Talk-in-Interacti0n* GENE H. LERNER

Social Psychology Quarterly1996, Vol. 59, No. 4, 303-321

Finding “Face” in the Preference Structures ofTalk-in-Interacti0n*

GENE H. LERNERUniversity of California, Santa Barbara

This article connects the concept of “face” to interactionally characterizable locations inconversation and to a speci c speaking practice used there. I consider the relevance of the“self/other" distinction for the organization ofsome action sequences in order to locate faceconcerns in interactional terms. In conversation, next speakers ordinarily begin speaking ator near a place where the current speaker could be nished. Occasionally, however,participants do not wait for the current speaker to nish, but complete the current turnthemselves. One systematic basis for this relaxation of turn-taking practices is found in apreference organization for alternative actions in conversation. The anticipatory completionof a speaking turn by another speaker can be used to preempt an emerging dispreferredaction and change it into the alternative preferred action. This preference structure includesa preference for agreement over disagreement, a preference for self-correction overother-correction, and a preference for offers over requests. A recipient’s anticipatorycompletion of an ongoing speaking turn is one conversational practice that makes possiblea preference relationship between asymmetrical (i.e., di erently valued) action types, andfurnishes a basis for the recognizability offace concerns.

Goffman fumished social psychology withthe notion of “face.” And as has usually beenthe case in Goffman’s work, he has pointedus in a very interesting direction. But, as isalso usually the case, he has not given usmuch of a road map, let alone a topographicalrendering of the terrain. In “On Face-Work,”for example, Goffman does not once subjecthis remarks to the discipline of the particular-ities of an actual single social encounter.Brown and Levinson (1987) provide a usefulroad map for speech acts, but as Holtgraves(l992:l5l) points out, “[T]he sequentialnature of face-work is evident. . . . If singleturns are the focus of the analysis, muchface-work may be missed.” The emergent,contingent, and interactional nature of talk(and other conduct) in interaction provides theunderlying terrain here, as elsewhere, for theorganization of social life.

In this article I show how converting astructurally dispreferred action into a pre-ferred altemative action furnishes a system-

* Gail Jefferson and Mike Lynch provided very usefulcomments on an early draft, while John Heritage, MannySchegloff, and Don Zimmerman fumished aid andcomfort at the very last moment. A version of this report,under the title “Transforming ‘Dispreferreds’ into‘Preferreds’: A Systematic Locus for Preempting a Tumat Talk," was presented at the I989 convention of theSpeech Communication Association, held in San Fran-cisco. Requests for reprints may be sent to Gene Lemer,Department of Sociology, University of California, SantaBarbara, CA 93106 (E-Mail: [email protected]).

atic site for the recognizability of faceconcems. Erving Goffman (1967) introduced“face” and “face-work” into social psychol-ogy to explain the ritual organization of socialencounters. In his view, “face” is somethinglike the assessable public image of self thatcan be found in, and results from, socialintercourse.‘ Face is the evaluative dimensionof “co—presence” (Goffman 1963) and thus isa matter of mutual concern and maintenance.Because this involves the public evaluation ofself, face is connected intimately to theemotions. Often, however, it is not so muchone’s identity that is at stake as the ongoingand ever-changeable level of regard thataccrues to persons engaged in interactionthrough everything that happens. “Maintain-ing face” seems to be less a single describableaspect of sociality than a potential change ofcircumstances describable only by referenceto the specific character of its potential oractual loss or enhancement. To maintain faceis to fit in.

Goffman proposed that face considerations

' Amdt and Janney (I987) tie Goffman’s concept offace—as the individual’s needs for interpersonal accep-tance and personal autonomy—to social psychologicaltheories of interpersonal behavior and the dynamics ofinterpersonal relationships; see Mao (1994), however, fora recent explication of the traditional Chinese concept(s)of face, and for a critique of the adequacy of the moreindividualistic Westem formulation for examining Chi-nese and Japanese politeness.

303

304 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY

are central to every action in spoken interac-tion. Thus, for example, he states, “When aperson volunteers a statement or message,however trivial or commonplace, he commitshimself and those he addresses, and in a senseplaces everyone present in jeopardy” (I967:37). This conceptual move constitutes the“social self” as an interactional self. Thoughface considerations are embedded in everyaction in the organization of talk-in-interac-tion, Goffman states as well that face-workdedicated to possible or actual threats to facecan also become a matter of direct or exposedconcern in the conduct of interaction. Con-tributing substantial detail to Goffman’s broadconceptual strokes, Brown and Levinson(I987) showed how particular face-threaten-ing acts are realized linguistically and howsuch realizations are connected to variables ofsocial organization such as power and socialdistance.

Goffman (I967) stated that a person’s faceis “something that is diffusely located in theow of events in the encounter” (p. 7). The

aim of this report is to furnish some technicalspecificity to this metaphoric assertion. Howis the “flow of events” organized as arecognizable course of action that providesthe grounds for individual accountability?Where are “self” and “other” lodged in theorganization of interaction‘? Here I am lessinterested in describing a particular “sequenceof acts set in motion by an acknowledgedthreat to face” (Goffman l967:l9; emphasisadded) than in describing a systematic basisfor conversational practices that fumishes thevery possibility and recognizability of bothface threat and remediation (see Schegloff1988a).

PREFERENCE ORGANIZATION

It has been widely observed (e.g., Brownand Levinson I987; Heritage I984; Holt-graves I992) that matters of face, on the onehand, and preference organization in conver-sational interaction, on the other, are inti-mately connected. The term preference orga-nization refers to a collection of methods(e.g., Davidson I984, I990; Lerner I989,I994; Pomerantz I978, I984; Sacks I987;Sacks and Schegloff I979; Schegloff 1988b;Schegloff, Jefferson, and Sacks I977). Thesemethods enable social solidarity and itsrecognizable absence in talk-in-interaction(Heritage I984). They are features of the

institutionalized social structure of talk-in-interaction, not re ections of individualdesire. Also, as Heritage (1984) states, “It isdeviance from these institutionalized designs[of preference organization] which is theinferentially rich, morally accountable, face-threatening and sanctionable form of action”(p. 268).

The possibility of a preference organizationof actions is based on the possibility ofaltemative relevant actions. The asymmetricalrelationship (Sacks 1992, vol. 2:456) orvaluing of these actions can be a systematic,cultural, or even locally occasioned possibil-ity. The privileging of one class of actionsover another is not a matter of personalprerogative, but is constituted by structuralpreferences built into various aspects of thesequential organization of talk-in-interaction.This asymmetry of relevant action alternativesis realized through practices that producesystematic advantages for certain types of(thereby preferred) action over other types of(thereby dispreferred) action. There are bothturn-constructional and sequence-organiza-tional practices that enable these preferences.

Turn-Constructional Practices

As demonstrated by Sacks (1987) andPomerantz (1978, I984), turns at talk thatdisagree with the action performed in a priorspeaking turn are ordinarily constructeddifferently from turns that agree with a priorturn. The inclusion, in a disagreeing turn, ofelements such as hesitations, weak agree-ments, and accounts shows that the disagree-ment is being produced as a dispreferredalternative to agreement. Further, these ele-ments are positioned within a turn so that theactual disagreement is pushed back towardthe completion of the turn. On the other hand,agreement turns ordinarily are composedwithout any special markings; therefore thesole agreement element occurs at the begin-ning of the turn. Thus a disagreement that hasbeen composed with a dispreferred turn shapeshows itself to be an alternative to agreement,whereas an agreement that has been com-posed with a preferred turn shape does notshow itself to be an alternative to anything.

