Introducing direct complaints through questions: the interactional achievement of `pre-sequences'?

Abstract

This article considers how two different question designs as positive polar questions and wh-questions occurring in different interactional contexts (institutional calls and ordinary face-to-face interactions) set up a sequence in which a direct complaint is produced in third position as the result of an interactional achievement. Positive polar questions are employed to establish immediately a common ground of understandability between caller and call-taker. Wh-questions are used as challenges and speakers subsequently provide explicit grounds for the challenges in third turns, due to the interpretation of the question given by their recipients.