The information gap

We have said that speakers normally have a communicative purposeand that listeners are interested in discovering what that purpose is. However, even if listeners have some idea about the purpose, they must listen in order to be sure. In other words, they cannot be sure what it is before they hear what the speaker says. Consider the following example in which a man (A) speaks to a woman (B) at a bus stop at midnight:

A: Excuse me. The man who starts the conversation may have

B: Yes? many reasons for speaking. He may want to get

A: Do you have a watch? into conversation with the woman because he

B: Yes… why? thinks she looks interesting, and the question

A: I wonder if you could tell about the time may simply be a pretext for this.

me what the time is? On the other hand he may genuinely want to

B: Certainly… it’s almost 12. know the time. In both cases there exists an

A: Thank you. information gap between what A and B know.

If the question about the time is a genuine one we can say that B has information that A does not have (the time) and A wants that information. In other words, there is a gap between the two in the information they possess. The conversation helps to close that gap so that now both speakers have the same information. But even if this were not the real purpose of the conversation there is still a gap between the speakers where B does not know what A’s purpose is before he speaks.

In the classroom we will want to create the same kind of information gap if we are to encourage real communication.