conversation structure analysis

9

Stories

One of the things that people recurrently do in conversation is tell stories and, as Sacks (1995b: 222) puts it, a “bland fact” about stories is that they require more that one utterance to tell. Since, as we saw in chapter 3, the turn-taking system allocates a single TCU at a time, telling a story can be seen as something of an interactional problem. Specifically, how can a teller secure an extended turn-at-talk within which a story can be told? In this chapter we will begin by considering one solution to this problem – a solution built out of the sequential resources of adjacency pairs: the story preface. But, as Sacks notes, it is possible also to turn things around and see stories not as the source of an interactional problem but rather as themselves a solution. A story can be seen as a package or format which affords its speaker unique opportunities for delivering what it is she has to say. Sacks (1995b: 222–8) points out that, if stories are to function in this way as a solution to the interactional problem of how to produce an extended, multi-unit turn-at-talk, they must be recognizable as stories to their recipients. Furthermore, it’s no good if they are recognizable as stories only retrospectively (at their completion for instance). Rather, in order to serve as solutions, the story format must be recognizable before the speaker reaches a first point of possible completion. So this raises the question of what it is about a story that makes it recognizable as such.

The interactional environment in which stories emerge can be examined not only in rela- tion to the taking of turns but also to the organization of sequences. A basic distinction here is between stories that embody first actions and make relevant particular seconds and those that are occasioned as responses to first actions.

The embedding of stories in a particular interactional environment has a number of other important dimensions. For instance, a story-telling is significantly shaped by the way in which knowledge of the events being talked about is distributed among the co-participants. Sacks drew attention to one particularly relevant aspect of this in his discussion of how tellers position themselves in relation to the events they talk about – showing, that is, how they know a story. Whether the teller witnessed the events, participated in them, heard about them from a friend has a range of consequences for how the story is told.

Equally significant in shaping the story-telling is the knowledge of the other co-participants. As C. Goodwin (1986a) has shown, an audience need not be composed of a single, undif- ferentiated group of recipients. Rather, it is quite typical for an audience to contain some

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who know significantly more about the events being recounted than others. The particular and diverse ways in which different recipients are informed with respect to the events, people, activities and settings being talked about again has important consequences for the telling. Sacks (1995b: 437– 43) discussed one particularly clear case of this in his lecture titled “Spouse Talk”. There he noted that a speaker may recurrently find himself or herself telling a story that his or her spouse has already heard or otherwise talking about events in which his or her spouse also participated. Telling a story in the company of another participant who already knows the details of what is being told appears to conflict with a basic principle of recipient design: “do not tell others what they already know.” Looked at from the other side – that of the recipient – this recurrent situation means that a spouse may find himself or herself listening to a story which he or she already knows. Such situations, notes Sacks, provide for particular kinds of joint-telling.

Bland Fact: Stories Take More than One Utterance

Anthropologists, linguists and folklorists often isolate stories from the processes of inter- action within which they emerge before submitting them to analysis. Indeed, by eliciting narratives through the use of interview questions, the researcher effectively treats as incon- sequential the interactional context within which such narratives are situated. In contrast, for participants stories are accountably occasioned, which is to say that a story is told for a reason. Indeed, a story-teller who does not make clear why this story is being told in this way at this moment is likely to be met with a question such as “so?”, “so what?” or “what’s that got to do with what we were talking about?”. In order to see how stories are occasioned we need to consider the manner in which they are initiated. One way in which this can be done is through the use of a “story-preface” (Sacks 1974).

The following example is taken from a recording of a dinner-time conversation. The participants are three siblings, Virginia, Wes and Beth, their mother, and Wes’s girlfriend Prudence.

(1) Virginia qt 15:20 23 Virginia: [Um(>binwin<) (.) Mom, (·hh) w’d you talk t’Beth 24 becuz (0.8) EVERY MORNIN’, ·hh she will not turn off 25 her alarm clock. An’ she comes in there an’ tells me 26 her alarm clock is singin’, Mom. 27 Mom: ( ) 28 Prudence: (Mm n(h)ot) 29 Mom: huh huh 30 Prudence?: mm hm [hm ·hh hh ·hh 31 Virginia: [Mom I(s)- I swear she’s flippin’ out. 32 ???: (Ooh yeah) 33 (0.2) 34 Prudence: Whaddya mean she said it was singin’? 35 (0.5) 36 Virginia: ( [ )] 37 Prudence: → [You know what she said] one ti:me?

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38 (.) 39 ((dog bark)) 40 (0.4) 41 Prudence: One [night we were talki- we had porkchops fer dinner an’= 42 Virginia: [( ) 43 Prudence: =thuh next mornin’ I went tuh wake her u(huh)p ·hm! an’ she 44 was in thuh bed goin’ (1.1) they’re porkchops. They’re all: 45 porkchops. People are porkc(h)ho(h)ps sih hih high heh 46 Wes: heh heh heh 47 (.) 48 Prudence: ·hhhh uhh! A(h)ll thuh p(h)eop(h)le a(h)re p(h)orkcha(h) 49 ·hh ·uh ·h[hh

As we saw in chapter 3, the organization of turns-at-talk is locally managed on a turn-by- turn basis. As Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson (1974) demonstrated, participants anticipate points where the current turn will be complete. Such projected points of possible comple- tion constitute “discrete places in the developing course of a speaker’s talk . . . at which ending the turn or continuing it, transfer of the turn or its retention become relevant” (Schegloff 1992b: 116). Story prefaces, such as Prudence’s “You know what she said one time?”, solve a problem generated by this system. In telling a story, a speaker often reaches completion of a turn-unit (e.g. in line 41 “we had porkchops fer dinner”) without at the same time completing the story. As such, in order to allow for the telling of a story in its entirety, the usual association of turn completion and transition relevance must be suspended. A story preface allows recipients to see that points of possible turn completion which fall within the scope of the story-telling are not transition-relevant and do not constitute opportunities for another speaker to take a turn.

But this raises another issue. How do recipients determine that “dinner” in line 41 is not the last element of the story, or “up” in line 43, or “porkchops” in line 44? In short, how do participants locate the story’s completion, at which point transition to a next speaker might relevantly take place? Story-prefaces help to solve this problem as well. A preface provides the recipients with clues regarding what the story will consist of and, therefore, what it will take for the story to reach completion. So, in the example given, the recipients can monitor Prudence’s telling to locate “something that Beth said” and, upon hearing such a thing, will have reason to expect the completion of the telling is imminent. Tellers also typically provide recipients with resources with which to determine what kind of a response is due at story’s completion, if not in the preface then elsewhere in the telling. Prudence, for instance, punctuates the final lines of her story with laugh tokens (e.g. line 45’s “porkc(h)ho(h)ps”), thereby marking this as something funny and the story as a whole as “humorous”. Notice also in this respect that Prudence’s story is touched off by something else. That is, we can see that there is some relation between what Virginia has said in lines 20–8 and what Prudence says in lines 41–8. Both are about Beth and in both tellings Beth is reported as saying some- thing unusual, funny, or strange. We will see that stories often come clumped together like this and, when they do, subsequent stories are specifically designed to display a relation to previous ones.