The preferred and dispreferred turn shapesare not always used for agreement anddisagreement respectively. Schegloff (l988b)points out that preference/dispreference struc-tures can be built into the sequence type

FINDING “FACE” IN TALK-IN-INTERACTION 305

itself. Thus, as one might expect, and asempirical work by Pomerantz (I984) bearsout, interlocutors ordinarily disagree withactions such as self-deprecations using apreferred tum shape, but agree with suchactions in a fashion showing that theagreement is dispreferred. In other words,self-deprecations ordinarily prefer a disagree-ing response. This point is important becauseit shows that preference organization is notsynonymous with the organization of agree-ment/disagreement.

These built-in preferences provide aninteractionally relevant, normative structurefor determining how to properly respond to aprior action/turn. Though speakers ordinarilydo compose responding actions with preferredor dispreferred tum shapes in accordance withthe preference structure built into the se-quence type, they do not always do so. Whena speaker produces (for example) an accep-tance to an invitation but does so withhesitations, accounts, or the like, or producesa rejection to an invitation straightawaywithout such mitigating elements, they aredoing more than merely accepting or declin-ing the invitation. Or when a speakerdisagrees straightaway with a prior speaker’sassessment, their disagreement may be treatedas argumentative rather than as a difference ofopinion. (One common feature of all-outargument seems to be the structuring ofdisagreement within a preferred turn shape.)

Sequence-Organizational Practices

In addition to the built-in preferences foundin various kinds of action sequences, in whichthe initiating action projects one type ofresponse as its preferred response, otheraspects of sequence organization furtherenable preference/dispreference organizationin conversation. I can mention only one here.Preliminary or pre sequences (Sacks, 1992vol. 1:685; Schegloff I968, I980, I990;Terasaki I976) provide a way to substituteone action for another, impending action or toavoid an impending action altogether, be-cause a pre can foreshow an action withoutactually preforming that action? This practicesustains preference organization in two ways.First, if (for example) a “pre-invitation” is

Z See Levinson (1983) for a theoretical comparison ofpre-sequences and indirect speech acts, and Schegloff(l988c) for an empirical comparison.

issued (such as “Are you doing anythingtonight?”), it is possible to avoid a dispre-ferred response to an actual invitation becausethe invitation need not be issued if it turns outthat the person is busy. In that case, aninvitation report may be substituted. Second,if (for example) a “pre-request” is issued(such as “Are you going to town today?”), itis possible for the recipient to make an offerrather than waiting for a request, thusenabling a preference for offers over requests.Similarly, “pre-disagreements” (Schegloff etal. I977) can be followed by backdowns,which thus prevent actual disagreement.Schegloff (I987) provides an analysis of apre-disagreement that “allowed the conver-sion of a sequence whose component tumswere about to be in a relationship ofdisagreement to be done instead as anagreement” (p. 108).

The asymmetry of preference organizationat the sequence level has been noted in apreference for some offers over requests (ofofferables), self-repair over other-repair, andagreement over disagreement. Moreover, as Iwill argue, that domain of action whichGoffman (I981) calls speaker “footing” mayalso be preference-organized. For example,speaking for oneself (as animator and asauthor/owner of an utterance) seems to bepreferred over speaking for another partici-pant (as animator but not as author/owner ofan utterance), in the sense that voicing acoparticipant’s experiences, actions, or view-points is recognizably a second alternative tothat coparticipant’s speaking on his or herown behalf, whereas voicing one’s ownexperiences and the like is not ordinarily analternative to anything. (Speaking for oneselfmight be regarded as roughly the default orunmarked alternative.) By reference to thesequential organization of actions such asagreement/disagreement, request/offer, andrepair, “self ” and “other” are furnished withtheir relevance for interaction (see Schegloffet al. I977). Hence grounding the examina-tion of self/other in the sequential organiza-tion of conversation provides a specifiablesite for matters of public regard or face.

In this report I describe how the anticipa-tory completion of a turn-in-progress byanother speaker can be used to preempt anemerging action and convert it into anotheraction. I show how this practice contributesanother method to sustain the preference-organized relationship between such alterna-


tive action types as agreement/disagreement,self-correction/other-correction, and offerlrequest. Goffman (I967) asserted that “al-most all acts involving others are modified,prescriptively or proscriptively, by consider-ations of face” (p. 13). This investigationstands as an attempt to discover some of thepractices of talk in interaction that supply theresources for such prescriptions and proscrip-tions, and to locate analytically the “ritualrequirements” of Goffman in the so-called“system requirements” of conversation anal-ysrs.

INTERACTIONAL CONTEXTS

The data used in this investigation consistof recordings of naturally occurring talk-in-interaction, and have been drawn from a largeshared corpus of telephone calls and copre-sent interactions? All of the data presentedhere were collected in the United States andall of it is in English, though at least some ofthe phenomena described here have beenfound in other languages and cultures,including structurally distant languages suchas Japanese (see, e.g., Lemer and Takagi1995). Further, the instances of interactionare drawn from settings that vary on many ofthe dimensions used by social scientists tocharacterize contextual variation (includingfamilial, institutional, and therapeutic set-tings). The phenomena reported here can befound across these variations of context, andto this point, seem insensitive to suchvariations. What appears to matter as relevantcontext is the in-progress recognizability of acompound turn-constructional unit, whateverthe “larger” setting in which it is beingconstructed. (Schegloff [I996] discusses theinsensitivity of another type of action-in-conversation to vemacularly characterizedsettings and participants.)

I proceed in the following manner. First Idescribe conversational turn construction, thestructure of compound tum-constructionalunits, and the small sequence of actions thatanticipatory completion of such units canlaunch. Then I brie y discuss the variety offorms that agreement can take, including

3 The transcribed excerpts I present were producedwith a set of transcription notations devised by GailJefferson to capture the details of actual conversation.Atkinson and Heritage (I984) provide a fairly completedescription of the most frequently used conventions.

anticipatory completion. Next I show howanticipatory completion can be used topreempt an emerging disagreement in afashion that results in collaborativelyachieved agreement. Finally I present othertypes of preference-organized actions andshow that anticipatory completion can be usedto convert dispreferred actions into preferredactions across a range of action types.Throughout this analysis I describe therelevance of self/other in sequence-organiza-tional terms as a way to locate, in interac-tional terms, those moments when matters ofpublic regard or face might be recognized.

TURN CONSTRUCTION

Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson (I974)showed that speaking turns in conversationare ordinarily constructed from units that canproject, in their course, roughly what it willtake to complete the unit type under way. Theconcept of “turn-constructional unit” is sim-ple but easily misunderstood. It is simple inthat the term turn-constructional unit merelyregisters the fact that there are units out ofwhich turns are constructed. Some turns areconstructed from a single such unit; others,from several or many such units. Some unittypes are constructed out of single words(e.g., “No.”); others, from multiclause sen-tences (e.g., “Ron I told ya when I made theblouse I’d do the buttonholes.”). This con-cept becomes more complex when oneattempts to specify the character of theseunits. Because the recognizability of a unittype is always a local matter, which occurs atthe “point of production” of each turn, all ofthe resources of turn position (both the thickparticulars of its context and its sequentialenvironment) and turn composition (includingintonation, structure and content) can berelied upon by a speaker and used byrecipients in order to locate what unit type isunder way, and thus what roughly will beneeded to bring it to a possible completion.‘

Tum-constructional units, then, might beviewed as amenable to formal descriptiononly up to a point. The concept of the

4 As Sacks et al. (I974) point out, tum taking iscoordinated by reference to possible completion, notactual completion. For a recent attempt by linguists tospecify the turn-constructional unit in terms of linguisticpractices rather than language structure, see Ford, Fox,and Thompson (I996).


tum-constructional unit indicates what mustbe sought by participants (and professionalanalysts) from the composition-in-its-positionof an utterance, but does not de ne whatspecifically will furnish the recognizability ofa unit type in a particular case; that is alwaysa local matter. The broad requirement—thatunits of turn construction have recognizablestructures which project completion—is partof the tum-taking system employed byparticipants to conversation, but the specificfeatures of composition and context that willrealize these requirements are left to localdetennination. Here I emphasize two featuresof the structure of tum-constructional units:These units are emergent and directional.Thus they are available to participants as theyunfold, not only on their completion.

