Schegloff Publication Archive

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'Narrative Analysis' 30 Years Later - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "'Narrative Analysis' Thirty Years Later," Journal of Narrative and Life History 7:1-4, 1997, 97-106
A Practice for (Re-)Exiting a Sequence: And/But/So + Uh(m) + Silence - The topic here is a use of 'uh/m' as a resource for exiting -- or more commonly re-exiting -- a sequence. In this usage, 'uh/m' appears in conjunction with a conjunction "And uh(m)," "But uh(m)," or "So uh(m)" -- each of which is included in the little set of data extracts to which this contribution is limited. Unlike the previously encountered 'uh(m)'s, these ones appear to require at least a bit of silence following them to do their work, but this silence is not itself the trouble or its tacit harbinger; absent the silence, the work of these little constructions is more problematic.
A tutorial on membership categorization - Schegloff, E. A. (2007). A Tutorial on Membership Categorization. Journal of Pragmatics, 39, 462-482 After setting Sacks' work on membership categorization in its historical and analytical context, and suggesting some ways of reading the original texts, I sketch the major components of membership categorization devices (MCDs) collections of categories and rules of application, and then the categories themselves and their features. These discussions lead to some consequences for research practice both for social science generally and for conversation- analytic practice in particular, and to an initial treatment of some problems that arise in advancing this line of conversation-analytic research.
Accounts of Conduct in Interaction: Interruption, Overlap and Turntaking - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Accounts of Conduct in Interaction: Interruption, overlap and turn-taking," in J.H. Turner (ed.), Handbook of Sociological Theory. (New York: Plenum, 2002), 287-321.
Agrammatism, Adaptation Theory, and Conversation Analysis: On the Role of so-called Telegraphic Style in Talk-in-Interaction - Claus Heeschen and Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Agrammatism, Adaptation Theory, Conversation Analysis: On the Role of so-called Telegraphic Style in Talk-in- Interaction," Aphasiology, 13, 1999, 365-405. In this paper, a specific aphasiological problem is approached by means of conversation analysis: the varying manifestations of agrammatism in the speech of one patient. According to the adaptation theory by Kolk and Heeschen, (most) agrammatics have the option to speak either in complete sentences (with the usual problems familiar to any aphasiologist) or to resort to systematically simplified expressions ('telegraphic style'). Two episodes from a conversation between an agrammatic patient and her best friend are analysed - one episode in which the patient uses hardly any 'telegrams' and one in which telegraphic expressions figure more centrally. The core questions are: What is achieved by resorting to telegraphic style in talk-in- interaction? and; How far does the healthy co- participant organize her conduct contingent on the varying practices in the patient's speech? A first answer suggests that telegraphic style is a resource for mobilizing the co-participant to become more engaged and to provide more help and is deployed specifically to exploit this feature. In the analytic explication of the episodes, turn by turn, turn component by turn component is addressed in some detail, thereby not disregarding any observation as irrelevant a priori. It is this procedure that is central to the potential contribution of CA to aphasiology. In the course of the explication further questions emerge: Is the notion of 'telegram' meaningful within an interaction-oriented approach? Is there variation in the patient's speech not only across occasions, but also across co-participants and across settings? The process of analysis of the episodes is informed by two domains of data: prior aphasiological knowledge and the experience and expertise of conversation analysts with talk and conduct in interaction among language-unimpaired speakers. Combining the two lines of research is not straightforward: it might lead to complex multivalent characterizations of some occurrences in the data, specifically those related to the question of how far the co- participant treats the patient as 'impaired' and how far she avoids the exposure of linguistic deficiencies in the patient.
Analyzing Single Episodes of Interaction: An Exercise in Conversation Analysis - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Analyzing Single Episodes of Interaction: An Exercise in Conversation Analysis," Social Psychology Quarterly, 50, 2 (1987), 101-114. A variety of analytic resources provided by past work in conversation analysis are brought to bear on the analysis of a single utterance in its sequential context, drawn from an ordinary conversation. Various facets of the organization of talk-in-interaction are thereby both introduced and exemplified. The result displays the capacity of this analytic modality to meet a fundamental responsibility of social analysis, namely, the capacity to explicate single episodes of action in interaction as a basic locus of social order.
Answering the Phone - Schegloff, E. A. (2004). Answering the Phone. In G. H. Lerner (Ed.), Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation (pp. 63–109). John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Aphasic Agrammatism as Interactional Artifact and Achievement - Claus Heeschen and Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Aphasic Agrammatism as Interactional Artifact and Achievement," in C. Goodwin (ed.), Conversation and Brain Damage. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).
Beginning to respond: Well-Prefaced Responses to Wh-Questions - This article reports on the occurrence of "well" within an analytically delimited sequential environment: turn-initial position in the second pair-part position of adjacency pair sequences launched by a wh-question. We show that these well-prefaces operate as general alerts that indicate non-straightforwardness in responding, and we compare this form of alert to others that operate in talk-in-interaction. We conclude by addressing the relationship of answering to responding, and by considering the relationship of "well"-prefacing to preference organization.
Beginnings in the Telephone - Emanuel A. Schegloff. "Beginnings in the Telephone," in J.E. Katz and M. Aakhus (eds.), Perpetual Contact: Mobile communication, private talk, public performance. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 284-300.
Between Micro and Macro: Contexts and Other Connections - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Between Micro and Micro: Contexts and Other Connections," in J. Alexander, B. Giesen, R. Munch and N. Smelser (eds.), The Micro-Macro Link (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987), 207-234.
Billig 1: "Whose Terms Whose Ordinariness? Rhetoric and Ideology in Conversation Analysis" (re Whose Text) - Billig, M. 1999. "Whose Terms? Whose Ordinariness? Rhetoric and Ideology in Conversation Analysis." Discourse & Society 10: 543-558.
Billig 2: "Conversation Analysis and Claims of Naivete" (re Whose Text) - Billig, M. 1999. "Conversation Analysis and the Claims of Naivete." Discourse & Society 10: 572-576.
