Next-turn proof procedure

Encyclopedia of Terminology for CA and IL: Next-turn proof procedure
Author(s):	Lotte van Burgsteden (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands) (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2049-0687)
To cite:	van Burgsteden, Lotte. (2023). Next-turn proof procedure. 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: []

The next-turn proof procedure refers to the practice whereby a next turn is designed/inspected for the speaker’s displayed understanding of the prior turn (Sacks, et al. 1974: 728-729). Next turns in conversation thereby function as both (i) a resource for the participants in the conversation themselves as they provide evidence for whether, and how, their turns are understood by other interlocutors, and (ii) as an object of analysis where analysts take recipients’ responses as one source of evidence for the analysis of the prior turn (Heritage 1984: 256-257).

The earliest published record of the term occurs in Moerman and Sacks (1971). They suggested that understanding is a natural phenomenon, as the sequential organization of conversation requires “that participants must continually, there and then [...] demonstrate to one other that they understood or failed to understand the talk that they are party to” (Moerman & Sacks 1971[1988]: 185).

To illustrate this procedure, consider the following assessment sequence from Pomerantz (1984):

(Pomerantz 1984: 65)

01  J:   T’s- tsuh beautiful day out isn’t it? 
02  L:   Yeh it’s just gorgeous

The main TCU of J’s turn is formatted as a declarative, and the added tag (“isn’t it”) is asking for confirmation. However, it also serves as a first assessment, making relevant a second assessment (Pomerantz 1984). In Schegloff’s (2007) terms, this first pair part is double barreled. This poses a problem for the recipient of this turn with regard to what J’s turn is doing, and what should come next. Following the next-turn proof procedure, J could inspect L’s response to see how L understood the first turn — that is, to see whether L treats the first turn as something to confirm or as an occasion to give an assessment. We see that the design of L’s response aligns with the format of the tag question, as it begins with “Yeh”. In addition to this “Yeh”-response, L also offers an assessment. In this way, L aligns with the double-barreledness of the first pair-part. The format of confirmation token plus assessment shows that L treats J’s turn as making relevant the production of a second assessment, rather than merely asking for confirmation.

As the example shows, next turns are a useful resource for members to show their, and inspect others’, displayed understandings of prior turns. Additionally, they make much of interaction available to us as analysts, providing us with empirical evidence for grounding our analysis.

The next-turn proof procedure presumes a reflexive relationship between adjacent turns: The next turn is used to analyze the prior turn, and this prior turn has provided the context that made the next turn relevant. The next-turn proof procedure thereby highlights how evidence for analyses of what action a certain turn is doing needs to be found in the data itself. It follows conversation analysts’ treatment of context as fundamentally a participant's resource: In order for analysts to understand this context, they must focus only on what participants are demonstrably oriented to (Schegloff 1992).

While very powerful in showing participants’ displayed understandings of the unfolding interaction, the next-turn proof procedure has its limitations as an analytic tool. One issue is the perhaps unfortunate use of the term ‘proof’, as this implies something definitive. Indeed, Schegloff (1996: 173f) warned against taking recipients’ displayed understandings of prior turns as definitive of their import. That is, a turn has meaning independent of the next turn’s treatment of it, and indeed has meaning even if no next turn comes.

In fact, while the next turn proof procedure can demonstrate that a prior turn was, or was not, treated as, for instance, a “request for information”, this procedure is less helpful in understanding how that actually happened (Heritage 2012, see also Steensig & Heinemann 2016). That is, focusing on next turns will leave us with the puzzle as to how “the resources of the language, the body, the environment of the interaction, and position in the interaction” are, and can be, recognized by recipients as specific actions (Schegloff 2007b: xiv). There are alternative analytical tools available that focus on the speaker’s production of the turn in question, rather than (merely) the recipient’s response. The significance and meaning of a practice can for instance be inferred through a close examination of how speakers recurrently use it (which can be established through the use of counting) in specific sequential contexts, at specific positions within the speaker's turn, and in combination with other practices (Clayman & Gill 2012).

