Structures of Social Action: Pursuing a response

Introduction If a speaker performs an action that solicits a response, it may or may not succeed. Recipients may not hear the talk or understand it. They may ignore it and continue to be involved elsewhere or even initiate other actions. They may hear and understand the talk but withhold their responses. If a recipient does not give a coherent response, the speaker routinely sees the recipient's behavior as manifesting some problem and deals with it. He or she may abandon the attempt to get a response, may infer the recipient's response but let it remain unarticulated, or may pursue an articulated response. This chapter examines some procedures through which speakers pursue responses to their assertions. If a speaker makes an assertion to a recipient who is knowledgeable on the matter, he or she may expect the recipient to confirm (or disconfirm) the assertion. The recipient may directly address the prior talk, for example, confirm, elaborate on, challenge, query, or disconfirm the assertion. On the other hand, he or she may look blank or questioning, or may make hesitating noises such as Uhs, Urns, and Wells. The data for the study consist of fragments of talk in which a speaker fails to get a coherent confirmation or disconfirmation from the recipient and pursues the matter further. If a recipient fails to give a coherent response, his or her behavior is accountable: The speaker makes sense of it in terms of the recipient having some problem in responding.