[1] Mode does not "mediate"; see previous critique.  Monologue and dialogue are opposing features in the system of mode, (textual metafunction, context stratum); negotiation is Martin's interpersonal system on the discourse semantics stratum.

[2] The claim here is that whenever an interviewer asks a question of an interviewee, the text is dialogic, but when the interviewee answers, the text is monologic.  This confuses responses in a dialogue — though not questions — with monologue.  A dialogue is a conversational exchange between two or more people, whereas a monologue is the text of a single speaker.