Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-mp689 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T12:11:02.170Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Sequence Organization: Understanding What Drives Talk

from Part II - Perspectives and Modes of Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2020

Anna De Fina
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
Alexandra Georgakopoulou
Affiliation:
King's College London
Get access

Summary

Sequence organization was the pioneering insight that gave rise to conversation analysis (CA) and it remains the primary assumption in CA studies about how discourse is structured and how speakers manage their talk. In order to study discourse in an empirically grounded way, we must demonstrate how our analysis reflects the participants’ understanding of their own talk. CA does this through the concept of “response relevance.” When a speaker talks, they make relevant some “next” response, so speakers are always responding to some prior turn and simultaneously making relevant a next turn. In this way, participants demonstrate their understandings of prior talk while responding. These demonstrations form the basis of the “next turn proof procedure,” which is how CA uses participants’ responses as demonstrations of participants’ own analyses of prior talk. In this chapter, I explain how CA’s focus on sequence and “next” turns allows for an empirical understanding of how discourse is organized. I first outline the principles of sequence organization, starting with the concept of response relevance and adjacency pairs, before explaining pre-, insert and post-expansion components. Next, I review sequence research from the past four decades, highlighting the focus on specific sequences such as pre-sequences, storytelling and the effect of institutional contexts. More recent streams in sequence research include the investigation of “lapses” or discontinuities in interaction, the attempts to describe overall sequence structures of full (typically institutional) encounters, the focus on temporality, and investigations of closing sequences. Finally, I discuss the (sometimes uncritical) use of the words “activity” and “project” in CA research, and what evidence is presented for its effect on sequence.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Further Reading

This volume has an excellent collection of different ways in which multiactivity can appear in various contexts and with various practices.

This book covers many of the “stages” found in medical consultations (diagnosis, treatment, etc.) and, as such, provides examples of how full interactions may be broken down into activity units.

This is the primary resource for the details of sequential organization.

Haddington, P., Keisanen, T., Mondada, L. and Nevile, M. (eds.) (2014). Multiactivity in Social Interaction: Beyond Multitasking. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Heritage, J. and Maynard, D. W. (eds.) (2006). Communication in Medical Care: Interaction between Primary Care Physicians and Patients. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schegloff, E. A. (2007). Sequence Organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