Story prefaces do more than simply carve out a place for a story within an unfolding course of talk. Consider the following example from the same occasion as our last example. Here Wes and Virginia discuss Beth’s excessive drinking.

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(2) Virginia 32 Virginia: pt! You know the other weeken’ [when she went downta= 33 Prudence?: [·uhh 34 Virginia: =Charleston? 35 Wes: She tried tuh quit smokin’, I know that.B’t she couldn’ 36 do that. 37 (0.3) 38 Virginia: (Well,) (.) she wen’ downta Charleston the other 39 weeken’ with Paul? 40 (0.9) 41 Virginia: An’ Paul s[aid ( ) 42 Beth: [(They were) down there, stu:pid. 43 (0.4) 44 Prudence: An’ wha’d Paul say? 45 Virginia: Paul said she was laughin’ ’er head off an’ she was so: 46 bombed. 47 (0.2) 48 Prudence: eh huh huh [huh

According to Sacks, the principle of “recipient design” entails that a speaker should not tell a “recipient what they already know” (1995: 438). In aligning participants as story-recipients then, tellers are concerned to determine whether the story they propose to tell is “news” for the recipient(s) – that it is not already known to them. We can see this in example (2). Here Virginia initiates a telling by eliciting Wes’s recognition of a recent event. Wes responds by telling Virginia something that he knows about this event (that Beth tried to quit smoking) but this turns out not to be the thing that Virginia wants to tell. Wesley’s response then treats Virginia’s recognition solicit in lines 32–4 as advertising a telling and he makes a guess at what this might be by telling something he knows about Beth’s trip to Charleston. However, by not getting it right, Wes suggests that he does not in fact know the thing Virginia is proposing to talk about and thus he invites its telling. Virginia begins the story but, at line 42, Beth attempts to arrest and block it by suggesting that telling it vio- lates the rule of recipient design: according to Beth, Virginia is telling Wes and Prudence what they already know (“They were down there, stu:pid.”). Beth’s effort to block the telling appears successful and the story is only resumed after Prudence asks at line 44 “What did Paul say?”, thereby suggesting that she is uninformed with respect to at least this component of the projected story. We can see then that issues of newsworthiness are crucially implicated not only in the initiation of a story but also across the course of its production. Indeed, participants can be seen to monitor a telling for parts of it that they or other intended recipients do or do not know about.

As noted, in conversation, stories are accountably occasioned, which is to say that tellers need to show why they are telling this story at this moment in this conversation. As Jefferson notes, “techniques are used to display a relationship between the story and prior talk and thus account for, and propose the appropriateness of, the story’s telling” (Jefferson 1978: 220). According to Jefferson’s analysis, techniques for introducing stories into the ongoing talk often consist of two discrete devices: (1) a “disjunct marker” such as “oh” or “inciden- tally” which signals that the talk to follow is not topically coherent with the adjacent prior talk, and (2) an “embedded repetition” which “locates, but does not explicitly cite, the

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element of prior talk which triggered the story”. Here is one of the examples she gives to illustrate:

(3) GTS:II:2:64 01 Ken: The cops, over the hill. There’s a place up in 02 Mulholland where they’ve- where they’re building those 03 Hous[ing projects? 04 Roger: [Oh have you ever taken them Mullhollan’ time trials? 05 .hh You go up there wid a girl. A buncha guys’r up there 06 an’

((STORY follows))

Jefferson goes on to note that whereas some stories are touched off by prior talk, in other cases they are shown by their tellers to be occasioned by something in the local physical environment such as the tee-shirt someone is wearing.

Recognizability: Story Format

The units of conversation, be they stories, turns, requests, complaints or whatever else, do not typically come with labels attached. Occasionally someone will preface a request by saying, “Can I ask you a favor?” or a story by saying, “Lemme tell you what happened to me today” but more often than not speakers will launch directly into a request or story without providing any such label.1

This means of course that requests, complaints, stories and so on must be designed in such a way as to provide for their own recognizability as possible requests, complaints, stories and so on by their recipients. We have dealt with this issue at several places in earlier chapters; here we need to consider how it is relevant to the telling of stories in conversation. Sacks (1995b: 222) writes:

A question that one eventually comes to raise is: Although something may be callable a “story,” is it recognizable as a story? Is it produced as a story? Specifically as a story? And is there some relationship between its production as a story and its recognition as a story? And why should it be produced and recognized as a story?

Of course, there are many parts of a conversation that might be called “stories”. Here Sacks suggests that if we are looking specifically at stories we want to consider spates of talk that were designed by their tellers to be recognizable to their recipients as stories.2 “We’re assign- ing the candidate name ‘story’ to something for which that name is provably warranted, prov- ably relevant to the thing coming off as a story. If it isn’t provably relevant then it’s of no particular interest that it’s a story or not” (Sacks 1995b: 223). Before considering the larger significance of “recognizability” in this context, let’s treat the issue as an empirical matter and ask what makes stories recognizable as such to their recipients. How is recognition that a story-telling is being initiated (or is continuing) displayed in conversation? Consider the following cases.

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(4) Virginia 32 Virginia: → pt! You know the other weeken’ [when she went downta= 33 Prudence: [·uhh 34 Virginia: → =Charleston? 35 Wes: She tried tuh quit smokin’, I know that.B’t she couldn’ 36 do that. 37 (0.3) 38 Virginia: → (Well,) (.) she wen’ downta Charleston the other 39 weeken’ with Paul?

(5) GTS:II:2:64 04 Roger: Oh have you ever taken them Mulhollan’ time trials? 05 .hh You go up there wid a girl. A buncha guys’r up there 06 an’

(6) Rip yer hand 01 Ron: ere ere Matt 02 don’t rip your hand off (.) it’s uh uh it’s uh pop 03 Matt: °oh man cool [thanks° 04 Dave: [hahaha 05 Matt: I was tryin to be really macho ’n [stuff 06 ?: [hahhahha 07 Ron: → wn I wuz in Mexico? 08 Gina: mmhmhm 09 Ron: → an’ an’ the du::de that we wen- we wen on a crui::se?

Assuming for the moment that each of these is in fact a story, we can ask whether their begin- nings share any features. The arrows have been placed to pick out one, particularly obvious, thing that they have in common. Each story begins with an indication of the setting in which the to-be-narrated action took place. So one thing that may make a story recognizable as a story is the provision of a setting for the action. Of course not all stories start with such a clear specification of the physical or geographic setting, but many do and those that don’t often foreground some other alternative kind of context of the narrated action that is par- ticularly relevant.