Body Torque - Prompted originally by an art historian's description of the posture of a protagonist in a well known painting by Titian, the line of inquiry on which I am reporting here explores a type of postural configuration best described as "body torque"- by which I mean, roughly, divergent orientations of the body sectors above and below the neck and waist, respectively. A sketch of various possible features of body torque is followed by an exploration of these features as displayed in episodes of ordinary interaction, and their relevance for understanding classical paintings meant to depict quite extraordinary episodes of interaction.' Among the features of body torque that will be of interest are, first, its capacity to project postural instability and types of potential resolutions of this instability; second, its capacity to display engagement with multiple courses of action and interactional involvements, and differential ranking of those courses of action and involvements; third, some possible dispositions of conduct in this domain, such as one to "minimize torque"; and, fourth, the constraints and affordances that body torque, by virtue of these features, can bring to the character of the activities in which the body's deployer is engaged.
Categories in Action: Person-reference and membership categorization - ABSTRACT The article begins with an effort to clarify and differentiate a variety of terms used by analysts in dealing with mentions of persons in conversation and other forms of talk-in-interaction such terms as person reference, identifying, describing, categorizing, and the like. This effort leads to the observation that 'reference to persons' and 'membership categorization' are quite distinct sets of practices, with most reference to persons not being done by membership categories, and most uses of membership categorization devices being in the service of actions other than referring. Two interactional sequences whose analysis turns on a connection to talk earlier in the occasion (a configuration termed 'interactional threads') are then examined; first, to establish what is going on interactionally without respect to the mentioning of persons, and then as exercises in examining the various ways person-reference and membership categorization can figure in a stretch of interaction. KEY WORDS: action, categorization, conversation, description, reference, referring
Commentary on Stivers & Rossano: "Mobilizing Response" - My engagement with Stivers and Rossano's "Mobilizing Response" (henceforth S&R and MR, 2010/this issue) has led me in many directions, of which space limitations confine me to four. 1. The first is focused on the relationship between two conceptions of the calling of conver- sation analysis (CA): One is centered on the organization of action in interaction, the organizations of practices for accomplishing those actions and courses of action, and the basic infrastructure for the whole domain-turns and their form and distribution; actions and their trajectories; troubles and their resolution; language as an interface with the physical, social, cultural, emotional, and other worlds that humans live in, grasp and navigate, etc. The other conception is centered on embodied actors, bringing the elements of the organization of human sociality just mentioned into being moment by moment in a particular place, with particular others, vying with or yielding to one another, etc. Both are important, but for me the former is the crux of our undertaking; the title "Mobilizing Response" suggests that for S&R the latter is the target. 2. The second direction was dominated by a recurrent sense that the analyses of the data extracts that were to supply the empirical grounding of the argument were too often wide or shy of the mark, particularly with respect (a) to the claim that the targeted utterances were sequence initial and (b) to the assignment of action terms to characterize them these short- comings being especially worrisome since the focus of their claims was on other aspects of these utterances. 3. The third direction concerned a persistent uneasiness with several of the arguments being put forward and the gap between them and the data analyses. The most problematic of these was (for me, at least) the notion of differentials in pressure on a recipient to respond, and what (sort of) evidence could be brought to bear in support of such a claim that might also undermine it. 4. The fourth direction dawned gradually on me as I tried to formulate an alternative to S&R's undertaking; when I got it under some control, I found myself wondering whether S&R's project might after all be a good way to proceed, if only they would forego the critical grounding of their project (which I think to be for the most part ill considered) in favor of the affirmative grounds for pursuing it.
Confirming Allusions: Toward an Empirical Account of Action - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Confirming Allusions: Toward an Empirical Account of Action," American Journal of Sociology, 102:1, 1996, 161-216. As part of a larger effort to develop an empirically grounded theory of action, this article describes a previously undescribed action that occurs in talk-in-interaction. The practice of agreeing with another by repeating what they have said is shown to constitute the action of confirming an allusion-that is, confirming both its "content" and its prior inexplicit conveyance. The author reviews the past treatment of "action" in sociology and the key constraints on undertaking an empirically grounded account. The account of "confirming allusions" is offered to exemplify what this undertaking will involve; several instances of an unremarkable usage in conversation are displayed and used to formulate a puzzle, a database is developed for the exploration of the target usage, and a candidate solution to the puzzle is formulated, exemplified, and defended through a range of analytic techniques. The linkage between the practice and the action that it implements is analytically sketched by examining other uses of repetition in talk-in-interaction. In conclusion, the significance of both the theme and the analysis for studies of interaction and culture and for sociological theory is discussed.
Conversation Analysis and 'Communication Disorders' - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Conversation Analysis and 'Communication Disorders'," in C. Goodwin (ed.), Conversation and Brain Damage. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).
Conversation Analysis and Applied Linguistics - Emanuel A. Schegloff, Irene Koshik, Sally Jacoby, and David Olsher: "Conversation Analysis and Applied Linguistics," Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 22: 3-31, 2002.
Conversation Analysis and Socially Shared Cognition - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Conversation Analysis and Socially Shared Cognition," in L. Resnick, J. Levine and S. Teasley (eds.), Perspectives on Socially Shared Cognition. (Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 1991), 150-171. In this effort to develop an appreciation of how the social analysis of conversation relates to socially shared cognition, I will proceed in three stages. First, it seems appropriate in a volume organized, sponsored, and supported by psychologists, and composed for the most part of contributions by psychologists, to indicate some of the resonances that the term socially shared cognition sets off for a sociologist, if only to provide some background for the different approach I take. This introduction will of necessity be limited to a sketch of some of the relevant intellectual background, so boldly drawn as to verge on caricature, but will focus on the relevance of a preoccupation with the procedural sense of and basis for-"social sharedness," and with talk-in- interaction as a strategic setting in which to study social sharedness. In a second stage, I will outline briefly a few basic components of that approach to talk-in- interaction that represents the narrower usage of the term conversation analysis, and identify a number of distinct areas in which this approach has explicated ideas that would fall under - or might expand the scope of the study of - socially shared cognition. In the course of this account, I will introduce several central elements of the organization of talk-in-interaction that conversation analysis has focused on and that appear to have multifaceted relevance for the interface between interaction and cognition. I will particularly address the organizations of turn-taking and of repair, one of which provides the arena for the somewhat more detailed undertaking that follows. In the third stage, I will examine a few aspects of that component of the organization of repair that furnishes what I call "the last structurally provided defense of intersubjectivity in conversation." By this phrase, I allude to the relevance for participants in interaction of "intersubjectivity''- the maintenance of a world (including the developing course of the interaction itself) mutually understood by the participants as some same world. I mean to underscore as well that there are structures operating to organize ordinary talk-in- interaction, that these structures engender opportunities to detect and repair problems in the achievement and maintenance of intersubjectivity, and that these opportunities and their use are describable. I will describe two variant forms that efforts to repair problems of inter- subjectivity can take. In the present context, I take this topic to be a centrally relevant aspect of socially shared cognition.
