Go-ahead

Encyclopedia of Terminology for CA and IL: Go-ahead
Author(s):	Nathalie Bauer (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany) (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8501-8079)
To cite:	Bauer, Nathalie. (2023). Go-ahead. 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 go-ahead is a type of response that occurs in pre-sequences and encourages the prior speaker to proceed with the action projected in first position (Schegloff 2007: 30; Schegloff 1980: 106). An instance of such a go-ahead in a generic pre-sequence (in this case, a summons-answer sequence) can be found in this extract from Atkinson and Drew (1979):

(Atkinson & Drew 1979: 46)

01  Ch:    Mummy 
02  M:  -> Yes dear
03         (2.1)
04  Ch:    I want a cloth to clean (the) windows

With the go-ahead in line 2, Mom invites the child to proceed with what he has been up to after securing her attention in line 1. Hence, the go-ahead sustains the sequential progression (Schegloff 2007: 30; Sorjonen 2002) and can be described as the structurally preferred second-pair part of the pre-sequence (Schegloff 2007: 59). The opposite possibility to react to a first-pair part of a pre-sequence is a blocking response, with which a speaker inhibits the unfolding of the projected sequential trajectory.

In addition to this usage of the term, Zinken and Deppermann (2017) also use the notion of 'go-ahead' to characterize imperatives that speakers use as permissions for (practical) actions by their counterpart.

Additional Related Entries:

• Pre-expansion (sequence)
• Blocking
• Preference
• Sequence

Cited References:

Atkinson, J. M., & Drew, P. (1979). Order in Court: The Organisation of Verbal Interaction in Judicial Settings. Macmillan.

Deppermann, A., & Zinken, J. (2017). A cline of visible commitment in the situated design of imperative turns. Evidence from German and Polish. In M.-L. Sorjonen, L. Raevaara, E. Couper-Kuhlen (Eds.), Imperative Turns at Talk: The Design of Directives in Action. (pp. 37–63). John Benjamins.

Schegloff, E. A. (1980). Preliminaries to Preliminaries: ‘Can I Ask You a Question?’. Sociological Inquiry, 50, 104–52.

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

Sorjonen, M.-L. (2002). Recipient Activities: The Particle No as a Go-Ahead Response in Finnish Conversations. In C. E. Ford, B. A. Fox, & S. A. Thompson (Eds.), The Language of Turn and Sequence (pp. 165–95). Oxford University Press.

Additional References: