How to do things with requests
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Jenny Mandelbaum
Abstract
Requests for food and other things at the family dinner table generally run off smoothly, without “breaking the surface” of interaction. That is, in an environment of multiple concurrent involvements (Lerner and Raymond, 2014), requesting and fulfilling requests for food or other things usually only momentarily suspends or delays the progressivity of other concurrent activities.This conversation analytic study examines requests in which interactants do “more” than just requesting. Drawing on videotaped holiday dinners of nine families in the Northeastern United States, 91 requests (principally for food) were collected. I show how at each position in the unfolding of a request sequence, opportunities may be taken to implement some other action. That is, requests may be formulated in such a way as to do more than requesting (e.g. they may enact impatience, implement a complaint about the requested item, or treat an interlocutor as noncompliant). Responses to requests may be produced in such a way as to do more than fulfilling the request (e.g. they may enact attentiveness, critique being asked for the item, teach proper norms of conduct, or even perform a “tit for tat”). In third position also, appreciations or acknowledgements of fulfilled requests may do more than appreciating or acknowledging (e.g. they may be designed to acknowledge an impropriety in the fulfilling of the request). Findings indicate how the formulation, fulfillment and acknowledgement of requests may provide a structure through which norms of food consumption and distribution, family relationships and personhood may be enacted and negotiated.
Abstract
Requests for food and other things at the family dinner table generally run off smoothly, without “breaking the surface” of interaction. That is, in an environment of multiple concurrent involvements (Lerner and Raymond, 2014), requesting and fulfilling requests for food or other things usually only momentarily suspends or delays the progressivity of other concurrent activities.This conversation analytic study examines requests in which interactants do “more” than just requesting. Drawing on videotaped holiday dinners of nine families in the Northeastern United States, 91 requests (principally for food) were collected. I show how at each position in the unfolding of a request sequence, opportunities may be taken to implement some other action. That is, requests may be formulated in such a way as to do more than requesting (e.g. they may enact impatience, implement a complaint about the requested item, or treat an interlocutor as noncompliant). Responses to requests may be produced in such a way as to do more than fulfilling the request (e.g. they may enact attentiveness, critique being asked for the item, teach proper norms of conduct, or even perform a “tit for tat”). In third position also, appreciations or acknowledgements of fulfilled requests may do more than appreciating or acknowledging (e.g. they may be designed to acknowledge an impropriety in the fulfilling of the request). Findings indicate how the formulation, fulfillment and acknowledgement of requests may provide a structure through which norms of food consumption and distribution, family relationships and personhood may be enacted and negotiated.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgement vii
- Glossary of transcription conventions ix
- Requesting – from speech act to recruitment 1
- Human agency and the infrastructure for requests 35
- Benefactors and beneficiaries 55
- The putative preference for offers over requests 87
- On divisions of labor in request and offer environments 115
- The social and moral work of modal constructions in granting remote requests 145
- Two request forms of four year olds 171
- Orchestrating directive trajectories in communicative projects in family interaction 185
- How to do things with requests 215
- On the grammatical form of requests at the convenience store 243
- Requesting immediate action in the surgical operating room 269
- When do people not use language to make requests? 303
- “Requests” and “offers” in orangutans and human infants 335
- Subject Index 365
- Name Index 369
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgement vii
- Glossary of transcription conventions ix
- Requesting – from speech act to recruitment 1
- Human agency and the infrastructure for requests 35
- Benefactors and beneficiaries 55
- The putative preference for offers over requests 87
- On divisions of labor in request and offer environments 115
- The social and moral work of modal constructions in granting remote requests 145
- Two request forms of four year olds 171
- Orchestrating directive trajectories in communicative projects in family interaction 185
- How to do things with requests 215
- On the grammatical form of requests at the convenience store 243
- Requesting immediate action in the surgical operating room 269
- When do people not use language to make requests? 303
- “Requests” and “offers” in orangutans and human infants 335
- Subject Index 365
- Name Index 369
