Question/Comment Level ("Blank's Level of Discourse")  

The list of categories which come under "Question/Comment Level ("Blank's Level of Discourse")" are shown in the box on the right.

Description

The language we use in questions and comments can range from simple (for example "What's that?" - "It's an apple") to more complex (for example "What's the same about these animals?" - "They all eat grass and live on a mountain"). "Blank's levels of discourse" (conversation) is a way of categorising the things we say into four levels - from simple to complicated.

Using the question/comment levels

Although Marion Blank's original ideas were developed with pre-school children, you can use these levels for classifying the complexity of language used with both children and adults.

Reference

Blank M., Rose S., and Berlin L. (1978) "The Language of Learning: The Preschool Years". Grune and Stratton, New York.

Blank's Levels of Discourse and the associated descriptions quoted from Blank, Rose and Berlin (1978) are used on Commtap by kind permission of Dr. Marion Blank. Marion Blank's software programmes Reading Kingdom and ASD Reading use the ideas developed in this discourse model.