So a recurrent feature of story beginnings is the characterization of the setting in which the action takes place. In fact there is evidence that participants orient to the specification of setting as a required feature of some story beginnings. Consider in this respect the following case:

(7) Chicken Dinner 16 Shane: [Uh wz goi:n 17 crazy tihday uh on th’on the roa:d 18 (0.2) 19 Vivian: We’ yih know w’t he di[↑:d? 20 Shane: [Wen’outta my fuckin’mi[:nd. 21 Vivian: [He maHHde 22 (.) 23 Vivian: → a right- it wz- in Sanna Monig’yihknow have- theh have: 24 [all those: right]

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25 Shane: [O h : shit I ma]de a left (.) le[ft 26 Vivian: [They have (0.2) w:one 27 way stree:ts’n evrihthi:ng? En then two way streets (.) 28 He made e- (0.3) a lef’tu:rn fr’m a one way stree:t, 29 (0.2) into a ↑two way street ·hh bu[t ↑h e thought it]=

Here it appears that Vivian has begun to produce a news announcement (“a right onto a one way street . . .”) but, upon finding that the news cannot be told in a single TCU, self-repairs and initiates, instead, a story telling. Relevant in the current context is that, once Vivian decides to tell this as a story rather than a single TCU news announcement she immediately pro- vides a setting for it: “Santa Monica”, the place where the action happened.

Now consider the following case which begins with Vivian responding to a complaint from Shane that the potato he is eating is not fully cooked.

(8) Chicken Dinner 15 Vivian: They were bi:g.That’s ↓why. I[mean rilly bi]g. 16 Shane: [Y a y yea:h.] 17 (0.4) 18 Nancy: Yeah where’dju git tho:se. Gah ther hu:[ge. 19 Vivian: → [Well w’t happ’n 20 was we picked’p a ba:[g 21 Shane: [Oh yeh it wz ba:[:d 22 Vivian: [en they w’r 23 ro:tt’n. 24 (0.7) 25 Vivian: So they said (1.7) go back en pick anothuh ba:g. _____ 26 (1.1) 27 ((bang)) (1.2) 28 Shane: All[the bags w’rott’n they w-all ↓s:me:lled. _____ 29 Vivian: [Theh- 30 (0.2) 31 Shane: Ri[ght’nna] 32 Nancy: [ O_h : ](g)[Go:d 33 Shane: [Right’nna maw:kits.= 34 Shane: =(The[stu[ff wuh)/(di[sgu:[sting) 35 Vivian: [So [then I picked the]b e s t p’↓tato]es 36 Michael: [ Where dju sh- ]Where dju sho:p)] 37 (.) 38 Vivian: An’ I js put’m in th’ba:g.[·h .t ·h]= 39 [ (0.3) ]= 40 Michael: =[Where’dju sho:p. ] 41 Vivian: =[An: we walked ou][:t. 42 Shane: [We wen’[tuh Alpha]Beta:.= 43 Nancy?: [ nghhhn, ] 44 Shane: =En ther usually very good. 45 (0.4) 46 Nancy: Yah they a:re. 47 Shane: Usually bettuh th’n Ra:lphs,

Notice that after Vivian explains that the potatoes are not completely cooked because they were big, and then “rilly big.”, Nancy agrees with “yeah”. Nancy follows up by asking

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“where’dju git tho:se. Gah ther hu:ge.” Although it was a negative consequence, their being undercooked, which initially occasioned Vivan’s characterization of the potatoes’ size, here Nancy’s “gah ther huge” is positively valenced and clearly appreciative.3 In the context of this positive assessment, Nancy’s question “where d’ju git those” can be heard as seeking a recommendation – that is, as asking, where can I get some of those?

Now notice that Vivian does not immediately answer the question “where d’ju git those”. Rather she begins to respond to Nancy with “well what happened was we picked up a bag.”. This is not unambiguously the beginning of a story but it is also not an answer to the question as put and therefore is hearably incomplete in this context. There are aspects of this utterance that, as we shall see, recurrently characterize the beginnings of stories. First of all, we find the framing by “What happened was . . .”. Secondly, with “we” Vivian establishes characters for a possible story to be told (she and Shane) (see Lerner 1992). Finally, continuing a bit, we find that this utterance continues with “en they w’r ro:tt’n.” With this Vivian establishes something of a problem – something that might be expected to be resolved within the story.

So we can see that Vivian does not provide a characterization of the setting in which the action took place. Given that this is a recurrent feature of story beginnings, we can ask if perhaps there is a systematic basis for its absence here? Recall that the telling of this story was prompted by a question from Nancy about where Vivian bought the potatoes. If Vivian had provided a setting for the story, the question would have thereby been answered with- out the story as yet being told. Moreover, as we noted, that question is at least hearable as seeking a recommendation and as the story makes clear, Vivian’s opinion of the place where she got the potatoes is not, in the end, positive. So the story here is in a sense a solution to a problem created by Nancy’s question. To answer this simply would be to imply an endorse- ment of the place where the potatoes were purchased but, as Vivian makes clear, this is some- thing she wishes to avoid. A story in this position allows for a much more nuanced response to the question.

A recurrent position for stories, then, is in answer to questions, and this sequential posi- tioning constrains the shape that stories take in particular ways. In the following example, Nancy and Hyla are talking about a play that they are to see later in the evening. Nancy asks Hyla, who has made the plans, “How didju hear about it from the paper?” By adding a candidate answer (“from the paper”) Nancy designs this as a yes–no interrogative that makes a type-conforming “yes” or “no” response relevant (Raymond 2003, chapter 5). Hyla seems initially prepared to answer the question with a type non-conforming confirmation but self- repairs saying “A’right when was it”.

(9) Hyla and Nancy 07 Nancy: [How did]ju hear about it from the pape[r? 08 Hyla: [·hhhhh I sa:w- 09 (0.4) 10 Hyla: A’right when was:(it,)/(this,) 11 (0.3) 12 Hyla: The week before my birthda:[y, ] 13 Nancy: [Ye] a[:h, 14 Hyla: [I wz looking in the Calendar 15 section en there was u:n, (·) un a:d yihknow a liddle:: u- 16 thi:ng, ·hh[hh 17 Nancy: [Uh hu:h,= 18 Hyla: =At- th’-th’theater’s called the Met Theater it’s on

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19 Point[setta. ] 20 Nancy: [The Me]:t, 21 (·) 22 Nancy: I never heard of i[t. 23 Hyla: [I hadn’t either. ·hhh But anyways, .-en 24 theh the moo- thing wz th’↓Dark e’th’ ↓Top a’th’ ↑Stai[:rs. ] 25 Nancy: [Mm-h]m[:, 26 Hyla: [EnI 27 nearly wen’chhrazy cz I[: I:lo:ve ]that ] mo:vie.] 28 Nancy: [y:Yeah I kn]ow y]ou lo:ve] tha::t.= 29 Hyla: =s:So::, ·hh an’ like the first sho:w,= 30 Nancy: =M[m hmm, ] 31 Hyla: [wz g’nna] be:, 32 (·) 33 Hyla: on my birthday.= 34 Nancy: =Uh hu[h, ] 35 Hyla: [I’m] go’[n awhh whould hI love- 36 Nancy: [(So-) 37 (·) 38 Hyla: yihknow fer Sim tuh [take me tuh that.] 39 Nancy: [Y a y u : : h , ]

Notice then that the story here is occasioned once again by a question. The question includes the presupposition that Hyla “heard about” the play but the story that follows reveals that this is not quite right. As Hyla makes clear, it was not that she “heard about” the play by some happy coincidence but rather that, a week before her birthday (line 12), she was “look- ing” (line 14) in the Calendar section. Here then an initial answer to the question starting with “I saw . . .” is abandoned and replaced by a story which addresses a problem with the way in which the question was formulated.

