Fox2015
| Fox2015 | |
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| BibType | ARTICLE |
| Key | Fox2015 |
| Author(s) | Barbara A. Fox |
| Title | On the notion of pre-request |
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| Tag(s) | EMCA, Sequence organization, Requests |
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| Year | 2015 |
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| Journal | Discourse Studies |
| Volume | 17 |
| Number | 1 |
| Pages | 41-63 |
| URL | Link |
| DOI | 10.1177/1461445614557762 |
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Abstract
In early work within Conversation Analysis, utterances within a request sequence which inquire regarding some of the preconditions of granting the request (such as having the item or having the ability to perform the action) are analyzed as pre-requests. Levinson, in an extended discussion of the organization of pre-requests and request sequences, treats utterances such as ‘do you have X?’, ‘can I have X?’ or ‘can you X for me?’ as inquiring about preconditions that could prevent the recipient from granting the request. By checking on preconditions, the requester works to avoid producing a request which will be declined, which is a dispreferred action. In other words, pre-requests, like other pre-sequences, function to project that another action will be produced if a favorable response is given; if not, that projected action may not be produced. In this view, then, they work to maintain the preference organization. This study uses requesting in service encounters to re-examine the evidence for an analysis of such utterances as pre-requests and finds that alternative analyses are more suited in these requesting activities.
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