Introducing English Linguistics

part of an overlapping string
<,>
Short pause: one syllable in length
<,,>
Long pause: more than one syllable in length
<&> . . . 
Editorial comment: commentary by transcriber
<@> . . . 
Changed name or word: new name or word for 
reasons of privacy
 . . . 
Unclear word(s): transcriber cannot understand
what speaker has said
In their discussion of how individuals take turns speaking in conversa-
tions, Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson (1974: 700–1) describe a number of gen-
eral characteristics of face-to-face conversations. For instance, at any given
time in a conversation, generally “one party talks at a time”; two or more

---

people speaking simultaneously is “common” but overlaps tend to “be
brief.” Much of the structure of a spontaneous dialogue “is not fixed, but
varies”: there are no constraints on the topics discussed, for instance, or the
order of turns (who speaks when); speakers can say as little as they want (a
single word), or as much as they want (within the limits of what other speak-
ers will tolerate before they will insist on talking). But while variation exists
in any conversation, there tends to be more structure at the beginning and
end of a conversation than in the middle of a conversation, where conven-
tions for turn-taking tend to be the dominant organizational principle.
Many texts have clearly identifiable openings and closings. Although a
spontaneous dialogue does not require an opening – sometimes conversa-
tions just begin – many spontaneous conversations begin with a greeting:
 <#> DOOR_OPENING_AND_CLOSING
<$A> <#> Hi sweetie <,,>
<$B> <#> Hey <,>
(SBCSAE)
The initial annotation indicates that the text opens with someone enter-
ing a room and opening and closing a door. Speakers A and B then greet
each other. A greeting is a type of adjacency pair: a two-part utterance in
which the first part elicits the second part. All greetings have two parts,
in this case an initial Hi sweetie followed by Hey. As the beginning of a con-
versation continues, it is also common for speakers to ask how the other