We can note a parallel with the story about Shane’s driving. Here we find Vivian pro- ducing the pre-announcement “We’ yih know w’t he di:d?” and subsequently beginning the projected announcement “He made a right”. The attempt to tell what happened as an announcement and perhaps as a single event – i.e. “He made a right onto a one way street” – is abandoned and what we get instead is the beginning of a story indicated by the provision of a setting (“it was in Santa Monica”). In both cases then an initial attempt to do the telling is abandoned and the teller proceeds instead to provide background to the events in terms of a temporal (“a week before my birthday”) or spatial (“Santa Monica”) setting. As we’ve seen, a description of the temporal or spatial setting, background, may provide for the recognizability of the talk in progress as a story. Notice in this respect what Nancy does in line 13. Specifically, in responding with “Yeah” in this position Nancy treats the talk as incomplete and as a multi-unit turn (Schegloff 1982). This then is evidence that she has heard “the week before my birthday” as the first component of an extended telling or story.

A story may then be thought of as a “package” or format which provides its speaker with particular opportunities not available with a single TCU. Specifically, stories are (typically) composed of multiple units which may be deployed to provide background information and complex formulations of story-relevant actions. Moreover, stories provide their speakers with an opportunity to describe something, Shane’s driving for instance, in terms of a series of ordered and interrelated actions rather than as a single event.

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Stories may also be initiated by some participant other than the one who eventually comes to tell the story. Lerner (1992) describes a practice he terms a story prompt, in which “one participant solicits a story from another participant, while casting others present as recipients.”

(10) Schenkein 01 Leni: Oh you haftuh tell’m about yer typewriter honey,

(11) G.126:22:40 01 Paul: Tell y- Tell Debbie about the dog 02 on the golf course t’day 03 Eileen: °eh hnh [hnh ha has! [ha! 04 Paul: [hih hih [Heh Heh! ·hh hh 05 Eileen: ·h Paul en I got ta the first green,

In cases where the proposed teller does not take up the story the prompter may expand the preface as in the following instance:

(12) Auto 75:15 – 78:7 QT 2:11 – 3:58 15 Phyllis: → =Mike siz there wz a big fight down there las’night, 16 Curt: Oh rilly? 17 (0.5) 18 Phyllis: → Wih Keegan en, what. Paul [de Wa::ld? ] 19 Mike: [Paul de Wa:l]d. Guy out of,= 20 Curt: =De Wa:ld yeah I [°(know ] [’m.) 21 Mike: [Tiffen. ] [D’you know him¿ 22 Curt: °Uhhuh=I know who’e i:s,

Lerner (1992) writes:

Phyllis’s utterance at line 15 foreshows a possible story. However, she is setting up the story for someone else to deliver. This is accomplished by formulating the news of the “big fight” as a report by the copresent source of that news. By formulating the news as a second hand account (as “hearsay”) she shows Mike to be the authoritative source for unpacking the events summarized by “big fight.”

When Mike does not take up the story, Phyllis does not go on to tell it herself. Rather, she builds a syntactically fitted increment onto the preface turn she began in line 15, now naming the fight participants. As Lerner notes, not only does this increment continue the relevance of the projected telling, “naming makes relevant an appraisal of the recognizability of the principal characters by Curt.” If recognition is achieved, the telling of the story becomes even more relevant than before since it is now established that it involves people Curt knows about. However, as Lerner shows, the naming is used to produce a concurrent action, one that implicates a next action by Mike and thus selects him as next speaker. Phyllis accom- plishes this by producing the names in the form of a “reference check” by which she invites confirmation or correction. Lerner writes:

Soliciting a confirmation of the names of the principal characters from Mike (while, and as, a solicit of recognition of those same persons from Curt) continues her alignment as a less authoritative prior recipient of the story, continues Curt’s alignment as a story recipient and

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again makes relevant Mike’s entry at a place the story could begin. If Mike, on whose behalf the announcement is being made, does not provide or confirm the reference he would clearly be withholding it. This is a powerful way to prompt a reluctant storyteller.

Entry into a story may thus be a collaborative accomplishment in which one participant shows that a story is available (or, as in this case, actively encourages its telling) while another tells it. We will consider other aspects of what Lerner (1992) describes as “assisted story-telling” below.

Entitlement

In telling and listening to stories participants hold one another accountable in terms of what each is warranted or obligated to know. This helps to explain why tellers often situate them- selves within the events of the story as witnesses or as participants and in this way design their stories so as to make visible both the epistemic and the moral basis of their account. In the set of lectures which was published as “Doing Being Ordinary,” Sacks (1984b) dis- cusses two stories. In one of them Ellen tells Jean about an incident at a shop called Cromwell’s. After remarking “I just thought I’d re-better report to you what’s happened at Cromwell’s tod:y=”, Ellen goes on to say “Well I: got out of my car at fi:ve thirty I: drove arou:nd and of course I had to go by the front of the sto:re,=”. In this way, Ellen incorporates within the story, as a constituent feature of that telling, a display of the epistemic grounds upon which the report is based. In this case, Ellen’s story is epistemically grounded in first-hand access as a witness. Moreover, by saying “I just thought I’d re-better report”, Ellen provides a war- rant for her telling in the form of an obligation to tell the recipient her news – an obligation to report on events that have special relevance for this recipient. So Ellen builds into this story both the warrant for its telling and the epistemic grounds which provide an entitle- ment to tell it. Sacks notes that Ellen is completely comfortable in acting as a witness and never once shows any concern that she might herself have been implicated in the scene.4

In the second fragment Sacks examines, Madge is telling Bea about an accident that she witnessed as she was driving “down to Ventura”. Madge says: “And on the way home we saw the – most gosh awful wreck.” and continues “we have ev- I’ve ever seen. I’ve never seen a car smashed into sm- such a small space.” Sacks focuses attention on the “entitle- ment to have experiences” (1984b: 424) asking under what conditions someone is consid- ered to have rights to tell a story, to convey their feelings with respect to it, in short, to transform some set of events into their experience. In Madge’s story we see once again the way in which the teller claims credentials to tell the story, and that this again involves a display of the epistemic grounds on which the telling is based (here, what she saw). An interesting wrinkle here is to be found in the way Madge self-corrects her assessment from “the most gosh awful wreck we have ever seen” to “the most gosh awful wreck I have ever seen”. With the first assessment Madge claims access to her companion’s set of experiences against which the current crash might be compared. The corrected assessment is not only downgraded in relation to the first but at the same time does not claim the companion’s experiences as a basis for comparison (see Lerner and Kitzinger 2007).

Sacks also picks up on the fact that Madge tells how this accident inconvenienced her, saying: “We were s-parked there for quite a while.” He writes (1984b: 424):

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I want to suggest that, in having witnessed this event, and having suffered it as well, in some way (for instance, having had to stop on the freeway in a traffic jam by virtue of it), she has become entitled to an experience. That she is entitled to an experience is something different from what her recipient is entitled to, or what someone who otherwise comes across this story is entitled to.