Conveying Who You Are: The presentation of self, strictly speaking - In what follows, I first present a few elements of our current understanding of person reference drawn from past work on which the later parts of the chapter draw and which they presuppose. Secondly, I describe briefly some more recent work that complements the earlier work with results on other languages, and thereby contributes to specifying the import of the recipient-design and minimization preferences. Finally, I take up self-reference in the special environment described above an environment that may fall victim to the march of technology, as telephones come increasingly to be attached to persons and not to places. By the end of the last of these sections, we will see that speakers fashion even more elegant solutions in reconciling the constraints of recipient design and minimization in doing self-reference than is the case in third-person reference. Finally, the discussion will turn briefly to extend the analysis from recipient-design as represented in personal recognizability, that is in "knowing who it is", to the bearing on self-reference of the action/topic/context that has been made relevant by the recipient.
Description in the Social Sciences I: Talk-in-Interaction - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Description in the Social Sciences I: Talk-in-Interaction." Papers in Pragmatics 2 (1988):1-24.
Discourse as Interactional Achievement II: An Exercise in Conversation Analysis - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Discourse as an Interactional Achievement II: An Exercise in Conversation Analysis," in D. Tannen (ed.), Linguistics in Context: Connecting Observation and Understanding: Lectures from the 1985 LSA/TESOL and NEH Institutes (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1988), 135-158.
Discourse as Interactional Achievement III: The Omnirelevance of Action - Emanuel A. Schegloff. "Discourse as an Interactional Achievement III: The Omnirelevance of Action" Research on Language and Social Interaction, 28(2), 1995, 185-211.
Discourse as Interactional Achievement: Some Uses of 'uh huh' and Other Things That Come Between Sentences - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Discourse as an Interactional Achievement: Some Uses of 'uh huh' and Other Things That Come Between Sentences," in Georgetown University Roundtable on Languages and Linguistics l98l; Analyzing Discourse: Text and Talk, ed. by D. Tannen (Georgetown University Press, l982) 7l-93.
Discourse, Pragmatics, Conversation, Analysis - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Discourse, Pragmatics, Conversation, Analysis,"Discourse Studies 1:4, 405-35, 1999. In a period given to emphasizing diversity among humans, we would do well to explore diversity among forms of discourse and among forms of talk-in-interaction in particular. Among the speech-exchange systems, ordinary conversation has been claimed to be distinctive and fundamental, but questions have been raised about both claims. The resources for discriminating among speech- exchange systems are located in such generic organizations of practice as turn-taking, sequence organization, the organization of repair and the overall structural organization of episodes of interaction. I try to show that 'conversation' as a distinctive speech-exchange system is real and is not only a residual category, and that it is to be understood as the 'basic' speech exchange system, in part by reference to the distinctive turn-taking organization (among others) through which it is implemented. The 'motivation' for having developed a formal account of this turn- taking organization is recounted, and that formal account is defended for its usability in the analytic explication of singular, conlexted episodes of talk. The remainder of the article is given over to such an exemplary account - an examination of an episode of interaction during a testing session between a man whose brain hemispheres had been surgically separated and a researcher.
Experimentation or observation? Of the self alone or the natural world? (Comment on Roberts) - Schegloff, E. A. (2004). Experimentation or Observation? On the self alone or the natural world? (Commentary on Roberts:"Self- Experimentation as a source of new ideas"). Brain and Behavioral Sciences, 27(2), 271-2. One important lesson of Roberts' target article may be potentially obscured for some by the title's reference to "self-experimentation." At the core of this work, the key investigative resource is sustained and systematic observation, not experimentation, and it is deployed in a fashion not necessarily restricted to self- examination. There is an important reminder here of a strategically important, but neglected, relationship between observation and experiment.
From Interview to Confrontation: Observations on the Bush/Rather Encounter - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "From Interview to Confrontation: Observations on the Bush/Rather Encounter." Research on Language and Social Interaction, 22(1988/89):215-240.
Getting Serious: Joke ->Serious 'No' - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Getting Serious: Joke - > serious no,'" Journal of Pragmatics, 33:12, 1947-55, 2001.
Goffman and the Analysis of Conversation - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Goffman and the Analysis of Conversation." in P. Drew and T. Wootton (eds.), Erving Goffman: Exploring the Interaction Order (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988), 9-135.
Home Position - This paper describes a possible formal organizational device that serves to bound episodes of body movement such as gestures, fidgets, instrumental moves and the like. It involves a spate of movement -- whether a single move or a series of moves -- being completed by returning the moving body part to the position from which it departed at the outset. A series of specimens are examined which display this organizational device across a number of dimensions of variation -- in the body part being moved, the characteristics of the mover, the amplitude of the move, etc., underscoring the formality and adaptability of the device. Digitized video clips are available for this article.
Identification and Recognition in Telephone Conversation Openings - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Identification and Recognition in Telephone Conversation Openings," in G. Psathas (ed.), Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology (New York: Irvington Publishers, Inc., 1979) 23-78. In this paper Schegloff considers how parties in a telephone conversation display and achieve identification and recognition of each other, i.e., manage to show and tell who they each are and whether each knows who the other is and whether or not he is recognized by the other. The caller and the answerer are shown to produce and use, in their first utterances and turns at talk, considerable resources for accomplishing the task. Telephone conversations are particularly valuable for dealing with these issues since the speakers do not have sensory access to each other except through their voicesand speaking. Identification and recognition can be studied as these occur in the talk-audiotape recordings providing adequate access to the phenomena.
