Speech in telephone openings: Emergent interaction v. routines

Telephone openings are of theoretical interest to discourse analysts in that they occur in speech only, and begin at definite moments. The present inquiry traces a sequential model of four routine slots in telephone openings. This model is tested against tape recorded and transcribed data in naturally‐occurring telephone openings. A distinct minority of telephone openings proceed precisely as the model might predict. However, routines do provide templates against which emergent usages are marked. The essay discusses implications for the nature of interaction, the cultural universality of the sequential model, and generalizability of these findings to other speech events.