Post-expansion (sequence)

Encyclopedia of Terminology for CA and IL: Post-expansion (sequence)
Author(s):	Olivia H. Marrese (University of Colorado, Boulder) (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6162-267X)
To cite:	Marrese, Olivia H. (2023). Post-expansion (sequence). In Alexandra Gubina, Elliott M. Hoey & Chase Wesley Raymond (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Terminology for Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics. International Society for Conversation Analysis (ISCA). DOI: []

A post-expansion sequence are turns that occur after a second-pair part that expand on the prior sequence and are used to negotiate some matter from the base sequence. They can be minimal or non-minimal, depending on if the post-expansion sequence pushes to close (i.e., minimal), or projects more to come (i.e., non-minimal). In general, dispreferred second-pair parts are expansion relevant (Schegloff 2007: 117), compared to preferred second-pair parts (similar to insert sequences with respect to projecting possible dispreference; see Ford, et al. 2004; Schegloff 2007: 100). Consider the following case, from Schegloff, et al. (1977):

(Schegloff, et al. 1977: 364, reproduced Clift in 2016: 88) 

01  Ken:  Fb->    Is Al here today?
02  Dan:  Sb->    Yeah.
03                (2.0)
04  Rog:  Fpost->  He is? hh eh heh
05  Dan:  Spost->  Well he was.

Here we see Ken issue a first-pair part in line 1 with a question, “Is Al here today?”. Dan then responds “Yeah.” in a second-pair part in line 2. After this adjacency pair, Roger issues the first-pair part of a post-expansion sequence in line 4, “He is?” and Dan responds with the second-pair part of the post-expansion sequence in line 5, “Well he was”.

In the above case, the post-expansion sequence is 'non-minimal', because Roger’s question in line 4 “He is?”, does not push to close the sequence, and indeed continues to reference the prior turns, in a move towards coherence (see Schegloff 1991). This is in contrast to 'minimal' post-expansion sequences that push to close. Both iterations have implications for accountability in interaction. For instance, in the case of epistemic negotiation, Heritage (2012b) shows that an “unknowing” epistemic stance invites elaboration and projects the possibility of sequence expansion,” whereas in contrast “knowing” stances “tend to invite confirmation and sequence closure” (pg. 6; see also Heritage 2012a). This duality of a possible expansion is shown as well in the context of news delivery sequences, in which newsmarks “promote development or elaboration of that news” (Maynard 1997: 108; see also Gubina & Betz 2021), while news receipts “show a retrospective orientation, primarily acknowledging an announcement as news while discouraging development of the news” (pg. 107). In the case of known-answer requests for confirmation, Raymond and Stivers (2016) argue that the issue of confirmation effectively closes the prior question-answer sequence, and yet, this move is nonetheless “understood as soliciting an account” (pg. 332) to be produced in continued post-expansion.

Additional Related Entries:

• Adjacency pair
• Insert expansion (sequence)
• First-pair part
• Second-pair part
• Minimal post-expansion
• Non-minimal post-expansion (sequence)
• Other-initiated repair
• Repair
• Sequence
• Sequence-closing third (SCT)

Cited References:

Clift, R. (2016). Conversation Analysis. Cambridge University Press.

Gubina, & Betz, E. (2021). What Do Newsmark-Type Responses Invite? The Response Space After German echt. Research on Language & Social Interaction, 54(4), 374-396.

Ford, C. E., Fox, B. A., & Hellermann, J. (2004). “Getting past no”: Sequence, action and sound production in the projection of no -initiated turns. In E. Couper-Kuhlen & C. E. Ford (Eds.), Typological Studies in Language (pp. 233–269). John Benjamins.

Heritage, J. (2012a). The Epistemic Engine: Sequence Organization and Territories of Knowledge. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(1), 30–52.

Heritage, J. (2012b). Epistemics in Action: Action Formation and Territories of Knowledge. Research on Language & Social Interaction, 45(1), 1–29.

Maynard, D. W. (1997). The News Delivery Sequence: Bad News and Good News in Conversational Interaction. Research on Language & Social Interaction, 30(2), 93–130.

Raymond, C. W., & Stivers, T. (2016). The Omnirelevance of Accountabiliy: Off-Record Account Solicitations. In J. D. Robinson (Ed.), Accountability in Social Interaction (pp. 321–354). Oxford University Press.

Schegloff, E. A. (1991). Conversation analysis and socially shared cognition. In L. B. Resnick, J. M. Levine, & S. D. Teasley (Eds.), Perspectives on Socially Shared Cognition (pp. 150–171). American Psychological Association. https://doi-

Schegloff, E. A. (2007). Sequence Organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis (Vol. 1). Cambridge University Press.

Schegloff, E. A., Jefferson, G., & Sacks, H. (1977). The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language, 53(2), 361–382.

Additional References:

Betz, E. M., Taleghani-Nikazm, C., Drake, V., & Golato, A. (2013). Third position repeats in German: The case of repair- and request-for-information sequences. Gesprachsforschung: Online-Zeitschrift Zur Verbalen Interaktion, 14.

Couper-Kuhlen, E. (2012). Turn Continuation and Clause Combinations. Discourse Processes, 49(3–4), 273–299.

Heritage, J. (1984). A change-of-state token and aspects of Its sequential placement. In J. M. Atkinson & John Heritage (Eds.), Structures of Social Action (pp. 299–345). Cambridge University Press.

Jefferson, G. (2019). Repairing the Broken Surface of Talk (Paul Drew & Jörg Bergmann, Eds.). Oxford University Press.

Rossi, G. (2020). The prosody of other-repetition in Italian: A system of tunes. Language in Society, 49(4), 619–652.