Preface

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Encyclopedia of Terminology for CA and IL: Preface
Author(s): Aino Koivisto (University of Helsinki, Finland) (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9380-5953)
To cite: Koivisto, Aino. (2023). Preface. 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: 10.17605/OSF.IO/B5XAV


The term preface in generally used in relation to a turn, i.e., a turn preface. Turn prefaces refer to elements that occur in turn-initial position (or in turn beginning, see Kim & Kuroshima 2013; see also Heritage & Sorjonen 2018). A turn-preface is thus a turn-initial element (such as a particle) – these terms are used interchangeably (e.g. Heritage & Sorjonen 2018: 8 talk about both "turn-initial well" and "well-prefaces"). However, prefaces can and should be distinguished from objects that are recognizably part of the TCU (such as a wh-word) and are recognizable beginnings; prefaces are thus “pre-beginning elements” (Schegloff 1996; Kim & Kuroshima 2013). In terms of composition, a turn preface stands outside of the syntactic structure of the TCU (e.g. Kim & Kuroshima 2013). Prosodically, a turn-preface (or a turn-initial element) and rest of the turn are typically “through-produced” (Thompson, et al. 2015: 4), i.e., produced as a single prosodic unit.

In addition to turn preface, the term preface can also be used in a larger sense – e.g. a story preface (Sacks 1974), or a preface to a question (e.g., Clayman & Heritage 2002).


Additional Related Entries:


Cited References:

Clayman, S. E., & Heritage, J. (2002). The News Interview: Journalists and Public Figures on the Air. Cambridge University Press.

Heritage, J. & Sorjonen, M.-L. (2018). Between Turn and Sequence. Turn-initial Particles across Languages. John Benjamins.

Kim, S. & Kuroshima, S. (2013). Turn-beginnings in interaction: An introduction. Journal of Pragmatics, 57, 267–273.

Sacks, H. (1974). An analysis of the course of a joke's telling in conversation. In R. Bauman & J. Sherzer (Eds.), Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking (pp. 337–353). Cambridge University Press.

Schegloff, E. A. (1996). Turn organization: one intersection of grammar and interaction. In E. Ochs, E. A. Schegloff & S. A. Thompson (Eds.), Interaction and Grammar (pp. 55–133). Cambridge University Press.

Thompson, S. A., Fox, B. A., & Couper-Kuhlen, E. (2015). Grammar in Everyday Talk: Building Responsive Actions. Cambridge University Press.


Additional References:


EMCA Wiki Bibliography items tagged with 'preface'