In Another Context - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "In Another Context," in A. Duranti and C. Goodwin (eds.), Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 193-227. In his chapter in the present volume, Schegloff begins by addressing a number of theoretical and methodological issues posed in the investigation of context. He argues strongly that an analyst is not free to invoke whatever variables he or she feels appropriate as dimensions of context, no matter how strongly grounded in traditional social theory - e.g. class, gender, etc. - but instead must demonstrate in the events being examined that the participants themselves are organizing their behavior in terms of the features being described by the analyst. He then uses a specific story- telling episode to demonstrate how sequential organization provides multiple levels of context for the organization of participants' action. In a previous analysis of part of this same sequence, C. Goodwin (1987) investigated how an utterance specifically designed to be a single-party, context-free event was in fact contextually shaped through a process of collaborative interaction. Schegloff now reanalyzes this same event by placing it within a much larger sequence than Goodwin looked at, an entire storytelling episode. Schegloff finds that this larger sequence is in fact consequential in detail for the organization of the event that Goodwin examined. However, Schegloff notes that his current analysis in no way undercuts Goodwin's earlier analysis. Instead multiple levels of sequential context mutually reinforce each other as they provide alternative types of organization for the local production of action. In the course of his analysis, Schegloff also provides an extended demonstration of how one of the speech events recurrently examined in this volume - storytelling - is studied within conversation analysis.
Interaction: The infrastructure for social institutions, the natural ecological niche for language, and the arena in which culture is enacted - Schegloff, E. A. (2006). Interaction: The infrastructure for social institutions, the natural ecological niche for language, and the arena in which culture is enacted. In N. J. Enfield and S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Roots of Human Sociality: Culture, cognition and interaction (pp. 70-96). London: Berg.
Introduction to Interaction and Grammar - Emanuel A. Schegloff, Elinor Ochs and Sandra Thompson: "Introduction," in E. Ochs, E. A. Schegloff and S. Thompson (eds.), Interaction and Grammar. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 1-51.
Introduction to Sacks "Lectures on Conversation" Volume 1 - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Introduction," in Harvey Sacks: Lectures on Conversation, Volume 1, ed. By G. Jefferson, with an Introduction by E. A. Schegloff (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,1992), ix-lxii.
Introduction to Sacks "Lectures on Conversation" Volume 2 - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Introduction," in Harvey Sacks: Lectures on Conversation, Volume 2, ed. By G. Jefferson, with an Introduction by E. A. Schegloff (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,1992), ix-lii.
Issues of Relevance for Discourse Analysis: Contingency in Action, Interaction and Co-Participant Context - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Issues of Relevance for Discourse Analysis: Contingency in Action, Interaction and Co- Participant Context," in E. H. Hovy and D. Scott (eds.), Computational and Conversational Discourse: Burning Issues -- An Interdisciplinary Account (Heidelberg: Springer Verlag,1996), 3- 38.
Naivete vs. Sophistication or Discipline vs. Self-Indulgence: A Rejoinder to Billig 2 (re Whose Text) - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Naivete vs. Sophistication or Discipline vs. Self- Indulgence: A Rejoinder to Billig," Discourse & Society, 10:4, 577-82, 1999.
Notes on a Conversational Practice: Formulating Place - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Notes on a Conversational Practice: Formulating Place," in D. N. Sudnow (ed.), Studies in Social Interaction (New York: MacMillan, The Free Press, 1972) 75-119. My aim in this essay is twofold. I hope to develop two problems of conversational analysis, each drawn from a different domain of problems. I shall develop a series of considerations that bear on one of the problems, and attempt to use those considerations in the understanding of the other. I shall proceed by sketching the first problem having to do with conversational sequencing, the problem of "insertion sequences," then abruptly shifting to the other problem, selecting formulations, which I shall call the problem of "locational formulations". Next, a series of considerations relevant to the selection of a locational formulation will be developed, and some of those considerations will be brought to bear on a piece of data that presents an instance of an insertion sequence concerned with location, to show how this insertion sequence is ordered. I will try, in several concluding remarks, to explicate some underlying themes of the discussion.
Notes on Laughter in the Pursuit of Intimacy - Gail Jefferson, Harvey Sacks and Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Notes on Laughter in the Pursuit of Intimacy," in G. Button and J.R.E. Lee (eds.), Talk and Social Organization, (Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters, Ltd., 1987), 152-205.
On an Actual Virtual Servo-Mechanism for Guessing Bad News - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "On an Actual Virtual Servo-Mechanism for Guessing Bad News: A Single Case Conjecture." Social Problems, 35(1988):442-457. A conversation analytic treatment of a single episode of talk-in-interaction is used to sketch a mechanism for steering recipients of bad news to better guesses of what the news is. The account of the mechanism makes use of the notion of "preferred/dispreferred response" and distinguishes different usages of that notion. The results of the exploration are used to recommend an approach & specialized contexts in which bad news is communicated, as well as an approach to "specialized" talk more generally.
On Complainability - Schegloff, E. A. (2005). On Complainability. Social Problems, 52(3), 449-476. Two common components of social problems are their grounding in the differential categorization of people and the treatment of some forms of conduct as "complainable." This article begins by introducing some ways in which the categorization of people and the complainability of conduct are problematic - both in the conduct of ordinary interaction and in social scientific analysis of ordinary interaction. It then addresses this problematicity by examining how ordinary conduct in interaction can display participants' tacit orientation to the relevance of unspoken categories and to the complainability of one's own or others' conduct. It concludes by inviting attention to recent work on well-recognized topics of inquiry in the social problems literature, and encourages the advancement of such work by combining new analytic resources with longstanding social problems themes and topics.
On Conversation Analysis: An interview with Emanuel A. Schegloff, 1 - Čmejrková, S., & Prevignano, C. L. (2003). Discussing Conversation Analysis (C. L. Prevignano & P. J. Thibault (eds.); pp. 11–55). John Benjamins Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1075/z.118
On Conversation Analysis: An interview with Emanuel A. Schegloff, 2 - Schegloff, E. A. (2003). Response. In C. L. Prevignano & P. J. Thibault (Eds.), Discussing Conversation Analysis (pp. 157–164). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/z.118
On Dispensability - Schegloff, E. A. (2004). On Dispensability. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 37(2), 95-149. I describe 5 sequential environments in which speakers produce talk designed to be, and to be recognizable as, 'the same' as something previously said. Examination of such talk reveals that such resayings may omit elements that occurred in the first saying 'elements that are apparently taken to be dispensable in getting' the same thing' said. On the other hand, some resayings add elements to the first saying' elements that were apparently dispensable on the first saying. In some resayings, both of these occur. Finally, the treatment of possibly dispensable turn-initial markers' that is, reusing them or dispensing with them' is shown to be a vehicle for achieving the reflexivity of position and composition in conversation: The usage making some position the currently relevant one and the currently relevant position making relevant the usage that is employed.
