The case for an eclectic approach

to discourse-in-interaction

Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni
University Lumiere Lyon 2

This paper advocates an eclectic approach to discourse-in-interaction analysis,

not only because adopting a single point of view on such a complex object is
too restrictive, but also because it is impossible to account for fundamental
aspects of the ways it operates without having recourse to notions coming from
different theoretical paradigms. For this we shall consider first the question
of units (particularly speech acts and adjacency pairs) then the question of
"preference organization", a notion which can be dealt with more adequately by
resorting to face-work considerations. This investigation will lead us to revisit
two problems which are central to discourse analysis (whether in interaction or
not): what place is to be allocated to context in description and what the analyst's
interpretation consists in.

1. Introduction

In the wake of Levinson (1983: 286-294), Discourse Analysis and Conversation

Analysis are usually opposed, due to their different "styles of analysis". However, if
we consider that any discipline is defined essentially by its object of investigation
rather than by its particular approach, then we have to admit that analyzing con
versations is part of discourse analysis, since conversations are a specific kind of
discourse. It follows that Discourse-in-Interaction Analysis would appear to be the
best way of labelling the field of research in which I am engaged,^ which consists of
examining different aspects of various'^kinds of discourse produced in an interac
tive context, that is co-produced by different participants involved at the same time
in a linguistic exchange. "Interactional linguistics" or "verbal interaction analysis"

1. See Le discours en interaction (2005), where the different principles exposed here are devel
oped and illustrated.

72 Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni
would also be suitable terms here as they refer to the study of different types of
interactions (reciprocal action systems) performed by mainly linguistic means.
The boundaries of this field are fuzzy, for discourses can display different de
grees of interactivity: an informal conversation is clearly more interactive than a
lecture, a television debate more interactive than the news, etc. (certain types of
oral discourse are therefore barely interactive, whereas certain types of written
discourse such as Internet Relay Chats are, to some extent, interactive).
This kind of investigation requires natural data, which are highly complex. In
order to account for this complexity in a satisfactory way, it seems preferable to put
together ones own comprehensive toolbox. Mine includes, besides classical lin
guistic tools, borrowings from different trends in "discourse analysis (especially
the so-called Birmingham and Geneva schools), pragmatics (Ducrot, Grice, speech
act theory), and, of course, interactional Unguistics (conversation analysis - hence
forth CA - and also Gumperz, Goffman, Brown and Levinsons linguistic polite
ness theory, etc.). In other words, this kind of approach is founded on methodo
logical eclecticism (that is the controlled use of tools coming from different
paradigms). As this term sometimes carries a pejorative connotation, it is worth
noting that it has been employed in a positive way by authors as different as Aston
(1988; 13); Wetherel (1998: 388); Vicher and Sankoff (1989), who speak of "meth
odological hybridization"; Eggins and Slade (1997: 273); House (2000: 146), who
advocates "an eclectic model comprehensive and powerful enough to handle di
verse cases of misunderstandings"; Gumperz (see Eerdmans, Prevignano and
Thibault 2003: 32, 50, 71); or Heritage (1995: 397):
Many CA insights and observations are profoundly compatible with the view
points developed in connection with, for example, Gricean implicature or polite
ness theory.
The purpose of this article is to present the case for an eclectic approach towards
discourse-in-interaction. I will begin by reviewing some general principles on
which such an approach is based.
2. Principles
Looking at my materials, these long collections of talk, and trying to get an abstract
rule that would generate, not the particular things that are said, but lets say the
sequences [...]. (Sacks 1992, Vol. I: 49; emphasis added)
2. "Interaction" refers first and foremost to a process (that is a series of actions and reactions)
and secondly, by metonymy, to the very event in which this process occurs.
The case for an eclectic approach to discourse-in-interaction 73
The way of working outlined here by Sacks is not unfamiliar to linguists: the con
stant toing and froing between the observation of materials and the search for
underlying abstract rules. However, what is new compared to the usual practices
of linguists (especially considering the time when Sacks delivers his first lectures)
is the nature of these materials and the relationship to data that he recommends.
2.1 The data
Any generalization should be the result of scrupulous and detailed analysis of "ac
tual episodes of interactions of one sort or another". The data must be plentiful
("long collections of talk") and for the most part, naturally occurring.^
2.2 The rules
The goal of analysis is to go beyond the description of particular occurrences in
order to extract regularities and to discover reproducible phenomena (such is the
condition of any scientific undertaking). The very first of Sacks' Lectures is called
"Rules of conversational sequences", and the most famous article in conversational
literature is entitled "A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking in
conversation" (Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson 1974). The constant use of the terms
"rules" and "regularities", "procedures", "methods", "norms", "conventions", "rou
tines", "organizing principles", "order/orderly", etc., appears to be a real leitmotiv in
this literature. Indeed, the objective is primarily to do away with the idea that con
versations are chaotic (and therefore unsuitable for scientific investigation) and to
prove the existence of some kind of order in the midst of this chaos, this "apparent
disorderliness of natural speech" (Goodwin 1981: 55). Contrary to popular beUef,
ordinary talk is "systematically and strongly organized". Consequently the analyst's
task is to bring to light this kind of organization which is both strong and flexible
("structured sets of alternative courses or directions which the talk and the inter
action can take", Schegloff 1986: 114). Moreover, conversational rules can be con
sidered as procedures, as they are directed towards practical use. Lastly, most con
versational rules deal with sequential organization: order prevails in interactions,
in every sense of the word.
3. Sacks does use made-up examples from time to time, however; and for some phenomena,
it can be interesting to take advantage of literary examples.
74 Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni The case for an eclectic approach to discourse-in-interaction 75

2.3 The question of units
We need some rules of sequencing, and then some objects that will be handled by
the rules of sequencing. (Sacks 1992, Vol. I: 95).
We will now look at these objects which are handled by the rules of sequencing, that
is "the embarrassing question of units" (GofFman 1981; 22) - they are in fact very
diverse in nature, including strictly linguistic units (phonemes, words, different types
of grammatical units) but also pragmatic, discursive and conversational units.
On a "superficial" level, conversations and other types of verbal interactions
present themselves as a succession of "turns" made up of "turn-constructiOnal
units". We will not go back over these units here as they have been deeply investi
gated in conversation analysis, but rather prefer to make some comments about
two types of units which, in our opinion, are of a totally different nature and be
long to another level of analysis, namely adjacency pairs and speech acts.
2.4 Adjacency pairs
"epiphenomena" such as turns serve to convey (Selting 2000: 511). APs are made
up of speech acts, or more precisely of segments revolving around a "head act"
which may be accompanied by one or more "subordinate acts". These monological
units which form minimal dialogical units are called moves in discourse analysis
(or by GofFman) and the dialogical units they form are labelled exchanges or inter
changes (the term is ambiguous, but its technical definition is relatively clear; any
set of moves depending on one and the same initiative move). These kinds of or
ganization have been well described for example by Sinclair and Coulthard or the
Geneva school, whose objective is to show how a conversation is built by combin
ing units of different hierarchical "ranks".^
They raise a certain number of issues (where one exchange begins and another
one ends, the occurrence of "Janus elements" which are oriented both towards the
previous and the next move, etc.), but the important thing is to recognize that
moves and'exchanges pertain to another level of analysis than the turn.^ Take this
example of an interaction in a bakery as a brief illustration of the sequential or
ganization of these pragmatic units;

1B madame bonjour/
The adjacency pair (henceforth AP) is widely accepted as being the prototypical
2 CI bonjour (.) je voudrais une baguette s'il vous plait
smallest unit of sequential organization, yet it poses many theoretical and descrip
3B bien cuite [ou
tive problems. First, the minimal units are not always "in pairs", nor "adjacent", as
4 CI [bien cuite oui
we can see considering the most common examples dealt with in the literature:
5B {tendant la baguette) alors voila (.) et avec 9a/
greetings only come in pairs in two-party conversations;^ questions often initiate a
6 CI 9a sera tout merci [... ]
ternary sequence as the answer should generally be followed by an acknowledg
ment; and invitations frequently open an extended sequence. Moreover, these 1B good morning madam/
types of sequences often contain more complex configurations (insertion sequenc 2C good morning (.) I'd like a baguette please
es, embedded and side-seqtiences, interlocking organizations, etc.), and this great 3B well-done [or
ly limits the adjacency property, despite the "preference for contiguity" principle 4C [yes well-done
(Sdcks 1987). All these structural particularities lead us to the conclusion that ad 5B (giving the baguette) here you are then (.) anything else/
jacency pairs are only one specific type of inclusive units, generally labelled "se 6C that's all thanks [...]
quences" in CA where the meaning of this term is never made fully explicit.
The excerpt is made up of six turns, five exchanges and ten moves. The first exchange
Another problem with APs is knowing what they are made up of. Sacks talks
stretches over T1 and T2: it is an exchange of greetings ("good morning/good morn
about "utterances", but "turn" is also often employed in the literature. However, it
ing") which is primarily built on lexical material. However, Tl also works as a ques
should be made clear that pair parts are not turns, primarily because their bound
tion, due to the rising intonation which means "What would you like?" (two speech
aries do not always coincide: pair parts are simply "housed" inside turns ("you
acts are amalgamated here in one segment because of its multimodahty). This
have a turn and in it a first pair part". Sacks 1987; 56). Above all, turns are units
initiative move opens up a second exchange which is interwoven with the first:
which "pertain to the surface structure of conversation" (Roulet 1992: 92), where
as pair parts are units of a pragmatic nature: they correspond to "actions" that
5. See Kerbrat-Orecchioni 1990: chap. 4 on the "hierarchical functional" model.
6. As Schegloff reminds us too (1992a: 124); "Although it is true that the organization of turn-
4. Incidentally, the importance given to this notion of "pair" is an index of the primacy given taking and the organization of sequences (or speech acts) are not independant [...], they are
to a dyadic conception of talk-in-interaction (Kerbrat-Orecchioni 2004a). largely distinct and only partially intersecting".
76 Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni
question-answer exchange, with the answer coming in T2, after the reactive greet
ing. As for T2: on the one hand, the assertion "I'd like a baguette please" assumes a
request value, by virtue of the illocutionary derivation rule "any assertion of some
need, addressed to someone who can satisfy this need, must be interpreted conven
tionally as an indirect request to satisfy this need" - it should be noted that some
contextual elements should be incorporated into the formulation of pragmatic rules:
in the commercial context, the assertion is addressed to somebody who not only can
but must satisfy the customer's need (unless the requested product is not available),
the indirect speech act is all the more obvious here. On the other hand, this "request
ing answer" is not clear enough for the baker (problem of applying the Gricean
"maxim of quantity"), who therefore asks the customer for more detail by introduc
ing in T3 an embedded question-answer type exchange. Once B has obtained the
necessary detail, she can go ahead and fiilfill the request, as evidenced in T5 where
the reactive move is made up of a head act which is, in fact, a non-verbal action (ac
companied by an utterance to be considered as a subordinate act: "here you are
then").
The end of T5 initiates a new question-answer type exchange (the answer is
delivered in T6).
Hence, this sequence consists of the following exchanges:
(1) El (Tl - T2's first segment): greetings;
(2) E2 (Tl - T2's second segment): question-answer; amalgamation of El and
E2's initiative moves, the reactive moves being distinct-and delivered suc
cessively in the same turn;
(3) E3 (T3 - T4): question (request for details) followed by answer; E3 is em
bedded in E4;
(4) E4 (T2's second segment and T4 - T5's first segment): request-request ful
filled; the request is grafted onto the answer and delivered in two parts
("I'd like a baguette please" and "well-done");
(5) E5 (T5's second segment - T6): question-answer (the answer is accompa
nied by a subordinate act of thanks).
Such a banal example as this shows the limits of the notion of "adjacency pair": the
boundaries of exchanges coincide only exceptionally with the boundaries of turns,
insofar as one same turn can be made up of several moves which are either successive,
or amalgamated by virtue of indirect speech acts, and sometimes, of multimodality.
2.5 Speech acts
The trickiest problem with the notion of the adjacency pair is this: if two adjacent
turns can sometimes be considered as forming an AP, but at other times not, which
The case for an eclectic approach to discourse-in-interaction 77
criteria should be used to decide whether or not one is dealing with an AP? It is based
on the feeling that both items have a "conditional relevance" relationship ("given the
first, the second is expectable", Schegloff 1972:363). But what is this feeling based on?
To answer this question we have to turn to the notion of the speech act.
Despite what is often said following a famous controversy,^ it is not obvious
that CA and speech act theory are incompatible. On the contrary even, CA con
stantly refers to an impUcit theory of speech acts with its persistent use of notions
like "question", "request", "greeting", "offer", "complaint", etc., to which we can add
more interactive kinds of pragmatic units such as "challenging", "repairing", etc.
These units are usually referred to as "actions" in CA, but as they are very specific
actions realized by verbal^ means, it would seem that the expression "speech acts"
is more appropriate - the use of this term does not imply the adoption of all
Austin's, Searle's or Venderveken's theoretical postulates: today the notion of speech
act has come into the public domain; it is part of the basic vocabulary for those
dealing with discourse, in interaction or not.
However we label this class of object, the questions, requests or greetings are
defined by the "job" they do (something very similar to Searle's illocutionary force)
which dictates their sequential properties (if a question is generally followed by an
answer, surely it is because its purpose, by definition, is to obtain some sort of in
formation, supposed to be unknown to the person asking the question). "Sequenc
es" are not interpretable on the sole basis of their sequentiality (the fact that an
utterance immediately follows a question is neither necessary nor sufficient to say
that it is the answer to the question);' and the application of conditional relevance
and sequential implicativeness principles rests above aU on the content of the utter
ances, which creates some specific expectations about the nature of what follows.
Without going back over the criticism of speech act theory, I would say that in
my opinion, it does not fundamentally challenge this theory. We could also show
that Schegloff's relevant analysis of "For whom" or "Do you know who's going to
that meeting?" (1984 and 1988) does not in any way contradict standard speech
acts theory.^" But there is no d(pbt that work carried out in the framework of CA
"has helped to make this theory more operative by examining how speech acts re
ally function in an interactive context, the role of the utterance's position in the
sequence for determining its pragmatic value, how this value can be negotiated by
7. See Searle et al. (eds.) 1992.
8. On the fundamental difference between verbal and non verbal actions, see Kerbrat-Orec
chioni 2004b.
9. As Mey says (1994: 241): "The mere fact of utterances following each other is no guarantee
of coherence".
10. See for example Cooren 2004.
78 Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni
the participants, and also the possible transformations a speech act can undergo
throughout the exchange; for example, how a greeting question such as "how
are you?" can progressively become a real question (Kerbrat-Orecchioni
2001: 118-120), or how an offer can be turned into an order, as in the "stubborn
old man and the herring" sequence examined by Sacks (1992, Vol. II: 327-331).
Sacks' analysis brilliantly shows the successive transformations that the speech act
undergoes (somewhat like the music of Steve Reich, where the theme changes so
surreptitiously that the listener suddenly finds himself in the middle of a new mo
tif with no idea as to when exactly the change took place); it shows also that this
metamorphosis is already potentially contained in the offer's very first utterance.
This kind of analysis has greatly refined the description of speech acts, but it is
founded upon Austin and Searle's theory.
2.6 The sequential organization of interaction
2.6.1 Preference organization
According to the grammar of speech acts, an initiative act accomplished by A will
open up a paradigm of possible reactive acts to be accomplished by B. However, all
these reactions are not equally probable, some are "preferred" and others are "dis-
preferred" not only in context, but already at the level of the system. This "prefer
ence organization" is based firstly-on considerations of frequency: the "preferred"
reaction is the reaction which is chosen "ordinarily" in a paradigm of alternative
forms, which also best conforms to the'participants' normative expectations and
which has correlatively fewer interactional effects. However, the observation that
the preferred reactions are generally expressed in a more immediate and econom
ical fashion'^ has led to formal considerations being given precedence over no
tions of frequency. Unfortunately these two criteria do not always coincide, which
makes it possible, according to Lerner (1996), to find such strange things as dis-
preferred sequences within a preferred format or'vice-versa. Similarly, when ana
lyzing compliment responses Pomerantz notes that "actual performances are often
discrepant from ideal or preferred performances" and that "a large proportion of
compliment responses deviate from the model response of accepting compli
ments" (1978: 80-81). However, one could also reach the conclusion that this
"ideal" and this "model" should be questioned and thought about differently, call
ing on politeness theory (seen in terms of face-work). This theory, which is the
In other terms, I don't think that "a gap between the theory [of SA] and the reality of dis-
11.
- course" exists (Streeck 1980:133).
12. See for example the different articles in the book edited by Atkinson and Heritage.
1984: Part II.
The case for an eclectic approach to discourse-in-interaction 79
result of a kind of hybridization between GofFman and Searle's work (as it looks at
speech acts from the point of view of the effects they can have on participants
faces) was drawn up by Brown and Levinson (1978 and 1987), and several modi
fications of it have been suggested.'^
Whichever version of this model we choose to adopt can render the descrip
tion of discourse-in-interaction considerable service. In particular, it helps to
make the problem of preference organization clearer, as Lerner notes (1996: 304):
It has been widely observed [... ] that matters of face, on the onehand, and preference
organization in conversational interaction, on the other, are intimately connected.
If we accept that preference is "intimately connected to matters of face", we can
understand why the preferred sequence is often the most costly one. As face-work
generally involves some overcost in utterance formulation (which is compensated
for by the benefit obtained regarding the interpersonal relationship), it is not sur
prising that in many cases, a relatively costly solution is chosen, <for instance after
a compliment (request for confirmation, downgraded agreement, softened disa
greement, etc.), or following an offer: if a brutal refusal is less preferred than
immediate agreement, a certain preference for temporary refusal has also been
noted, which brings about a more or less developed cyclical exchange, made up of
repetitions and refusals of the offer before its final acceptance (Kerbrat-Orecchioni
2005: 220-226). For both offers and compliments, the elaborate nature of the se
quence is due to the fact that they are particularly complex acts as far as face-work
is concerned. They comprise both a "threatening" and "flattering" component for
the recipient's face, so that he finds himself in a double bind situation which can
only be resolved by relatively sophisticated strategies.
Pomerantz says that sequences are subject to multiple and sometimes contra
dictory constraints. It should be added that these constraints do not all belong to
the same level of analysis. First, the reactive move should comply with the seman-
tic-pragmatic rules of coherence which depend on the nature of the initiative move
(as well as on the utterance's specific content). Moreover, sequencing is subject to
additional types of constraints: these are rituaUstic face-work constraints, which
may come into conflict with one another - in the case of a compliment: the gen
eral principle of preference for agreement (which is "flattering for the face) ori
ents towards a positive reaction, but the principles of protecting one's own terri
tory and of self-praise avoidance ("modesty rule"), join together to favour a
13. Personally I have suggested introducing the notion of Face Flattering Act (FFA) into the
model, alongside the notion of "Face Threatening Act" (FTA) - in a similar way others talk
about "face enhancing acts" or "face boosting acts -, as politeness consists not only of softening
up threatening acts (negative politeness) but also of producing valorizing acts (positive polite
ness). See Kerbrat-Orecchioni 1992 and 2005 : chap. 3.
8o Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni
negative reaction. It is a double bind situation,-therefore, and the only exit is via
compromise, delay or avoidance strategies: the complexity of this exchange with
regard to the face-Work system can explain why responses to compliments can
often be seen as excessively fussy and affected.
On the contrary, if after most assertions agreement is preferred to disagree
ment (that is the least expensive reaction rather than the most expensive one), it is
because agreement is mbre satisfactory for face: whatever the initiative act, the
preferred reaction (that is the most expected and frequent one) is not the least
expensive one but the one which best satisfies mutual face preservation.
2.7 Dialogical interpretation principle
The principle of preference organization operates on the side of the production of
discourse by participants. If we now look at interpretation mechanisms (which
concern both participants and analyst alike), we meet another principle which is
sometimes labelled the "dialogical interpretation principle" and can be summa
rised like this: given that utterances are often pragmatically ambiguous (as speech
act markers are as polysemous as lexical items), how can we interpret them? The
answer: by observing the T2 reaction to the problematic turn Tl, which will "pub
licly demonstrate" how Tl has been understood, that is the real meaning of Tl.
This idea has been largely developed in conversational literature,^^ for example by
Heritage comparing these two adjacency pairs (1984: 255):
(1) A: Why don't you come and see me sometimes
B: I'm sorry. I've been terribly tied up lately
(2) A: Why don't you come and see me sometimes
B: I would like to
A's utterance is pragmatically ambiguous: it could correspond to several different
"actions". However, B's sequence will give us the key to its meaning: in (1) it is a
complaint, as B responds with an excuse, and in (2) it is an invitation as B's reac
tion is to accept it.
14. Regarding the different possible reactions to a compliment, see Pomerantz 1978 for F.nglish
and Kerbrat-Orecchioni 1994: chap. 5 for French; and on how to apply the "double bind" notion
to description of interactions. Kerbrat-Orecchioni 1992: 279-289 and 1994: 273-275.
15. This question is at the centre of the debate between Schegloff and Wetherell in Discourse &
Society, 8(2), 1997 and 9(3). 1998.
The case for an eclectic approach to discourse-in-interaction 81
A first objection to this "sequential analysis" as it is dealt with in CA arises im
mediately: perhaps B misunderstood As utterance. However, if that is the case, in
the third turn A will rectify B's mistaken interpretation.^ This means that:
- A knows how B interpreted Jiis turn Tl thanks to the reaction T2 provided by B;
B knows if his interpretation is correct or not thanks to As response (third turn).
At the same time, the meaning of the whole exchange is made available to the ana
lyst thanks to what is also called the "theorem of mutually recognizable actions"
(Heritage) or the "intersubjective construction of meaning principle" (Schegloff^).
Unfortunately, things are not always so simple. Let us look now at Sacks' well
known example (1992, Vol I: 689):^^
A: Can you fix this needle?
B: I'm busy.
A: I just wanted to know if you can fix it.
In the third turn A claims than the first one had to be interpreted as a mere ques
tion and not as a request (as B did), but he is more likely committing here a kind
of denial of the indirect value of his previous utterance (for face saving reasons, the
request having failed he pretends he has not intended such a speech act). This ex
ample shows that it is not always the case that the third turn "publicly demon
strates" the real meaning to be accorded to the first turn.
We cannot say either that the second turn necessarily shows the meaning that
B accords to the first turn. Let us look again at the case of compliment responses:
One of the most frequent in French consists of treating the compliment as a ques
tion about the nature or origin of the praised item ("I love your perfume - Kenzo";
"These cups are great! - I got them in Brittany", etc.), even in cases where there is
nothing to suggest that this treatment corresponds to the compliment payer's in
tention. Here, Marandin (1987: 86) maintains that the compliment "does not oc
cur in the interlocution", which is more than debatable: following our linguistic
conventions, the utterance "These cups are great" cannot not be considered ana
lytically as a compliment, even if it is not treated as sucji, and the recipient prefers
to "avoid" it. Certainly, no one is fooled by the avoidance strategy: the author of the
compliment suspects that his compliment has been recognized (no need to repair
with something like "It was a compliment, not a question!"), and the recipient
suspects that the author suspects that his compliment has been recognized. This is
a sort of routinized misunderstanding,which is accepted easily by both participants
as it is most suitable to the mutual preservation of their faces.
16. On "third position repair", see Schegloff 1987.
17. In this example A is supposed to be a very young child, but similar cases of denial could also
be found from adult speakers.
82 Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni
So it is a little simplistic to assimilate "signification of X produced by A" to
"interpretation of X made by B", and "interpretation of X by B" to "interactional
treatment of X by B".
Besides, this treatment, that is B's reaction, must itself be interpreted by the
analyst. This can be just as problematic, as reactive moves are often formally less
characteristic than initiative moves (compliments are easier to identify than com-
phment responses, questions are easier to identify than answers, etc.). The follow
ing turn may help the analyst with his interpretation, but it is unrealistic to expect
the participants to do the work for him:
Although the value of sequential analysis in getting at the participants' under
standings of the talk has been stressed in this section, it should not be concluded
that the way in which a speaker responds to a prior utterance can, in every case,
be treated as criterial in determining how the utterance should be viewed analyti
cally. (Atkinson and Heritage 1984:11)
2.8 The role of sequential placement
All linguists admit that the location of an item in the syntagmatic chain deter
mines in part its meaning. However the relative importance accorded to the con
ventional meaning (pre-existing) and to the location (occasional) varies according
to authors and theories. As for the role of sequential placement of an utterance for
determining its value, all depends on the type of utterance we are dealing with: if
it is true that we identify an "ansWer" because it comes after a question (and also
because of its semantic content),then We iliust accept that questions present
specific formal charsfcteristics. Consider as well the often mentioned example of
greetings: Sacks (1992, Vol. I:-94) States that "we^Meed to distinguish between a
'greeting item' and a 'greeting pMce'", and quite rigHtly adds that "if some other
item occurs in a greeting place it's not a greeting". More questionable is his asser
tion that "if a greeting item occurs elsewhere it's not a greeting": a "Good morn
ing!" occurring in the middle of a conversation will be a greeting as well (a "mis
placed" greeting), which-proves the robustness of the intrinsic meaning of most
linguistic items.
The effects of these misplacements can be very diverse: polemical (an example
of which we will see shortly), playfiol, or even pathological (as we find in the "ab
surd" dialogues in lonesco's or Tardieu's plays), or metaphorical as in the example
i8. Cf. Levinson (1983; 193):"Answerhood is a complex property composed of sequential loca
tion and topical coherence across two utterances amongst other things; significantly there is no
proposed illocutionary force of answering."
The case for an eclectic approach to discourse-in-interaction 83
of an exchange "between two adults after making love" quoted by Streeck
(1980: 145):
A: Hi! (smiling)
B: Hi! (smiling)
Although "misplaced" to some extent, "Hi!" retains the value of a greeting. Given that
this speech act is submitted, as Searle put it, to the preparatory condition "the speaker
must have just encountered the hearer", the mere utterance of this greeting means that
the speakers are acting as though they are meeting again after being separated (far from
challenging the existence of this condition of felicity Streeck's example proves its exist
ence, which is responsible for the effect of this litde game between the two lovers).
The temptation to overestimate the role of placement can be easily understood:
it is because this property has an "objective" nature - whether Y follows X or
whether T2 comes after Tl is "obvious", and this obviousness is the same for both
participating members in the interaction and for the analyst. Unfortunately, how
ever, sequentiality does not provide the key to meaning... The problem is that the
term "sequentiality" is used to refer to two types of relationship of-a very different
nature: firstly a simple relationship of order, which- is effectively, objective; but
sometimes also a logical-semantic relationship of "conditional relevance" (a ques
tion requires an answer, and the answer comes to complete the question to form
with it an "adjacency pair"), and this relationship is of an interpretative nature.^'
Placement is simply one of many resources used to interpret utterances. For
example, the actual meaning of "How are you?" and other "greeting questions"
depends on a series of factors which work simultaneously: the position of the ut
terance in the exchange (the earUer it occurs, the more it acts like a greeting), the
degree of elaborateness of the wording, the accompanying prosody, face expres
sion and gestures, the participants' mutual knowledge about the current situation
of the addressee and other contextual factors.
J
2.9 The role of context
Context shapes utterances and utterances shape context in turn: this conception,
which reconciles determinism and constructionism, is widely accepted today. Dis
course is both an activity which is conditioned by the context and which transforms
this very context: pre-existing to interaction, context is continuously renewed
19. The notions of "sequence", "sequencing" and "sequentiality" are used in a number of theo
retical frameworks. For an overview of the different approaches towards these notions from
both formal and functional perspectives, see Fetzer and Meierkord (eds.) 2002.
84 Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni
throughout. The renewable nature of context is partly due to the fact that the term
refers not only to the "external" or "situational" context (this "frame" surrounding
the interaction, itself comprised of different components which can be classed in
several ways)^" but also to the "sequential" or "intra-interactional" context^'
(Schegloff 1992b), which continuously reframes conversational activities (for ex
ample, the introduction of a question creates "a new arena for-subsequent action",
Duranti and Goodwin 1992:29). In addition, context should be considered as a set
of cognitive representations (shared at least partially by the different participants)
which are constantly enriched and modified - even if it is obvious that all is not
"renewable" in the context and that many components remain constant through
out the interaction.
It is also widely agreed that context strongly determines the production and
interpretation mechanisms which work in an "indexical" or "setting-related" way.
Opinions diverge, however, regarding to what extent the analyst can and should
use information which is not actually contained in the interaction's text.^^ Gump
erz (in Eerdmans, Prevignano and Thibault 2002: 22) claims that the analyst "al
ways needs a prior analysis of context", and should therefore collect as much "eth
nographic" information as possible on the setting being studied. However, most
conversation analysts consider that we should do without "external" interpretative
resources, which may be "misleading" (Heritage 1984: 282): considering that con
text is an infinite set, all the elements are not interactionally relevant and those
which are will be revealed as such by the participants. At any moment of the inter
actional process, they can bring to light some specific aspect ofrontext and make
it significant; so the relevaint contextual facts are "internalized" to some extent in
the form of "indicators" which allow the analyst to do without external informa
tion. In this light, context is'entirely considered as
something endogenously generated within the talk o^ the participants and, in
deed, as something created in and through that talk. (Heritage 1984: 283)
Let us note first of all that even when analysis wants to be purely "internal", the
analyst always draws on some external information. Take the example of a small
shop: from what point is the mention of context legitimate? As soon as the shop
keeper "exhibits" his status as shopkeeper, by saying something like "Yes madam?"
or "May I help you?" Yet the question cannot be correctly interpreted without
20. See among others Hymes' (1972) SPEAKING model or Brown and Eraser's (1979) model.
21. In textual linguistics, the internal surroundings of a given segment are sometimes called cotext.
22. On "controversy in CA about the proper attitude toward contextual knowledge", see
Bilmes 1996:184. Note that this debate reminds us somewhat of the raging textual linguistics
debate in the 70's.
The case for an eclectic approach to discourse-in-interaction 85
knowing that it is occurring in a small shop... Is it necessary to wait until the cus
tomer says something like "I'd like a loaf of bread to discover that the scene is
taking place in a bakery (which is an interpretation made possible by a lexical and
"encyclopedic" knowledge that cannot be considered as purely internal)? Such an
attitude of refusing external information can seem rather artificial - all the more
so as the constitution of a corpus, at least when dealing with a "collection" (interac
tions in small shops, telephone calls, work meetings, etc.), entirely depends on
external criteria... Let us note too that the distinction between endogenous and
exogenous context is entirely dependent on the way the corpus is made up
(for example, for the analyst who only has an audio recording the characteristics
of the setting constitute external information, whereas in a video recording they
form entirely part of the semiotic material which makes up the interaction), and
the way it is delimitated (if we widen the corpus, what is "external" may become
"internal"). The analyst's first gesture is to isolate a more or less long, segment of
talk-in-interaction, but for the members this segment only takes on meaning with
regard to its environment, immediate or not. This initial gesture therefore consti
tutes a "bias" for the analyst who cannot therefore claim to take on the members'
point of view, especially if he chooses to look no further than the boundaries set by
the sequence on which the analysis i^focussed.
Whether in a bakery or in another setting, participants know where they are
well before "showing" it. And this is the main objection we can make against this
descriptive attitude: it contradicts the principle by which description should be
made as far as possible from "the members' point of view"; for when they enter a
shop or a classroom, or when they take part in a television show, the members al
ready have an idea regarding what kind of event they are involved in, and this
mental picture wiU be called up constantly throughout the interaction.
If taking context into account can be "misleading", refusal to do so can be even
worse. In a classroom. Heritage reminds us, we can have a non-didactic interac
tion and the opposite. But it is not because the teacher and pupils (or the doctor
and patient) can from time to time in the classroom (or in the doctors' office) pro
duce an exchange which is apparently a conversation between peers that it will
really be one. For example, in the co-constructed narrative taking place in a school
analyzed by Mondada (1998: 252-3), the first ten turns give no explicit indication
as to the status of the teacher; this does not mean, however, that it is a true "peer
interaction": the "members" are well aware of their respective status (which can be
here considered as "omnirelevant", cf Sacks 1992: 594-596), and this knowledge
cannot help but influence their interpretation of conversational events. Moreover,
when these markers occur, they have to be interpreted, which can only be achieved
on tke basis of prior conventionalization. I can understand that a speaker is doing
being teacher" or "doing being doctor" thanks to the kind of questions he asks; but
86 Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni
this understanding is based on my knowledge of some pre-existing correlations
between a type of interactional behavior and a type of status or role. Lastly, the
interactional effect produced by this "doing" depends entirely on whether or not
the speaker really possesses teacher or doctor status,^' or to mention Sacks' origi
nal example regarding this, the fact of "doing being ordinary" will not have the
same interactional meaning if the "doing" is being done by a genuinely "ordinary"
citizen or by the French President: the interactional meaning of any behavior is to
be found somewhere at the crossroads between being and doing being, that is, at
the interface between external and internal information.
