Displaying entitlement
Accounts in request sequences
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/eap.40080Keywords:
accounts, requesting, conversation analysis, entitlementAbstract
Adopting the methodology of conversation analysis, this study explores accounts in request sequences in mundane Mandarin conversations. It demonstrates that accounts are normatively due in request sequences, often placed in four sequential positions, namely pre-expansions, the request turn (either prior or subsequent to the request proper), insert expansions, and post-expansions. Accounts in these positions may accomplish four main interactional functions: soliciting pre-emptive offers, justifying the initiation of the request, forestalling a dispreferred response, and legitimising the initiated request. These functions can be managed through providing background information attributing to the requester’s trouble, his or her inability to fulfil/get the requested action/the requested object and expressing his or her immediate or future needs. Essentially, accounts display the requester’s normative orientation to which they are deployed as a device of showing the requester’s entitlement to make a request.
References
Antaki, C. (1994). Analysing everyday explanation: A casebook of methods. London: SAGE.
Atkinson, J. M., & Heritage, J. (Eds.). (1984). Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Baranova, J., & Dingemanse, M. (2016). Reasons for requests. Discourse Studies, 18(6), 641–675. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445616667154
Bolden, G. B., & Robinson, J. D. (2011). Soliciting accounts with why-interrogatives in conversation. Journal of Communication, 61(1), 96–119. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2010.01528.x
Clark, H. (1996). Using language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511620539
Clayman, S. E. (2013). Turn-constructional units and the transition-relevance place. In J. Sidnell & T. Stivers (Eds.), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 150–166). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118325001.ch8
Clayman, S. E., & Heritage, J. (2014). Benefactors and beneficiaries: Benefactive status and stance in the management of offers and requests. In P. Drew & E. Couper-Kuhlen (Eds.), Requesting in social interaction (pp. 55–86). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Curl, T. S., & Drew, P. (2008). Contingency and action: A comparison of two forms of requesting. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 41(2), 129–153. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351810802028613
Davidson, J. (1984). Subsequent versions of invitations, offers, requests, and proposals dealing with potential or actual rejection. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis (pp. 102–128). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511665868.009
Drew, P. (1984). Speakers’ reportings in invitation sequences. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis (pp. 129–151). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511665868.010
Drew, P. (2005). Conversation analysis. In K. L. Fitch & R. E. Sanders (Eds.), Handbook of language and social interaction (pp. 71–102). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Ford, C. E., & Thompson, S. A. (1996). Interactional units in conversation: Syntactic, intonational, and pragmatic resources for the management of turns. In E. Ochs, E. A. Schegloff, & S. A. Thompson (Eds.), Interaction and grammar (pp. 134–184). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511620874.003
Heinemann, T. (2006). “Will you or can’t you?”: Displaying entitlement in interrogative requests. Journal of Pragmatics, 38(7), 1081–1104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2005.09.013
Heritage, J. (1984). Garfinkel and ethnomethodology. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.
Heritage, J. (1988). Explanations as accounts: A conversation analytic perspective. In C. Antaki (Ed.), Analysing everyday explanation: A casebook of methods (pp. 127–144). London: SAGE.
Hoey, E., & Kendrick, K. H. (2018). Conversation analysis. In A. M. B. de Groot & P. Hagoort (Eds.), Research methods in psycholinguistics and the neurobiology of language: A practical guide (pp. 151–173). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Houtkoop-Steenstra, H. (1990). Accounting for proposals. Journal of Pragmatics, 14(1), 111–124. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(90)90066-M
Lindstrom, A. (2005). Language as social action: A study of how senior citizens request assistance with practical tasks in the Swedish home help service. In A. Hakulinen & M. Selting (Eds.), Syntax and lexis in conversation: Studies on the use of linguistic resources in talk-in-interaction (pp. 209–233). Amsterdam: Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/sidag.17.11lin
Noren, N., & Linell, P. (2013). Pivot constructions as everyday conversational phenomena within a cross-linguistic perspective: An introduction. Journal of Pragmatics, 54, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2013.03.006
Parry, R. (2013). Giving reasons for doing something now or at some other time. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 46(2), 105–124. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2012.754653
Pomerantz, A. (1986). Extreme case formulations: A way of legitimizing claims. Human Studies, 9(2–3), 219–229. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00148128
Pomerantz, A., & Heritage, J. (2013). Preference. In J. Sidnell & T. Stivers (Eds.), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 210–228). Chichester: John Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118325001.ch11
Raevaara, L. (2011). Accounts at convenience stores: Doing dispreference and small talk. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(2), 556–571. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.01.020
Sacks, H. (1984). Notes on methodology. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis (pp. 21–27). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511665868.005
Sacks, H. (1987). On the preferences for agreement and contiguity in sequences in conversation. In G. Button & J. R. Lee (Eds.), Talk and social organisation (pp. 54–69). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Sacks, H. (1992). Lectures on conversation analysis (Fall 1964-Spring 1972). Oxford: Blackwell.
Sacks. H, Schegloff, E. A., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50(4), 696–735. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.1974.0010
Schegloff, E. A. (2007). Sequence organization in interaction: A primer in conversation analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511791208
Scott, M., & Lyman, S. (1968). Accounts. American Sociological Review, 33(1), 46–62. https://doi.org/10.2307/2092239
Sterponi, L. (2009). Accountability in family discourse: Socialization into norms and standards and negotiation of responsibility in Italian dinner conversations. Childhood, 16(4), 441–459. https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568209343269
Taleghani-Nikazm, C. (2006). Request sequences: The intersection of grammar, interaction and social context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1075/sidag.19
Walker, G. (2007). On the design and use of pivots in everyday English conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 39(12), 2217–2243. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2006.10.002
Waring, H. Z. (2007). The multi-functionality of accounts in advice giving. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 11(3), 367–379. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9841.2007.00328.x
Wootton, A. (1981). The management of grantings and rejections by parents in request sequences. Semiotica, 37(1–2), 59–90. https://doi.org/10.1515/semi.1981.37.1-2.59
Yu, G., & Drew, P. (2017). The role of bushi in talk about everyday troubles and difficulties. East Asian Pragmatics, 2(2), 195–227. https://doi.org/10.1558/eap.34673