On ESP Puns - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "On ESP Puns," in P. Glenn, C. LeBaron, and J. Mandelbaum (eds.), Studies in language and social interaction: A festrschrif in honor of Robert Hopper. (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003).
On Granularity - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "On Granularity," Annual Review of Sociology, 26:715- 20, 2000.
On Integrity in Inquiry. . . of the Investigated, not the Investigator - The article begins with a sketch of the relation of interaction to language and to culture, and of the students of interaction to the students of language and of culture. A 10-second segment of recorded interaction at a family dinner is then examined in a fashion meant to preserve the integrity of what is being done interactionally while incorporating attention to the deployment of various facets of the language that is used, and its relationship to simultaneously ongoing bodily doings. An interactional practice ‘whining’ from that episode is then juxtaposed with the same practice in several other segments of interaction in the interests of developing a more formal, trans situational account. The viability of research focused on phenomena in an analytically distinct domain of events while preserving the integrity of the occasions in which instances of the phenomenon occurred is then reviewed, using a case study of the conjoint use of phonetic analysis and conversation analysis. The article concludes with a reply to Levinson’s article in this special issue of the journal, and uses the occasion to sketch the relationship between interaction and so-called ‘macro’ social and cultural formations such as kinship. Schegloff, E. A. (2005). On Integrity in Inquiry...of the investigated, not the investigator. Discourse Studies, 7(4-5), 455-80.
On Possibles - Although there is no lack of reasons for conversation analysis to be reluctant to adopt a cognitivist idiom and paradigm in studying talk and other conduct in interaction, examination of the literature with an open mind will disclose attentiveness to such themes in the conversation-analytic literature nonetheless. The pursuit of such themes, however, cannot be appropriately and successfully conducted under the aegis of currently dominant cognitivist paradigms. One central analytic resource in CA work is the notion of a ‘possible X,’ a resource which is here described and exemplified for three discrete ‘values’ of ‘X.’ The understanding of how such ‘possible Xs’ could work for participants in interaction invites understanding by analysts by reference to a ‘multiple passes’ model of uptake, a characterization which for now can be no more than metaphoric. Here is a venue at which conversation analysts and neuro/cognitive analysts might usefully try to work together.
On Sacks on Weber on Ancient Judaism: Introductory Notes and Interpretive Resources - Emanuel A. Schegloff,: "On Sacks on Weber on Ancient Judaism: Introductory Notes and Interpretive Resources," Theory,Culture and Society, 16:1, 1-29, 1999.
On Some Gestures' Relation to Talk
On Some Questions and Ambiguities in Conversation - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "On Some Questions and Ambiguities in Conversation," Pragmatics Microfiche (1976), 2.2:D8-G12. Also in J. M. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds.), Structures of Social Action, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, l984), 266-298.
On Talk and Its Institutional Occasions - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "On Talk and Its Institutional Occasions," in P. Drew and J.C. Heritage (eds.), Talk at Work (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 101-134.
On the Preference for Minimization in Referring to Persons: Evidence from Hebrew Conversation - Hacohen, G. and Schegloff, E. A. (2006). On the Preference for Minimization in Referring to Persons: Evidence from Hebrew Conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 38, 1305-1312. Hebrew is among the languages in which person, number and gender are inflected on the verb in past and future tenses. Although free-standing pronouns are therefore "redundant" in common- sense terms when articulated in such contexts, they do occur, and constitute departures from what conversation analysts propose to be a preference for minimization in person reference. Several exemplars are examined to show one interactional environment in which this usage occurs, and which it can be seen to mark, namely, environments of disalignment. Three upshots of this analysis are explicated.
One perspective on Conversation Analysis, Comparative Perspectives - Schegloff, E. A. (2009). One perspective on Conversation Analysis: Comparative Perspectives. In J. Sidnell (Ed.), Conversation Analysis: Comparative Perspectives (pp. 357–406). chapter, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Opening Sequencing
Opening Up Closings - Emanuel A. Schegloff and Harvey Sacks: "Opening Up Closings," Semiotica, VIII, 4 (1973) 289-327. Our aim in this paper is to report in a preliminary fashion on analyses we have been developing of closings of conversation. Although it may be apparent to intuition that the unit 'a single coxiversation' does not simply end, but is brought to a close, our initial task is to develop a technical basis for a closing problem. This we try to derive from a consideration of some features of the most basic sequential organization of conversation we know of - the organization of speaker turns. A partial solution of this problem is developed, employing resources drawn from the same order of organization. The incompleteness of that solution is shown, and leads to an elaboration of the problem, which requires reference to quite different orders of sequential organization in conversation - in particular, the organization of topic talk, and the overall structural organization of the unit 'a single conversation'. The reformulated problem is used to locate a much broader range of data as relevant to the problem of closings, and some of that data is discussed in detail. Finally, an attempt is made to specify the domain for which the closing problems, as we have posed them, seem apposite.
Overlapping Talk and the Organization of Turn-taking for Conversation - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Overlapping Talk and the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation," Language in Society, 29:1, 1-63, 2000. This article provides an empirically grounded account of what happens when more persons than one talk at once in conversation. It undertakes to specify when such occurrences are problematic for the participants, and for the organization of interaction; what the features of such overlapping talk are; and what constraints an account of overlapping talk should meet. It describes the practices employed by participants to deal with such simultaneous talk, and how they form an organization of practices which is related to the turn-taking organization previously described by Sacks et al. 1974. This ‘overlap resolution device’ constitutes a previously unexplicated component of that turn-taking organization, and one that provides solutions to underspecified features of the previous account.
Overwrought Utterances: 'Complex sentences' in a different sense - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Overwrought Utterances: "Complex sentences" in a different sense." in J. Bybee and M. Noonan (Eds.), Complex Sentences in Grammar and Discourse: Essays in honor of Sandra A. Thompson,(Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2002), 321-36.
