Accountability Flashcards
What are adjacency pairs?
2 utterances - 2 part structure of exchanging. Don’t have to be one after the other.
First and second part pairs by different speakers.
e.g. summons/ answer, acceptances/rejections, greetings require greetings
What is conditional relevance?
The second person is immediately responsible for the reply. The second part is immediately relevant and expectable.
Once the first pair part has been produced, the relevance of the answer hovers over the exchange
What is a minimal sequence?
An adjacency pair! Smallest unit of exchange in a conversation.
After producing a turn, the first speaker must stop (TRP) and the next speaker must produce the second part of the pair (TCU)
What is accountability?
A lack of response must always have an explanation.
Anything that strays from the normal must have an account/reason why
e.g. “sorry I didn’t see you there”
What are summons/answer sequences?
Part of human nature, and basic social protocol. Answer a phone call with a ‘hello’ is answering the summons of the ring.
E.g. . Ireland troubles – people opening their doors to danger after hearing a knock. Police advised not to but people ignored = the accountability of not responding
E.g. BT advised to pick up the phone and not respond to nuisance calls
What is impression management?
Erving Goffman looked at interaction and social life
e.g. hunching over apologetically when showing up late, looking at a watch repeatedly when waiting for someone in a public space, looking at a paving stone after tripping
‘Doing being ordinary’
Harvey Sacks (1984) - “At first I thought it was X, but then I realised it was X” E.g. car backfiring for JFK assassination, 9/11 and a passenger plane, Being ordinary is not something that happens, its something we all work to achieve
“Culture is an apparatus for generating recognizable actions” (Sacks)
We are always explaining ourselves, never neutral. We’re always on display
