INTRODUCTION
When Schegloff & Sacks 1973 first
discovered a continuing state of incipient talk, they were examining the
talk-in-interaction of copresent parties – travelers seated next to
each other on an airplane, or family members gathered around their
dining-room table. Schegloff & Sacks 1973
described a continuing state of incipient talk as consisting of two
elements: a form of overall structural organization of conversation, and
an interactional circumstance. Structurally, in a continuing state of
incipient talk, turn-by-turn talk occurs, then lapses, then occurs again.
Unlike single, bounded face-to-face encounters, speakers in an incipient
state of talk do not use greetings to initiate talk, nor do they issue
goodbyes prior to a lapse in talk. In a continuing state of incipient
talk, once talk has been engaged, further turn-by-turn talk is relevant
and may be initiated at any time. The interactional circumstance includes
the participants' copresence and other contingencies for the
parties' actions that are independent of the overall structural
organization of the participants' talk. For example, contingencies
such as a plane's arrival at its destination may cause the continuing
state of incipient talk to cease for adjacent passengers, or the
configuration of a family's home setting may offer particular
opportunities for talk to occur. However, even in the absence of other
contingencies, copresence – people's ability to observe and
experience the actions of others who are also able to observe and
experience them – affects people's actions (Goffman 1963). This mutual monitoring in copresence
“renders persons uniquely accessible, available, and subject to one
another” (Goffman 1963:22). People manage
this availability by engaging in either unfocused or focused interaction.
Unfocused interaction refers to the management of mere copresence, such as
a momentary glance toward a passerby. Focused interaction occurs when
“persons gather close together and openly cooperate to sustain a
single focus of attention, typically by taking turns at talking”
(Goffman 1963:24).
Technological developments have enabled some of the mutual
“accessibility” and “availability” characteristic
of copresence to be supported remotely. Since the 1870s, the invention of
the telephone has enabled people virtually to gather closely and engage in
conversational interaction. A hundred years later, mobile telephones gave
people the potential ability to reach each other anytime, anywhere. And
now, with the widespread use of push-to-talk (PTT) mobile radios which
operate like long-range walkie-talkies, people are incipiently connected
at the push of a button. How is this technology-enabled, remote state of
incipient talk organized? How is turn-by-turn talk engaged, sustained and
disengaged? This article examines the structural organization of
conversational interaction via PTT mobile radios and shows that the
participants of this study orient to this technology-mediated
communication as a remote continuing state of incipient talk.
TECHNOLOGY-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION
The body of literature on conversation analytic research describes how
copresent talk-in-interaction is organized and, comparatively, how a
communication technology's capabilities constrain the ways
participants organize their remote talk-in-interaction. In copresence, to
establish mutually ratified participation, speakers use an array of vocal
and nonvocal actions to solicit and engage the attention of a desired
recipient; for example, eye gaze is a particularly important feature of an
attending recipient, and speakers work to maintain this gaze throughout
the course of one's turn-at-talk (Goodwin 1979, 1981). The mutual
visibility of copresent parties is a resource for participants to show
that they are available to receive talk or temporarily unavailable because
of involvement in another activity. Moreover, in copresence, talk, in the
form of “outlouds” or talk for oneself, can show one's
availability for talk-in-interaction and provide a resource for
overhearing members to initiate reengagement (Szymanski
1999).
Face-to-face conversational practices are adapted in several ways to
establish mutually ratified participation via the telephone (Schegloff
1968, 1972, 1986; Whalen & Zimmerman
1987; Zimmerman 1992; Hopper 1992; Hutchby 2001).
Schegloff (1986:116) describes how the lack of a
visual channel on the telephone results in opening phases that consist of
one or more of the following sequences: summons-answer,
identification/recognition, greetings, and initial inquiries or
“how-are-yous.” Speakers connect with, identify, greet, make
initial inquiries about each other, and exchange how-are-yous in order to
place the call in the anchor position for introduction of a first topic
(Schegloff 1986).
Technologically, PTT mobile radio differs most dramatically from
conventional telephony in the type of channel that connects its users.