Parties and Talking Together: Two Ways Numbers Are Significant - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Parties and Talking Together: Two Ways in Which Numbers Are Significant for Talk-in-Interaction," in P. ten Have and G. Psathas (eds.), Situated Order: Studies in Social Organization and Embodied Activities (Washington, D.C: University Press of America, 1995), 31-42.
Practices and Actions: Boundary Cases of Other-Initiated Repair - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Practices and Actions: Boundary Cases of Other-Initiated Repair," Discourse Processes 23:3, 1997, 499-545. Working within a naturalistic paradigm for which the notion of "practices" is more apt than "processes." I address the multiplicity of ties between practices of talk-in-interaction and the actions which they accomplish. After describing common procedures of data collection and preparation in this mode of inquiry and the "boundary cases" which these procedures may engender, I explore alternative actions which can be recognizably produced by practices of talking ordinarily associated with the action of "initiating repair." Two practices in particular are examined: questioning terms etc.) and certain forms of repeats. As well, I show that in some contexts the action of initiating repair can be produced by a practice which does not ordinarily produce it. The moral of the article is that situated analysis must go hand-in-hand with more formal analysis in order to arrive at satisfactory accounts of discourse practices, and of discourse processes as well.
Preference for Self Correction in the Organization of Repair in Conversation - Emanuel A. Schegloff, Gail Jefferson and Harvey Sacks: "The Preference for Self-Correction in the Organization of Repair in Conversation," Language, 53,2 (1977) 361-382. An 'organization of repair' operates in conversation, addressed to recurrent problems in speaking, hearing, and understanding. Several features of that organization are introduced to explicate the mechanism which produces a strong empirical skewing in which self-repair predominates over other-repair, and to show the operation of a preference for self-repair in the organization of repair. Several consequences of the preference for self-repair for conversational interaction are sketched.
Preliminaries to Preliminaries: 'Can I ask you a question' - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Preliminaries to Preliminaries: 'Can I ask you a question'," Sociological Inquiry, 50, 3-4 (1980) 104-152.
Presequences & Indirection - Applying Speech Act Theory to Ordinary Conversation - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Presequences and Indirection: Applying Speech Act Theory to Ordinary Conversation," Journal of Pragmatics, 12 (1988), 55-62. This paper contrasts the analysis provided by speech act theory for utterances of the form "Do you know + [embedded WH-question]" with the analysis demonstrably arrived at by participants in actual ordinary conversations. The analyses are found to diverge with respect both to the sets of alternative interpretations accorded the utterances and the priorities attributed to them. This result is related to the disattention in speech act theory to the temporal and sequential properties of talk-in-interaction.
Putting the Interaction Back into Dialogue (Comment on Pickering/Garrod) - Schegloff, E. A. (2004). Putting the Interaction Back into Dialogue (Commentary on Pickering and Garrod: "Toward a Mechanistic Psychology of Dialogue"). Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 27(2), 207-208. I share the authors' stance on the dialogic character of language. The authors, however, have left actual interaction out of their conception of dialogue. I sketch a number of organizations of practices of talking and understanding that supply the basic arena for talk-in-interaction. It is by reference to these that mechanisms for speech production and understanding need to be understood.
Recycled Turn Beginnings - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Recycled Turn Beginnings," in G. Button and J. R.E. Lee (eds.), Talk and Social Organization (Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters, Ltd., 1987),70-85.
Reflections on Conversation Analysis and Non native Speaker Talk: An Interview with Emanuel A. Schegloff - Wong, J., & Olsher, D. (2000). Reflections on Conversation Analysis and Nonnative Speaker Talk: An Interview with Emanuel A. Schegloff. Issues in Applied Linguistics, 11(1). http://dx.doi.org/10.5070/L4111005026 Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3kk0j6w8
Reflections on Language Development and the Interactional Character of Talk - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Reflections on Language, Development, and the Interactional Character of Talk-in-Interaction." in M. H. Bornstein and J. S. Bruner (eds.), Interaction in Human Development (New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1989), 139-153. The main theme that I want to pursue concerns what I call the double interactivity of talk-in-interaction. After drawing out several implications of this double interactivity for our understanding of the character of the resources of a language, I try to balance the "theoretical" tenor of these reflections with an account of a brief dinner table exchange between a young boy and his mother, which may help to ground my theme empirically. In the course of the account, I call on analytic resources drawn from conversation analysis that have no prima facie relation to the larger themes of the chapter, in the hope of suggesting how such basic research into the practices of talk-in-interaction can be of relevance and use to more focused or thematic inquiry, and should therefore be in everyone's tool kit-or department. I end with some preemptive responses to potential doubts from those who worry about applying this form of analysis to neophyte interactants.
Reflections on Quantification in the Study of Conversation - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Reflections on Quantification in the Study of Conversation," Research on Language and Social Interaction, 26:1, 1993, 99-128.
Reflections on Research on Telephone Conversation: Issues of Cross-Cultural Scope and Scholarly Exchange, Interactional Import, and Consequences - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Reflections on Research on Telephone Conversation: Issues of Cross-Cultural Scope and Scholarly Exchange, Interactional Import and Consequences," in K.K. Luke and T.S. Pavlidou (eds.), Telephone Calls: Unity and diversity in conversational structure across languages and cultures. (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2002 in press).
Reflections on Studying Prosody in Talk-in-Interaction
Reflections on Talk and Social Structure - Schegloff, E. A. (1991). Reflections on talk and social structure. In D. Boden & D. H. Zimmerman (Eds.), Talk and Social Structure: Studies in Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis (pp. 44–70). Polity Press.
Relevance of Repair to a Syntax-for-Conversation - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "The Relevance of Repair to Syntax-for-Conversation,"in T. Givon (ed.), Syntax and Semantics, Volume 12: Discourse and Syntax (New York: Academic Press, 1979) 261-286. The theme of this chapter is that the phenomena elsewhere treated under the rubric "repair" are potentially relevant to syntax, if syntax be thought of as "syntax-for-conversation." In support of this theme, I will try to show: 1. Repair operations affect the form of sentences and the ordering of elements in them, quite apart from the sheer fact of their occurrence in sentences doing so. 2. There are structural pressures, derived from those types of discourse organization we term "turn-taking" and the "organization of sequences," that tend to concentrate repair in the same turn as contains what is being repaired and, within that turn, in the same sentence (or other "turn- constructional unit"). 3. Formal arguments are possible to show that repair is, in principle, relevant to any sentence. 4. The phenomena of repair that occur in sentences are orderly and describable.
Repair After Next Turn: The Last Structurally Provided Defense of Intersubjectivity in Conversation - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Repair After Next Turn: The Last Structurally Provided Defense of Intersubjectivity in Conversation." American Journal of Sociology 97:5 (1992), 1295-1345. Organizational features of ordinary conversation and other talk-ininteraction provide for the routine display of participants' understandings of one anothers' conduct and of the field of action, thereby building in a routine grounding for intersubjectivity. This same organization provides interactants the resources for recognizing breakdowns of intersubjectivity and for repairing them. This article sets the concern with intersubjectivity in theoretical context, sketches the organization by which it is grounded and defended in ordinary interaction, describes the practices by which trouble in understanding is dealt with, and illustrates what happens when this organization fails to function. Some consequences for contemporary theory and inquiry are suggested.
Reply to Wetherell (Re Whose Text) - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Reply to Wetherell," Discourse & Society, 9:3, 1998, 457-460.
Sequencing in Conversational Openings - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Sequencing in Conversational Openings," American Anthropologist, 70, 6 (1968) 1075-1095. An attempt is made to ascertain rules for the sequencing of a limited part of natural conversation and to determine some properties and empirical consequences of the operation of those rules. Two formtdations of conversational openings are suggested and the properties "nonterminality" and "conditional relevance" are developed to explicate the operation of one of them and to suggest some of its interactional consequences. Some discussion is offered of the fit between the sequencing structure and the tasks of conversational openings.
Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation (Language) - Harvey Sacks, Emanuel A. Schegloff and Gail Jefferson: "A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation," Language, 50, 4 (1974) 696-735 . The organization of taking turns to talk is fundamental to conversation, as well as to other speech-exchange systems. A model for the turn- taking organization for conversation is proposed, and is examined for its compatibility with a list of grossly observable facts about conversation. The results of the examination suggest that, at least, a model for turn-taking in conversation will be characterized as locally managed, party-administered, interactionally controlled, and sensitive to recipient design. Several general consequences of the model are explicated, and contrasts are sketched with turn-taking organizations for other speech-exchange systems.
Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation (Schenkein) - Harvey Sacks, Emanuel A. Schegloff and Gail Jefferson: "A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation," in J. Schenkein (ed.), Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction (New York:Academic Press, Inc., 1978) The organization of taking turns to talk is fundamental to conversation, as well as to other speech-exchange systems. A model for the turn- taking organization for conversation is proposed, and is examined for its compatibility with a list of grossly observable facts about conversation. The results of the examination suggest that, at least, a model for turn-taking in conversation will be characterized as locally managed, party-administered, interactionally controlled, and sensitive to recipient design. Several general consequences of the model are explicated, and contrasts are sketched with turn-taking organizations for other speech-exchange systems.
Some other 'uh(m)'s - Recent work on the occurrence of “uh” and “uhm” in ordinary talk-in-interaction is concerned almost exclusively with its relation to trouble in the speech production process. After touching briefly on this environment of occurrence, this conversation-analytic article focuses attention on several interactional environments in which “uh(m)” figures in other ways—most extensively on its use to indicate the “reason-for-the-interaction's-launching.” The underlying theme is that accounts for what gets done and gets understood in talk-in-interaction must take into account not only its composition, but also its position—not only with respect to the grammar of sentences, but also with respect to the organization of turns at talk, of action sequences encompassing multiple turns at talk, and of occasions of talk, all of which are demonstrably oriented to by speakers in their production of the talk and by recipients in their analyzing of the talk.
Some Practices for Referring to Persons in Talk-in-Interaction - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Some Practices for Referring to Persons in Talk-in- Interaction: A Partial Sketch of a Systematics," in B. Fox (ed.), Studies in Anaphora (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1996), 437-85.
Some Sources of Misunderstanding in Talk-in-Interaction - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Some Sources of Misunderstanding in Talk-in-Interaction," Linguistics, 25 (1987), 201-218. Efforts to understand 'misunderstanding' in talk-in-interaction should be able to specify how interactionally exogenous factors such as cultural/linguistic/social differences induce trouble in interactionally endogenous terms. As a byproduct of a systematic study of repair in conversation, a number of systematic sources of misunderstanding can be explicated in terms of categories endogenous to the organization of talk-in-interaction. Two classes of trouble are examined - problematic reference and problematic sequential implicativeness. Four sources of the latter type of trouble are discussed - the serious/non-serious distinction, favored action interpretations, the constructive/composite distinction in the understanding of utterances, and the practice of 'joke-first'. Although germane to an understanding of the mechanisms of 'misunderstanding', the substantial independence of the organization of repair from the sources of trouble has the import that these mechanisms have at most an indirect bearing on repair itself.
Survey Interviews as Talk-in-Interaction - Emanuel A. Schegloff. (2002). Survey interviews as talk-in-interaction. In D. W. Maynard, H. Houtkoop, N. C. Schaeffer & H. van der Zouwen (Eds.), Standardization and tacit knowledge: Interaction and practice in the survey interview (pp. 151-157). New York: John Wiley.
The Organization of Sequences as a Source of Coherence in Talk-in-Interaction - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "On the Organization of Sequences as a Source of 'Coherence' in Talk-in- Interaction." in B. Dorval (ed.), Conversational Organization and its Development. (Norwood, New Jersey:Ablex, 1990), 51-77. In the course of the discussion which follows I want to display the utility and relevance of the "sequence" as another candidate type of unit, the practices of which can underlie the production of clumps of talk. The organization of sequences is an organization of action, action accomplished through talk-in-interaction, which can provide to a spate of conduct coherence and order which is analytically distinct from the notion of topic. I intend here to explore in an at least sketchy way the structure of a moderately extended sequence of talk in interaction. Within an ongoing program of research in the organization of talk- in-interaction, the treatment of this spate of talk is another in a series of accounts designed to exhibit a range of ways in which long stretches of talk can be best understood as orderly expansions or elaborations of a single underlying unit of sequence construction.' For the purposes of this chapter and its central theme, I choose this presentational tack, and this bit of conversation, to make two major points: first, that the "sequence structure" of a spate of talk and its topical aspect or structure are analytically distinct and can be empirically at least partially independent; and second, that the sequence structure itself can provide for the organizational coherence of the talk. But I have other purposes as well which this fragment will allow us to explore. A third theme is to see how, even when misunderstandings and trouble arise, these can be coherently shaped by sequence structure in conversation. Finally, and in the service of the other aims, I hope to engage in an exercise in bringing past work on the analysis of conversational interaction to bear on this singular episode of talk, for its capacity to elucidate single episodes is one important criterion of the relevance and pay-off of this mode of analysis (cf. Schegloff, 1987a).
