Progressivity
| Encyclopedia of Terminology for CA and IL: Progressivity | |
|---|---|
| Author(s): | Elliott M. Hoey (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3220-8119) & Chase Wesley Raymond (University of Colorado, Boulder) (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4353-7345) |
| To cite: | Hoey, Elliott M. & Raymond, Chase Wesley (2025). Progressivity. In Alexandra Gubina, Elliott M. Hoey & Chase Wesley Raymond (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Terminology for Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics. International Society for Conversation Analysis (ISCA). DOI: [ ] |
Progressivity is the fundamental feature of social interaction that captures how every bit of conduct is produced and recognized by reference to how it embodies (or fails to embody) some ‘next’ component of the unfolding interaction. It is an organizationally and structurally pervasive feature, operating at all times and at multiple levels of granularity. As Schegloff (2007) has described it:
In articulating a turn-constructional unit, each element – each word, for example – should come next after the one before; in fact, at a smaller level of granularity, each syllable – indeed, each sound – should come next after the one before it. So also with the several turn-constructional units that compose a multi-unit turn; so also with the consecutive turns that compose a spate of talk; so also with the turns that compose a sequence, etc. Moving from some element to a hearably-next-one with nothing intervening is the embodiment of, and the measure of, progressivity. Should something intervene between some element and what is hearable as a/the next one due – should something violate or interfere with their contiguity, whether next sound, next word, or next turn – it will be heard as qualifying the progressivity of the talk, and will be examined for its import, for what understanding should be accorded it (Schegloff, 2007: 15–16).
Early development of the concept may be traced to Sacks (1987 [1973]), who observed that “if an agreeing answer occurs, it pretty damn well occurs contiguously, whereas if a disagreeing answer occurs, it may well be pushed rather deep in to the turn that it occupies” (58). Participants are not limited to progress within a sequence, however; they also orient to the progressive construction of a turn. Schegloff (1979) documented how a speaker’s multiple attempts at same-turn self-repair, for the same repairable, result in successively longer repair solutions each time (see also Schegloff 2013). Recent work has underscored how such same-turn operations are crucial to an understanding of social action, as speakers are willing to sacrifice the progressive realization of the action in order to reconfigure aspects of its design (Drew 2013; Drew et al. 2013). The domain of repair as a whole—including both self- and other-repair operations—is often conceptualized as addressing moments where progressivity is “halted” (e.g., Clift 2016: 232), “frozen” (Manrique 2016: 27), “stopped” (e.g., Bolden 2011: 241), “suspended” (e.g., Kitzinger 2013: 231), or even “broken” (e.g., Lerner 2004: 252). These metaphors aim to reflect the fact that some action or sequence of action is temporarily ‘on hold’ while the “priority activity” of addressing a problem of speaking, hearing, or understanding takes place (Schegloff et al. 1977: 720), after which progressivity will reengage as the on-hold action/sequence resumes.
Early works suggested that progressivity encompassed multiple levels of granularity and operated across organizations of practice (Schegloff 1979: 268fn). Subsequent research has been able to document the reach of progressivity into the organization of interaction. At the level of turn-construction, Lerner (1996) demonstrated how the impedance of TCU progressivity provides unprojected opportunities for turn-completion by other (see also Raymond, Robinson & Bolden 2026). At the level of sequence organization, Stivers and Robinson (2006) highlighted a preference for progressivity in multiparty interactions: after information-seeking questions, if the selected next speaker displays trouble in responding, a non-selected party may self-select to give a response (cf. Sacks, et al., 1974). In prioritizing a ‘response at all’ over a ‘response from the selected next speaker’, the authors argue for a general orientation to sequence and activity progression. This generic maximization of progressivity, however, may be at odds with intersubjectivity. In the context of troubles in recognitional person reference, Heritage (2007) suggested an inverse relationship whereby absolute intersubjective security comes at the expense of turn- and sequence progressivity, and vice versa. Participants may therefore on occasion orient to progressivity as a superordinate preference, such that an attempt to secure recognition of a referent (Sacks & Schegloff 2007 [1979]) can be abandoned in favor of moving on with the action, sequence, and activity at hand. This is seen in the following Extract (1) in which, upon failing to secure an understanding of who Doctor Nelson is—either by name (line 5) or by description (line 7)—Lottie moves to a non-recognitional reference form in line 9 in the service of progressing her response to Emma’s line 2.