In part, I am saying that it is a fact that entitlement to experiences are differentially avail- able. If I say it as “entitlement,” you may think of it as not having rights to it, but that is only part of it. It is also not coming to feel it at all, as compared to feeling it and feeling that you do not have rights to it. The idea is that in encountering an event, and encountering it as a witness or someone who in part suffered by it, one is entitled to an experience, whereas the sheer fact of having access to things in the world, for example, getting the story from another, is quite a different thing.

Issues of entitlement are also implicated in cases where more than one participant may claim knowledge to the events being talked about – a recurrent situation, Sacks suggests, for spouses (see below).

Second Stories and Listening Techniques

We have seen in our discussion of stories produced in response to questions that the sequen- tial position in which a story is produced may be reflected in various aspects of its design. As Sacks and later conversation analysts have noted (e.g. Jefferson 1978, Ryave 1978), stories commonly occur in a series, with a first story followed by a second, a second by a third and so on. The relationship between a first and a second story was something that interested Sacks very much and provided him with materials for a broad range of profound observations. We should begin as Sacks does, with some of the most basic observations. Consider the following example in which Matt, Ron, Dave, Jake and Gina are sitting around on a couch intermittently watching sports on television and chatting. Where the fragment given as (13) begins, Matt is trying to open a bottle of beer with his hand and Ron, noticing this, draws his attention with a summons (line 01) before tossing over a bottle opener. He accounts for his own action by saying “don’t rip your hand off (.) it’s uh uh it’s uh pop” meaning by “pop” that it is not a “twist off” cap.

(13) Rip yer hand 01 Ron: ere ere Matt 02 don’t rip your hand off (.) it’s uh uh it’s uh pop 03 Matt: °oh man cool [thanks° 04 Dave: [hahaha 05 Matt: I was tryin to be really macho ’n [stuff 06 ?: [hahhahha 07 Ron: → wn I wuz in Mexico? 08 Gina: mmhmhm 09 Ron: an’ an’ the du::de that we wen- we wen on a crui::se? 10 (0.5) 11 an this guy opnzit with his mouth like this 12 (0.8) 13 Dave: yes

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14 (1.5) 15 Gina: ouch 16 Dave: → uh guy at my house a- um (.) fourth of july did that 17 (0.7) 18 ’n I wuz all wha::t?=I Iooked at iz teeth and jstall 19 f:::ucked [uh:p 20 Jake: [hahaha 21 Ron: [hahahha, Oh Shi:t= 22 Jake: =haha 23 Ron: [I dunnit like this] y’know on the table (.) 24 Jake: [don’t drink much huh?]

Here at line 07 Ron launches directly into a story with a turn that introduces the setting (“in Mexico”) and a character (“I”). Ron then goes on to tell about someone opening a beer bottle with his teeth. Much of the story is conveyed through gesture, indexed by “like this” (see Sidnell 2006). After Gina responds to the story with “ouch”, Dave tells a second story which bears a clear resemblance to the first. One basic yet important observation we can make is that there is a clear relation between these two stories: in a fundamental way they are about the same thing. This is manifested in part through Dave’s use of “did that” to refer to talk about opening a beer bottle with one’s teeth. “Did that” links back to Ron’s “like this” and his accompanying gesture, which is actually better described as a “re-enactment” (see Sidnell 2006). So there is a very basic similarity between the two stories but there are also some rather more subtle connections. Consider for instance that each story has exactly two char- acters – the person who opened the bottle with his mouth and the person who witnessed this. Notice further that in each story there is a consistent mapping of character to teller. Specifically, in both stories the teller is the witness in the story (not the one who opened the bottle). And finally for now let us note that although Ron starts to introduce the main character of his story with “the dude that we wen-” he eventually settles on “this guy” at line 11, and Dave uses this same term in line 16 to refer to the character in his story. Both “this guy” and “uh guy” are non-recognitional reference forms (see chapter 5) but, more than that, they seem decidedly neutral in terms of the stance they take towards the person being talked about. This can be seen if we compare “this guy” with the initial reference form “the dude”, which adopts a clearly and unambiguously positive stance towards the person being talked about. In a sense then both tellers introduce their main characters in such a manner as to give away as little as possible as to how they feel about them (and their actions).

It can also be noted that each story has two components. In the first story by Ron, those components are:

1 “We” went on a cruise. 2 This guy opened the bottle with his mouth.

Dave’s story has the following two components:

1 A guy did that on the fourth of July at “my” house. 2 “I” saw how it damaged his teeth.

So in terms of their content, their characters, and even their structure these two stories exhibit a relationship to one another. That is, it is not just that after Ron finishes his story, Dave

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tells his. Rather, Dave’s story can be found to have been occasioned by Ron’s story; indeed, Dave’s story is told in response to Ron’s. Just as Ron’s story is touched off by an event in the world – Matt’s attempt to open the bottle he is holding – so Dave’s is touched off by the story it follows.

Now there are aspects of Dave’s story that clearly reflect its positioning as a second story. Apart from the similarities noted above, we may also note that Dave’s story is in certain basic respects “parasitic” on the first. As we have already observed, Dave uses Ron’s story as a resource when he glosses the action in his own telling with “did that”. Whereas much of Ron’s story is taken up with a description of that action, Dave can simply index what Ron has already established and use this in the presentation of his own story.

As Sacks showed, a second story such as Dave’s displays an analysis of a first, a hearing of its import. At least, participants treat a second story in this way, which is to say they listen to it for the understanding it displays of a first story. The analysis of a first story embodied by a second is not “neutral” or “objective”. Rather, a second story necessarily takes up a certain stance on the first whether that be supportive, appreciative, skeptical or whatever else. The hearing or understanding that it conveys of a first story is one among many pos- sible. It is, as they say, a particular take on it. Consider then that Ron initially introduces the protagonist in his story using the referring expression “the dude”, thereby conveying an unambiguously positive stance towards him. Even though he eventually replaces this with the more neutral “this guy”, his story seems to express a generally positive stance towards the protagonist in so far as it tells about something Ron takes to be remarkable. Notice also that this story is being told in the shadow of Matt’s “I was tryin to be really macho ’n stuff” and is hearable, therefore, as providing an example of behavior characterizable as “really macho ’n stuff”.

If we compare Dave’s story in this respect we find that although the action is the same – opening a beer bottle with one’s mouth – Dave puts the emphasis on the consequences of this action and his own surprise, perhaps even concern, upon seeing someone do this. The stance towards the protagonist is not obviously positive and by characterizing his teeth as “jstall fucked up” Dave clearly foregrounds the negative consequences of this action. We can see then that in Ron’s story the action of opening a beer bottle with one’s mouth is char- acterized positively as a demonstration of machismo. In Dave’s story, in contrast, the same action is cast as comic, foolish and resulting in personal injury.

Audience Diversity

In the last example we saw how a second teller can provide an alternate understanding of a previous speaker’s story. C. Goodwin (1986a) shows that audience members can provide alternate templates for understanding a story even as it is being produced. Goodwin analyzes a story the beginning of which we saw as example (8). Here it is in its entirety.

