Harren2008
| Harren2008 | |
|---|---|
| BibType | ARTICLE |
| Key | Harren2008 |
| Author(s) | Inga Harren, Mia Raitaniemi |
| Title | The sequential structure of closings in private German phone calls |
| Editor(s) | |
| Tag(s) | EMCA, German, Closings, Phone Calls, Sequence organization |
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| Year | 2008 |
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| Journal | Gesprächsforschung: Online-Zeitschrift zur verbalen Interaktion |
| Volume | 9 |
| Number | |
| Pages | 198–223 |
| URL | Link |
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Abstract
This conversation analytic study focuses on the sequential structure of telephone closings in a corpus of 28 German phone calls among friends and relatives. It ex- amines the stepwise proceeding within the closing path.
Fundamental prior research on closings (Schegloff/Sacks 1973) implies that, after topic closure, only a possible pre-closing and its acceptance and the following terminal exchange are necessary for a minimal closing. Contrary to that, the studied German closings show a more elaborate organization. Our findings suggest that German telephone closings consist of at least two negotiation sequences. In the first sequence, the participants negotiate whether they are ready to end the conversation. We found that besides lexical items such as "gut" ('good'), constructions such as "dann sehen wir uns morgen" ('then we’ll see each other tomorrow') can be considered as typical for this first sequence. In the second sequence the participants negotiate when terminal greetings (e.g. "tschüss" 'bye') are produced. This is preferably done by producing a series of utterances, such as "okay – bis dann – tschüss" ('okay – till then – bye'), often to some extent in overlap with the partner.
In the literature on closings, there are attempts to categorize the turns that can occur between the initiation of the closing sequence and the terminal exchange, such as reiteration of appointments. According to Button (1987; 1990a) such turns are movements out of closing. Yet, in our German data, we found that turns referring to appointments and future actions (such as the mentioned "dann sehen wir uns morgen") contribute to the joint achievement of the closing.
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