Compound Turn Construction

In saying that tum-constructional units(henceforth TCUs) are not amenable to fulldefinition, I do not mean that furtherdifferentiation of their structure is impossible.In a further development of these earlierfindings, I have described one social-syntacticform that TCUs can take (Lemer 1991,forthcoming). This unit type, the compoundTCU, projects completion in a distinct way.During its production, a compound TCUshows that it has a multicomponent structureconsisting of at least a preliminary and a finalcomponent, as in the following excerpt atlines 5-9 and again at lines 13-I6:

[SF:1]Mark:

/\

oo\1o\ur-t>t»r\>-3,

'hhhhh Okazzy nowhere’s the plan.Okay.-pk -hhhhhh uhzmif I don’t seeyuh?(0.7)'hhh why don’tche callme sometime before

9 noon Saturday.I0 Joan: Okay.ll Mark: Okay?I2 Joan: Mm-hm.I3 ~> Mark: -hhhh en then if II4 do see yuh then we15 c’n make, hh -hh16 arrangements.17 Joan: Qkay.The beginning of a turn’s talk—as it emergesin real time—can show itself to be a

Joan:Mark:

preliminary component (e.g., “if I do seeyuh” at lines 13-14). Because of thein-progress recognizability of the “if X + thenY” structure, both the possible completion ofthat preliminary component itself and theform of the final component (“then Y”) canbe roughly foreseen.

Coparticipants must examine a speaker’sutterance to detennine where a next speakercan properly begin to speak (Sacks et al.1974). Because a compound TCU as a wholecan reach completion only when the finalcomponent is produced, compound TCUsmust be inspected for completion in a specialway. For compound TCUs before the finalcomponent is begun—recipients must exam-ine the emerging talk in order to determinewhether the final component has begun. Onlyafter the final component is launched canrecipients monitor the talk for the place wheretransition to a next speaker will becomeproperly relevant. In other words, not until aspeaker has begun the projected final compo-nent can the entire TCU come to possiblecompletion and thereby to a transition-relevance place.

Many aspects of tum design can fumish arealization of the features of a compoundTCU. For example, in addition to “ifX+then Y”- and “when X+then Y”-typecompound TCUs, I have identified TCUs thatconsist of two-part contrasts (not X+Y),TCUs that include parenthetical inserts(X, + Y + X2), and TCUs that are prefaced bya form of author attribution (“She said+X”or “I thought+X”) as compound turn-constructional types. Compound TCUs fur-nish the sequential possibility of (and re ex-ive accountability for) anticipatorycompletion by another speaker because acompound TCU—in the course of the prelim-inary component—foreshows both a placewhere the final component could be due (atthe completion of the preliminary component)and the form that the final component willtake. This possibility of anticipatory comple-tion is realized in the following excerpt:(2) [GTS]

Dan: When the groupreconvenes intwo weeks =

Roger: =they’re gunnaissue straitjacketsU!-J>UJl\)>—

Here the “when X” preliminary componentprovides a special opportunity for another


participant to produce a rendition of the“ [then] Y” final component, and to produce itat precisely a place where it could be due.That is, it is positioned as a grammaticalextension of the initial utterance.

Anticipatory Completion as Initiationof a Sequence

The anticipatory completion of a TCU—in-progress can make relevant a next actionby the speaker whose TCU was com-pleted, at least when the anticipatory com-pletion is addressed to that speaker. Thisnext action is the sequence-appropriateresponding action. For example, this actioncan be the acceptance or rejection of thecompletion as a proffered anticipatory under-standing in the course of an explanation.Here the anticipatory completion of anotherspeaker’s TCU can initiate a small sequenceof action: the interposed completion, fol-lowed by acceptance or rejection of thatcompletion as an adequate rendition of theprojected but unspoken completion of theexplanation.5

This collaborative turn sequence can beseen in Excerpt (3), in which Marty isexplaining to Josh the problems of copyingfrom one tape recorder to another:(3) [CDHQ:II:3]

Marty: Now most machinesdon’t record thatslow. So I’d wanna-when I make a tape,be able tuh speedit up.Yeah.

The anticipatory completion by Josh is thefirst or initiating action of the sequence; theconfirmation of the proffered completion isthe second or responding action. By co-optingthe projected key element of the explanationbefore it is voiced, Josh can show understand-ing of what Marty is explaining. Marty’s

\10'\UI-I>U)l\-)>-

Josh:

—> Marty:

5 In this section and throughout the report I speak ofanticipatory completion as initiating a sequence. Yet insome or even many cases it may be possible tocharacterize the speaker of the preliminary component asmildly eliciting or even markedly “inviting” completionfrom a recipient in various ways (e.g., through prosody).In these cases it might be appropriate to speak of thecompletion as forwarding the sequence rather thaninitiating it.

agreement token then confinns that under-standing.

As Excerpt (3) shows, one consequenceof completing another speaker’s compoundTCU is that it changes the participants’positions in relation to the ongoing sequenceof actions. That is, it changes the characterof their opportunities to participate inproducing the sequence. This can becompared to the sequential operation of“counters” as responding actions to the firstpart of an adjacency pair—for example, acounterinvitation in response to an invitation(Sacks l987:note 3). When a counterinvita-tion is offered, the parties exchange theiropportunities to participate within the se-quence. The original inviter is now in aposition to accept or decline the (counter)in-vitation. Anticipatory completions, likecounters, interchange the opportunities toproduce initiating and responding actionswithin a sequence.

Though employing anticipatory completioncan switch the positions within a sequence,this change must be sustained by the priorspeaker because there is a way to “turn thetables” again on a participant who employsanticipatory completion. In Excerpt (4) atlines 2-3, Rich (in response to a request forconfirmation by Carol) begins to explain thatyou can take a cat to the Humane Societywithout cost (in contrast to having the Societycome and pick it up). This remark can be seento support Carol; she had made a similarassertion (also in an “if+then” format)earlier, but it was rejected by anotherparticipant.

(4) [U5]Carol: Am I right?Rich: if you bring it

intuh themCarol: ih don’t cost

yuh [ nothingRich: [ doesn’t cost

you anything =Carol: =rightoo\1o\u1-|>-u>r\.>_-

l

By producing an anticipatory completion,Carol, who had been in a position torespond to the supporting explanation (forexample, by confirming it), now is in aposition to allow Rich to confirm the jointlyproduced explanation. This interchange ofpositions, however, does not guarantee that


the prior speaker (Rich, in this case) willalways respond with an agreement (ordisagreement) as Rich shows at lines 6-7.As in this case, a delayed completion(Lerner 1989) is used to reverse for asecond time the opportunities to partici-pate within the sequence, so that Carolagain is in a position to confirm Rich’sexplanation. Of course, Rich need notrelinquish his turn at all. Attempting tocomplete another’s TCU does not automati-cally cause the original speaker to relinquishhis or her turn. The original speaker mustcollaborate by dropping out, or must ratifythe anticipatory completion in some otherway.

Anticipatory completion is a device lodgedat the intersection of two systems thatorganize conversational interaction: the struc-turing and organizing of talk by turn-takingpractices, and the organization of actionsproduced in conversation as sequences ofactions. The before-completion onset of talkby another speaker constitutes a relaxation ofturn-taking practices designed for one-at-a-time speaking, in favor of speaking out oftum to accomplish an action that cannot waitfor possible completion!‘

Several features of collaborative turn se-quences suggest a relaxation rather than aviolation of tum taking: (I) Beginninganticipatory completion at completion of thepreliminary component maintains an orienta-tion to changing speakers in a fashion thataims to minimize overlap; (2) a transition-relevance place remains where the priorspeaker projected that one would be; and (3)the response slot gives the speaker of thepreliminary component a systematic positionfrom which to maintain some authorialcontrol over what the TCU will become-thatis, to accept or reject the proffered comple-tion.

This last feature is seen most dramaticallywhen the completion misses its mark and isrejected, as in the following excerpt at lines14-15. (Also note Nancy’s response to therejection at lines 16-17.)

6 Other actions can be accomplished by speakingbefore possible completion; for example, see Jefferson(1973) on “recognition point” entry. In addition, Sacksand Schegloff’s (1979) study of person reference andPomerantz’s (1978) study of compliment responses showother ways in which competing systems can be managed,and how some features of one system can be relaxed aspart of their cooperation.

/*\

oo\|o~\u1-I:-tom»--3,‘

[Hyla:simpli ed]Hyla: I wz deciding

ifI should write himthe thank you[ fer the birthday gift.

Nancy: [ Yea:hHyla: hh 'hh I decided nozt

to [ thoughNancy: [ How co:me,

9 Hyla: ‘t hhhhh (.) Becuz I10 figure, hhh [ hhh11 Nancy: [ If ‘e hasn’12 written yezt, (0.4) then13 ‘e doesn’t want to.14 -> Hyla: Oh:: don’t sayI5 thahhh[a(h)t16 Nancy: [ E is tha’17 whatcher think[ing?18 Hyla: [No::,

Anticipatory completions rarely seem tomiss their mark, as Nancy’s does in the abovecase. That is, except in characterizableenvironments—for example, where the com-pletion is marked or composed as intendedlynot serious, as in Excerpt (2), and perhaps in“tutorial” exchanges-the anticipatory com-pletions I have seen are rarely rejected. Thissituation has at least two straightforwardstructural reasons. First, the compound TCUprovides a sequential opportunity for comple-tion but does not require it. Thus a recipientneed not provide one if they are not preparedto do so. Also, as Excerpt (4) shows, theanticipatory completion can be supplanted bya delayed completion from the originalspeaker rather than being either accepted orrejected. Both fumish ways of avoidingdisagreement; as Goffman (1967) suggestedavoidance is the surest way to prevent threatsto one’s face.

COLLABORATIVE ACHIEVEMENTOF AGREEMENT

Agreement, as a practical matter, can beachieved in a variety of ways. When I usethe term agreement here I am collectingunder a general term sequence-specificactions which range from confirmation toacquiescence. The action that anticipatorycompletion preempts will govern the charac-ter of the agreement, and indeed whether“agreement” is what is being done at all.Also, when I speak of “agreeing” I am notreferring to what the speaker “means”,


“intends”, or “believes”; rather, I amreferring to practices that can amount to“agreeing” for the interaction.

In both‘of the following excerpts a place ismade for agreement, and agreement then isasserted in that place. In Excerpt (6), Basserts agreement with a prior speaker’sproposition:(6) [GL:DS]1 A: But if you look at, say,2

U1-l>~L»J -> B:

the Ten Commandments,they really are based onrace survival.I think so. I really do.

In Excerpt (7), Dad confirms Kerry’s accountof a rule that will govern voting in theirfamily investment club:

/%

m>\JO\Ln-Bu>n>»-Qj

[HIC]David:

Kerry:

But (.) if you callsomebody up and say“nor” you gotta putthat in wrizting,so that its on record.But you can’t use yershares unless yer here.(0.2)

9 is what I m10 say [ing11 —> Dad: [That’s right,12 that’s right.

In Excerpt (6), B concurs with A’s proposi-tion; in Excerpt (7), Dad confirms Kerry’saccount. In each of these exchanges thebusiness of the turn is doing agreement. Inaddition to claiming agreement, however,there are ways to demonstrate it (see Sacks1992, vol. 2:252).

A speaker can show he or she is inagreement with a prior turn by producing anutterance which is not taken up with claimingagreement per se, but nevertheless demon-strates agreement with the prior speaker, as Jdoes in Excerpt (8):(8) [Pomerantz (1984)]1 M: You must admit it2 was fun the night

we we [nt down[It was great fun. . . .J>-oz I f‘

By producing an upgraded assessment justafter M’s prior assessment, J demonstratesaccord with M’s assessment (Pomerantz1984).

When agreeing or disagreeing with a

proposition or assessment is a relevantresponsive action, anticipatory completioncan be used to demonstrate accord byco-opting a key element of that proposition.In Excerpt (9), an “if X+ then Y” compoundTCU format affords the sequential possibilityof anticipatory completion. In this case, theanticipatory completion at lines 9-10 demon-strates a continuing agreement with A’spropositions:

[GL:DS]A: but if you look at, say,

the Ten Commandments,they really are basedon race survival.

B: I think so.I really do.

A: If you don’t obeythose Ten Commandments,the race is going to goto hell pretty damn fast.III/5 o\ooo\ro~u\-|=-wr\.>._-3

I P?

The projected_ TCU final component isco-opted by Speaker B at lines 9-10. B’santicipatory completion stands in place of A’sprojected (but now co-opted) final compo-nent, and as such counts as a rendition of thatfinal component; that is, it can count as aversion of what Speaker A was about to say.Moreover, agreement would have been arelevant next action for B, if A had finishedthe TCU. Speaker B, by producing a versionof the completion and thus collaborating withSpeaker A in the production of the proposi-tion as a whole, thereby demonstrates—inthis agreement-relevant environment—agree-ment with the proposition as a whole. In thisway, agreement is achieved collaboratively inthe course of a TCU. (A has collaborated bychoosing not to resume speaking.) In sum-mary, by merely voicing what can be treatedas a continuation of another’s utterance, Bassociates himself with the TCU as a wholeand with the collaboratively produced propo-sition it carries.

The use of anticipatory completion toachieve agreement in an agreement-relevantenvironment seems to rely on (at least) thefollowing conditions. First, anticipatory com-pletions are produced with a “preferred” turnshape (Pomerantz 1984). They are positionedto be contiguous with the preliminary compo-nent, and they are composed in an unmarkedfashion; that is, they are unprefaced and aredesigned as assertions rather than with (for


example) the upward intonation of a “try-marker” (Sacks and Schegloff 1979).

Second, anticipatory completions are com-posed (as the name suggests) to affiliatestructurally with the prior utterance. In otherwords, they are built syntactically off of atum-in-progress. As such they constitute onetype of ellipsis-—if one can recast the use ofthat term with an interactional die, asGoldberg (1978) did when she stated, “Aspeaker may demonstrate at the level ofgrammar the affiliation of his present turn-constructional component with that of the justprior speaker by using as his constructionalbasis some portion of the prior speaker’sutterance” (p. 218). For anticipatory comple-tion, syntactic affiliation takes the form ofstructural equivalence to the foreshown, butco-opted, final component.

Third, a structurally equivalent utterance isordinarily treated as a rendition of what wouldhave been said by the co-opted speaker. Thatis, authorship/ownership is implicated for theoriginal speaker, and this feature makesrelevant a response from the original speaker.

Anticipatory completion also can be usedso as to exploit its structurally impliedauthorship/ownership, rather than to achieveit in a serious fashion. Like other practices oftalk-in-interaction, this one can be turned toother, markedly alternative uses. That is, itcan be used perversely. For example, antici-patory completion can be used to tack animplausible completion onto the prior speak-er’s turn, as Roger (a teenage therapy groupmember) does to Dan (the group therapist) inthe following excerpt:(I0) [GTS]

Dan: Now when the groupreconvenes when the(.) group reconvenesin two weeks =

Roger: =they’re gunna issuestraitjacketsO‘\LIl-l>~UJl\J*—

Rather than demonstrating accord with theprior speaker, Roger uses anticipatory com-pletion as a springboard for a wisecrack. Thiscan be viewed as done at Dan’s expenseinsofar as Roger’s utterance can technically(tlfough not seriously) lay claim to being arendition of what could be foreseen as Dan’sfinal component. The realized completion isattributable in some measure to Dan, even ifsomeone clearly has put words into hismouth.

Agreement and Disagreement

Anticipatory completion can be employed asa method for fashioning agreement. Itsdeployment can count as agreement; that is, itcan be treated as agreement. During anutterance for which agreement (or disagree-ment) will be relevant in next tum, anticipa-tory completion can demonstrate agreementbefore completion is reached. But what if theutterance that implicates agreement or dis-agreement as a next action already disagreeswith its prior turn?

One basis for initiating a collaborative tumsequence can be found in the systematicrelationship of agreement to disagreement inconversation. Sacks (1987) proposed thatagreement and disagreement constitute apreference-organized system for conversa-tion. A preference for agreement is consti-tuted in part by the differential practices forproducing agreement and disagreement thatinclude built-in methods for achieving agree-ment over disagreement. Further, Pomerantz(1975, 1984) has described the differentialtum shapes of agreement and disagreement:“Massively throughout conversational materi-als, agreements are organized as preferredactivities and disagreements as dispreferredactivities” (1975166). Dispreferred turns char-acteristically incorporate delays, pre-posi-tioned weak agreements, and other sequentialmarkers (e.g., “Well”) that can foreshow anupcoming disagreement and thereby providethe possibility of its preemption (see David-son 1984; Pomerantz 1984).

As I pointed out above, compound TCUsthat have agreement or disagreement as arelevant next action fumish one environmentfor initiating collaborative turn sequences.Turns that are themselves in disagreementwith a prior turn can provide a furtherbasis—a systematic basis—for anticipatorycompletion. Here it can be used to convert anincipient disagreement into a collaborativelyachieved agreement. Because disagreementelements ordinarily are expressed later ratherthan earlier in a tum, it is possible to projectan upcoming disagreement element during anemerging turn and thus co-opt its production.In other words, a prefaced disagreementprovides the sequential opportunity‘ for antic-ipatory completion.

This can be seen in Excerpt (11) at line 17.In this excerpt, Cathy’s father, Ron, asks her(as part of a father-daughter discussion of


“living together” versus “getting married”)why she would not get married if she reallyfound someone who suited her. Cathy, at line10, cuts in with an initial agreement (“noth-ing [would be wrong with getting married]”)and then adds a contingency to this agreement(“if you’re sure [about your feelings]”). Atline 12, Ron begins a response that prefaces adisagreement with Cathy’s contingency asunrealistic and perhaps juvenile. This canoni-cal turn shape for disagreement fumishes a[preface + disagreement] compound TCUformat; at line 17, Cathy preempts thedisagreement by producing a rendition of theprojected component herself at the placewhere it is due.(11) [MOTHER’S DAY]

(( Ron is Cathy’s father))Ron: what would be good is

t’ sit down here’n tell- ygu tell me(1.1) ((R chewing food))what is w§o::ng(.) if you f:ind,like yer mother sayssomeone thet yQu-(0.2) ((cheWing))nothing if you’re sgre,(0.3) ((chewing))

12 Ron: well honey13 (0.5) ((chew & swallow))14 in dis world,15 really truly.16 (.)17 —> Cathy: °you can’t be sure.°18 —> Ron: No, you really c§n’t.19 (.) I mean ih ih-20 that’s that’s just fine,21 I’d go along with you a22 hundred percent if there23 was a formula that you24 could say, “I guarantee,25 that’s the person” . . .

0O\lO\LII-¥>~bJl\J>—‘

910 Cathy:1 1

What has happened here? Ron is objecting toCathy’s contingency, but before he canactually voice the objection part of his turnshe produces a rendition of it. In this way sheacknowledges his (aphoristic) objection be-fore he has a chance to express it.

Moreover, it is possible, especially giventhe noticeably lowered volume and the strongterminal intonation in the voicing of heranticipatory completion, that Cathy’s contri-bution may be hearable as more thanacknowledging Ron’s objection. In this par-

ticular sequence it may be hearable asacquiescing to his invocation of aphoristicwisdom. In his response, at line 18, Ron doesseem to treat Cathy’s completion in this way.He produces an agreeing response in the nexttum by confirming the anticipatory comple-tion, and then uses that as an agreed-uponpoint or settled matter as he continues histurn. I am not implying here that Cathy isnow agreeing with Ron’s opinion on thematter of “living with a man” versus “gettingmarried” or that he treats her utterance in thatway, but only that her anticipatory completionfurnishes the basis for achieving agreement inplace of the incipient disagreement over the“if you’re sure” contingency.

It is here “self ” and “other” becomeconsequential for the action that an utteranceaccomplishes, because one’s position in theincipient dispute will matter for the actionaccomplished by the utterance. Cathy co-optsthe projected disagreement component and,by voicing that component herself, preemptsthe disagreement import of the utterance. Thisis achieved as a collaborative completion,because Ron neither continues nor resumeshis unfinished tum. Moveover, the anticipa-tory completion addressed to Ron by Cathysets in motion a collaborative turn sequence.Ron produces an agreeing response to theanticipatory completion, as the second part ofthe sequence. This sequence of actions, then,constitutes the collaborative achievement ofagreement.

THE CONVERSION OF DISPREFERREDACTIONS INTO PREFERRED

ALTERNATIVE ACTIONS

The preemption of a disagreement, as it isarising, by a collaboratively achieved agree-ment is one practical procedure for sustaininga preference for agreement. The deploymentof anticipatory completion actually constitutesan interaction of two systems that organizeconversational interaction: the preference foragreement in the organization of sequences ofaction, and the organization of tum taking. Inthis case, agreement is achieved through arelaxation of an aspect of turn organization,because the next speaker begins “out oftum”-that is, before the current speaker hasreached a possible completion. However,anticipatory completion, as a device forconverting one conversational feature-in-production into another, is not limited to


converting a disagreement into an agreement.It can be used to convert various types ofdispreferred actions into their respectivepreferred action types.

In this section I examine two preference-organized domains: the organization of repair,and the organization of offers and requests. Inthese interactional environments, anticipatorycompletion can be used to co-opt thecompletion of a dispreferred action-in-progress. This preempts the emerging actionbecause the nal component of a compoundTCU, produced by a recipient of the emergingturn (“other”) and to the erstwhile speaker ofthat turn (“self”), can constitute a differentaction than if it had been produced by theoriginal speaker for its addressed recipient.Thus, anticipatory completion can be used toconvert dispreferred action into a collabora-tively achieved, preferred action in the samedomain of activity. Yet although a recipientcan attempt to preempt an action by produc-ing an anticipatory completion, the success ofthe attempt remains contingent on the currentspeaker’s actions. The current speaker mustwithdraw and/or ratify the converted actionby producing a response to it. Thus theconversion of one action into another remainsa collaborative interactional achievement.

Repair and Correction

Correction and (more generally) repairhave a preference organization. Schegloff etal. (1977) described a preference for self-correction in the organization of repair. Theystated that most of the repair which occurs isboth initiated and carried out by the speakerof the turn that is the source of trouble (i.e.,“self”). These empirical observations are theresult of organizational preferences for self-initiation and self-correction which are consti-tuted by (1) opportunities for self-initiationthat precede opportunities for other-initiation(other-initiation tends to be held off ) and (2)both self-initiation and other-initiation that aredesigned to result in self-repair. One facet ofthis preference consists of the types of tumsused by participants other than the speaker ofthe trouble-source tum to initiate a repair.These turns locate the trouble source but donot assert a correction; instead other-initiationmakes self-correction relevant for the nextturn.

Further, Schegloff et al. (1977) state,“[M]uch of the other-correction which does

occur [is] treated by its recipient on itsoccurrence, as involving more than correc-tion, i.e. disagreement” (p.380). Given acharacterization of repair in which other-con'ection is dispreferred and is treatable asdisagreement, an emerging other-correctioncan provide a systematic site for anticipatorycompletion when the TCU carrying thatother-correction is formed up as a compoundTCU, as in Excerpt (12):

[CDC]Heather: Donna said that that’s

what she needs to knoweventually(2.3)I don’t need to know that,I just think thet(-)

—> Heather: stpdents need to know thatDonna: yeah.\ooo\1o\u1-t>wt\>»—/Q

to \-/

Donna:

At lines 1-3, Heather clarifies somethingDonna has just said to a third participant.Donna then begins to correct Heather’sassertion at lines 5-6. Donna’s turn isdesigned as a contrast concerning who needsto know. (Donna’s TCU-in-progress is avariant of the correction format “not X +Y.”) The first part of this contrast is providedby the stress on “I”; this stress supplies thefeatures of a compound TCU preliminarycomponent because a contrasting assertion ofwho does need to know is projected as asubsequent final component of the TCU.Even though “I don’t need to know that”could be a complete sentence under somecircumstances, its placement here after Heath-er’s assertion of Donna’s position and itscomposition with a stress on “I” show that itis the preliminary part of a contrast. (Thiscontrast is then extended by a secondattribution-type preliminary component: “Ijust think thet.”) At line 8, Heather thenproduces the second part of the contrastherself, and thereby preempts the emergingcorrection. She stresses the word students;this use of prosody ties her utterance toDonna’s as the second part of the contrast.After Heather’s anticipatory completion of thecompound TCU, Donna confirms Heather’srendition of the correction. Here other-correction is converted collaboratively intoself-correction.

If it seems difficult to follow who iscorrecting whom here, it may be because twopossible senses of self (and therefore of other)


are relevant in this excerpt. In this analysis Iam concerned with the organization of repair:thus I feature the relevancy of self as speakerof the trouble-source tum. In this sense,other-correction-in-progress is converted intoself-correction. A second sense of self,however, is also relevant here: It concems theauthorship or “ownership” of the disputedproposition, not who voices it (see Goffman1981). In this regard, self refers not toHeather but to Donna (as the owner of what isasserted at lines 1-3 by Heather). In thissense, Donna is not producing an other-correction but is speaking for herself andcorrecting on her own behalf.

In addition to the sites for other-correctionenumerated by Schegloff et al. (1977),self-as-author/owner when another is speakermay be another site for other-correction in theorganization of repair. Other-correctionseems to be highly constrained in its occur-rence. Schegloff et al. (1977) state, “[M]ostof the other-correction which does occur iseither specially marked or specially posi-tioned: both types exhibit an orientation to itsdispreferred status” (p. 379). One environ-ment for other-correction, then, may consistof circumstances in which a speaker in somesense is not self. Here the participant who isbeing spoken for does what also might becalled self-correction (i.e., correcting onbehalf of self-as—author/owner), but wherethat participant was not the speaker of thetrouble source turn. This point suggests that“cross-cutting” preference structures (Sche-gloff 1995) are at work here. Correction byself-as-animator of a turn is preferred overcorrection by other-than-animator; cross-cutting this is a preference for correction byself-as-author/owner over correction by other-than-author/owner. This latter preferencestructure also can be sustained by anticipatorycompletion. Later I will examine in somedetail the co-option of other-than-author/owner by author/owner.

O ers and RequestsSacks (1992, vol. 1:685) suggested that

offers and requests can be related sequen-tially. He proposed that preference organiza-tion can shape offer/request sequences. Apreference for offers over requests can befound in the occurrence of prerequest se-quences. The projection of an upcomingrequest (in a prerequest) can be the occasion

for an offer, thereby making the requestunnecessary, as in Excerpt (13):

(13) [JGT:1]D: Looks like ya got some

good pizza here Mom.(1.5)

M: Why don’t ypp havesome Darlene.U1-[>0->l\J>—

i

The use of a “preliminaries to preliminar-ies” or “pre-pre” sequence (Schegloff 1980)can also provide the opportunity for aprojected request to be preempted by an offer.A pre-pre can set up or project an upcomingrequest, as in the case of a prerequest; it doesnot, however, set up the request specially forthe speaker’s next turn. Rather, the pre-pre isregularly followed by some preliminarymatters that are addressed on the way to therequest. When a speaker establishes for arecipient that a request is forthcoming, therecipient can inspect the matters that followthe pre-pre for how they will bear on therequest. In Excerpt (14), R uses a pre-pre atlines 1-2 in order to give an account that canbe heard as a reason for a request:(14) [ST:l0/75]

1 —> R: Oh by the way I have2 a bi: g favor to ask ya.3 L: Sure, go ’head

R: Remember the blouse youmade a couple weeks ago?

L: Ya.R: Well I want to wear it

this weekend to Vegas9 but my mom’s buttonholer

10 is broken.11 —> L: Ron I told ya when I made12 the blouse I’d do the13 buttonholes.14 R: Ya but I hate ta impose.Here, the pre-pre sets up the basis for arequest for help. L, however, offers help afterthe preliminaries have been produced atprecisely the point where the request is due,rather than allowing R to produce theprojected request (and thus being seen ashaving allowed the request to go forward). Inthis case, the resulting target action (makingthe buttonholes) is the same for a requestsequence as for an offer sequence; only therelationship of self and other to the obligatingproposal (request or offer) is distributeddifferently between helper and helpee. Theoffer constitutes a proposal of self-obligation,

OO\lO\Ul-P


whereas the request constitutes a proposal ofother-obligation.

Given the preference/dispreference rela-tionship between offers and requests, itshould not be surprising to find that anticipa-tory completion can be employed to convertan emerging request sequence into a collabo-ratively achieved offer sequence, when tumconstruction affords that opportunity. Thus,anticipatory completion can sustain the pref-erence for offers over requests even after therequest tum itself has begun, as in Excerpt(15):(15) [M31]

(J1-I30-)l\J'—‘

l.3???F‘?

If for any reason youuh can’t be there at teno’clock [ let me know.

[ I will call youAll right

At line l, Speaker A begins a turn thatshows itself to be an “if X+then Y” type ofcompound TCU. At the precise place wherecompletion of that TCU’s preliminary compo-nent is possible (“If for any reason you can’tbe there at ten o’clock”), B issues anutterance that completes the compound TCU.This is produced simultaneously with A’sown nal component. A’s “All right” at line5, however, retrieves B’s utterance fromoverlap in order to treat it as the tum’scompletion. Here again, then, we have acollaborative tum sequence: (1) A compoundTCU-in-progress provides the structural op-portunity for completion. (2) A nal compo-nent is rendered by the addressed recipient.This initiates a sequence in which (3) thespeaker who began the TCU registers his orher acceptance of the proffered completion byresponding to the action it implicates.

This collaborative tum sequence enablesthe following course of action. Speaker Abegins a request. After A sets the conditionsfor the requested action (“If for any reasonyou can’t be there at ten o’clock” ), SpeakerB comes in with an offer to call. This isplaced so as to co-opt the final component ofA’s TCU and thereby to preempt theprojected request. In this case, A continues;thus B’s offer is produced simultaneouslywith A’s request. When overlap of this sortoccurs, establishing which of the simulta-neous utterances will become consequentialfor subsequent talk is regularly taken up in

next tum.7 Here, A speaks next and acceptsB’s offer, thereby treating (and thus ratifying)B’s contribution as the turn’s completion.Thus an emerging request is converted into acollaboratively achieved offer sequence—adistinction that relies on the position of selfand other relative to the proposal. Here, as in(I4), an offer constitutes a proposal ofself-obligation, whereas the request wouldhave constituted a proposal of other-obliga-tion.

This collaborative tum sequence not onlyenables a course of action that relies on adistinction of self- versus other-obligationmade relevant as a feature of the request/offersequence; it also realizes the preferred form ofan offer over a request. It is as thesequence-organized relevance of self/otherparticipation for this particular course ofaction, and as the ordering of asymmetricalaltemative actions by reference to self/other(where alternative actions make possible achoice between them) that face, threat to face,and face-work gain recognizability and aregiven social expression.