(14) Auto 75:15–78:7 QT 2:11–3:58 15 Phyllis: =Mike siz there wz a big fight down there las’night, 16 Curt: Oh rilly? 17 (0.5)

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18 Phyllis: Wih Keegan en, what. Paul [de Wa::ld? ] 19 Mike: [Paul de Wa:l]d. Guy out of,= 20 Curt: =De Wa:ld yeah I [°(know ] [’m.) 21 Mike: [Tiffen. ] [D’you know him¿ 22 Curt: °Uhhuh=I know who’e i:s, 23 (1.8) 24 Mike: Evidently Keegan musta bumped im in thee, 25 (0.6) 26 Gary: W’wz it la:st week sumpn like th’t ha[pp’n too? 27 Mike: [Ohno:,thi[s: 28 Gary: [Somebody 29 bumped somebody else’n [t h e y- spun ] aroun th’tra:[ck 30 Mike: [I don’t kno:w.] [ (02:30) 31 Mike: [Oh that 32 wz:uh a’week be[fore last in the late ( model . ) ] 33 Phyllis: [(Yeah really feulin)en den ney go down’n] ney 34 thrrow their hhelmets off’n nen n(h)ey [l : lo]ok-et each 35 [But, ] [othe][r 36 Mike: [But,][this] 37 Curt: [=Ye::h= 38 hh[heh heh 39 Phyllis: [°ehhehhhhh 40 Mike: [This:: uh:::. 41 Gary: (They kno:w [ ) 42 Phyllis: [ehh heh! 43 Curt: [Liddle high school ki[ds,= 44 Gary: [(No [matter what 45 [ju:re) [ 46 Mike: [ =[This, 47 [De Wa::ld spun ou:t. ’n he waited. 48 (0.5) 49 Mike: Al come around’n passed im Al wz leadin the feature, 50 (0.5) 51 Mike: en then the sekint- place guy, 52 (0.8) 53 Mike: en nen Keegan. En boy when Keeg’n come around he come 54 right up into im tried tuh put im imtuh th’wa:ll. 55 Curt: Yeh¿ 56 Mike: ’n’e tried it about four differn times finally Keegan 57 rapped im a good one in the a:ss’n then th-b- DeWald 58 wen o:ff. 59 (0.5) 60 Curt: [Mm 61 Mike: [But in ne meantime it’d cost Keegan three spo:ts’nnuh 62 feature. 63 Curt: Yeah¿ (03:00) 64 Mike: So, boy when Keeg’n come in he- yihknow how he’s gotta 65 temper anyway, he js::: °wa:::::h sc[reamed iz damn 66 e:ngine yihknow, [ 67 Curt: [Mm 68 (0.5)

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69 Mike: settin there en’e takes iz helmet off’n clunk it goes 70 on top a’ the car he gets out’n goes up t’the trailer 71 ’n gets a °god damn iron ba:r¿ ·hhh rraps that trailer 72 en away he starts t’go en evrybuddy seh hey you don’t 73 need dat y’know, seh ye:h yer righ’n ’e throws [that 74 son’vabitch down- ·hhhhhhh [ 75 Curt: [°Mn hm hm 76 Mike: So they all [go dow[n 77 Gary: [A:ll [All show. 78 (0.2) 79 Curt: Yeah, th[ey all,= 80 Mike: [They all- 81 Gary: =hn-[-hn! 82 Mike: [They all go down th[ere,= 83 Gary: [°Gimme a 84 [be[er Curt, 85 Mike: =[N [o some- somebuddy so:mebuddy,] 86 Carney: [It reminds me of those wrestl(h)]ers. 87 Carney: ·hhh 88 Mike: So:me[body ra:pped= 89 Carney: [hhh(h)on t(h)elevi[sion. °( ). 90 Gary: =[Bartender how about a beer. 91 While yer settin[there. 92 Carney: [°( ). 93 Mike: So:mebuddy rapped uh:. (03:30) 94 Curt: °((clears throat)) 95 Mike: DeWald’nna mouth.

Goodwin notes that members of a telling’s audience have resources available to them for

1 analyzing the talk that is being heard; 2 aligning themselves to it in a particular way; 3 participating in the field of action it creates.

Goodwin (1986a: 297) suggests that by making use of these resources Phyllis “is able to offer a way of understanding the events that Mike is describing that undercuts the seriousness and drama he attributes to them. . . . The effect of this is that Mike faces serious problems when he attempts to produce the climax of his story, as many of his recipients treat it in a way that he finds quite inappropriate.” As noted above, the telling is initiated by Phyllis in line 15. Here, however, Phyllis does not propose to tell the story herself but rather to have it told by Mike. Moreover, although the event to be told about is characterized as a “big fight” this assessment is attributed to Mike, and Phyllis’s own interpretation of the event is “left unspecified” (Goodwin 1986a: 299). Phyllis goes on to offer an understanding of the events quite different from the one that Mike is proposing.

(15) Auto 75:15 – 78:7 QT 2:11 – 3:58 (Detail) 26 Gary: W’wz it la:st week sumpn like th’t ha[pp’n too? 27 Mike: [Ohno:,thi[s: 28 Gary: [Somebody

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29 bumped somebody else’n [t h e y- spun ] aroun th’tra:[ck 30 Mike: [I don’t kno:w.] [ (02:30) 31 Mike: [Oh that 32 wz:uh a’week be[fore last in the late ( model . ) ] 33 Phyllis: [(Yeah really feulin)en den ney go down’n] ney 34 thrrow their hhelmets off’n nen n(h)ey [l : lo]ok-et each 35 [But, ] [othe][r 36 Mike: [But,][this] 37 Curt: [=Ye::h= 38 hh[heh heh 39 Phyllis: [°ehhehhhhh 40 Mike: [This:: uh:::. 41 Gary: (They kno:w [ ) 42 Phyllis: [ehh heh! 43 Curt: [Liddle high school ki[ds,= 44 Gary: [(No [matter what 45 [ju:re) [ 46 Mike: [ =[This, 47 [De Wa::ld spun ou:t. ’n he waited.

Goodwin notes that Phyllis’s “en en den ney go down’n ney thrrow their hhelmets off’n nen n(h)ey j’s l:lookit each other” belittles the “drama, power and even seriousness” of the events Mike is describing. Curt picks up on this alternative understanding by describing the characters as “Liddle high school kids,”. As Goodwin also notes, Phyllis’s alternative template draws on what Gary has just said. Specifically, by asking whether “something like that happened last week too” (line 26) Gary impugns the newsworthiness and authenticity of the events. “Instead of being dramatic and unusual the kind of events that Mike is talking about happen all the time.” Goodwin continues:

Phyllis picks up on these possibilities in Gary’s talk by portraying such violent confrontations as not newsworthy and dramatic, but rather empty show: e.g., despite the violent bravado of the protagonists (for example throwing their helmets off) they end up “just looking at each other”: Phyllis explicitly ties what she says to what Gary has just said (in addition to the “Yeah” that begins her talk in line 33 the videotape reveals that she nods toward Gary just before she starts to talk). By doing so, she is able to cast her description of how the prospective fighters just blus- ter at each other as representative of a series of repetitive events (note her use of present tense) and thus to formulate this as typical of the way in which the fights that Mike finds so dramatic in fact come off, i.e. they regularly end up as just empty bravado. Phyllis thus undercuts the telling that Mike is about to produce by proposing an alternative framework for interpreting the events he will describe.