Another limitation of the next turn proof procedure is that a next turn may be, in various respects, sequentially misfitted to the prior turn. For instance, speakers’ responses may exhibit understandings that are less than straightforward or occasionally purposefully obscure (Clayman & Gill 2012). Similarly, speakers may respond to the prior turn in a way that avoids addressing the meaning of the talk. In so doing, they are able to shift the discussion's trajectory away from an undesirable end toward a preferred one (Heritage & Atkinson 1984, see also Heritage 2018). Take, for instance, the following example from Drew (2018: 257), which is from the cross-examination of a witness, the alleged victim, in a rape trial. Before this excerpt, the defense attorney’s line of inquiry suggested that the witness had reason to know that the defendant desired to have some sort of a relationship with the witness, and/or that they had been talking together that particular evening (Drew 2018).

(Drew 2018: 257)

01  DC:    B’t you kne:w at that ti:me, that the defendant was in:terested in you (.)
02         didn’ you?
03         (1.3)
04  Wit:   He: asked me how I’ bin: en (1.1) (j-) just stuff like that,
05  DC:    Just asked you how (0.5) you’d bi:n (0.3) but he kissed you goodni:ght? (0.5)
06         Izzat righ:t.

Here we see how the attorney continues, using a declarative construction, by asserting to the witness that she was aware of the defendant's interest in her, shifting that into a question by adding the tag “didn’t you” (lines 1-2). After a pause, the witness responds indirectly by describing a greeting, from which it may be deduced that they were acquainted but not close friends or particularly close in any other (intimate) sense (line 4). Thus, by giving an indirect response, the witness avoids confirmation and challenges the attorney’s account, thereby contesting or challenging any conclusions that could be inferred from the attorney's statements (see also Drew 1992). Consequently, this example illustrates how speakers, in responding to prior turns, are able to change the course of the conversation in a, for them, desired direction.

Additional Related Entries:

• Account
• Repair

Cited References:

Clayman, S.E., & Gill, V.T. (2012). Conversation analysis. In J.P. Gee & M. Hanford (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis (pp. 120–134). Routledge.

Drew, P. (1992) Contested evidence in a courtroom cross examination: The case of a trial for rape. In P. Drew & J. Heritage (Eds.), Talk at Work: Social Interaction in Institutional Settings (pp. 470-520). Cambridge University Press.

Drew, P. (2018). Inferences and indirectness in interaction. Open Linguistics, 4, 241–259

Heritage, J. (1984). Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology. Polity Press.

Heritage, J (2012). Beyond and behind the words: Some reactions to my commentators. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(1), 76–81.

Heritage, J. (2018). The ubiquity of epistemics: A rebuttal to the ‘epistemics of epistemics’ group. Discourse Studies, 20(1),14-56.

Heritage, J., & Atkinson, J.M. (1984). Introduction. In J.M. Atkinson & Heritage, J. (Eds.), Structures of Social Action (pp. 1-16). Cambridge University Press.

Moerman, M. & Sacks, H. (1971). On understanding in conversation. Unpublished paper, 70th annual meeting, American Anthropological Association, New York City, 20 Nov. 1971.

Moerman, M., & Sacks, H. (1971) [1988]. On ‘understanding’ in the analysis of natural conversation. In: M. Moerman (Ed.), Talking Culture (pp. 180–186). University of Pennsylvania Press.

Pomerantz, A. (1984). Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: Some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shapes. In J. M. Atkinson, & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis (pp. 57-101). Cambridge University Press.

Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. A., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50, 696-735.

Schegloff, E. A. (1992). Repair after next turn: The last structurally provided defense of intersubjectivity in conversation. American Journal of Sociology, 97(5), 1295–1345.

Schegloff, E.A. (1996). Confirming allusions: Toward an empirical account of action. American Journal of Sociology, 102(1), 16-216.

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

Steensig, J., & Heinemann, T. (2016). Throwing the baby out with the bath water? Commentary on the criticism of the ‘Epistemic Program. Discourse Studies, 18(5), 597-609.

Additional References:

Sidnell, J. (2013). Basic conversation analytic methods. In J. Sidnell & T. Stivers (Eds.), The Handbook of Conversation Analysis (pp. 77-99). Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.