Conventional telephony is full-duplex,1
The
meanings of “full-duplex” and “half-duplex” given
here are those used in the telecommunications industry. Confusingly,
“half-duplex” has a very different meaning for conventional
radio operators (e.g., in the “ham” radio community); for
consistency, we adopt the telecommunications usage throughout.
transmitting audio which mimics a blind face-to-face conversation; all
participants' talk as well as the sounds in their immediate
surroundings are heard. PTT mobile radio is a half-duplex system which
allows only one user access to the channel and transmits only that
user's audio; recipients are exclusively designated as listeners
because their audio and environmental sounds cannot be heard by the
other(s) (see
Figure 1). So even with a channel
that can be incipiently connected, PTT mobile radio limits information
transmission and prevents others from determining, for example, whether
another person is available. This technological affordance, called
“plausible deniability” in the research literature on the
text-based instant messaging communication medium (
Nardi, Whittaker & Bradner 2000), offers
recipients flexibility in responding to incoming messages; ignoring or
delaying a response is less accountable because the initiating party has
no way of knowing for sure whether an intended recipient actually received
the message.
Speech over full-duplex and half-duplex channels
Conversational interaction via PTT mobile radio is characterized by
two fundamental characteristics. First, because the channel is
half-duplex, the current speaker has complete control over the
conversational floor and autocratically selects when to end his or her
turn-at-talk. Listeners do not have the opportunity to use continuers to
show that they are attending to the speaker or to interrupt the speaker at
the moment when a disagreement or misunderstanding occurs. The floor is
visibly available to recipients by an “over” beep which
signals the current speaker's surrender of the channel. Second,
because speakers must operate the push-to-talk mechanism, each
turn-at-talk is followed by a technologically imposed silence, usually
less than 3 seconds long. These silences contribute to the way in which
speakers organize their conversational interaction both within a
conversational exchange and across exchanges.
Excerpt (1) is a representative conversational exchange over PTT
mobile radios. Alexis is searching for a place that sells coconut rum
cheesecake. Prior to this, Mimi and Alexis had a conversational exchange
to discuss the places that might carry the cake, and then Alexis called
one of those proposed bakeries, using a landline telephone. The
transcription conventions are Jefferson's as outlined in the Appendix
and described in Atkinson & Heritage (1984:ix–xvi). Talk that is audible over the PTT
mobile radio channel is highlighted in boldface. Comments in italic
indicate short, distinct beeping sounds generated by the user's
handset. For example, there are separate beeps for a new incoming
connection (“new connection”) which is audible by the
initiator and recipient, for the start of transmission
(“connect”) which is audible only to the initiator, and for
the end of transmission (“over”) which is audible only to the
recipient(s).
Alexis, instead of summoning Mimi in an opening sequence, initiates
the conversation by launching into a story about how the store does not
carry the desired cake. Similarly, instead of initiating a closing
sequence to end the exchange, Alexis dials the next store on her list with
her landline telephone as Mimi is responding to her telling over the
mobile radio. After 8 seconds of silence, Mimi produces another turn about
how to find the dessert. Mimi's last two turn construction units,
I wonder … in lines 22–24 and I bet
… in lines 27–28, are syntactically constructed as if
she were thinking out loud; although she deliberately broadcasts them to
Alexis, they do not strongly implicate a response, unlike her earlier
first pair part question. Talk lapses as Alexis speaks on the phone and
Mimi does not produce another turn-at-talk.
The conversational practices highlighted in the discussion of (1)
differ from those reported in conversation analytic studies of
conventional two-way radio communication (as well as from those of
telephone conversation). This is largely a result of the settings in which
such studies have taken place. There have been a number of empirical
studies of the use of conventional two-way radios outside the workplace
– for example, Gibbon's (1981)
functional variation analysis of amateur radio language, Orr's (1995) ethnographic study of handheld radio use by
mobile service technicians, Strub's (1997)
ethnographic study of handheld radio use by teens at a weekend-long rock
concert, and Bogdan's (2003) ethnographic
study of the amateur radio community. However, studies applying
conversation analytic methods have almost exclusively been in the context
of highly task-oriented workplace communication, usually in a very
structured institutional setting – for instance, Mellinger's
(1992) work on paramedic/emergency room
communication, Goodwin & Goodwin's (1996) work in airport ground operations centers, Luff
& Heath's (2002) work in railway
control stations, and Nevile's (2004) work
in commercial aircraft cockpits. The organization of the very spontaneous
and sociable interactions described here was often quite different from
that predominating in more focused, task-oriented settings. As we shall
see, even the organization of sociable interaction over maritime two-way
radio (Sanders 2003) has notable
differences.
METHODS & APPARATUS
The data for this study were collected to inform the design of a new
mobile voice communication system (described in Aoki et
al. 2003 and Woodruff & Aoki 2004)
aimed at supporting communication within established social groups,
especially those comprised of young adults. To gain access to this target
demographic, a relative of one of the authors who was attending an
American university served as our liaison with her undergraduate-aged
established social group. The author's relative, Mimi,2
All names are pseudonyms.
recruited six
people from her close social network to participate in the study;
including Mimi and the author, a total of eight people participated. The
seven undergraduate students were all 20 or 21 years of age and had known
each other for several years and socialized frequently. Four of the
participants (Tracy, Mimi, Stan, and Randy) lived together in a rented
house. Two additional participants (Rianne and Gaby) rented an apartment
together. Mimi and Randy were girlfriend and boyfriend.
Each of the eight participants was given the use of a PTT mobile radio
for one week. They received no explicit directions except that they were
to use (or not use) the radios as they saw fit. Before the study began,
participants received a questionnaire on demographics and their use of
communication technology, and semi-structured interviews were conducted
before, during, and after the study.3
In the pre-study
questionnaire, the participants reported that they very frequently used
cellular telephones.
The mobile radios were Motorola i1000 phones, rented from a wireless
service reseller.4
PTT mobile radio is a
feature supported by certain telecommunications service providers,
generally (but not exclusively) using specialized mobile telephone
handsets. The PTT mobile radio traffic is carried on what is essentially
an enhanced cellular telephone network. Hence, users can communicate with
each other at arbitrary physical distances, so long as they are each
within an area covered by the service provider's cellular
network.
They measured 114 mm × 56 mm × 30 mm (4.5
× 2.2 × 1.2 inches) and weighed 170 grams (6 ounces). Each
participant was given a phone and a single-earphone headset with a boom
microphone; the phone could operate as a speakerphone (like a conventional
handheld radio), as a telephone handset, or using the headset.
Participants predominantly used the speakerphone method (
Figure 2). To control costs, all features except
mobile radio service were disabled; for example, the phones could not be
used to place conventional telephone calls (which are extremely expensive
on rental phones). However, participants had unlimited use of the mobile
radio service and were free to carry and use any other communication
technologies they wished (as demonstrated by Alexis's use of a
landline telephone in ex. 1).
Speakerphone method of PTT mobile radio use.
This particular mobile radio service provides private
connections between individuals. The user employs a push-to-talk
protocol to establish the connection and speak to another user.
Specifically, if person A wishes to say something to person B, A selects
B's name from a “phonebook” menu and holds down a button
to initiate a connection. After a brief delay (variable, but generally
under 1 second), a “go ahead” beep is heard by A and a
“new connection” beep is heard by B, and speech can be
transmitted. B hears A's speech as it is produced, with a network
delay identical to that of a mobile phone call. When A releases the
button, the connection ceases and the transmission stops; the recipient,
B, is alerted to this disconnection by an “over” beep. After
an initial connection has been made, either user may simply push the
button on her radio to initiate a next connection; a “previous
call” button reselects the last person who transmitted. After 8
seconds have passed without a connection between users, the radios reset
and speakers must use the phonebook menu to select a new addressee. Unlike
conventional radio, the mobile radio system technologically ensures that
only one user speaks at a time.5
In
conventional radio, half-duplex operation is a matter of established
operator practice; it is technically possible for multiple conventional
radios to transmit at the same time on the same frequency, but this
interferes with intelligibility so severely that radio operators use
elaborate verbal protocols to avoid it. Because the PTT mobile radio
traffic is carried on a computer-controlled cellular network, the network
itself can ensure that only one participant in a given conversation is
transmitting at a time.
If B attempts to initiate a connection
while A is transmitting, B will receive a “busy” signal until
the channel is clear.
In addition to private connections, group connections can be
used to communicate within prespecified groups of mobile radio users. For
example, if A wishes to transmit a message simultaneously to all members
of group X, A selects group X's name from the same
“phonebook” menu previously described and holds down the
button to initiate a connection. This mechanism is similar to a shared
channel in a handheld radio, except that the cellular network allows
access only to its group members. From the perspective of a recipient, its
usefulness is limited, since users can “tune in” to only one
group at a time, and being tuned in is prerequisite to receiving any group
channel transmissions.