References

Antaki, C. (ed.) (2011). Applied Conversation Analysis: Intervention and Change in Institutional Talk. London: Palgrave.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Billig, M. (1999). Whose Terms? Whose Ordinariness? Rhetoric and Ideology in Conversation Analysis. Discourse & Society 10(4): 543–82.Google Scholar
Bolden, G. B. (2009). Implementing Incipient Actions: The Discourse Marker “So” in English Conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 41(5): 974–98.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1957). Syntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Clayman, S. E. (2001). Answers and Evasions. Language in Society 30(3): 403–42.Google Scholar
Drew, P. and Heritage, J. (eds.) (1992). Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Drew, P. and Holt, E. (1998). Figures of Speech: Figurative Expressions and the Management of Topic Transition in Conversation. Language in Society 27: 495522.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drew, P., Raymond, G. and Weinberg, D. (eds.) (2006). Talk and Interaction in Social Research Methods. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Evans, B. (2013). Order on the Court: The Interactional Organization of Basketball Practice Activities. Doctoral thesis, University of Western Sydney.Google Scholar
Fox, B. A. and Thompson, S. A. (2010). Responses to Wh-Questions in English Conversation. Research on Language and Social Interaction 43(2): 133–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Georgakopoulou, A. (2010). Closing in on Story Openings and Closings: Evidence from Conversational Stories in Greek. Journal of Greek Linguistics 10(2): 345–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, C. (1984). Notes on Story Structure and the Organization of Participation. In Atkison, J. M. and Heritage, J. (eds.) Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 225–46.Google Scholar
Goodwin, C. (1986). Between and Within: Alternative Sequential Treatments of Continuers and Assessments. Human Studies 9(2–3): 205–17.Google Scholar
Goodwin, C. (2000). Action and Embodiment within Situated Human Interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 32: 1489–522.Google Scholar
Goodwin, C. (2015). Narrative As Talk-in-Interaction. In De Fina, A. and Georgakopoulou, A. (eds.) The Handbook of Narrative Analysis. London: Wiley. 195218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hepburn, A. and Potter, J. (2011). Designing the Recipient: Some Practices that Manage Advice Resistance in Institutional Settings. Social Psychology Quarterly 74: 216–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heritage, J. (1984). A Change-of-State Token and Aspects of Its Sequential Placement. In Atkinson, J. M. and Heritage, J. (eds.) Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 299345.Google Scholar
Heritage, J. and Sorjonen, M.-L. (1994). Constituting and Maintaining Activities across Sequences: And-Prefacing as a Feature of Question Design. Language in Society 23: 129.Google Scholar
Hoey, E. M. (2015). Lapses: How People Arrive at, and Deal with, Discontinuities in Talk. Research on Language and Social Interaction 48(4): 430–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hofstetter, E. and Stokoe, E. (2018). Getting Service at the Constituency Office: Analyzing Citizens’ Encounters with Their Member of Parliament. Text & Talk 38(5): 551–73.Google Scholar
Holt, E. and Drew, P. (2005). Figurative Pivots: The Use of Figurative Expressions in Pivotal Topic Transitions. Research on Language and Social Interaction 38(1): 3561.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jefferson, G. (1978). Sequential Aspects of Storytelling in Conversation. In Schenkein, J. (ed.) Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction. New York: Academic Press. 219–48.Google Scholar
Jefferson, G. (1988). On the Sequential Organization of Troubles-Talk in Ordinary Conversation. Social Problems 35(4): 418–41.Google Scholar
Jefferson, G. and Schenkein, J. (1978). Some Sequential Negotiations in Conversation: Unexpanded and Expanded Versions of Projected Action Sequences. In Schenkein, J. (ed.) Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction. New York: Academic Press. 155–72.Google Scholar
Keevallik, L. (2018). What Does Embodied Interaction Tell Us about Grammar? Research on Language and Social Interaction 51(1): 121.Google Scholar
Kendrick, K. H. and Drew, P. (2016). Recruitment: Offers, Requests, and the Organization of Assistance in Interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction 49(1): 119.Google Scholar
Kent, A. and Kendrick, K. H. (2016). Imperative Directives: Orientations to Accountability. Research on Language and Social Interaction 49(3): 272–88.Google Scholar
Kevoe-Feldman, H. and Robinson, J. D. (2012). Exploring Essentially Three-Turn Courses of Action: An Institutional Case Study with Implications for Ordinary Talk. Discourse Studies 14(2): 217–41.Google Scholar
Kitzinger, C. (2000). Doing Feminist Conversation Analysis. Feminism & Psychology 10(2): 163–93.Google Scholar
