#3 - Adjacency Pairs and Track Signals

Adjacency pairs, termed by Schegloff and Sacks (1973), are characteristic of everyday conversation. One person says something, and another utters something in response to that—the saying and responding come in pairs, adjacency pairs. They have five properties. The first is that they consist of two utterances—a first pair part and a second pair part. Second, the two parts have to be uttered by two different speakers. The third property says that the two pair parts come in types that specify which part is first and which second. Fourthly, the content of the second part depends on what was uttered in the first part. And lastly, given a first part, the second part comes relevantly and expectedly as the next utterance.

The grounding hypothesis introduced in chapter eight says that, when people engage in joint activities, they try to establish the thing they are trying to do currently as a part of their common ground. In doing so, they are essentially trying to complete two things, or two tracks. That is, the speaker and the addressee are 1. trying to carry out official business—whatever it is that’s specific to the conversation, or the goal of that particular conversation, whether it’s to arrange a meeting, or to compare and contrast their opinions and 2. trying to communicate successfully—or attempting to succeed in all levels of the joint action ladder.

The following are two recorded conversations in two different communication settings. Five adjacency pairs are identified in each. And a track two signal is identified for one of these settings:

IM Setting:

1.question [14:52] A: did you call taste of thai?
2.answer [14:53] me: no not yet

1.question/suggestion [14:54] A: do you want to just try to go without calling? we can walk around the commons for a while if we have to wait

2. suggestion, 1. assertion[14:55] me: well it's no problem for me to call

2. assent [14:56] A: ok you can if you want

1. question [14:56] me: what time should i tell them?
2. question [14:57] A: i dunno.. 7:30 maybe?

1. explanation [14:57] A: well i just want to be sure that ill be hungry
2. acknowledgement [14:58] me: ok J

Cell Phone Setting:

1. summons A: (ring’s Lisa’s cell phone)

2. response me: Hello?

1. greetings A: Hi.

2. greetings me: hey! What’s up?

1. question A: well, you know how I wasn’t sure about when I’m coming over?

2. acknowledgement me: yea…

1. assertion A: well, I’ve finally figured it out!

2. acknowledgment me: finally

1. promise A: I’ll be there on the fifth.

2. question [track 2] me: the sixth?

1. negation [track 2] A: no, the fifth—f as in food.

2. response me: oh ok.

…

1. goodbye me: well I gotta go now, I’ll cya then! Can’t wait!

2. goodbye A: bye!