Dispreferred

Encyclopedia of Terminology for CA and IL: Dispreferred
Author(s):	Danielle Pillet-Shore (University of New Hampshire, USA) (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4757-4082)
To cite:	Pillet-Shore, Danielle. (2023). Dispreferred. 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/HE4ZJ

The term ‘dispreferred’ is used in conversation analytic research on preference to describe how people systematically time/position and design their social actions in interaction when there are relevant alternatives possible. ‘Dispreferred’ has been used to refer to:

• an action that does not structurally align or cooperate with a prior conversational turn’s initiated course of action/project/activity (e.g., Pomerantz, 1984:63-64; Schegloff, 2007:58-60; Stivers & Robinson, 2006);
• the design of an action—both sequence-initiating (FPP), and sequence-responding (SPP)—with delay(s), speech dysfluencies, and other mitigating features including accounts, appreciations, apologies, qualifications and/or uncertainty or hesitation markers (e.g., Heritage, 1984:265-280; Pillet-Shore, 2010; 2011; 2015; 2016; 2017; 2021; 2023; Robinson & Bolden, 2010; Schegloff, 2007:63-73).

Some CA work conceptualizes preference as connected to “face” (participants’ interdependent, public images of self; Goffman, 1967; Brown & Levinson, 1987; Lerner, 1996) and “affiliation” (participants’ continually updated displays of being ‘with’ or ‘against’ one another; Sidnell, 2010; Steensig, 2020), and thus the relationship of the participants involved (Pillet-Shore, 2010, 2011, 2012a, 2012b, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2021, 2023). From this perspective, dispreferred actions promote disaffiliation by threatening participants’ face, thereby undermining social solidarity (Clayman, 2002; Heritage, 1984:268-280; Pillet-Shore, 2017, 2021, 2023).

This term is used to describe public forms of conduct that are highly generalized and institutionalized, not the private desires, subjective feelings or psychological preferences of individuals (Heritage, 1984; Pillet-Shore, 2017; 2023; Robinson & Bolden, 2010; Schegloff, 2007; Schegloff, Jefferson & Sacks, 1977:362). Given CA’s focus upon action sequences (examining how participants’ audible utterances and visible body-behaviors accomplish particular social actions), dis/preference is based on the possibility of alternative relevant actions (Lerner, 1996:304) since many action types—both sequence-initiating and sequence-responding—involve at least two relevant alternatives. As an example of such alternatives, when transferring something of value (object, assistance/service, information) from one person to another, the person who has the valued transferable (e.g., a drink, a ride, an unfamiliar person’s name) may offer it through an adjacency pair FPP, or the person who is the potential recipient of the valued transferable may request it through a FPP (Schegloff, 2007:82). And when presented with a FPP request, the recipient may deliver a SPP that grants or refuses it. Preference research argues that such alternatives are not structurally equivalent or equally-valued by participants (Schegloff, 2007:59; Schegloff & Sacks, 1973:314; Schegloff, Jefferson & Sacks, 1977:362), presenting evidence that participants position/time and design each alternative differently in systematic, patterned ways (e.g., Pillet-Shore, 2010, 2011, 2017, 2021, 2023; Schegloff, 2007:82-86; but for a different view, see Kendrick & Drew, 2014), with the “dispreferred” alternative being withheld or delayed and mitigated.

Consider Excerpt 1, which shows a sequence taken from a telephone conversation between a young woman Madge and her friend’s mother Linda (note that “Tina” mentioned at line 14 is Madge’s friend and Linda’s daughter). Madge produces a dispreferred FPP at lines 1-5, after which Linda produces a dispreferred SPP response.

(1) [Marcia MTRAC 60 1-7]

01 MAD:    I wa:s just wondering y'know .hhh (0.3) could-
02         (.) d'yo:u thi:nk you might (.) wanna rent (.)
03         you know like the bottom part (of/a) yer: (.)
04         g'ra::ge like to me: fer a whi:le, °a sump'm
05         like that.°
06         (.)
07 LIN:    [Wull-
08 MAD:    [.hh I think [(  )
09 LIN:                 [Oh- you mean for living in: Madge?=
10 MAD:    =Ye:ah.
11         (0.3)
12 LIN:    .h It's just? (0.8)
13 MAD:    No:t possible.=h[uh,
14 LIN:                    [Ye:ah.=We- Tina tri:ed that one 
15         ti:[me.=But-
16 MAD:       [I remember she was doing that (once),=
17 LIN:    =We could not get it tu:h (0.3) clo:sed.