Mimi successfully brokered the researcher's membership in the
established social group and provided her with privileged access to the
group members' daily activities. The researcher, in addition to
participating as a user of the PTT mobile radios, lived in the rented
house with four of the participants and observed all study participants at
various times of the day and night in both public and private settings.
The seven participating students attended summer school and engaged in
leisure activities; some also held part-time jobs.
In addition to the questionnaire and interviews, the researcher took
extensive ethnographic notes and recorded audio data. Using a clip-on
microphone and a Sony MiniDisc recorder, the researcher was able to record
transmissions made and received (on speaker) by copresent parties, as well
as transmissions made and received by herself. In total, approximately 50
hours of audio was recorded during the week, including face-to-face
conversational interaction, conversational exchanges that occurred via the
mobile radios, and interviews. The data corpus for this study consists of
50 conversational exchanges consisting of more than 63 minutes of audio.
The data were transcribed and analyzed using conversation analytic
methods.
ANALYSIS
The analysis of the structural organization of conversational
interaction with push-to-talk mobile radios focuses on the contour of the
conversational exchange. The findings are divided into three sections: (i)
how conversational exchanges are successfully engaged, (ii) how
conversational exchanges are sustained, and (iii) how conversational
exchanges are disengaged or how turn-by-turn talk lapses.
Engaging a conversational exchange
A successful conversational exchange occurs when two or more speakers
engage in turn-by-turn talk. The problem facing speakers using the PTT
mobile radio system is how to design an engaging turn-at-talk when the
availability and attention of the recipient(s) is completely unknown. In
contrast to conventional telephony, speakers using PTT mobile radio do not
have the prominent mechanical summons of the phone's ring to draw the
attention of their recipient and implicate an answer as the first
turn-at-talk6
The PTT mobile radios produce a
low-volume beep which is audible by the targeted recipient prior to the
initiating speaker's turn-at-talk; however, because this sound is so
subtle, many recipients may not hear it or respond to it as a summoning
action.
; instead, the engaging turn-at-talk is designed to do
this interactional work.
Engaging a conversational exchange by launching the
purpose of the call
Overwhelmingly, conversational exchanges via PTT mobile radio are
initiated with engaging turns which are designed to launch directly into
the first topic. Instead of issuing a summons or a greeting, speakers
engage turn-by-turn talk by introducing the purpose of the call. Many of
these calls originate from the activities of the speakers themselves or
the activities of those around them. For example, in (2), Alexis is
walking to meet her friend on campus; on the way, she periodically
solicits directions from her friend.
Once connected, Alexis directly reports her location and solicits the
next direction. A little over a minute has passed since Alexis and this
recipient were in contact, and they both have the context for the current
exchange because this is a subsequent exchange, an exchange in a series
(Button 1991), about meeting each other on
campus.
Similar engaging turn designs also occurred when the purpose of the
call was other people's activity. In (3), Randy and Stan are
pretending to be pilots on the mobile radios; Mimi is copresent with Randy
and can overhear his activities, and Mimi's recipient, Alexis, is in
the apartment with Stan and may be able to overhear him.
In (3), Mimi initiates the conversational exchange to share something
funny. Once connected, Mimi launches into a noticing (Sacks 1992:87–97) about Randy's activity, which
Alexis can also experience via Stan's activity. Intermittent
exchanges such as this were common and enabled the group to stay informed
about one another's daily events.
Sometimes conversational exchanges are initiated as a continuation of
prior ongoing activity. In (4), Alexis and Stan enter a restaurant to buy
cheesecake while two others wait in the car. After the clerk notifies her
that they do not carry the requested coconut rum cheesecake, Alexis
contacts Mimi with the update.
Once connected, Alexis launches into the purpose of the call,
prefacing her turn with the connector so which links the
turn-at-talk with a prior turn or turns in a sequence, in this case
positioning it as a conversation in a series. According to Raymond (2004:186), “people regularly use
‘so’ prefaced turn constructional units that articulate the
upshot of prior talk to mark the completion of complex turns or activities
and thereby pursue a limited range of actions from their
recipients.” In this case, unable to buy the coconut rum cheesecake,
Alexis solicits Mimi and Randy's advice about alternatives.