(1) [NB IV:14:10] (Heritage 2007) 01 Lot: So I’m goin up uh hhh Mondee too:. An’ uh, 02 Emm: W-w uh how [long is ‘e gonna be gone. 03 Lot: [Yihknow. 04 Lot: hhhh God I don’know, he doesn’ know either I mean, hhh if it- 05 -> uh, we talk’tuh Doctor Nelson 06 -> yihknow this, s-doct- 07 -> yihknow from uh Glendale? 08 -> (0.2) 09 Lot: -> This friend’v a:rs,= 10 Emm: =Mmhm,
Given the lack of uptake from Emma (lines 6-8), Lottie shifts to a non-recognitional “This friend’v a:rs,” in line 9, which her interlocutor immediately receipts with a latched continuer, and the response-in-progress moves onward.
More recent examinations of progressivity have extended the notion to visible conduct and multiactivity (Haddington et al. 2014), bringing it into closer dialogue with matters of temporality. Research on early responses (Deppermann, et al. 2021), for instance, has illustrated the importance of anticipation and projection (see also Mondada 2006). Indeed, in a study of the repair of manual action, Lerner and Raymond (2021) argue that projection stands in a conjoint relationship with progressivity, the two forming intertwined fundamental features of interaction:
[A]s actions are launched in their sequential environment, they can be recognized as a possible particular action-in-progress and thus project what more there is to come as the action develops. Then as the action progresses, its further development is inspected to see if it is the progressive realization of the projected action, a change in that action or its abandonment. Finally, this progressive realization of the action-so-far then informs its further projection (as continuing the action or not). These conjoined features of structural projection and progressive realization can be understood as furnishing a local, situated and directionally organized normative structure of action accountability (Lerner & Raymond 2021: 279–280, emphasis original).
In studies of multiactivity, research has examined the temporal orders by which concurrently relevant activities are brought off in parallel, embedded, or exclusive manners (Mondada 2014). Members’ practices for things such as suspending, reordering, resuming, and interleaving various courses of action (e.g., Kamunen 2019; Sutinen 2014) demonstrate their practical grasp of progressivity, not only of talk but also of other conduct that is done in coordination with others. This includes explicit verbalizations of, e.g., halting the progressive development of some activity (“stop”, “hang on”; Keisanen et al. 2014) as well as bodily-visual displays of body torque (Schegloff 1998) to relatively stable and relatively fleeting engagements.
As greater research attention is paid to the multimodal nature of progressivity, so too must there be an increased focus on its multidimensional nature. For instance, in light of orientations to the progressive realization of both the emergent turn/action and the emergent sequence of which it is a part, under what conditions might speakers sacrifice the progressivity of one in favor of that of the other? Same-turn self-repair, for example, may indeed retard the progressivity of the emergent turn/action, as described above, but this may in fact promote progressivity at the level of the sequence (see Raymond & Gill 2025; Svennevig 2010, 2018) or the overarching practical activity (see Lee 2011)—e.g., by staving off the need for an other-initiation of repair down the line. More research is needed to explore these multimodal, multidimensional, and layered aspects of progressivity, and how participants demonstrably orient to them in moment-by-moment interaction.
Additional Related Entries:
Cited References:
Bolden, G. B. (2011). On the Organization of Repair in Multiperson Conversation: The Case of “Other”-Selection in Other-Initiated Repair Sequences. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 44(3):237-262.
Clift, R. (2016). Conversation Analysis. Cambridge University Press.
Deppermann, A., Mondada, L., & Doehler, S. P. (2021). Early responses: An introduction. Discourse Processes, 58(4), 293-307.
Drew, P. (2013). Turn Design. In Jack Sidnell & Tanya Stivers (Eds.), The Handbook of Conversation Analysis (pp. 131-149). Wiley-Blackwell.
Drew, P., Walker, T., & Ogden, R. (2013). Self-repair and action construction. In Makoto Hayashi, Geoffrey Raymond, & Jack Sidnell (Eds.), Conversational repair and human understanding (pp. 71-94). Cambridge University Press.
Haddington, P., Keisanen, T., Mondada, L., & Nevile, M. (2014). Multiactivity in Social Interaction: Beyond Multitasking. John Benjamins.
Heritage, J. (2007). Intersubjectivity and progressivity in references to persons (and places). In N.J. Enfield & Tanya Stivers (Eds.), Person Reference in Interaction: Linguistic, Cultural and Social Perspectives (pp. 255-280). Cambridge University Press.
Kamunen, A. (2019). How to Disengage: Suspension, Body Torque, and Repair. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 52(4), 406–426.
Keisanen, T., Rauniomaa, M., & Haddington, P. (2014). Suspending action. In Haddington, P., Keisanen, T., Mondada, L., & Nevile, M. (Eds.), Multiactivity in Social Interaction: Beyond Multitasking (pp. 109-133). John Benjamins.
Kitzinger, C. (2013). Repair. In Jack Sidnell & Tanya Stivers (Eds.), The Handbook of Conversation Analysis (pp. 229-256). Wiley-Blackwell.
Lee, S.-H. (2011). Responding at a higher level: Activity progressivity in calls for service. Journal of Pragmatics, 43, 904–917.
Lerner, G. H. (1996). On the ‘semi-permeable’ character of grammatical units in conversation: conditional entry into the turn-space of another speaker. In Elinor Ochs, Emanuel A. Schegloff, & Sandy Thompson (Eds.), Interaction and Grammar (pp. 238-276). Cambridge University Press.
Lerner, G H. (2004). Collaborative turn sequences. In Gene Lerner (Ed.), Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation (pp. 225-256). John Benjamins.
Lerner, G. H., & Raymond, G. (2021). Body trouble: Some sources of difficulty in the progressive realization of manual action. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 54(3), 277-298.
Manrique, E. (2016). Other-initiated repair in Argentine sign language. Open Linguistics, 2(1).
Mondada, L. (2006). Participants’ online analysis and multimodal practices: projecting the end of the turn and the closing of the sequence. Discourse Studies, 8(1), 117-129.
Mondada, L. (2014). Pointing, talk, and the bodies: Reference and joint attention as embodied interactional achievements. In M. Seyfeddinipur & M. Gullberg (Eds.), From Gesture in Conversation to Visible Action as Utterance: Essays in Honor of Adam Kendon (pp. 95–124). John Benjamins.
Raymond, C. W., & Gill, V. T. (2025). Pre-emptive repair of potential misunderstandings: Prospective procedures for managing intersubjectivity and steering social action. American Sociological Review, 90(4): 690-725.
Raymond, C. W., Robinson, J. D., & Bolden, G. B. (2026). Turn-taking in Social Interaction. Cambridge University Press.
Sacks, H. (1987 [1973]). On the Preferences for Agreement and Contiguity in Sequences in Conversation. In Graham Button & John R.E. Lee (Eds.), Talk and Social Organisation (pp. 54-69). Multilingual Matters.
Sacks, H, & Schegloff, E. A. (2007 [1979]). Two Preferences in the Organization of Reference to Persons and Their Interaction. In N.J. Enfield & Tanya Stivers (Eds.), Person Reference in Interaction: Linguistic, Cultural and Social Perspectives (pp. 23-28). Cambridge University Press.
Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. A., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation. Language, 50:696-735.
Schegloff, E. A. (1979). The Relevance of Repair for Syntax-for-Conversation. In Talmy Givon (Ed.), Syntax and Semantics 12: Discourse and Syntax (pp. 261-288). Academic Press.
Schegloff, E. A. (2007). Sequence organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis, Volume 1. Cambridge University Press.
Schegloff, E. A. (2013). Ten operations in self-initiated, same-turn repair. In Makoto Hayashi, Geoffrey Raymond, & Jack Sidnell (Eds.), Conversational repair and human understanding (pp. 41-70). Cambridge Unviersity Press.
Schegloff, E. A., Jefferson, G., & Sacks, H. (1977). The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language, 53:361-382.
Stivers, T., & Robinson, J. D. (2006). A preference for progressivity in interaction. Language in Society, 35(3):367-392.
Sutinen, M. (2014). Negotiating favorable conditions for resuming suspended activities. In Haddington, P., Keisanen, T., Mondada, L., & Nevile, M. (Eds.), Multiactivity in Social Interaction: Beyond Multitasking (pp. 137-165). John Benjamins.
Svennevig, J. (2010). Pre-empting reference problems in conversation. Language in Society 39(2):173-202.
Svennevig, J. (2018). Decomposing turns to enhance understanding by L2 speakers. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 51(4):398-416.
Additional References:
Mondada, L. (2007). Multimodal resources for turn-taking: Pointing and the emergence of possible next speakers. Discourse Studies, 9(2), 194-225.
Deppermann, A., Schmitt, R., & Mondada, L. (2010). Agenda and emergence: Contingent and planned activities in a meeting. Journal of Pragmatics, 42(6), 1700-1718.
