Adjacency pairs

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An adjacency pair, used in conversational analysis, is a pair of conversational turns by two different speakers such that the production of the first turn (called a first-pair part) makes a response (a second-pair part) of a particular kind relevant. For example, a question, such as "what's your name?", requires the addressee to provide an answer in the next conversational turn. A failure to give an immediate response is noticeable and accountable. Many actions in conversation are accomplished through adjacency pair sequences, for example:

• offer-acceptance/rejection
• greeting-greeting
• complaint-excuse/remedy
• request-acceptance/denial

[edit] External links

• Adjacency pairs with (dis)preferred seconds