Mobilizing Response

Abstract

A fundamental puzzle in the organization of social interaction concerns how one individual elicits a response from another. This article asks what it is about some sequentially initial turns that reliably mobilizes a coparticipant to respond and under what circumstances individuals are accountable for producing a response. Whereas a linguistic approach suggests that this is what “questions” (more generally) and interrogativity (more narrowly) are for, a sociological approach to social interaction suggests that the social action a person is implementing mobilizes a recipient's response. We find that although both theories have merit, neither adequately solves the puzzle. We argue instead that different actions mobilize response to different degrees. Speakers then design their turns to perform actions, and with particular response-mobilizing features of turn-design speakers can hold recipients more accountable for responding or not. This model of response relevance allows sequential position, action, and turn design to each contribute to response relevance.

Earlier versions of this article were presented at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics Workshop on Question–Answer Sequences Spring, 2006; at the International Pragmatics Association meeting in July, 2007; the National Communication Association convention in November, 2007; and the American Sociological Association in August, 2008. This paper was posted online at eSciDoc in an earlier version. This article has benefited from comments and discussions we have had with Paul Drew, Steve Clayman, Nick Enfield, Christina Englert, Barbara Fox, John Heritage, Steve Levinson, and Sandy Thompson. Thank you also to Toi James for allowing us to include an excerpt from her data.

Notes

¹ Some cases may be doing additional work, such as in Extract 6. In addition to requesting information, Cindy also indirectly requests being excused from eating her meal. This though does not alter the fact that, according to Schegloff's analysis, these questions make relevant a response.

² It should be noted though that interrogative syntax is typologically rare. Only 1% of languages surveyed have inversion as a grammatical option in polar questions (Dryer, 2008). However, most languages do have question morphemes at least for content (wh-) questions.

³Although  assessments commonly also compliment and complain, among other possibilities, we tried to avoid using such cases as exemplars. Still, the same argument holds for them as well (see Extract 20).

⁴ Although an utterance may be part of a continuing activity, the assessments we call sequentially initial are not responses in an ongoing sequence and thus are not in second or third position. None of them is a response to a previous assessment, for instance. We would expect that utterances in second and third position are, by virtue of that position, less response mobilizing. (For more discussion of sequence organization see Schegloff, 2007.) We use “sequentially initial” to respect the possibility that they do not actually initiate a sequence.

⁵ In the telephone context, the lack of visual displays of recipient attentiveness to the conversation might require a more systematic reliance on verbal responses to display a continuous engagement with the conversation.

⁶ Mark is part owner of a restaurant. They are sampling the ravioli to see whether he wants to purchase it for the restaurant.

⁷ Intonation is itself on a cline, and it could be that stronger rising is more response mobilizing. Here note that there is rise in line 14 relative to line 12.

⁸ Another possible context where speakers may rely on non-response-mobilizing assessments is when the recipient's access is uncertain. If I do not know whether you have seen Paris in the spring I will likely say “Paris is lovely in the spring” rather than “Isn't Paris lovely in the spring?” However, this would need further empirical investigation.

⁹ Keep in mind that we say “minimally coercive” because by addressing a turn of talk to someone in an initial sequential position there is some pressure for them to respond provided they perceive themselves to have been addressed. We argue that the action being implemented and the turn design through which it is implemented can be made more coercive by increasing the accountability of a response.

¹⁰ And similarly, on inviting see Drew (1984).

¹¹ Mark had previously indicated a desire to use the Internet, which they did not have, but the formulation of this was not recorded.

¹² Schegloff leaves open the possibility that there could be other sorts of sequence organizations (2007, p. 9).