So an affirmation such as "context is not predefined" (Mondada 1998: 258)
cannot be taken literally, it is useful above all for underlining that context is per
manently recreated as the interaction goes along: the context is pre-existing to the
interaction and constructed throughout the interaction at the same time. The ana
lytic attitude which consists of pretending to discover the main characteristics of
context only from some explicit markers occurring during the interaction is not
only artificial but often misleading. For instance, when dealing with media-type
interactions the audience needs absolutely to be taken into account, even though
it is generally not explicitly referred to. It seems preferable to begin with the most
relevant points of the context to which the members have access ("frame" of the
interaction or its "schema": type of setting, participation framework, goal of the
exchange, etc.). Then we must see how these elements are activated in the dis
course and how they may be changed and negotiated among the participants.^^ In
other words, we have to reconcile two ways of dealing with discursive data, la
belled top-down and bottom^up by Aston (1988: 26):
The schema provides initial presuppositions and expectations, but through the
discursive process its instantiation may be modified and renegotiated on a bot
tom-up basis.
3. Analyzing an example: Good evening Mr Le Pen
In order to illustrate the fact that when describing an interactional sequence, we
have to resort to tools from various origins, I will take the example of this small
23. See Garfinkel for "breaching" experiments, and Goffman for "breaking frame" and "fraud
ulent identity". We can also think of the fascinating "phoney" character, defined as someone
whose "doings" are not in harmony with his "being".
24. The notion of "conversational negotiation" appears best suited to deal with the reciprocal
action between what exists before and what emerges during the interaction; on this notion see
for example Roulet 1992 and Kerbrat-Orecchioni 2005: Chap. 2.
The case for an eclectic approach to discourse-in-interaction 87
excerpt from a television debate which took place in 2003 between Nicolas Sarkozy
(who was Interior Minister at the time) and Jean-Marie Le Pen (President of the
National Front party)^^, and which will give me the chance to go back over the case
of greetings.
Sarkozy has already been on the show for a while and has been confronted
with several members of the political arena. Le Pen makes his entrance, gives a
general greeting, and makes himself comfortable as invited to do so by the host of
the show Olivier Mazerolle (OM):
1 OM: monsieur Sarkozy alors euh Jean-Marie Le Pen president du Front
National est avec nous euh vous allez debattre ensemble bonsoir mon
sieur Le Pen
2 LP: bonsoir/
3 OM: voil^i (.) prenez place (.) monsieur Le Pen [... ]
1 OM: so Mr Sarkozy euh Jean-Marie Le Pen the president of the National
Front party is here with us euh and you are going to talk together good
evening Mr Le Pen
2 LP: good evening/
3 OM: right then (.) take a seat (.)-Mr Le Pen [...]
No sooner is he sitting down than he launches into a diatribe against the political-
media world for treating him as an "outcast". Sarkozy lets him get on with his act
for more than a minute. At the very moment when Le Pen after this general pre
amble turns towards Sarkozy, getting ready to attack, here is what happens:
4 LP: [...] ASP^ monsieu:r/ le ministre de rinterieu:r/ vous me donnez
I'impression::/
[ASP]
5 NS: rbonsoir/1 monsieur Le Pen
6 LP: bonsoir/ bonsoir monsieu::r eh i'ai dit bonsoir en arrivant/ ASP mais
euh vous etiez inclus coUectiv- dans mon bonsoir collectiA
4 LP: [... ] ASP Mr Minister/ you seem to me::/
[ASP]
5 NS: [good evening/] Mr Le Pen
6 LP: good evening/ good eveningsi::r eh I did say good evening when I arrived/
ASP but uh you were included coUectiv- in my collective greeting\
25. ^ This is the program 100 minutes pour convaincre [100 minutes to convince], France 2,
20th Nov. 2003.
26. ASP signals an audible inspiration.
88 Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni
I will describe the greeting good evening Mr Le Pen, which appears identically
twice (turns lOM and 5NS), but with considerably different values due to the dif
ference in sequential placement in the following way:
As soon as we speak of a "greeting" it is necessary to turn to speech acts theory,
since a greeting is a specific speech act, where the speaker "courteously indicates
that he has recognized the listener": such is the illocutionary value of so-called
"greeting" utterances, according to Searle (1972: 107)^'' who adds that this type of
utterance is subject to the preliminary condition that "speaker and listener have just
met". This implies that the greeting should normally come at the very beginning of
the interaction: this is in fact the case for the first occurrence of the greeting. This
occurrence is also perfectly orthodox as far as sequencing is concerned: one greet
ing calls for another one in return (the exchange is "symmetrical"). Let us note,
however, in the reactive move (or if preferred, in the second part of the adjacency
pair), the absence of all term of address and the fact that it is collective (Le Pen ut
ters this greeting as he walks towards his seat looking at no one in particular).
The greeting delivered by Sarkozy (in 5) is more unusual: on the one hand it
brutally interrupts Le Pens speech, on the other hand it arises when Sarkozy and
Le Pen have been engaged in conversation for a while, it can therefore be consid
ered as "misplaced" - but in part only for as Le Pen had until this point not been
addressing Sarkozy exclusively, we can accept that "Mr Interior Minister" marks
the beginning of a new interaction, embedded in the previous one (a "dilogue"
finds itself embedded in a "polylogue").
The question is whether in a case like this a new exchange of greetifigs is nec
essary. Nothing is less sure: our ritual system is uncertain here, and the greeting is
far from expected (in any case for Le Pen, whose norms apparently diverge from
Sarkozy's on this point, the greeting is totally unexpected). Nevertheless, due to its
very specific placement, Sarkozy's "good evening", without ceasing to be a greeting,
also serves as an indirect act of reproach. This value is the result of implicit reason
ing like this: in engaging in an exchange with me you should have greeted me first,
but you did not, so you lack good manners. It is also reinforced by intonation
(markedly more rising than in turn lOM), and also by the expression of triumph
used by Sarkozy to welcome Le Pen's reactive "good evening" (nodding his head up
and down with a little smile), which is a sort of retroactive clue as to the indirect
meaning of the reproach.
Sarkozy's utterance therefore receives a double illocutionary force: the force of
a greeting conventionally attached to the "good evening", and the force of a re
proach which emerges in this particular context. It calls for a double reaction.
27. In fact, the "essential condition" of the greeting is rather that "the speaker indicates to the
addressee that he has recognized him and/or intends to engage in a verbal exchange with him".
