This paper investigates the interactional organization of racism through participant production and uptake of explicit racial membership categories across a corpus of 50+ hours of audio/videorecorded interaction in three U.S. states. The discourse analysis examines one participant method for addressing "hearably racist" talk: echoing extreme versions of the problematic utterance to provide opportunities for repair work on inferable associations between membership categories and category-bound activities. Orienting to implicit inferential material as the source of trouble licenses participant account-seeking; treating the racism as a repairable downgrades its status as an overt instance of racism. KeywordsRacism, membership categorization, extreme case formulations, repair, conversation analysis,Communication is proffered as the solution to a variety of social problems. Parents are told to "talk to your kids about drugs" 1 (Craig, 2005). Youths are encouraged to "use your voice" and "speak up" 2 in bullying situations (e.g., Bhat, 2008). "Just say no" 3 is a common strategy urged for refusing drugs or unwanted sexual advances (Kitzinger & Frith, 1999). And advice about responding to racist comments not only suggests there is an obligation to reply 4 , but that replies should convey disapproval and question speakers' reasoning 5 . Yet these well-intended admonitions often fail to account for how people actually interact and the multiple (at times contradictory) functions that talk serves. For example, Kitzinger and Frith (1999) showed that refusals are complex conversational actions accomplished by many tactics besides saying "no";and van Dijk (1992) illustrated how talk about race makes racist identities salient. Studies such as these demonstrate that the societal ideal of directly addressing social problems can be at odds with how and why talk unfolds in particular ways.This paper takes a discourse analytic approach to interpretations of racism in ordinary conversation. Two difficulties in pinning down "racism"-for participants and analysts-include(1) explicitly racist stances are rarely espoused, indeed, potentially racist discourse is often delicately introduced; and (2) "calling out" or otherwise obviously disaligning may be dispreferred, sanctionable, or face-threatening (e.g., van Dijk, 1992; Stokoe, 2015 [this issue];Whitehead, 2009; Whitehead, 2015 [this issue]). This paper analyzes examples in which participants explicitly name a racial category, associate it with a negatively-assessed activity, and they or their interlocutors orient to that as problematic.Drawing on conversation analytic membership categorization analysis (Stokoe, 2012;Bushnell, 2014) and grounded practical theory (Craig & Tracy, 1995), the analysis describes a practice deployed in response to naturally-occurring possibly-racist talk in recordings of private 4 face-to-face conversations. The practice involves jokingly taking the hearably racist utterance seriously/literally and reformulating it back to the speaker in such a way ...

This article introduces the special issue on questions, questioning, and institutional practices. We begin by considering how questioning as a discursive practice is a central vehicle for constructing social worlds and reflecting existing ones. Then we describe the different ways questions and question(ing) have been defined, typologized, and critiqued, in general and within seven institutions including policing, the courts, medicine, therapy, research interviews, education, and mediated political exchanges. The introduction concludes with a preview of the articles in the special issue. K E Y W O R D S : identity-work, institutional discourse, question, questioningThe avowal and imputation of motives is concomitant with the speech form known as the 'question'. (Mills, 1940: 904) Asking a question is not an innocent thing to do. (Steensig and Drew, 2008: 7) The most general thing we can say about a question is that it compels, requires, may even demand a response. (Goody, 1978: 23)

In this paper, a systematic study is provided of the chemical environment inside free volume holes in a series of halogenated polystyrenes (p-position), −[CH2CH C6H5X] n – (X = F, Cl, Br, I), by using positron annihilation spectroscopy. In such polymers it was determined that the chemical environment is the major effect on Doppler broadening of two 511 keV γ photons from positron–electron annihilation. Doppler broadening energy spectroscopy (DBES) and positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy (PALS) were combined in a novel approach to study the chemical environment in a polymer system. A highly linear relationship between Doppler broadenings caused by electron kinetic energies of valence electrons and the ionization potentials of halogen elements was obtained, as well as a similar correlation with the results from ab initio molecular orbital (MO) calculations for monohalogenobenzenes, C6H5X (X = F, Cl, Br, I). The results demonstrate that the combination of DBES and PALS may provide an effective way to study the chemical environment inside free volume holes in polymers.

This paper examines how participants in face-to-face conversation employ mobile phones as a resource for social action. We focus on what we call mobile-supported sharing activities, in which participants use a mobile phone to share text or images with others by voicing text aloud from their mobile or providing others with visual access to the device’s display screen. Drawing from naturalistic video recordings, we focus on how mobile-supported sharing activities invite assessments by providing access to an object that is not locally accessible to the participants. Such practices make relevant co-participants’ assessment of these objects and allow for different forms of co-participation across sequence types. We additionally examine how the organization of assessments during these sharing activities displays sensitivity to preference structure. The analysis illustrates the relevance of embodiment, local objects, and new communicative technologies to the production of action in co-present interaction. Data are in American English.

This article explores the distribution and use of a relatively new grammatical format in English, it’s like + enactment. We propose that it’s like utterances are used to enact thoughts, feelings and attitudes which are internal and affect-laden assessments of a prior utterance or event, produced as assessments that anyone in the same situation might have had. As such they tend to occur within stories, typically during the closing of a story. The enactments are often ‘response cries’ (Goffman, 1978) such as oh, mm, wow, and man. Because of the highly indexical nature of this grammatical format, it represents a fascinating site for participants to work out a ‘world known in common’ (Goodwin, personal communication).

This paper analyzes gift-exchange occasions as both a sequentially organized activity, and as a ritual practice imbued with social and cultural meaning. Specifically, the paper focuses on the role of assessments in gifting sequences, the distribution of assessments across participants, and some of the possible troubles which can arise in doing assessments of gifts based on discourse analysis of 44 gifting situations in one family's 30 home videos spanning 13 years. I argue that participants encounter difficulties in the process of proffering assessments of gifts, and that such troubles revolve around the dilemma of constructing positive assessments as authentically given.The analysis discusses the organization of action in gifting occasions, outlines the expectations and dilemmas involved in doing assessments of gifts, and presents participants' discursive practices for managing potential troubles in gift assessment. Key wordsGifting, discourse analysis, ritual, morality, assessments, authenticity, alignment, communication dilemmas Assessments in Gifting 3Bio note: Jessica S. Robles (PhD, University of Colorado at Boulder) is a lecturer at the University of New Hampshire. Her research looks at discursive and embodied communicative practices, particularly with regard to morality, trouble and conflict, in various institutional, interpersonal, and cultural contexts. Assessments in Gifting 4 Troubles with assessments in gifting occasionsThe giving and receiving of gifts is a practice which is both ordinary and special, one with its own cultural, social, and relational expectations. Occasions for gift exchange are organized and orderly, yet fraught with assumptions and face demands. This paper analyzes giftexchange occasions as a sequentially organized activity and as a ritual practice imbued with social and cultural meaning. The paper focuses on the role of assessments in gifting sequences, the distribution of assessments across participants, and some of the possible troubles which can arise in doing assessments of gifts. Based on discourse analysis of 44 gifting situations in a collection of one family's 30 home videos spanning 13 years, I argue that gift recipients, givers and onlookers encounter difficulties in the process of proffering assessments of gifts. These include interactional dilemmas, involving choices in what to say and how to say it, as well as sequential concerns with the placement and production of assessments. The care with which assessments are collaboratively constructed, and the trouble participants may confront doing so, indicate an ideal of authenticity which underlies gifting occasions and which is at odds with the social expectation that gifts must be assessed positively.The next section covers the site of the gift-exchange occasion as a ritual practice and a sequentially organized activity, then reviews assessment as central to gifting. The section thereafter outlines the methodological approach, then presents the analysis of examples from 44 giftings, beginning with the sequential...

This article presents a qualitative investigation of communication practices interactants use to manage mobile phone activity while they are engaged in a copresent conversation. Drawing from conversation analysis and a collection of naturalistic video recordings, our study of mobile phone use in situ focuses on how participants orient to the mobile text summons, the audible chimes or vibrations that indicate the receipt of a text message (or short message service [SMS]). In these moments, interactants must simultaneously manage attending to their phone and the copresent conversation. Our analysis shows how people may use nonverbal and verbal techniques to attend to their mobile phone based on their identity respective to the copresent activity. The study contributes to scholarly understandings of technology use, multitasking, and the management of attention in interpersonal communication.

No abstract