In addition, Phyllis inserts laugh tokens into her talk and thus marks these events as humor- ous – as laughables. Laugh tokens regularly serve as invitations to others to laugh and thus Phyllis can be seen to be recruiting others to her view of these events as comedic rather than dramatic (see Jefferson 1979).

Goodwin argues that Mike orients to this challenge to his own presentation of the story. One way he does this is by emphasizing, perhaps upgrading, the seriousness of the story. This is seen in the way Mike describes the events to highlight their violent character: the iron bar “raps” the trailer, the helmet hits the car with a “clunk”. Goodwin goes on to note

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that Mike does some additional work to include profanity in his telling. “Placing ‘god damn’ before ‘iron bar’ . . . adds nothing to the description of the bar itself.” The profanity then does not contribute to the facts being told but rather helps Mike convey his stance towards them. Finally, it may be noted that, like Phyllis, Mike also tries to recruit audience members to his view of these events. Notice the way he treats Curt, to whom the talk at lines 24–6 is directed, as a co-expert, “So, boy when Keeg’n come in he- yihknow how he’s gotta temper anyway, he js::: °wa:::::h screamed iz damn e:ngine yihknow,”. With this, Mike treats Curt as someone who could confirm or disconfirm what he is saying and in this draws on his authority in talking about Keegan.

Despite his efforts, Mike’s attempt to impose his interpretation of the events in the face of Phyllis’s challenge appears unsuccessful. As it turns out, although someone is eventually reported as rapping “De Wald in the mouth”, for much of Mike’s story the characters behave in just the way Phyllis described them – “throwing off their helmets and staring at each other” but never actually coming to blows. For instance, Keegan’s actions are described as: “he gets out’n goes up t’the trailer ’n gets a °god damn iron ba:r¿ ·hhh rraps that trailer en away he starts t’go en evrybuddy seh hey you don’t need dat y’know, seh ye:h yer righ’n ’e throws that son’vabitch down-”. Goodwin notes that by using the verb “start” in “and away he starts to go” Mike alerts the audience that the action being described was never brought to com- pletion since, if it was, the character would have been described as performing it rather than as beginning it. Gary’s response “All show” is then consistent with the interpretation of the events that Phyllis has proposed earlier. Carney’s “it reminds me of those wrestlers” further impugns the drama and seriousness of the events. In his detailed and subtle analysis of this story Goodwin shows that an audience may be composed of story recipients who are variously situated relative to the events being talked about and that this diversity in the audience has significant consequences for how the story is told.

Spouse Talk, Co-tellership

Recall the definition of recipient design from the turn-taking paper: “the multitude of respects in which the talk by a party in a conversation is constructed or designed in ways which dis- play an orientation and sensitivity to the particular other(s) who are the co-participants” (Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson 1974: 727). Sacks elaborated this notion of recipient design in his discussion of stories. In a lecture (1995 vol. 2: 437–43) entitled “Spouse Talk” he begins by noting several occurrences of “completing another’s sentence” in a transcript.5 In his analysis of this phenomenon, Sacks invokes the principle of recipient design, which he now formulates as “a speaker should, on producing the talk he does, orient to his recipient”, and goes on to note that one specification of that is, “If you’ve already told something to some- one then you shouldn’t tell it to them again; or if you know in other ways that they know it then you shouldn’t tell it to them at all.” Put most baldly the rule can be simply stated as, “Don’t tell your recipient what they already know” (1995 vol. 2: 438). Sacks then goes on to notice that the principle of recipient design – and this specification of it in particular – presents a difficulty in certain “standardized situations”, one of these being a situation in which “couples are present and talking in the presence of others, possibly other couples . . . where for various reasons it is usual for spouses to have already heard news that is tellable.”6

According to Sacks this fact prevents spouses from following a basic rule for listening to

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stories, which he states as, “listen to a story to find out if a similar thing or the same thing happened to you. At the end of the story, if you’ve found such a thing, tell it.” Sacks asks if there are techniques for listening to stories which are specifically adapted to a situation in which one has already heard the story being told, a situation that he suggests spouses recur- rently encounter.

One such listening technique is present in our materials and is altogether kind of common; and that is a spouse listens precisely to the story they already know, for its more or less correct presentation and engages in monitoring it – as listeners should – utterance-by-utterance. But now however, for whether it’s correctly presented as they know it. If not, what they do is put in corrections at the proper places.

Indeed as Lerner (1992) shows, speakers orient to a knowing participant as a monitor of story correctness by producing “verification requests” which anticipate the possibility of correc- tion if an error is made. So in the following case Michael seeks confirmation from his spouse/partner as to whether they were “loaded” at the time the narrated events took place.

(16) Chicken Dinner 16 Michael: ↑First’v ↑ah:ll (1.1) °W’w’r° (0.2) Wir- W’r we loaded? 17 (0.8) 18 I don’kno[w if we w’loaded er n]ot. 19 Nancy: [I d o n’ r:emember.] 20 (0.8) 21 Michael: But (0.7) first’f all we see this car goin down the street 22 ↑side↓ways.

A story recipient can also orient to the possibility of intervention by a knowing partici- pant, for instance by checking on a detail of the story with him rather than with the teller herself. Lerner illustrates with the following case:

(17) Chicken Dinner 26 Vivian: [They have (0.2) w:one 27 way stree:ts’n evrihthi:ng? En then two way streets (.) 28 He made e- (0.3) a lef’tu:rn fr’m a one way stree:t, 29 (0.2) into a ↑two way street ·hh bu[t ↑h e thought it]= 30 Shane: [B’t in the wro(h)ng]= 31 Vivian: =[wu:z: 32 Shane: =[la:ne·hih hih hi[h 33 Vivian: [He thought it wz a ↑one way street so 34 he’s tra:veling do:wn- Right? er w’tche wih tellin me? 35 ·hh He’s travelling[ d o : w n , ] 36 Michael: [the wrong wa]y? 37 (0.2) 38 Vivian: The wrong [↑wa:[y 39 Shane: [.hh [All’fa sud’ dis g[uy go EH:::::::::::]:[:)

At line 36 the recipient Michael checks a detail “the wrong way?” with Shane, a knowing participant and Vivian’s spouse, although up to this point it is Vivian who has told the story

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with only occasional interventions from Shane. As he says “the wrong way?” Michael turns his gaze to Shane and Shane confirms this candidate understanding with a head nod. Shane then continues the story.

Elaborating Sacks’s observations, Lerner (1992) shows a variety of ways in which what he calls “story consociates” can participate together in the telling. Lerner describes two practices for the entry of a consociate. First, a consociate may enter so as to repair aspects of the story or its delivery; second, a consociate may enter so as to tell their own version of the events told by another.

