Third position
Yusuke Arano (Saitama University, Japan) (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7383-5047)
To cite: Arano, Yusuke. (2023). Third position. 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:
Third position refers to the sequential environment in which the initial (first action) speaker of an adjacency pair has the opportunity to expand the preceding base sequence. It is the first structurally provided opportunity for the first speaker to accept/confirm or to reject/repair the understanding displayed by the recipient’s turn in the second position. Thus, it is the sequential position where the first speaker can work towards establishing mutual understanding (e.g., Schegloff 1992, 2007) by exhibiting the interactional import of the second action and their stance toward it (e.g., Arano 2018, 2020).
One typical third-position action is acceptance of the second-position action via a ‘sequence-closing third’, such as oh, okay, and all right in English. This is a minimal post-expansion designed to project no further action beyond itself within the sequence (Schegloff 2007: 118–148). Below, a free-standing oh token in third position serves as a sequence-closing third of the question-answer sequence (Heritage 1984):
[HG, 16:25-28] [Q = question; A = answer; -> = the third position] 01 NAN: Q = ̇hhh Dz he av iz own apa:rt[mint?] 02 HYL: A [˚hhhh] Yea:h,= 03 NAN: -> =Oh:, 04 (1.0)
Nancy’s “Oh:” in line 3 accepts Hyla’s response to her initial question and “registers, or at least enacts the registration of, a change in its producer’s state of knowledge or information” (Heritage 1998: 291). Her acceptance of Hyla’s response with oh in the third position serves to end the question-answer sequence, as further evidenced by the silence that follows (line 4).
As an alternative to acceptance, the first speaker in third position can also remedy or repair the second speaker’s (problematic) understanding of the first-position action. This is called “third-position repair” (Schegloff 1992), as seen in the extract below. This shows an exchange at a civil defense headquarters in the U.S., where the public information officer (Annie) asks the chief engineer (Zebrach) what kind of information will be given to the press immediately after the hurricane passes (line 1).
[CDHQ, I, 52] (Schegloff 1992: 1303, modified) 01 ANN: Which one::s are closed, an' which ones are open. 02 ZEB: Most of 'em. This, this, [this, this ((pointing)) 03 ANN: [I 'on't mean on the shelters, 04 I mean on the roads. 05 ZEB: Oh!
Zebrach’s response in line 2 displays his (mis)understanding of Annie’s question. By pointing, he embodies his (mistaken) grasp of the referents of "ones" in Annie’s question. Before the end of his turn, Annie enters to correct his misunderstanding (lines 3–4) in third position. She clarifies what she meant by “which” in her question. Zebrach’s "Oh!" (line 5) serves to display his change-of-state; he now sees that he misunderstood Annie’s initial question. Annie’s third position repair thus restores the intersubjective basis for their continued interaction.
Third position is not to be confused with ‘third turn.’ The third position does not necessarily mean a turn in a series, but it is namely a position in a sequence. While the third position is located with reference to an adjacency pair, the third turn occurs with reference to the exchange of speaking turns (See turn-taking). In Schegloff’s (1992) words, third position is located “in the turn after a turn containing an utterance analyzably built to be ‘next’ to some prior” (1318, emphasis in original).
While it happens that most third-position actions appear in the third turn, they may occur in an environment beyond the third turn. In the emergency call below, the third-position repair (boldfaced) is displaced from the third turn by a repair sequence in lines 4–5.
[FD,IV,66] (Schegloff 1992: 1318, modified] 01 DIS: Now what was that house number you said= 02 =[you were- 03 CAL: =[No phone. No. 04 DIS: Sir? 05 CAL: No phone at all. 06 DIS: No I mean the uh house number, [Y- 07 CAL: [Thirdy eight 08 oh one? 09 DIS: Thirdy eight oh one.
In the excerpt above, the dispatcher’s other initiation of repair (“Sir?”) is in the third turn (line 4) and deals with problems of overlapping talk (lines 2-3). In contrast, the dispatcher's third-position repair (“No I mean the uh house number”) is addressed to the caller’s problematic understanding of the initial question.
Third position carries special relevance in many institutional interactions. The activities of such institutional settings may necessitate a third action to make sequences progress to the next phase within the overall structural organization of an institutional interaction -— e.g., scheduling a pickup of an item in a store (Kevoe-Feldman & Robinson 2012), selling an item (Jefferson & Schenkein 1978), instructing in classroom (Mehan 1979), and the like. The recipient of the second action in the above settings may be expected to respond adjacently to those second actions in the third position (Jefferson & Schenkein 1977) to move forward with the institutionally relevant task. This is seen in the segment below, excerpted from a lesson for English as a foreign language. The teacher begins by asking the students to repeat the word “rural”.
[CD12] 01 TEA: So repeat after me. (0.2) .hh Now rural is a little 02 bit tough. >B’cause< we got Rs and L. 03 <Ru::ral.> <Ru::ral.> 04 It’s a: little ↑tough, bu’ let’s try it. (0.8) 05 Rural. 06 STs: Rural. 07 (.) 08 TEA: Rural. 09 STs: Rural. 10 TEA: ↑↑Ni:ce! (0.3) Then...
The students respond first with a production of “rural” in line 6. This is initially not immediately accepted, as indicated by the silence in line 7—a silence that occurs in third position. Given this silence, the teacher reproduces “rural” for the students, who again repeat the word (lines 8-9). In a renewed third position, the teacher now gives another evaluation the students’ production (line 10). The teacher’s acceptance of students’ repeat with “Ni:ce!” terminates the local instruction sequence and manages the ongoing classroom interaction. This demonstrates that the teacher has the institutional authority to evaluate the students’ answers in the classroom, that the import of the second action is not guaranteed for the students, and that activity progression hinges on the teacher’s action in third position.
Additional Related Entries:
- Adjacency Pair
- Overall Structural Organization
- Sequence Organization
- Third-position repair
- Third-turn repair
- Turn-taking
Cited References:
Arano, Y. (2018). Post-Other-Correction Repeat: Aspects of a Third-Position Action in Correction Sequences. Journal of Pragmatics, 136(1), 5–19.
Arano, Y. (2020). Doing Reflecting: Embodied Solitary Confirmation of Instructed Enactment. Discourse Studies, 22(3), 261–290.
Heritage, J. (1984). A change-of-state token and aspects of Its sequential placement. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of Social Action (pp. 299–345). Cambridge University Press.
Jefferson, G., & Schenkein, J. (1978). Some Sequential Negotiations in Conversation: Unexpanded and Expanded Versions of Projected Action Sequences. In J. Schenkein (Ed.), Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction (pp. 155–172). Academic Press.
Kevoe-Feldman, H., & Robinson, J. D. (2012). Exploring essentially three-turn courses of action: An institutional case study with implications for ordinary talk. Discourse Studies, 14(2), 217–241.
Mehan, H. (1979). Learning Lessons: Social Organization in the Classroom. Harvard University Press.
Sacks, H. (1972). An Initial Investigation of the Usability of Conversational Materials for Doing Sociology. In D. N. Sudnow (Ed.), Studies in Social Interaction (pp. 31–74). Free 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 for place for the defense of intersubjectivity in conversation. American Journal of Sociology, 95(5), 1295–1345.
Schegloff, E. A. (2007). Sequence organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis (Vol. 1). Cambridge University Press.
Additional References:
