3 - The Co-Operative Organization of Emerging Action

Summary

Chapter 2 demonstrated how subsequent utterances, sentences, and turns at talk can be built by performing accumulative transformations on the materials provided by an earlier utterance. The present chapter moves from the sequencing of whole turns and actions to show how these same processes of co-operative action can occur in the midst of the individual units that construct a larger utterance. For clarity analysis focuses on how noun phrases can be constructed co-operatively through the separate contributions of multiple actors. This requires not simply sequentially responding to what has already been said, but the projection of what is about to be said. This leads to investigation of the organization of lived time as the consciousnesses of multiple actors intersect within the rich simultaneity of unfolding interaction. The crucial role played by the historical sedimentation through accumulative practice of specific resources is demonstrated through comparison of utterance and turn construction in two different languages: English and Japanese.

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