Difference between revisions of "Pre-pre"

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'''Pre-pre''''s (short for '''preliminaries to preliminaries''') are a practice with which speakers project an action that is not to follow immediately but will be preceded by further preliminaries first (Schegloff 1980: 116, 1990: 61, 2007: 44). Thus, pre-pre’s “serve to exempt what directly follows them from being treated as ‘produced in its own right.’ They make room for, and mark, what follows them as ‘preliminary.’” (Schegloff 1980: 116) They are referred to as “pre-pre’s” since they “are not only a preliminary to the announced-to-come action”, but also a preliminary to further preliminaries (Schegloff 2006: 150). The turn design of pre-pre’s usually provides criteria for recognizing the projected main action (Schegloff 2007: 44), as the following extract from Liddicoat (2007: 140) illustrates:
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'''Pre-pre''''s (short for '''preliminaries to preliminaries''') are a practice with which speakers project an action that is not to follow immediately but will be preceded by further preliminaries first (Schegloff 1980: 116, 1990: 61, 2007: 44). Thus, pre-pre’s “serve to exempt what directly follows them from being treated as ‘produced in its own right.’ They make room for, and mark, what follows them as ‘preliminary’” (Schegloff 1980: 116). They are referred to as “pre-pre’s” since they “are not only a preliminary to the announced-to-come action”, but also a preliminary to further preliminaries (Schegloff 2006: 150). The turn design of pre-pre’s usually provides criteria for recognizing the projected main action (Schegloff 2007: 44), as the following extract from Liddicoat (2007: 140) illustrates:
  
 
  (Liddicoat 2007: 140)
 
  (Liddicoat 2007: 140)

Revision as of 23:37, 22 December 2023

Encyclopedia of Terminology for CA and IL: Pre-pre
Author(s): Nathalie Bauer (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany) (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8501-8079)
To cite: Bauer, Nathalie. (2023). Pre-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:


Pre-pre's (short for preliminaries to preliminaries) are a practice with which speakers project an action that is not to follow immediately but will be preceded by further preliminaries first (Schegloff 1980: 116, 1990: 61, 2007: 44). Thus, pre-pre’s “serve to exempt what directly follows them from being treated as ‘produced in its own right.’ They make room for, and mark, what follows them as ‘preliminary’” (Schegloff 1980: 116). They are referred to as “pre-pre’s” since they “are not only a preliminary to the announced-to-come action”, but also a preliminary to further preliminaries (Schegloff 2006: 150). The turn design of pre-pre’s usually provides criteria for recognizing the projected main action (Schegloff 2007: 44), as the following extract from Liddicoat (2007: 140) illustrates:

(Liddicoat 2007: 140)

01   Carol:  ->  Can I ask y'a question.
02   Joe:        Yeah.
03   Carol:      Yihknow Sally Smith? 
04   Joe:        Yeah.
05   Carol:      An yih know that she's changed jobs. 
06   Joe:        yeah.
07   Carol:      Well I want tuh get in touch with her but I don't know where   
08               she is working now.
09               do you have her phone number¿
10   Joe:        I think so. just a moment while I check.

In this extract, the pre-pre in line 1 provides both interactional space for further preliminaries and information about the nature of the projected main action (cf. Schegloff 1980: 116). Pre-pre’s frequently appear in this form of “Can I X?” (also as “Let me X”), with the projected action explicitly specified by “X” (Schegloff 2007: 44; see also Hoey 2020). In their function of projecting an action that is not to follow imminently, speakers use pre-pre’s to prepare the recipient for the projected main action, for example, by providing background information or introducing key referents, as in the above example (Schegloff 1980: 115, 2007: 236). The structurally preferred response to a pre-pre is a go-ahead in second position (Schegloff 2007: 44), as opposed to a blocking response.

In specific sequential environments, pre-pre’s are also used to frame a subsequent, potentially delicate action as such and to introduce it accordingly (see Schegloff 1980: 149, on 'pre-delicates').


Additional Related Entries:


Cited References:

Hoey, E. M. (2020). Self-authorizing action: On let me X in English social interaction. Language in Society, 51, 95–118.

Liddicoat, A. J. (2007). An Introduction to Conversation Analysis. Continuum.

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:


EMCA Wiki Bibliography items tagged with 'pre-pre'