Requesting In Social Interaction

There has been a remarkable revival of interest in how we conduct social actions in interaction – particularly in requesting, where recent research into video-recorded face-to-face interaction has taken our understanding in novel directions. This collection brings together some of the latest, cutting-edge research into requesting by leading international practitioners of Conversation Analysis. The studies trace a line of conceptual development from ‘directive’ to ‘recruitment’, and explore the acquisitional, cultural, situational and species-specific differentiation of forms for requesting in human social interaction.They represent the latest explorations into the complexities and controversies associated with the apparently simple but essential matter of how we ask another to do something for us.

Within the study of language and social interaction, the concept of 'accountability'-including related concepts, such as 'account' or 'motive,' 'accounting,' and 'being accountable'-has been of longstanding interest in terms of how interactants in both ordinary and organizational contexts manage their image or reputation, as well as how they achieve mutual understanding. However, these concepts are polysemous, with different senses being rather dramatic, such as accountability as 'moral responsibility' and accountability as 'intelligibility.' Even today this fact is not always remembered or fully recognized or appreciated by scholars, which has arguably slowed the development of these concepts. This volume brings together a collection of novel, conversation-analytic studies addressing accountability, with the goal of re-exposing its multiple senses, reiterating their interrelationships and, in doing so, breaking new conceptual ground and exposing new pathways for future research. The collection considers central theoretical issues, including turn taking, sequence and preference organization, repair, membership categorization, action formation and ascription, social solidarity and affiliation, and the relevance of context. Chapters range contextually, canvasing interactions between friends and family members, and during talk shows, broadcast news interviews, airline reservations, and medical visits. Chapters also range culturally, including English, Japanese, and Korean data.

This collection brings together social semiotic, ethnographic, and conversation analytic approaches to multimodality in global studies of shopping, drawing on the rich diversity of the latest multimodal methods to critically reflect on shopping as a cornerstone of contemporary social life. The volume explores shopping as an area of study in its own right, with the buying and selling of goods and services a fundamental part of the social and cultural life of human communities for centuries. The book looks at both online and offline shopping, examining it as both everyday multi-sensorial practice and its translation into the interactive text and imagery that comprise the online shopping experience, from London street markets to Japanese grocery shops to Danish supermarkets to worldwide online shopping sites. Highlighting the diversity of modern multimodal approaches through contributions from established scholars, the book critically surveys both the challenges and opportunities in the embodied interactions between buyers and sellers and how these points of connection have been translated and will continue to transform in the age of algorithms and emergent technologies. This book will appeal to students and scholars interested in multimodality, multimodal conversation analysis, social semiotics, social interaction, and retail studies.

This monograph provides a micro-analytic description of instances of requests in everyday German conversation. Using the framework of CA, the study systematically analyzes the grammatical and syntactical structure of the request-turn and its response and of the conversational exchanges before and within the request base sequence, and the placement of the request sequence within the larger social interaction. Through an empirical analysis of individual cases of request sequences in German, the monograph describes in detail: (a) how speakers employ grammar and syntax as resources to construct turns at talk and accomplish the social action of request; (b) how speakers use grammatical and syntactical forms of the language to coordinate the production of the social action of requests; (c) how speakers use grammar and syntax as interactional resources to manage affiliative and remedial work (i.e., face work) when performing delicate social actions such as requests; and (d) how the context of the request activity impacts the grammatical and syntactical constructions of speakers’ utterances. Additionally, the monograph demonstrates that both the grammatical construction of turns and their placement within the talk are oriented to the sequential context of the interaction.

This collection of essays is a representative sample of the current research and researchers in the fields of language and social interactions and social context. The opening chapter, entitled "Context in Language," is written by Susan Ervin-Tripp, whose diverse and innovative research inspired the editors to dedicate this book to her honor. Ervin-Tripp is known for her work in the fields of linguistics, psychology, child development, sociology, anthropology, rhetoric, and women's studies. She has played a central role in the definition and establishment of psycholinguistics, child language development, and sociolinguistics, and has been an innovator in terms of approaches and methods of study. This book covers a wide range of research interests in the field, from linguistically oriented approaches to social and ethnography oriented approaches. The issue of the relationships between forms and structures of language and social interactions is examined in studies of both adult and child speech. It is a useful anthology for graduate students studying language and social interaction, as well as for researchers in this field.

This book examines requests for action in everyday contexts by analyzing natural video-recorded data of everyday interaction in British English and Polish families. Requests for carrying out little jobs-passing some object or fetching items from the next room -are pervasively relevant in contexts such as preparing and consuming food, caring for and playing with children. Requests therefore provide a useful window onto general qualities of human sociality as well as on aspects of cultural diversity. Jörg Zinken describes features of interactional context that people across cultures might be sensitive to in designing a request. In particular, the other person's locally observable commitment to a shared task emerges as a quality of context that systematically enters into the way a speaker builds a request. He then analyses the relationship between diversity across the grammatical resources of languages, and diversity in the action affordances provided by these structures. Focusing on grammatical structures that exist in Polish but not in English (impersonal deontic statements, a certain type of double imperative, and a grammaticalized distinction between perfective and imperfective verbal aspect), the analyses show that language-specific turn formats can index and project social orientations within the on-going interaction in culture-specific ways. By examining social actions at a fine level of grain, the book points a way toward an understanding of cultural diversity that avoids the pitfalls of cultural relativism.

For students of developmental psychology, this book should be a useful reference guide to the main concepts concerned with "motherese", scaffolding, socio-cognitive learning and joint problem solving. It is also a contribution to the debate on the influence of social behaviour on development.