A compound TCU that projects a request asits final component can also give a recipientthe opportunity to respond at the point whenthe nal component is due in a manner otherthan using anticipatory completion. For ex-ample, a response to an emerging request canbe taken up with heading off the request andinitiating an offer. The attempt, however, canbe composed not as an anticipatory comple-tion but as a new tum, as at lines 9-IO ofExcerpt (16):(16) [GL:DS]

I J: Okay, you c- I just uh2 thought if you uh-

~hh en I’ll take the bookin so we c’n kind’v exchangepackages-hhh Oh I have- I have yerm but if you don’t mindI’d [ like tuh keep it awhile,

[OH please. No if you’dlike to yer perfectly welcomeii o\ooo\1o\ur-|>o»

l E‘“U

I present this instance to show that alternativemethods are available, and that the deploy-ment of an anticipatory completion then mustbe viewed as an interactional choice amongrelevant alternative actions. In Excerpt (16),

7 Elsewhere I have shown that this need not be an“either/or" choice (Lemer 1994).


the particulars of the interaction provide Jwith a local basis to design her offer as a newturn. She has just issued a proposal to P toexchange packages, which is then found tohave embedded within it a request for theretum of a book P would like to keep longer.P’s emerging request is in response to thatproposal—locating a problem in the proposaland therefore a basis on which it might berejected. This possible upcoming rejection (inthe form of a request to keep the book) canwarrant remedial action by J (Davidson1984). J is now in a position (in the course ofP’s response) where her proposal may berecast as a premature request for the return ofthe book, or at least as a request made withoutregard to whether P has finished with it ornot. This is certainly an awkward situation tobe in—or to come to have found oneselfin—as well as to put someone else in.

In a discussion of the onset of overlappingtalk, Jefferson (1983) mentioned situations inwhich “the more ‘awkward’ of two relevantalternative activities is initiated. And it is notuncommon in those cases for the awkwardactivity to be ‘interrupted’ by the moreinteractionally apt altemative” (p. 18). AlsoHeritage (1990) found that “oh”-prefacedresponses to inquiries are used to show thatthe inquiry is unnecessary and unsought.They are used as a way to say, “You don’teven need to ask.” Thus J’s “OH please”may subtly demonstrate that she would neverhave made her proposal (with its nowawkward request for the book) if she hadknown that P wanted to keep it for awhile.The turn initial “OH please” that prefaces thewithdrawal of the proposal by J might betermed a politeness suppression or politenessoverride device. It is designed to interrupt anemerging action (specifically to show that theintimation of inconvenience or presumptuous-ness carried by the polite composition of P’sutterance is completely unwarranted), and toshow that the projected (imposing) request byP is actually regarded as perfectly suitable oris even viewed with favor. This makes theoriginal proposal out to have been merely amatter of convenience and not an attempt togain a desired object (i.e., the book). To useBrown and Levinson’s (1987) terms in aninteractional fashion, this device rejects anegative politeness formulation by interject-ing a positive politeness formulation.

Positioned after deployment of the polite-ness override device, J’s “No” does not reject

P’s emerging request. Rather, it specificallyrejects the request as an imposing request.(P’s request amounts to a dispreferred re-sponse to J ’s proposal.) J then displaces P’srequest (as a sequence-initiating action) by(freely) granting it. Because anticipatorycompletion can affiliate its speaker with theturn-so-far, its deployment here would notallow J to reject the polite basis (“if you don’tmind”) for a request that was occasioned byher own earlier proposal.

The circumstances that obtain as P issuesher tum may amount to a recognized (ordiscovered) threat to face. However, anactual, impending, or imagined threat ofdiminished regard that might come (forexample) from unknowingly disregardinganother’s interests does not itself implicateone type of remedial action over another. Theparticulars of the circumstances and thecomposition of a turn’s talk make one type ofaction, not another, especially relevant. Boththe possibility and the terms of the disregard,as well as the resources available to deal withit, are part of the sequential organization oftalk-in-interaction.

In summary, anticipatory completion canbe used to convert disagreement into agree-ment, other-correction into self-correction, ora request into an offer on those occasionswhen an opportunity for completion isfurnished. The preference structure of actionsequences provides a systematic basis ormotivation for co-opting the final componentof another’s TCU, while turn-taking organiza-tion furnishes the structural possibility. Thisconjunction locates a sequential environmentfor anticipatory completion; that is, it speci-fies technically a local context for an action.

SPEAK FOR YOURSELF: ACONVERSATIONAL MAXIM

Goffman (1981) noted a distinction that canbe drawn between the “animator” and the“author/owner” of an utterance. Ordinarilythese two positions in relation to a turn’s talkare not distinguished, but they need not beheld by a single participant; that is, one partycan voice an utterance that is attributable insome fashion to another party. Here I proposean organizational relationship between thesepossible speaker footings or production rolesthat Goffman and others have described(Goffman 1981; Levinson 1988). In thisregard I examine the relevance of self/other


for a turn at talk when someone other than therecognizable author/owner of an utterance isspeaking.

In conversation, participants maintain spe-cial rights to speak about certain things, suchas their own experiences and opinions. Sacks(1975) pointed out, “One is responsible forknowing some things on one’s own behalf”(p. 72); Pomerantz (1980) described a class of“knowables” that “subject-actors as subject-actors have rights and obligations to know”(p. 187). This distribution of knowledgerights is consequential for the organization ofconversation? Labov (1972), for example,pointed out that if a speaker makes astatement about an event that she or hedoesn’t really know about, the statement willbe taken as a request for confirmation by aknowledgeable recipient. Pomerantz (1980)showed that if a speaker asserts something onthe basis of limited knowledge (i.e., as anoutsider), it can serve as a “fishing device”that can occasion a fuller account by arecipient with authoritative knowledge. “Thenal say as to what the event was . . . rests

with the subject-actor” (Pomerantz 1980:190). Moreover, Schegloff (l988d) showedthat “[T]opic ‘ownership’ and authoritative-ness can be an interactionally delicate matter.There can be prerogatives in this regard, andthey can be closely guarded.”

Additional evidence is found in the organi-zation of collaboratively told stories (Lerner1992). A not-currently-speaking coteller maybegin speaking at various points in the tellingto reanimate what they said, did, or experi-enced during the events that served as sourcesfor the story. Similar findings have beenreported for therapeutic interviews in Ger-many (Bergmann 1989) and England (Per-akyla and Silverman 1991). Perakyla andSilverman (1991) show that the owner of anexperience will cut in to express theirexperience even when a counselor hasexplicitly asked someone else to describe thatexperience. We also have some indicationthat “territories of information” may beoriented to and consequential in Japaneseconversation (Kamio I994), though thesefindings (in the tradition of much linguistic

8 Ongoing investigation, however, suggests that thispreference structure may be constrained for at least oneclass of utterance-actions: those which might be termed“delicates" (also see Jefferson 1985).

investigation) are based on invented exam-ples.

The voicing of utterances, experiences,viewpoints, and even actions that are recog-nizably owned by someone other than thespeaker make relevant the confirmation orrejection by the author/owner, and regularlyengender talk by the author/owner.9 (More-over, turns that voice another’s words,experiences, or viewpoints can be designedspecifically—for example, as a speaker’scheck of understanding—to elicit confirma-tion or rejection of the attributed statement.)