Madge’s FPP does the action of requesting, and according to one view, “requests are dispreferred practices as compared to offers” (Schegloff, 2007:86; cf. Pomerantz & Heritage, 2013:210; Sacks, 1992 II:207). Madge designs her FPP request to rent a part of Linda’s garage—which constitutes a potential imposition on Linda—with “negative politeness”: she uses a “conventionally indirect form” by building it as a question concerning Linda’s ability/willingness to grant the request, and she also minimizes the imposition by asking to rent only “the bottom part” of her garage (Brown & Levinson, 1987). Madge also uses dispreferred design (Pillet-Shore, 2017, 2023) at lines 1-5, producing her utterance with delays (e.g., “y'know .hhh (0.3)”) (Clayman & Raymond, 2021), speech dysfluencies (including her self-repair re-start, “could- (.) d'yo:u thi:nk you might (.)”), and other mitigating features including qualifications and uncertainty markers (e.g., “might”; “fer a whi:le”).

Madge’s request makes relevant next a SPP that either grants or refuses it. But these alternative relevant actions are not socially, interactionally symmetrical—they are not equally-valued by participants (Heritage, 1984; Schegloff, 2007; Pillet-Shore, 2010, 2011, 2017, 2021). To grant another’s request is to align with it (structurally cooperating by facilitating the proposed activity; Stivers, 2008; Steensig, 2020), which according to one view constitutes an affiliative, face-affirming SPP action that is supportive of social solidarity (Clayman, 2002; Heritage, 1984:268-280). But to refuse another’s request is a distancing action (Schegloff, 2007:59) that hinders the accomplishment of the activity proffered by the FPP, and thus can be viewed as constituting a disaffiliative, face-threatening SPP action that is destructive of social solidarity (Heritage, 1984:268). Participants characteristically position/time and design each alternative differently.

Linda delivers her SPP refusal using dispreferred design: she delays her response (note the micropause at line 6, as well as the time that elapses during lines 4-5 after Madge says “g’ra::ge” when Madge seems to be re-completing her utterance). And Linda’s line 7 is a ‘Well’-preface (Heritage, 2015) indicating that her upcoming response will be non-straightforward. As Madge starts talking again at line 8—additional time during which Linda is continuing to delay her SPP—Linda uses her next utterance at line 9 to do an other-initiation of repair, asking a clarifying question about Madge’s FPP request (which again further delays Linda’s still-due SPP response; lines 9 and 10 constitute an insert sequence further breaking the contiguity (Sacks, 1987) between Madge’s FPP at lines 1-5 and the normatively expected base SPP still pending from Linda). After continuing to delay her SPP response by allowing the silence at line 11 to develop, Linda begins her SPP at line 12 with “It’s just?” which sounds en route to providing an account for why she is about to refuse Madge’s request. Notably, Linda then does a trail-off (continuing to delay her articulation of her refusing SPP during the 0.8-sec silence noted at the end of line 12) to imply a refusal without stating it explicitly. Linda’s dispreferred SPP design (Pillet-Shore, 2017, 2023) enables Madge—the participant who issued the FPP request—to anticipate the refusal and articulate it for Linda at line 13. Thus, at line 14 Linda can now agree with Madge’s line 13, after which she goes on to provide an elaborate account for why she cannot rent her garage to Madge.

These properties of turn/sequence design—delayed, non-straightforward and dysfluent delivery involving mitigating features including accounts—are termed ‘dispreferred’ (Heritage, 1984; Pillet-Shore, 2017, 2023; Schegloff, 2007). Participants doing disaffiliative or distancing actions (e.g., SPPs that do declining/refusing; FPPs that do requesting) regularly use such dispreferred design.

Accounts delivered as part of dispreferred design usually have a ‘no fault’ quality (Heritage, 1984:270-71)—they tend to invoke the speaker’s inability rather than unwillingness to perform the alternative affiliating action. And the delay(s) done as part of dispreferred design (e.g., via silence, or turn-initial particles like well, uhm) hearably foreshadow disaffiliating actions and thus can alert FPP speakers to an upcoming dispreferred action (Schegloff, 2007; cf. Kendrick & Torreira, 2015). FPP speakers can use the time afforded by delays to revise the original FPP (e.g., to be more attractive/acceptable), or to formulate an anticipation of disconfirmation/rejection (thereby mitigating the imminent rejection). Thus, while participants’ delivery of an action with dispreferred design minimizes the likelihood of its occurrence by enabling the possibility that it will be preempted (Heritage, 1984:276), their delivery of an action with preferred design maximizes the likelihood of its occurrence (Davidson, 1984; Pomerantz, 1984).