The Routine as Achievement - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "The Routine as Achievement," Human Studies, 9 (1986), 111-151.
The Surfacing of the Suppressed - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "The Surfacing of the Suppressed," in P. Glenn, C. LeBaron, and J. Mandelbaum (eds.), Studies in language and social interaction: A festrschrif in honor of Robert Hopper., (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003).
Third Turn Repair - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Third Turn Repair," in G. R. Guy, C. Feagin, D. Schiffrin and J. Baugh (eds.), Towards a Social Science of Language: Papers in honor of William Labov. Volume 2: Social Interaction and Discourse Structures (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1997), 31-40.
To Searle on Conversation: A Note in Return - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "To Searle on Conversation: A Note in Return." in J. R. Searle et al., (On) Searle on Conversation. (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1992), 113-128.
Turn Organization: One Intersection of Grammar and Interaction - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Turn Organization: One Intersection of Grammar and Interaction," in E. Ochs, E. A. Schegloff and S. Thompson (eds.), Interaction and Grammar. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 52-133.
Two Preferences in the Organization of Reference to Persons in Conversation and Their Interaction - Harvey Sacks and Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Two Preferences in the Organization of Reference to Persons in Conversation and Their Interaction," in G. Psathas (ed.), Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology (New York: Irvington Publishers, Inc., 1979) 15-21. In conversation, persons have occasion to refer to other persons. Sacks and Schegloff examine here two preferences in such references. The first, minimization, involves use of a single reference form and the second, recipient design, involves the preference for "recognitionals," e.g. name. Names may be used not only because the person is known but also in preparation for subsequent use in the conversation even when the person is not already known by the recipient/hearer. When recognition is in doubt, a recognitional with an accompanying (questioning) upward intonational contour, followed by a briefpause (or "try- marker") may be used. The argument advanced by the authors is that members' uses of these, and succeeding try-markers in sequences, provide evidence for the preferential structure of efforts to achieve recognition in reference to other persons in the course of a conversation. Thus, the close examination of members' conversational interaction can reveal not only the organized, methodical practices they use, but also the structure of preferred solutions to particular problems that arise in conversation.
Wetherell: Positioning and Interpretive Repertoires: Conversation Analysis and Post-structuralism in Dialogue (Re Whose Text) - Wetherell, M. 1998. "Positioning and Interpretive Repertoires: Conversation Analysis and Post-structuralism in Dialogue." Discourse & Society 9: 387- 412.
What Is Applied Linguistics? Who is an Applied Linguist? - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "What is Applied Linguistics? Who is an Applied Linguist?" Issues in Applied Linguistics 1(1990):161-62. Our final contributor, Emanuel Schegloff, proposes a definition of applied linguistics which is radically different from the other contributions since it is based on a question we did not ask: Who is an applied linguist? This singular point of departure effectively deconstructs our original exercise and forces all of us to reconsider what it is we do.
What Next?: Language and Social Interaction Study at the Century's Turn - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "What Next?: Language and Social Interaction Study at the Century's Turn," Research on Language and Social Interaction, 32:1&2, 141-48, 1999.
What Type of Interaction Is It to Be? - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "What Type of Interaction Is It to Be?," in The Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, Philadelphia, June 1980.
When 'Others' Initiate Repair - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "When 'Others' Initiate Repair," Applied Linguistics,21:2, 205-243, 2000. Early work on repair (Schegloff et al. 1977) had proposed that virtually all repair initiated by other than speaker of the trouble-source turn was initiated in the turn following the trouble-source turn. Such repair often came to be identified with this locus of initiation, being termed NTRI - an acronym derived from 'next turn repair initiation'. Subsequent work (Schegloff 1992) described another location in which 'other- initiated repair' is initiated-termed 'fourth position'. This paper revisits this issue and elaborates the locus of other-initiated repair. It reports on a number of environments in which 'others' initiate repair in turns later than the one directly following the trouble-source turn (without, however, occupying fourth position), and it describes several ways in which other- initiation of repair which occurs in next-turn position may be delayed within that position. These positionings of repair initiation in conversation among native speakers of English are briefly compared with a proposal by Wong that other-initiated repair by non-nativespeakers may regularly be delayed. A postscript suggests the prospect that studies of non-native speaker participation in talk-in-interaction be treated as not separable from the study of talk-in- interaction more generally.
Whistling in the Dark: Notes from the Other Side of Liminality - Emanuel A. Schegloff, (2004), "Whistling in the dark: notes from the other side of liminality", In Texas Linguistics Forum, Vol. 48: SALSA XII Proceedings, Austin, University of Texas, pp. 17–30.
Whose Text? Whose Context? - Emanuel A. Schegloff: "Whose Text? Whose Context?," Discourse & Society, 8:2, 1997, 165-187.
Word Repeats as Unit Ends - Turns-at-talk are fundamental units of participation in talk-in-interaction, and turn-constructional units (TCUs) are the basic building blocks for turns. Possible completion of a TCU is, in principle, the possible completion of the turn, but multi-unit turns are not uncommon, and participants have practices for constructing multi-unit turns and for recognizing them in the course of their production. This article offers an account of one practice (and several of its variants) usable by speakers and recipients to convey and recognize the designed completion of a multi-TCU turn and/or a multi- turn sequence in which "answering" is being done: returning to, or "re-using", a word or phrase from the start of the turn or sequence, whether articulated by same or different speaker, whether used to refer to same or different referents. This practice is one of the resources by which the overall structural organization of an interactional unit and its local realization are mutually realized.

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