Opening

Encyclopedia of Terminology for CA and IL: Opening
Author(s):	Philipp Hänggi (University of Basel, Switzerland) (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8062-2541) & Julia Schneerson (University of Basel, Switzerland) (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7244-0804)
To cite:	Hänggi, Philipp, & Schneerson, Julia. (2023). Opening. 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/PKE8W

The opening, or opening phase, of an encounter refers to the sequentially organized activity in and through which participants coordinate entry into jointly focused interaction.

In his seminal work on openings of ordinary landline telephone conversations in American English, Schegloff (1967, 1968, 1979, 1986) identified four “core opening sequences” (Schegloff 1986: 117) that participants routinely go through before reaching the “anchor position” of the interaction. These are organized as follows:

1. Summons-answer sequence
2. Identification/recognition sequence
3. Greeting sequence
4. ‘How-are-you’ sequence

(Schegloff 1986: 115)

00       ((ring))
01  R:   Hello,
02  C:   Hi. Susan?
03  R:   Ye:s,
04  C:   This’s Janet. Weinstein.
05  R:   Janet!
06  C:   hhehh Susan.
07  R:   How are you.
08  C:   I’m fine. How’re you.
09  R:   Fi:ne. Back from the wilds of C’lumbia.
10  C:   Yeah. hhnhheh
11  R:   Crazy.
12  C:   hheh heh heh. ‘hhh My mo:ther’s having a
13       coming out party fer me...

Subsequent CA research into call openings used Schegloff’s analysis as a point of departure (for cross-linguistic/-cultural research, see e.g. Hopper & Chen 1996; Lindström 1994; Luke & Pavlidou 2002).

A substantial body of work has demonstrated that institutional calls are characterized by differential sequential trajectories than those found in mundane calls. People have been shown to reflexively adapt the developmental course of openings in a range of institutional settings, such as in phone calls to emergency helplines (e.g., Cromdal, et al. 2012, Whalen & Zimmerman 1987; Zimmerman 1984) or radio phone-ins (e.g., Hutchby 1996).

A further set of studies has examined the methodical sequential organization of openings in other technologically-mediated forms of distant interaction (e.g., Arminen & Leinonen 2006; Licoppe 2017).

While visual conduct is not accessible to interactants in phone conversations, and tends to be reduced to “talking head” configurations (Licoppe & Morel 2012) in video calls, a fundamental, interactionally consequential difference between telephone openings and openings in unmediated face-to-face interaction lies in the co-availability of a wide range of multimodal resources (gaze, facial expressions, gestures, postural orientations, the moving body, and so forth). In environments of physical co-presence, co-located individuals have been shown to mobilize a variety of vocal/verbal, embodied and material resources in temporally adjusted ways when moving from “unfocused” to “focused” interaction (Goffman 1963; for early video-based research in this area, see Heath 1981; Kendon & Ferber 1973; for recent comprehensive overviews, see D’Antoni, et al. 2022; Pillet-Shore 2018; cf. pre-opening).

Some of the interactional jobs that get done in and through the opening phase of co-present interaction include:

• spatiotemporally organizing the coordinated entry into interaction (Fox & Heinemann 2020; Hausendorf & Mondada 2017; Mortensen & Hazel 2014; Sorjonen & Raevaara 2014);

• communicating (non)availability (Harjunpää, et al. 2018; Mondada 2022; Robinson 1998);

• establishing a joint focus of attention and stabilizing a common interactional space within a unified participation framework (Mondada 2009);

• displaying recognition and a positive affective stance toward the incipient encounter (D’Antoni & De Stefani 2022; De Stefani & Mondada 2018; Pillet-Shore 2012)

• negotiating the language-of-interaction (Mondada 2018; Raymond 2020).

The extract below, drawn from a corpus of video recordings of naturally-occurring interactions in public spaces in Switzerland, illustrates the organization of the co-present opening phase between two friends, Alessia (ALE) and Bea (BEA), who meet in a café.

While waiting for her friend to arrive, Alessia is visibly scanning the local environment (line 1) (Mondada 2022). After some time, she begins to wave and then smiles (line 1). Alessia’s hand wave and smiling face bodily display recognition of the arriving person while at the same time instantiating a “distant salutation” (Kendon & Ferber 1973). Next, Alessia gets up from her chair and begins to walk toward Bea (line 2). During the mutual approach, Bea delivers the prosodically “large” (Pillet-Shore 2012) verbal greeting “ho::i,”/‘hi’ (line 3). This is immediately followed by Alessia’s sequence-initiating noticing “bisch go shoppe? HHH heh”/’did you go shopping?’ (line 4), a type of registering actions that has been shown to be preferably done ‘early’ in incipient encounters, close to initial perceptual exposure (Pillet-Shore 2021; Schegloff 2007: 86). This occasions an account by Bea (lines 6–8) during which the two participants first jointly project the production of a hug by almost synchronously splaying their arms (Fig. 2), and then finally complete the hug (Fig. 3)—a multimodal affectionate display that reflexively (re)constitutes and confirms their intimate social relationship (Goodwin 2017). It is only during their haptic greeting/“close salutation” (Kendon & Ferber 1973) that Alessia verbally delivers the “large” return greeting “↑ho:i,”/‘hi’ that is followed by the address term of endearment “bella:::,”/‘bella’ (line 7). As the two disengage from the hug, Bea issues a howareyou (appended to her account, line 8). At the same time, they both begin to walk toward the table to settle in (line 8), thereby co-establishing a stationary interactional space (Mondada 2009).

Taking into account multimodal details of embodied interaction, the example thus illustrates how participants organize their coordinated entry into jointly focused interaction, display mutual recognition of one another, stabilize a common interactional space, and continue through the sequences composing the larger opening phase of a co-present face-to-face encounter between intimates.

Additional Related Entries:

• Pre-opening
• Pre-beginning
• Multimodality
• Sequence organization
• Participation
• F-formation

Cited References:

Arminen, I., & Leinonen, M. (2006). Mobile phone call openings: Tailoring answers to personalized summonses. Discourse Studies, 8(3), 339–368.

Cromdal, J., Landqvist, H., Persson-Thunqvist, D., & Osvaldsson, K. (2012). Finding out what’s happened: Two procedures for opening emergency calls. Discourse Studies, 14(4), 371–397.

D’Antoni, F., & De Stefani, E. (2022). On being known: Displays of familiarity in Italian café encounters. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 55(1), 79–100.

D’Antoni, F., Debois, T., De Stefani, E., Hänggi, P., Mondada, L., Schneerson, J., & Tekin, B. S. (2022). Encounters in public places: The establishment of interactional space in face-to-face openings. In A. H. Jucker & H. Hausendorf (Eds.), Pragmatics of Space (pp. 281–315). De Gruyter Mouton.

De Stefani, E., & Mondada, L. (2018). Encounters in public space: How acquainted versus unacquainted persons establish social and spatial arrangements. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 51(3), 248–270.

Fox, B., & Heinemann, T. (2020). Spatio-temporal contingencies for making a request at the shoe repair shop. Journal of Pragmatics, 167, 20–67.

Goffman, E. (1963). Behavior in Public Places. Free Press.

Goodwin, M. H. (2017). Haptic sociality: The embodied interactive construction of intimacy through touch. In C. Meyer, J. Streeck, & J. S. Jordan (Eds.), Intercorporeality: Emerging Socialities in Interaction (pp. 73–102). Oxford University Press.

Harjunpää, K., Mondada, L., & Svinhufvud, K. (2018). The coordinated entry into service encounters in food shops: Managing interactional space, availability and service during openings. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 51(3), 271–291.

Hausendorf, H., & Mondada, L. (2017). Becoming the current client: A study of openings at Swiss railway station counters. Arbeitspapiere des UFSP Sprache und Raum/SPUR, 5, 1–88.

