In order to show how prosody (including rhythm and register shifts) and paralinguistic cues signal interpretive meaning, and how this affects evaluation of an individual's performance, I have analyzed part of a counselling interview between Das, a schoolteacher, born in South Asia and Beth, a British born staff member in an adult education center specializing in industrial language and communication problems. Das is typical of numerous Asian professionals working in the urban West, whose written English is good, and who have no difficulty on their day-to-day affairs in English, but who experience what to them seem unexplainable difficulties in oral exchanges. After completing his professional training he had received several probationary appointments. Probationary teachers are regularly evaluated, but normally such evaluations are routine. The vast majority of probationary appointments are eventually regularized. Das, however, had been released from three positions and seemed unable to obtain regular employment. He reports that in his last post the principal had at first assured him that he was doing well, but when he was then once more released, he was informed that this was because he lacked communication skills and that he needed more training to improve his language before he could be appointed to another post.

He thus turned to the center for advice on how to proceed. In the following extract from a 90-minute interview, Das attempts to explain the circumstances that led to his dismissal. The interviewer, Beth, is a center staff member in charge of curriculum planning, not a regular member of the teaching staff.