Providing an occasion for others to speakfor themselves by referring to them evenindirectly (and thus referring indirectly totheir interests) operates in a dramatic fashionin the following excerpt, through Mom’scategorical reference to “wives” in a tumaddressed to David at lines 10-13:(17) [HIC]

I Mom: see this is little2 peanuts now but if it

ever gets be somethingthere would be fi:ghtingand that’s the wayI don’t think soOzh David

Dad: Yeah, this could get9 this can get rough

10 —> Mom: Don’t kid yourself,ll people could lose12 their wives an13 everything else14 —> Stella: O::H WE’RE NOT LOSING15 WIVES AROUND HERE

Stella has not been participating in the discus-sion of the investment club that family mem-bers are establishing, nor is she seated at thekitchen table, where all of the other participantsare located. Yet she strongly disputes Mom’sassertion. What is her entitlement to do this?She is the only “wife” present other than mom(her mother-in-law).1° The author/owner’s en-titlement to have the authoritative say abouttheir own experiences, viewpoints, and the likefumishes a warrant for self as author/owner tospeak for themselves.

Anticipatory completion can be used as a

O0\lO\U1-PU.)

David:Mom:

9Sacks (1992, vol. 1:91-92) @150 showed therelevance of object ownership to speaking about theobject.

'0 Also see Excerpt (12) and the accompanyingdiscussion for an instance of author/owner rejectionaccomplished as other-correction.


device to convert production of a tum’s talk byother-than-author/owner into production by self-as-author/owner. In other words, when a speakeris voicing a copa1ticipant’s words, experiences,or viewpoints, anticipatory completion fur-nishes participants with a method for co-optingwhat is currently being attributed to them. Thusthey can “say first what another was about tosay for them,” as in Excerpt (18):(18) [HIC]I Sparky: it sounds like what

you’re saying is that(-) lezt thezm makethe decisions

—> Kerry: an let us know whatit isO'\Ul-l>~U->l\)

In this excerpt, the emerging understandingcheck by Sparky, in which he is voicingKerry’s view of a matter under consideration,is converted into Kerry’s speaking for him-self. That is, Kerry voices his own viewdirectly—given the opportunity provided by acontrastive compound TCU—rather than re-sponding to Sparky’s proposition after itscompletion.

Even when the attributed words, experi-ences, or—as in Excerpt (l9)—actions areowned only nominally by a participant, thatparticipant nevertheless seems to be entitledto confirm, deny, or elaborate on the matterlinked to them in the referring turn. In (19),one of the participants has introduced ahypothetical example to explain the proposedrules for a family investment club. Theexplanation (which occurs before the dis-played excerpt) was directed to David, but thesubject of the example was Kerry. Here,anticipatory completion provides Ken'y with away to voice his own (albeit hypothetical)actions:(19) [HIC]1 David: so if one person said

he couldn’t invest(-)

Kerry: then I’d have tawait [ till

David: [ he’d have ta waittill January

Kerry: Rizghtoo\1o\u-4>ono

l

At lines 1-2, David is neither voicing Kerry’swords or views nor is even addressing hisremarks to Kerry. Kerry, however, is referredto (by “he” at line 2) as the subject or agentof David’s utterance. That utterance describes

a hypothetical event (“if one person said hecouldn’t invest”), which is attributed to Kerryonly nominally as part of an exampleillustrating how family investment club deci-sions will be made. Yet even this weak formof ownership can occasion anticipatory com-pletion, given the opportunity provided by acompound TCU.

Delayed completion at lines 6-7 furnishes amethod for the participant who originallybegan to voice the compound TCU to speakfor himself, whether or not he is authorlowner, even when his TCU has been co-optedby another participant (also see Excerpt (4)).In this case, Kerry is left to provideconfirmation in next tum. Here, then, wehave the concurrent and cross-cutting organi-zational relevance of self-as-speaker andself-as-author/owner, each in relation to hisown “other,” and each equipped with amethod for gaining a tum’s talk.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Talk-in-interaction is organized in a widerange of ways. Part of its orderliness (withinvarious domains of activity) consists ofpractices that produce systematic advantagesfor certain types of action over other types ofaction. The possibility of privileging oneclass of action over another is not a matter ofpersonal prerogative, but a preference-enabling organization that is built into thesequential organization of talk-in-interaction.It seems to me that preference organizationconstitutes a necessary feature of practicalsocial conduct. Given the possibility ofalternative actions, the asymmetrical valuingof those actions is a possibility that must havesystematic/structural resources through whichthat valuing can be realized. Both tum-constructional and sequence-organizationalpractices enable this preference/dispreferencestructure.

In this report I have described one suchpractice—a practice that occurs at the junc-ture of turn construction and sequenceorganization. I have shown that preferenceldispreference is enabled in part by thepractice of producing a rendition of the finalcomponent of another speaker’s compoundTCU. Anticipatory completion can be used toco-opt the completion of another’s turn so asto preempt its projected action and concomi-tantly to convert that action—because it isnow being voiced by a participant with a


different relationship to the action—into analternative action. This practice can bedeployed across a range of action sequences.

Though the features of compound TCUsare produced in accord with turn-takingoperation, that organization does not mandateanticipatory completion. Because anticipatorycompletion need not be done each time anopportunity arises, but remains a structuralpossibility, it might be viewed as an openoption for recipients of a compound TCU. Inthis sense, it is a method available to otheraspects of conversational organization thatcan use its services. As such, anticipatorycompletion is not only a resource forparticipants, but also a tool whereby profes-sional analysts can identify those aspects ofthe organization of conversation which call onits services. Preference organization is onesuch organization; others exist as well (seeLerner 1993).

Face, Self, and ActionTo properly characterize the feelings,

desires, and motives, as well as the actions,of face and face-work, it is necessary tocapture them in the act on the terrain oftalk-in-interaction. I have suggested one wayof doing this. Because, as Goffman states (seequotation below), face is recognizable as anexpression of self, then one way to captureface in the act is by locating the relevance ofself (and other) in the opportunities toparticipate fumished by various aspects of theorganization of talk-in-interaction. Here selfis not something that hovers over theinteraction, but is realized in its relevance toparticular aspects of interaction. The recog-nizability of practical action and of self/otheras a situated feature of courses of action ininteraction provides the resources and thevery grounds on which matters of publicregard or face are made visible and playedout. If maintaining face is the result of fittingin, then one can find face only by describingthe actual practices into which persons fit,and thereby the terms in which their person-hood is realized in practice. Where else couldit be?

In this article I have developed this notionempirically by examining in some detail oneparticular practice—co-optation of turn com-pletion-in various sequential circumstancesof its use. By situating self and other asconsequential constituent features of the

organization of particular types of actionsequences, one thereby establishes a site forface, face-threat, and face—work grounded inthe particulars of talk (and other conduct) ininteraction.

If face—work requires social demonstrationto achieve recognition by other, then it isrecognizable not by reference to individualdesire but by reference to common practicesthat demonstrate that desire. Moreover, theorganization of those common practices is asocial organization. One could say thatrecognized desire (for face maintenance)provides the motivation for face-work, butindividual persons are no more the source ofits organization than they are the source ofgrammatical practices. I believe that Goffmancame close to this idea when he stated:

One way of mobilizing the individual for thispurpose [as a self-regulating participant in socialencounters] is through ritual; he is taught to beperceptive, to have feelings attached to self anda self expressed through face. . . . These aresome of the elements of behavior which must bebuilt into the person if practical use is to bemade of him as an interactant. (1967:44)

I would even go a step further and suggestthat recognition of face concems—that is,individual desire to maintain face—is afeature of the selfsame organization ofoccasioned and situated action that produceslinguistically and interactionally realizedface-work. The desire to maintain face doesnot explain the organization of face-work.Rather, the “feelings attached to self and aself expressed through face” are both ac-quired and produced as reflexive features orproducts of recognizable circumstances andcourses of action in interaction. Finally, theresults of this and other conversation-analyticstudies should not be read as a denial ofindividual psychology; rather, conversationanalysis provides research methods for thedevelopment of a thoroughly social psychol-ogy. In Harvey Sacks’s (l987:67) words,“You cannot nd what they’re trying to dountil you find the kinds of things they workwith.”

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Gene H. Lerner is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Hiswork in conversation analysis centers on interactional aspects ofgrammar.

Talk-in-Interacti0n* GENE H. LERNER

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