When Words Fail: A Single Case Analysis

This paper reports on research into the social organization of citizen phone calls to emergency service agencies, focusing on the constitutive function of talk in the activity of “calling for help.” We explore how these occasions of talk can themselves become problematic events for members. Our report centers on the detailed analysis of a single, very fateful conversation, showing how a seemingly aberrant event can be understood in terms of the natural language practices involved in its orderly, joint production by the actual parties to the call. This single case analysis also reveals when and how words can “fail”: it is the sequential context within which words are produced and the interactional treatment they thereby receive that is crucial for whatever status and consequences they come to have.

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