Lerner describes four types of trouble that may occasion entry: trouble in event sequen- cing; trouble in delivery; trouble in the facts of the story; trouble in story elaboration. The last of these is similar to what Sacks described in his lecture on spouse talk – where a knowing participant enters a telling to add extra information via a “clarifying appendor”. As Lerner notes, such entry may be occasioned by insufficient uptake by the recipient:

(18) From Lerner 1992 05 Cathy: She ’ad this big hairy mole y’know 06 those kinds r(h)eally gross ones, 07 Cindy: o(h)n her neck.= 08 Terri: =Oh how d’sgusting,

Lerner writes that in this instance “the storyteller seems to be pursuing a strong recipi- ent assessment. The story consociate produces a clarification to aid in proper recipient understanding.” It is apparently Terri’s initial failure to produce a sufficiently strong negative assessment (indeed any assessment at all) that prompts Cindy’s clarification.

As Lerner notes, a consociate may also enter specifically to tell their own side of things. Consider in this respect the following.

(19) Jeopardy Question (JS.V:9:34.06) 05 Beth: oh: honey. What wuz the jeopardy question 06 (Ann): hhhmph 07 Beth: maybe somebody could answer it. 08 (0.2) 09 we watch jeopardy.=we play together. 10 an: he was late coming home so he called me 11 to say: tape it. 12 (.) 13 anso I taped it. 14 Ann: [hehihih 15 Beth: [I got home, 16 (0.2) 17 an I ( ) think its over, 18 an I turn the teevee on:, 19 (0.2) 20 an it wasn’t over 21 it was like the final jeopardy question? 22 Roger: so she pressed stop. 23 Beth: so I [pressed stop on] the video recorder 24 Roger: [on the recorder] 25 Beth: instead a [turning the teevee back off]

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26 Ann: [( ) oh::: no:::::] 27 Beth: [an so we’]re watch [ing the whole jeopardy] 28 Ann: [( )] [he he he h heh heh heh] 29 Beth: (an feelin’ [soo dumb)]? 30 Roger: [it goes like this 31 they got the question 32 an then th-they turned up 33 the f[irst person, 34 Ann: [that is soo funny 35 Roger: who got it wrong. 36 Beth: right. 37 Roger: they turned up the second person. 38 Beth: who got it [wro:ng. 39 Roger: [who got it wrong. 40 an it goes off. 41 Beth: an then it went off an.

Here Beth tells a story about a time when she mistakenly pressed stop on the video recorder instead of turning the television off. The result was that the recording cut off just before the climax of the show (final Jeopardy). Notice then that in her story Beth tells how she made this mistake. Then at line 30 Roger, Beth’s spouse, tells how the couple discovered the mis- take she had made – in watching the recorded television program they found that it cut off at the final crucial moment.

Conclusion

In this chapter we’ve reviewed a range of studies concerned with story-telling in conver- sation. Following on Sacks’s pioneering work in this area, conversation analysts have shown that stories emerge within a larger context of ongoing talk which dramatically shapes the details of their design and construction. Moreover, stories are told to accomplish various sorts of action in conversation: as Schegloff writes, “to complain, to boast, to inform, to alert, to tease, to explain or excuse or justify, or to provide for an interactional environment in whose course or context or interstices such actions and interactional inflections can be accomplished”. Recipients of stories are then oriented not only to the story as a recognizable unit of talk distinguished by a variety of formal features, but also to what is being accomplished through its telling. In order to explicate this aspect of conversational story-telling it is necessary to situate stories within the particular sequences in which they are encountered by the partici- pants, since it is this location that provides the participants with the resources needed to discern what action is being performed through the story.

Notes

1 Clearly even in those rather rare cases in which speakers name the action they are about to do, the naming is not always a very accurate guide to the action that is ultimately done. Consider for instance that one way of introducing a warning or a bit of advice is to begin with “Let me tell you a story . . .”.

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2 Of course the point is much more general. Sacks (1995b:222) writes, “For pretty much any object it turns out there are various things we could call it. We want to know, not so much is some name correct, as how is it that that name is relevant.”

3 This is consistent with the stance Nancy has taken earlier – specifically, when Shane suggests that he can’t mash the potato and characterizes it as “hard as rock”, Vivian asks “It’s not done? Th’ potato?” and Shane replies “Ah don’t think so,”. Nancy, however, contests this, saying that hers “seems done”. And somewhat later she remarks, “theh: fuck them it’s goodd.okay?”

(20) Chicken Dinner p. 4 29 SHA: Ah can’t- Ah can;t[get this thing ↓mashed. 30 VIV: [Aa-ow. 31 (1.2) 32 NAN: You[do that too : ? tih yer pota]toes, 33 SHA: [This one’s hard ezza rock.] 34 SHA: ↑Ye[ah. 35 VIV: [It i:[s? 36 SHA: [B’t this thing- is ↑ha:rd. 37 (0.3) 38 VIV: It’s not do:ne? th’potato? 39 SHA: Ah don’t think so, 40 (2.2) 01 NAN: Seems done t’me how ’bout you Mi[chael,] 02 SHA: [Alri’ ]who cooked 03 this mea:l. 04 MIC: ·hh Little ↓bit’v e-it e-ih-ih of it isn’done. 05 SHA: Th’ts ri:ght. 06 (1.2) 07 MIC: [°(’T’s alright)° 08 SHA: [No it’s a(h)lr(h)i(h)ght[’t’s (h)air(h)i(h)ght] 09 NAN: → [Theh: F u c k t h e]m it’s 10 goo:d.o[kay? 11 SHA: [he-he

4 Sacks is suggesting that this is a manifestation of her privilege (see Kitzinger 2000). 5 The lecture is the fourth from Fall 1971 (Lectures on Conversation, vol. 2: 437–43). The transcript,

updated slightly, runs as follows:

(21) Sacks 1995b 01 Ben: When’re yer folks comin’ down. 02 Lori: They should be he:re. 03 (1.5) 04 Ben: There wz the one spot there, — they must have hadda, 05 [some kind’v a 06 Lori: [Will they get into it too? ’r wz it- more up by yer house. 07 Ben: Yeah. 08 Ben: No, no they’ll get into it. They must’v had some type 09 of a showing. A camper sho:w or uhm- [flea market 10 Ethel: [At the great big drive 11 in theater. = 12 Ben: =or they mighta hadda swap meet, and there were, so many cars 13 parked there en’ so many people walkin’ on the bridge across 14 the freeway thet people were slowin’ down tuh look.

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15 Bill: Huhh 16 Ethel: Brother I mean it slowed up [a:ll, the traffic y’ know 17 Ben: [An’ there-there wz at least ten 18 mi:les of traffic bumper tuh bumper. 19 Ethel: -because a’ that, 20 (1.0) 21 Ben: [Damn idiots, 22 Lori: [An’ how long did it- So-so it took a while tuh get through- 23 What time [didju leave. 24 Ethel: [Mm hm, Well, let’s [see, we 25 Ben: [’Leven thirty, 26 Lori: But that wz- Then you wentuh Fre:d’s. 27 Ethel: We, [we left- we left- 28 Ben: [No. That’s the time we left Fre:d’s.

6 Sacks notes that “another aspect of it is spouses will jointly have participated in some of the events that they will have occasion to tell in the company of others.” On the topic of “couples” telling stories, see also Mandelbaum 1987, 1989.

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