Some Sequential Negotiations in Conversation: Unexpanded and Expanded Versions of Projected Action Sequences

Abstract

This paper reports findings of research into the organizational structure of ordinary conversation. Substantively, the paper is preoccupied with building rigorous descriptions of transcribed conversational materials; a technical appreciation of the action sequences organizing chunks of talk into meaningful interactional units is developed as increasingly non-intuitive observations detail the systematic expansions of three turn action sequences into four, five, and six turn action sequences. Methodologically, the paper is built as a series of progressively more formal characterizations of the interaction captured in the transcript; an analytic appreciation of a research mentality committed to close scrutiny of actually occurring instances of conversation emerges as successive phenomenal layers receive attention.