Heath, C. (1981). The opening sequence in doctor-patient interaction. In P. Atkinson & C. Heath (Eds.), Medical work: Realities and Routines (pp. 71–90). Gower.

Hopper, R., & Chen, C.-H. (1996). Languages, cultures, relationships: Telephone openings in Taiwan. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 29(4), 291–314.

Hutchby, I. (1996). Confrontation Talk: Arguments, Asymmetries, and Power on Talk Radio. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.

Jefferson, G. (1980). On ‘trouble-premonitory’ response to inquiry. Sociological Inquiry, 50, 153–185.

Kendon, A., & Ferber, A, (1973). A description of some human greetings. In R. P. Michael & J. H. Crook (Eds.), Comparative Ecology and Behaviour of Primates (pp. 591–668). Academic Press.

Licoppe, C. (2017). Skype appearances, multiple greetings and ‘coucou’: The sequential organization of video-mediated conversation openings. Pragmatics, 27(3), 351–386.

Licoppe, C., & Morel, J. (2012). Video-in-interaction: “Talking heads” and the multimodal organization of mobile and Skype video calls. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(4), 399–429.

Lindström, A. (1994). Identification and recognition in Swedish telephone openings. Language in Society, 23(2), 231–252.

Luke, K. K., & Pavlidou, T. S. (Eds.) (2002). Telephone Calls: Unity and Diversity in Conversational Structure across Languages and Cultures. John Benjamins.

Mondada, L. (2009). Emergent focused interactions in public places: A systematic analysis of the multimodal achievement of a common interactional space. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(10), 1977–1997.

Mondada, L. (2018). Greetings as a device to find out and establish the language of service encounters in multilingual settings. Journal of Pragmatics, 126, 10–28.

Mondada, L. (2022). Adjusting step-by-step trajectories in public space: The micro-sequentiality of approaching and refusing to be approached. Gesprächsforschung, 23, 36–65.

Mortensen, K., & Hazel, S. (2014). Moving into interaction: Embodied practices for initiating interactions at a help desk counter. Journal of Pragmatics, 62, 46–67.

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

Pillet-Shore, D. (2018). How to begin. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 51(3), 213–231.

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

Raymond, C. W. (2020). Negotiating language on the radio in Los Angeles. In A. Lynch (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Spanish in the Global City (pp. 406–429). Routledge.

Robinson, J. D. (1998). Getting down to business: Talk, gaze and body orientation during openings of doctor-patient consultations. Human Communication Research, 25(1), 97–123.

Schegloff, E. A. (1967). The First Five Seconds: The Order of Conversational Openings. Ph.D., dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.

Schegloff, E. A. (1968). Sequencing in conversational openings. American Anthropologist, 70(6), 1075–1095.

Schegloff, E. A. (1979). Identification and recognition in telephone openings. In G. Psathas (Ed.), Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology (pp. 23–78). Erlbaum.

Schegloff, E. A. (1986). The routine as achievement. Human Studies, 9(2–3), 111–151.

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

Whalen, Marilyn R., & Zimmerman, D. H. (1987). Sequential and institutional contexts in calls for help. Social Psychology Quarterly, 50(2), 172–185.

Zimmerman, D. H. (1984). Talk and its occasion: The case of calling the police. In Deborah Schiffrin (Ed.), Meaning, Form, and Use in Context: Linguistic Applications (pp. 210–228). Georgetown University Press.

Additional References:

Auer, P. (2017). Anfang und Ende fokussierter Interaktion: Eine Einführung. InLiSt: Interaction and Linguistic Structures, 59. Reprinted in Einführung in die Konversationsanalyse, 2020, 32–105, De Gruyter.

Mondada, L., Bänninger, J., Bouaouina, S. A., Camus, L., Gauthier, G., Hänggi, P., Koda, M., Svensson, H., Tekin, B. S. (2020). Human sociality in the times of the Covid-19 pandemic: A systematic examination of change in greetings. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 24(4), 441–468.