ABSTRACT
In an earlier article (Thom as 1985) I argued that many features of the exchange system which conversational analysis presents as purely structural configurations can be seen to be motivated and to have interpersonal significance. For exam ple, many pre-sequences (cf. Levinson 1983: 345-64) can be m ore powerfully explained in pragm atic term s - as devices which can be used to affirm or, possibly, to negotiate pow er relationships, role relationships, etc. In this paper I shall focus on o ther levels of discourse organization (particularly, but not exclusively, on levels above the adjacency pair) and pursue the argum ent that by incorporating within traditional ethnom ethodological descriptions of conversation in sights from recent work in interpersonal pragm atics, it is possible to move towards a m ore predictive and explanatory model of dis course organization. Drawing my examples principally from ‘un equal encounters’1, I shall try to show that certain forms of m etadiscourse2 offer privileged access into the way in which discourse is organized. In particular, I shall dem onstrate how three categories of surface level discourse m arkers are used in such a way that the discoursal options of a subordinate interactant are severely constrained. The strategies I describe are not exclusive to unequal encounters or to confrontational interaction, but they do occur more frequently in such situations and, because of the power relationship obtaining betw een the interactants, have a highly predictable perlocutionary effect.
