Constructing Expertise Through Questions?—Potentials of Corpus Pragmatic Regression Analyses

Abstract This study challenges traditional assumptions about questioning practices by examining how questions, conventionally associated with knowledge gaps, can surprisingly serve to construct expertise. Using corpus-pragmatic regression analyses, the research investigates how different types of questions serve as tools for taking epistemic stance in online scientific discourse among various groups of discourse participants. The analysis reveals statistically significant differences in linguistic behaviour not only between experts and laypeople but also within the lay community. I develop an expansion to existing models of epistemic hierarchies in questioning to account for more possible epistemic hierarchies between questioner and addressee.