The identity work of questioning in intellectual discussion

Abstract

This article examines how questioning practices in intellectual discussion do identity work. Drawing upon the discussion discourse of a Ph.D. department's weekly colloquium, as well as several other sources, three aspects of intellectual identity are identified that are routinely at stake for academic presenters in discussion periods: their knowledgeability, originality, and level of intellectual sophistication. We identify and describe questioning practices that support and challenge these desired identities. Analysis of the discussion discourse shows how use of marked and unmarked question forms implicate a question recipient's knowledgeability level, how time references and interest queries imply a person's degree of originality, and how lexical choices can problematize presenters’ intellectual frameworks, which in turn can become challenges to their intellectual sophistication. The concluding section considers how the identity—implicative discourse analysis developed and used in the paper could become a useful new methodological tool and sketches out implications for future research on questioning, politeness theory, and a current metatheoretical debate about inquiry.