The case for an eclectic approach to discourse-in-interaction 89
which indeed comes: obliged to return the greeting (which he repeats not without
some annoyance), Le Pen also feels'that he must justify his behavior ("I did say
good evening when I arrived but you were included in my collective greeting": his
reaction to the reproach). Other interactional values ("perlocutionary" for speech
acts theory) come along on top of these two illocutionary values, for example: The
unexpected irruption of the greeting will upset the exchange and unsettle the op
ponent, as we can see in 7LP - cut off in mid sentence, Le Pen is clearly thrown
off balance, for at the end of his turn he is victim of a failure followed by a repair
("you were included in my coUectiv- in my collective greeting"), which is not like
him. In addition, this greeting will invalidate what has come before: since a greet
ing should normally appear at the very beginning of the exchange, what came be
fore will to some extent become null and void; in this way Sarkozy suggests that
the general preamble should not have taken place, and that Le Pen should have
addressed him personaUy right from the beginning (Sarkozy's reproach also con
cerns this point).
In order to describe what happens at this moment of the interaction we can
also call on face-work theory: A greeting is in principle an act of "courtesy" (see
Searle's definition above), in that it.constitutes a "face flattering act" (FFA), which
is obviously the case with the host's "good evening Mr Le Pen" (the politeness of
the greeting is reinforced here by the term of address). But the FFA is seriously
harmed by the way in which the greeting is used by Sarkozy afterwards, as a "face
threatening act" (FTA) interfering with the greeting, namely the reproach aggra
vated by the interruption: Le Pen is severely reprimanded by Sarkozy and is obliged
to justify his behavior like a naughty child (he is clearly placed in a low position by
the reproach which is addressed to him). In such an example the threatening com
ponent is stronger than the flattering component and even cancels it out (here we
have a sample of this "courteous delegitimization" which has been identified as one
of Sarkozy's favorite debating strategies).
Finally we could call on Goffman for his work on "presentation of self" and
correlative construction of self-image and of that of others throughout the interac
tion: in this way Sarkozy, kiUing two birds with one stone, uses the greeting to
Show that he is a polite debater (even if this politeness is rather suspect here), and
to label his opponent as having an unmannerly ethos. We can call upon Goffman
again for the notions he has introduced in order to describe the "participation
framework" - in this example the setting is complex as we are dealing with a media
interaction, the exchange taking place on the TV set is in fact a show intended for
another party: the audience, who for the most part, we can imagine are overjoyed
at the trick Sarkozy has played on Le Pen, who has the reputation of being a very
skilled debater.

90 Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni
Obviously v^hen necessary other tools can be called upon depending on the
needs of the description. But this short example allows us to get some idea as to
what an eclectic, and correlatively syncretic approach can mean, as it draws on de
scriptive resources taken from diverse fields of analysis and puts them together.
This eclecticism is justified by the fact that discourse, and more especially dis
course-in-interaction, functions on different levels which are both distinct and
articulated (management of turns-at-talk, semantic-pragmatic coherence of the
dialogue, global as well as local organization, face-work and ritualistic constraints),
one same item working simultaneously on several levels, for example:
- In "Can you close the door please?" please acts as both a marker of illocution
ary derivation (confirming the questions indirect request value which is al
ready suggested by the conventionalization of the structure and by the extral-
inguistic context), and as a softener of the face threatening act that the request
constitutes.
- In "I'd just like a baguette", the adverb;u5f firstly serves to prospectively organ
ize the interaction by projecting that the transaction will merely consist of one
purchase and that the shop assistant will have no need to ask "anything else?"
afterwards. "Just" also has a ritualistic purpose: it is a kind of apology (the
customer is sorry for issuing such a banal request); this adverb tends to appear
systematically, in this context of small shops, when the request is for a product
whose value is inferior to an agreed norm, defined according to either the av
erage of the other transactions carried out in this setting or more locally to the
prior transaction.
4. Concluding remarks
CA has established the golden rule of absolute respect of data, which should be
observed "carefully, closely, seriously, open-mindedly" (Schegloff 1999: 581). For
us, "open-mindedly" means that we can make use of all available analytical re
sources, as long as they are compatible and adapted to both the object and the
objective of the description. Thus, I have tried to show that in order to account
effectively for what happens in interactions, it is often desirable - and indeed in
some cases even essential - to include theoretical propositions from different par
adigms (for example, we cannot do without the notion of speech act to describe
the sequential organization of a conversation, or the notion of face-work to de
scribe preference organization).
In their introduction to (On) Searle on conversation (1992: 5), Parret and
Verschueren evoke "the classical debate concerning the complementarity or the
exclusivity of different orientations within pragmatics". Personally, I am inclined to
The case for an eclectic approach to discourse-in-interaction 91
favor complementarity, which makes description much richer and more exciting,
albeit less "pure" - if any approach can ever be totally pure: no model is made up
of exclusively endogenous notions, for concepts spread out, migrate and cross
school and even disciplinary boundaries (as the notion of "interaction" itself il
lustrates). This commitment in favor of complementarity (that is "eclectism") is
not without risks, as regards the global coherence of the description. The problem
of how to connect the different layers ofanalysis, and how to put together a kind of
"integrated model" which would take into account the different constraints that
condition the construction of conversations ("technical" constraints such as turn-
taking, linguistic constraints, ritualistic and cognitive constraints too...) also arises.
This point can perhaps be considered premature.^ To conclude, I would rather
come back to the question of interpretation, which is central to discourse analysis.
As we consider like Gumperz (in Eerdmans, Prevignano and Thibatilt 2002:150)
that the analysis of discourse-in-interaction's main objective is to try to understand
"how speakers understand each other", we must accept the leitmotiv of conversa
tion analysis whereby the analysis should "take on the members' point of view". But
what exactly should we imderstand by that? Not that the analyst's job is the same as
that of the participants: the conditions in which these two categories of interpreters
find themselves are different in all respects. With regard to the "members", the ana
lyst is both at a disadvantage (he generally does not have aU the relevant contextual
information at hand)^ and at an advantage as he has time (to review the recording
at leisure, and continue to discover new relevant details), and a full set of theoretical
tools and descriptive categories, which are never "natural" ones.^" They are catego
ries which have been constructed in the context of a specific theory - TCUs, adja
cency pairs, preliminaries, repairs, etc. are certainly not "membership categories":
and even apparently "commonsense" categories such as "turn" or "interruption"
must be redefined and refined in order to become operative.
Clearly this does not mean either that the analyst leaves full responsibility of
Interpretative work to the members: even if the conversation sometimes carries
"metaconversational" elements, it goes without saying that the presence in the cor
pus of a term like "request" or "interfuption" is not in any way a necessairy condi
tion (nor even in some cases a sufficient one) for identifying a request or an inter
ruption. To adopt the members' point of view can only mean that the analyst's
28. See, however, Roulet et al.'s "modular" model (Roulet, Fillietaz and Grobet 2001) which
proposes an integrated representation of the different constitutive dimensions of all kinds of
discourse, be it monological or dialogical.
29* Unless he himself also took part in the interaction, which in turn creates other problems.
36. See Segerdahl 2003: 95 ; and Schmale 2008 on foUc conceptions of conversation (the study
shows how far they are from scientists' conceptions).
92 Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni
interpretation must be seen as a reconstruction of the participants' interpretation,
which is achieved by means that are only partially the same, and explicitly ex
pressed in a suitable metalanguage.
Whether it concerns the participants or the analyst, the interpretative activity
always consists of extracting meanings from meaningful material delivered by the
speakers, by calling'up interpretative resources of a very various nature. This activ
ity is always a real "job", despite what we could conclude from some affirmations
like this one:
Mutual understanding is thus displayed, to use Garfinkel's term, "incarnately" in
the sequentially organized details of conversational interaction. Moreover, be
cause these understandings zre publicly produced, they are available as a resource
for social scientific analysis. (Heritage 1984: 259; emphasis added)
This conception, which represents the participants as working towards "displaying
publicly" the interpretation that has to be attributed to their utterances, is very
comfortable for the analyst, who has just to examine these utterances in detail in
order to extract their meaning. We can never emphasize enough the importance
that should be accorded to even the slightest details of the utterances to be ana
lyzed; but it is not enough to look, even very closely, at the data to miraculously
have access to their meaning. Indeed, the principles of availability and accountabil
ity reformulate in their own way the semiotic principle: what is "displayed" are "sig-
nifiers" (in French signifiants - "cues", "markers", "indicators" or "features"), which
orient us towards specific meanings (in French signfies). But these signifiers are no
more "transparent"^^ in a dialogue than in a monologue: describing always means
interpreting, with some degree of subjectivity and risk inherent to this process.
Interpreting, dialogical discourse is, in fact, even more complex than interpreting
monological discourse, as it involves reconstructing the interpretations made by
the different participants turn after turn.^^ The conversation analyst is an "arch-
interpreter": he has to hypothesize step by step about the interpretative hypotheses
of conversationalists who are involved in the dynamic process of collectively and
sometimes conflictually constructing interactions, "nie higher the number of par
ticipants and the more complex the participation framework, the more difficult
31. For an example of this confidence in the "transparency of understanding", see LeBaron and
Koschman 2003 (where they talk above all about gestures which accompany verbal material
- gestures which are more or less iconic, therefore effectively more or less "transparent", but the
authors do not even discuss this very fundamental point). This text also illustrates the fact that
what appears today to be a sort of denial of the semiotic process goes hand in hand with the dread
of "mentalism" and the obsession of "objective" analysis (like in the good old days of distribu-
tionalism and behaviorism).
32. The linear nature of interpretative work does not rule out the possibility of"retro-interpretation".
The case for an eclectic approach to discourse-in-interaction 93
the analyst s task will be. For example, when dealing with a TV talk show he has to
take into account not only the different participants in the studio but also the audi
ence, which is made up of "members" whose understanding is not made "available"
during the communicative event, and which is most heterogeneous. How these
diflferent participants interpret the interaction depends on their point of view (in
every sense of the word) on the interactional scene, as well as on their background
information, which cannot be completely reconstructed by the analyst.
To finish, let us remember that the process of collective discourse construction
is first made possible by the linguistic and more generally communicative compe
tence of the participants, that means their knowledge of all kinds of conventions
which are pre-existent to discourse (these rules that "generate the sequences", to
come back to Sacks quoted at the beginning of this article) and which are continu
ously activated and negotiated throughout - but no negotiation would be possible
without a prior set of rules (which can themselves be subject to negotiation). If the
progression of the exchange develops in such a tentative way, by incessant failures
and repairs, this relentless search for the correct word, the appropriate expression
and the right construction proves very clearly the existence of a system of rules
that have been internalized by the participants in the interaction, and to which
they do their best to conform. The analysis constantly refers (consciously or not,
explicitly or not) to these rules - grammatical rules, pragmatic rules such as those
which regulate speech acts, or lexical rules such as those on which activities of
"categorization" are founded: for example, a speaker can categorize his emotional
state via the term "angry" and its conventional meaning; if he says later that he is
"furious", we will be led to conclude that he "recategorizes" his state, even in the
absence of any marker such as "I am even furious" because we know that in Eng
lish, the terms "angry" and "furious" are not synonymous. In other words: dis
course analysts constantly make use of their linguistic knowledge; study of "lan
guage system" and study of "language uses and practices" are to be seen as
definitely complementary.
We cannot seriously claim that language reinvents itself in each moment of
discourse. What is problematic, however, is knowing to what extent the linguistic
system is affected by interaction and more particularly with regard to turn-taking
constraints (given that language use is far from being limited to interactive con
texts). This question is today under debate within CA (see for example Ochs,
Schegloff and Thompson 1996). Schegloff is cautious about this point (saying in
Prevignano and Thibault eds. 2003,168: "it seems to me too early to offer 'answers'
to these questions"), whereas others go so far as to claim that "language is interac
tionally structured", and that "linguistic resources [...] are shaped by interactional
principles" (Mondada 2000: 24). This point needs to be clarified, therefore, just as
the question as to what we should understand by "emergent" grammar (Hopper

94 Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni
1988, Streeck 1996) - we can wonder if this term really means anything different
than the traditional idea that the language system is nothing but a sedimentation
of language use,^? as Saussure or Benveniste already said:
C'est dans le discours [...] que la langue se forme et se configure. On pourrait dire,
calquant une formule classique: nihil est in lingua quod nonpriusfuerit in oratione.
(Benveniste 1966:131)^^
These sedimentation phenomena can only be dealt with from a diachronic point
of view. In one particular instance of discourse-in-interaction, what we can ob
serve is the collective and tentative construction of malleable utterances according
to a set of flexible rules:
Conversation is like playing tennis with a baU made of Krazy Putty that keeps
coming back over the net in a different shape. (David Lodge, Small World, Penguin
Books, 1985: 25)
References
Aston, Guy. 1988. "What's a public service encounter anyway?" In Negotiating Service, Guy
Aston (ed.), 25-43. Bologna: CLUEB.
Atkinson, J. Maxwell and Heritage, John (eds.). 1984. Structures of Social Action. Studies in Con
versation analysis. Cambridge: CUP.
Benveniste, Emile. 1966. Probltmes de linguistique ginerale. Paris: Gallimard.
Billig, Michael. 1999. "Critical Discourse Analysis and Cohversation Analysis: an exchange be
tween Michael Billig and Emanuel A. SchegldfF". Discourse & Society 10 (4): 543-582.
Bilmes, Jack. 1996. "Problems and resources in analyzing Northern Thai conversation for Eng
lish language readers". Journal of Pragmatics 26:171-188.
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