Levinson, S. (2013). Action Formation and Ascription. In Sidnell, J. and Stivers, T. (eds.) The Handbook of Conversation Analysis. London: Wiley-Blackwell. 103–30.Google Scholar
Mondada, L. (2008). Using Video for a Sequential and Multimodal Analysis of Social Interaction: Videotaping Institutional Telephone Calls. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung 9(3): Art. 39.Google Scholar
Mondada, L. (2014). The Temporal Orders of Multiactivity: Operating and Demonstrating in the Surgical Theatre. In Haddington, P., Keisanen, T., Mondada, L. and Nevile, M. (eds.) Multiactivity in Social Interaction: Beyond Multitasking. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 3175.Google Scholar
Nevile, M. (2015). The Embodied Turn in Research on Language and Social Interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction 48(2): 121–51.Google Scholar
Raymond, G. (2003). Grammar and Social Organization: Yes/No Interrogatives and the Structure of Responding. American Sociological Review 68(6): 939–67.Google Scholar
Raymond, G. and Zimmerman, D. H. (2007). Rights and Responsibilities in Calls for Help: The Case of the Mountain Glade Fire. Research on Language and Social Interaction 40(1): 3361.Google Scholar
Robinson, J. (2003). An Interactional Structure of Medical Activities during Acute Visits and Its Implications for Patients’ Participation. Health Communication 15(1): 2759.Google Scholar
Robinson, J. (2013). Overall Structural Organization. In Sidnell, J. and Stivers, T. (eds.) The Handbook of Conversation Analysis. London: Wiley-Blackwell. 257–80.Google Scholar
Romaniuk, T. (2013). Pursuing Answers to Questions in Broadcast Journalism. Research on Language and Social Interaction 46(2): 144–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rossi, G. (2012). Bilateral and Unilateral Requests in Italian: The Use of Imperatives and Mi X? Interrogatives in Italian. Discourse Processes 49(5): 426–58.Google Scholar
Sacks, H. (1992). Lectures on Conversation. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. and Jefferson, G. (1974). A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking in Conversation. Language 50: 696735. doi: 10.1353/lan.1974.0010.Google Scholar
Schegloff, E. A. (1968). Sequencing in Conversational Openings. American Anthropologist 70: 1075–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, E. A. (1979). Identification and Recognition in Telephone Conversation Openings. In Psathas, G. (ed.) Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology. New York: Irvington Publishers. 2378.Google Scholar
Schegloff, E. A. (1980). Preliminaries to Preliminaries: “Can I Ask You a Question?Sociological Inquiry 50(3–4): 104–52.Google Scholar
Schegloff, E. A. (1990). On the Organization of Sequences as a Source of “Coherence” in Talk-in-Interaction. In Dorval, B. (ed.) Conversational Organization and Its Development. Norwood: Ablex. 5177.Google Scholar
Schegloff, E. A. (1999). Schegloff’s Texts as Billig’s Data: A Critical Reply. Discourse & Society 10(4): 558–72.Google Scholar
Schegloff, E. A. (2007). Sequence Organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis, Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schegloff, E. A. and Lerner, G. H. (2009). Beginning to Respond: Well-Prefaced Responses to Wh-Questions. Research on Language and Social Interaction 42(2): 91115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, E. A. and Sacks, H. (1973). Opening Up Closings. Semiotica 8(4): 289327.Google Scholar
Searle, J. (1979). Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Seuren, L. (2018). Assessing Answers: Action Ascription in Third Position. Research on Language and Social Interaction 51(1): 3351.Google Scholar
Sidnell, J. (2012). Declaratives, Questioning, Defeasibility. Research on Language & Social Interaction 45(1): 5360.Google Scholar
Sidnell, J. (2017). Action in Interaction Is Conduct under a Description. Language in Society 46(3): 313–37.Google Scholar
Stivers, T., Enfield, N. J., Brown, P., Englert, C., Hayashi, M., Heinemann, T., … Levinson, S. C. (2009). Universals and Cultural Variation in Turn-Taking in Conversation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106(26): 10587–92.Google Scholar
Stivers, T. and Rossano, F. (2010). Mobilizing Response. Research on Language and Social Interaction 43(1): 331.Google Scholar
Stokoe, E. (2012). Categorial Systematics. Discourse Studies 14(3): 345–54.Google Scholar
Stokoe, E. (2013a). Overcoming Barriers to Mediation in Intake Calls to Services: Research-Based Strategies for Mediators. Negotiation Journal 29(3): 289314.Google Scholar
Stokoe, E. (2013b). The (In)Authenticity of Simulated Talk: Comparing Role-Played and Actual Interaction and the Implications for Communication Training. Research on Language and Social Interaction 46(2): 165–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, T., Drew, P. and Local, J. (2011). Responding Indirectly. Journal of Pragmatics 43: 2434–51.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×