Post-pre

Encyclopedia of Terminology for CA and IL: Post-pre
Author(s):	Nathalie Bauer (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany) (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8501-8079)
To cite:	Bauer, Nathalie. (2023). Post-pre. 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-pre is a device by which speakers indicate that they recognized the preceding talk as a pre-sequence, i.e. as preliminary to something else (Sacks 1992: 689; Schegloff 1980: 114; Schegloff 2007: 31). In interaction, speakers use post-pre’s to promote the sequential progression, for instance, by asking for the reason of a certain preliminary request by their counterpart. As in the following example from Schegloff (2007: 34-35), post-pre’s often take the form of “why”-questions:

(Schegloff 2007: 34–5)

01  Mar:     ...lo:, °hhuh°
02  Emm:     How’r you:.=
03  Mar:     =Well wuhdiyuh doin. ˙hh hnh 
04           (0.5)
05  Emm:     .hhh (hhOh:) Margy?=
06  Mar:     =eeYeehuh.[a-
07  Emm:               [Oh: I’m jis sittin here with Bill’n Gladys’n 
08           haa:eh fixin’m a drink they’re goin out tih ↓dinner:. 
09           (.)
10  Emm:     H[e’s-
11  Mar:      [Oh::::. Oh.
12  Emm:  -> Why: whiddiyih waant. 
13           (1.0)
14  Mar:     hhuhh Well?h I wunnid um come down en I wannidju 
15           tuh call some numbers back tome <b’t it’s
16           no[t im[port’n
17  Emm:       [.hhh[Oh:::: honey I:’ll do it a:fterwards uh:::
18           (.) Yeah ther- ther gonna(r)

With her question (line 12) about Margie’s motives for the inquiry, Emma shows that she did not understand the preceding sequence as a mere request for information but rather as a preparation for some other action (Schegloff 1980: 114, 2007: 34). By this post-pre, she makes accountable that she recognized the preceding pre-sequence as such and makes interactionally relevant what Margie was originally getting at (Schegloff 2007: 31).

Additional Related Entries:

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

Cited References:

Sacks, H. (1992). Lectures on Conversation. Blackwell Publishers.

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.

Additional References: