8. The Curious Case of the Interpersonal Weather Pattern

The Senior Common Room at St Anselm's

The rain had returned.

Not dramatically. Not even enthusiastically.

Rather, with the quiet determination of an institution renewing a long-term subscription.

Professor Quillibrace was reading.

Miss Stray was making notes.

Mr Blottisham was staring at the latest paper as though it had personally betrayed him.

Eventually he looked up.

"I would like to lodge a complaint."

Quillibrace nodded.

"A familiar procedural opening."

"This theory keeps moving things."

"Moving things?"

"Yes."

"What things?"

"Everything."

A pause.

Miss Stray looked interested.

Blottisham continued.

"First meaning stopped being a parcel."

"A difficult period."

"Then questions stopped being information-seeking."

"Yes."

"Then statements became commitments."

"Indeed."

"Then offers became possible biscuits."

Quillibrace nodded gravely.

"A significant development."

"And now classrooms have stopped being classrooms."

Miss Stray blinked.

"They have?"

"They're apparently enactment-space profiles."

Quillibrace removed his spectacles.

"Ah."

"Ah?"

"The migration continues."

Blottisham pointed at the paper.

"It says classrooms, clinics, and courtrooms are recurrent configurations of enactment space."

"And?"

"That sounds less useful than calling them classrooms."

Quillibrace considered this.

"Only if one's goal is navigation rather than explanation."

Blottisham sighed.

"There should be a regulation against answers like that."

"There probably is," said Miss Stray.

"It would merely be unevenly distributed across situation types."

Blottisham looked wounded.

"You're both enjoying this."

"A little," admitted Quillibrace.

A silence followed.

Then Miss Stray spoke.

"I think the important shift is from individual enactments to recurrent patterns."

Blottisham frowned.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning we've spent several papers discussing single moves."

"Questions, statements, offers, commands."

"Exactly."

"And now?"

"Now we're asking why certain combinations keep recurring."

Blottisham considered this.

"So a classroom isn't defined by the topic?"

"No."

"The building?"

"No."

"The desks?"

"Almost certainly not."

"The smell?"

Miss Stray laughed.

"A surprisingly recognisable feature, but no."

Quillibrace leaned forward.

"What makes a classroom recognisable?"

Blottisham thought.

"The teacher asks questions."

"Good."

"The students answer."

"Good."

"The teacher issues commands."

"Very good."

"The students rarely command the teacher."

"Excellent."

"The teacher makes statements."

"Indeed."

"The students occasionally do."

"Quite."

Blottisham stopped.

A long pause followed.

Then:

"Oh no."

Quillibrace smiled.

"Oh yes."

"You mean the situation is partly identifiable through the distribution of enactments."

"Precisely."

Blottisham slumped back.

"I dislike it when the theory becomes plausible."

"It is one of its more irritating habits."

Miss Stray turned another page.

"What I find elegant is the treatment of register."

Blottisham looked immediately suspicious.

"Nothing good ever follows that sentence."

She ignored him.

"Register isn't being treated as a collection of linguistic features."

"No," said Quillibrace.

"It is being viewed as a stabilised pattern."

"Exactly."

Blottisham frowned.

"A pattern of what?"

"Relational possibilities."

He closed his eyes.

"There it is again."

"What?"

"The phrase that sounds harmless until you think about it."

Quillibrace nodded.

"A hallmark of useful concepts."

The rain tapped softly against the windows.

Miss Stray continued.

"What struck me is the idea of register as a probability structure."

Blottisham looked alarmed.

"We've become statistical."

"Only slightly."

"What does that even mean?"

Quillibrace folded his hands.

"It means that registers bias expectations."

"So they don't determine behaviour?"

"No."

"They make certain enactments more likely?"

"Exactly."

"And others less likely?"

"Precisely."

Blottisham stared into the fire.

"Like weather."

The room fell silent.

Quillibrace looked thoughtful.

Miss Stray looked thoughtful.

Blottisham immediately became suspicious.

"What?"

Quillibrace spoke carefully.

"That's actually rather good."

"Oh dear."

Miss Stray nodded.

"A weather system of relational expectations."

"I was joking."

"Those are often your most productive moments."

Blottisham groaned.

Quillibrace continued.

"In a courtroom, commands are more probable."

"Yes."

"In a casual conversation, less probable."

"Yes."

"In a classroom, questions are distributed in particular ways."

"Yes."

"So the register does not force events."

"It shapes the climate within which they occur."

Blottisham stared.

"I accidentally invented meteorological interpersonal semantics."

"Briefly."

"I want that stricken from the record."

"It is already stabilising as a recurrent pattern."

A long silence followed.

Outside, the rain continued constructing its own probability structure.

Finally Blottisham said:

"So situation types are not collections of utterances."

"No."

"Not collections of topics."

"No."

"Not collections of participants."

"No."

"They are recurring organisations of relational possibility."

"Very good."

Blottisham sighed.

"I suppose the next paper will reveal that society itself is some sort of giant enactment-space weather system."

Quillibrace glanced at Miss Stray.

Miss Stray glanced at Quillibrace.

Neither spoke.

Blottisham narrowed his eyes.

"Oh dear."