Openings and Closings in Telephone Conversations between Native Spanish Speakers

Abstract

The current investigation contributes new data to a growing body of work on cultural universalities vs. particularities in the functions performed in telephone opening and closing sequences. While telephone conversations in many languages and cultures have been studied, the Spanish language is conspicuously absent in the literature. The present work addresses this lack, augmenting available linguistic data with the novel contribution of Spanish to the database. In this presentation, I offer my analysis of the opening and closing sequences of 11 dyads in natural telephone conversations conducted in Spanish. I attempt to determine how closely Hispanic cultural patterns of conduct for telephone conversations follow the sequences outlined in previous works by Schegloff, Hopper, and other researchers. I conclude that Hispanic conversational norms do indeed fall within Schegloff’s canonical schema of universality, while at the same time exhibiting unique sequential variations. These variations may or may not be culture-specific, a point which can only be determined through further investigation.