Additional Related Entries:

• Preference
• Preferred
• Face
• Alignment
• Affiliation
• Sequence
• Social Action

Cited References:

Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Clayman, S. E. (2002). Sequence and solidarity. In Advances in group processes (pp. 229-253). Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Bingley.

Clayman, S. E., & Raymond, C. W. (2021). You know as invoking alignment: A generic resource for emerging problems of understanding and affiliation. Journal of Pragmatics, 182, 293–309.

Davidson, J. (1984). Subsequent versions of invitations, offers, requests, and proposals dealing with potential or actual rejection. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (eds), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis (pp. 102–28). Cambridge, UK. Cambridge University Press.

Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction ritual: Essays in face to face behavior. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

Heritage, J. (1984). Garfinkel and ethnomethodology. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Heritage, J. (2015). Well-prefaced turns in English conversation: A conversation analytic perspective. Journal of Pragmatics, 88, 88-104.

Kendrick, K. & Drew, P. (2014). The putative preference for offers over requests. In P. Drew & E. Couper-Kuhlen (eds.), Requesting in social interaction (pp. 87-113). John Benjamins.

Kendrick, K. & Torreira, F. (2015). The timing and construction of preference: A quantitative study. Discourse Processes, 52(4), 255-289.

Lerner, G. H. (1996). Finding “face” in the preference structures of talk-in-interaction. Social Psychology Quarterly, 59(4), 303-321.

Pillet-Shore, D. (2010). Making way and making sense: Including newcomers in interaction. Social Psychology Quarterly, 73(2), 152-175.

Pillet-Shore, D. (2011). Doing introductions: The work involved in meeting someone new. Communication Monographs, 78(1), 73-95.

Pillet-Shore, D. (2012a). Greeting: Displaying stance through prosodic recipient design. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(4), 375-398.

Pillet-Shore, D. (2012b). The problems with praise in parent-teacher interaction. Communication Monographs, 79(2), 181-204.

Pillet-Shore, D. (2015). Being a “good parent” in parent-teacher conferences. Journal of Communication, 65(2), 373-395.

Pillet-Shore, D. (2016). Criticizing another’s child: How teachers evaluate students during parent-teacher conferences. Language in Society, 45(1), 33-58.

Pillet-Shore, D. (2017). Preference organization. In Oxford research encyclopedia of communication, edited by J. Nussbaum. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Pillet-Shore, D. (2021). When to make the sensory social: Registering in face-to-face openings. Symbolic Interaction, 44(1), 10-39.

Pillet-Shore, D. (in press, 2023). Where the action is: Positioning matters in interaction. Chapter 22 in J. Robinson, R. Clift, K. Kendrick & C. W. Raymond (eds.), The Cambridge handbook of methods in conversation analysis. Cambridge University Press.

Pomerantz, A. (1984). Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: Some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shapes. In J. M. Atkinson & J. C. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action (pp. 57–101). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Pomerantz, A. & Heritage, J. (2013). Preference. In J. Sidnell & T. Stivers (Eds.), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 210-228). Oxford: John Wiley and Sons.

Robinson, J. D. (2020). Revisiting preference organization in context: A qualitative and quantitative examination of responses to information seeking. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 53(2), 197-222.

Robinson, J. D. & Bolden, G. (2010). Preference organization of sequence-initiating actions: The case of explicit account solicitations. Discourse Studies, 12(4): 501-533.

Sacks, H. (1987). On the preferences for agreement and contiguity in sequences in conversation. In G. Button & J. R. E. Lee (Eds.), Talk and social organization (pp. 54-69). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Schegloff, E. A. (2007). Sequence organization in interaction: A Primer in conversation analysis (Vol. 1). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Schegloff, E. A., & Sacks, H. (1973). Opening up closings. Semiotica, 8, 289–327.

Schegloff, E. A., Jefferson, G. & Sacks, H. (1977). The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language, 53(2), 361-82.

Sidnell, J. (2010). Conversation analysis: An introduction. Wiley-Blackwell.

Steensig, J. (2020). Conversation analysis and affiliation and alignment. In C. A. Chapelle (ed.), The concise encyclopedia of applied linguistics (pp. 248-253). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.

Stivers, T. (2008). Stance, alignment and affiliation during storytelling: When nodding is a token of affiliation. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 41(1), 31-57.

Stivers, T. & Robinson, J. (2006). A preference for progressivity in interaction. Language in Society, 35, 367-392.

Additional References: