Where cultures meet: Ritual code and organizational boundary management

This and that, here and there: Deictic elements in telephone openings

“…Such openings differ from normal opening phases in face-to-face encounters (see Knuf 1989Knuf /90, 1990Knuf and Schmitz 1980) in that they require what Schegloff (1986) in his canonical set of entities refers to as identification or recognition sequences. In face-to-face communication, the coorientation of interactors by perception and subtle nonverbal cues (Kendon and Ferber 1973;Knuf and Schmitz 1980) in what we might call the pre-encounter 1 is followed in the actual encounter by an opening phase normally consisting of optional pre-greetings, a highly ritualized exchange of complementary salutation formulas, less ritualized pairs of inquiries about the mutual well-being of the interactors and some relevant third parties, and then the initiation of the first conversational topic, defining the task at hand (Knuf and Schmitz 1980).…”

“…We can expect, then, a specifically great need at the beginning of a telephone conversation to create a high degree of order and certainty early in the interaction, so that the encounter may establish itself cooperatively. Such certainty is usually accomplished through the ritualization of behavior, i.e., through constraints on behavioral choices that make exchanges highly predictable (Knuf 1989(Knuf /1990(Knuf , 1993a(Knuf , 1993b. Schegloff's (1986) canonical model describes such a set of constraints.…”

“…'This is' also postpones the actual identification for a moment, giving R time to focus on, and commit to, the interaction before important information is revealed. It is hence a ritualized phrase (Knuf, 1989(Knuf, /90, 1993a(Knuf, , 1993bKnuf and Schmitz, 1980) that inscribes the conversation as one between named individuals that will take place at a certain level of formality and will deal with contents of concern to these individuals, Brought to you by | University of Iowa Libraries Authenticated Download Date | 6/7/15 12:33 PM primarily to C, and tells R that no prank or nuisance call is taking place. Absence of this ritualized phrase, unless sanctioned by familiarity or special circumstances of the call, endangers the successful telephone opening, as we see, for example, in Hopper's transcript #11 (1989a: 188), which evolves in highly unforeseeable ways that require numerous repairs.…”

The Embodied Turn in Research on Language and Social Interaction

“…(Jefferson, 2004, p. 15, original emphasis) The close analysis of naturally occurring social interaction, emerging in real time as produced, understood, and organized by participants themselves, has relied on detailed written transcriptions from audio and, increasingly, video recordings. Although some earlier and ethnographically oriented studies consider embodiment in interaction from observations, field notes, and even interviews (Brown & Ragan, 1987;Knuf, 1989;Ray, 1987), and some authors favor mixing these methods with transcriptions (Blum-Kulka, 1994;Griswold, 2007;Reynolds, 2007), transcriptions have remained the core analytic tool. Bradac (1999, p. 15) described the approach of CA studies "as structure preserving in that every detail of interaction is recorded and examined," but actually CA researchers acknowledge that they cannot possibly record and examine "every detail."…”

Code-Switched Greeting by Bilingual Saudi-American Subject: A Case Study

“…Greeting also serves a great deal in acknowledging another person's presence through a linguistic/verbal form of exchange (Rasmussen, Kristiansen, & Andersen, 2019). Thus, greeting contains certain rules and boundaries of engagement in human interaction, which shape the notion of greeting, though it differs among different cultures (Knuf, 1989). Human greeting may include facial expressions, gestures, verbal movement, and certain utterances-with regard to cultural norms and traditions (Trovato et al, 2015).…”