The conversational exchanges in (2–4) all contain engaging turns
which immediately launch the purpose of the call. In addition, these calls
occurred within 5 minutes of a prior contact with that same person. In
this context, launching the purpose of the call in the first turn-at-talk,
without prefacing it with a summons to call the recipient to attention,
shows that these speakers are orienting to their recipient's
continued availability after a prior contact has recently occurred. When
contact is temporally proximate, speakers share a sense of each
other's state of activity and their talk reflects this recent
knowledge. How do participants manage to engage turn-by-turn talk when
recipiency is less certain?
Engaging a conversational exchange when time has
elapsed
After a significant amount of time has elapsed (30 minutes or more),
speakers orient to the fact that their recipient(s) may not be so readily
available to receive their talk. One way speakers show themselves to be
orienting to the possible lack of a ready recipient is their use of a
greeting form prior to launching the purpose of the call. In (5), Mimi
checks to see if Randy has finished with his meeting:
In (5), Mimi initiates her turn with a greeting form before inquiring
about Randy's meeting. Although Mimi uses a greeting form, she does
not accomplish a summoning action that would show her orientation to the
lack of a ready recipient. The use of the greeting is structural (e.g.,
greetings occur in turn initial position when engaging) and not functional
(does not summon Randy) because her continued use of the half-duplex
channel does not provide Randy with a place to respond to it as a
sequence-initiating action.
Extended greeting forms may include the recipient's name. Prior
to (6), Tracy and Alexis were both at the rental house discussing lunch
plans; Tracy decided to eat out and Alexis stayed home.
In formulating her engaging turn, Alexis proceeds as if she is leaving
a message on Tracy's answering machine, for although she knows that
Tracy is at lunch, she does not know about her availability to receive
talk. The present progressive form of the information solicitation
(are you having fun instead of did you have fun) is one
indication that Alexis is orienting to the possibility that Tracy may
respond momentarily if she is available.
After 30 minutes or more have elapsed, speakers addressing multiple
recipients on the group channel also use a greeting form prior to
launching the purpose of their call:
The use of a greeting form or a direct address prior to launching the
purpose of the call previews upcoming substantive talk for the
recipient(s). However, it does not guarantee that the recipient is ready
to receive the upcoming message, because no place is provided to respond
to the utterance and confirm one's availability for further talk.
When speakers orient to the issue of recipiency, especially when their
recipient's availability is less certain, stronger engaging methods
are used.
Initiating a conversational exchange when recipiency is
uncertain
Recipiency in the PTT mobile radio system is inherently one of doubt
– doubt about whether the recipient is available to receive talk,
and once a turn has been initiated, doubt about whether he is actually
receiving the talk.7
In fact, recipients may
have heard a turn-at-talk and be available to engage in conversation, and
still may not respond. See Woodruff & Aoki
2004 for a description of users' reactions to this reduced
interactional commitment afforded by PTT mobile radio technology.
The issue of recipiency, which is technologically resolved by the ring of
the telephone and the recipient's pickup (i.e., the summons-answer
sequence), must be established through turns at talk with the PTT mobile
radios. The most common way of resolving this recipiency issue is to
produce a summons that initiates a sequence of action, making
conditionally relevant a response by the targeted recipient.
In our data set, however, instances in which the speaker initiates a
conversational exchange with a summoning action are extremely rare. Of the
50 conversational exchanges analyzed, only seven were initiated with a
summons; six occurred after more than 30 minutes had elapsed since the
speaker and recipient had last been in contact. One conversation, (8), was
initiated with a summons in the form of a greeting. Stan's summons
targets any one of the multiple recipients who may be listening to the
group channel:
The way in which talk is engaged in (8) is somewhat similar to an
opening in a conventional telephone call. Mimi responds to Stan's
summons with a greeting. Stan follows up with a return greeting, followed
by a direct address which shows that he recognizes her. Then, instead of
launching the purpose of the call, Stan makes an initial inquiry into
Mimi's day. Mimi responds to the inquiry and initiates a sequence
that solicits Stan's confirmation of identity. Once both speakers
have resolved the recognition issue, Mimi reciprocates the current status
inquiry and the conversation continues.
This type of extended opening phase was not seen in any other
conversation in the data set. Stan produces his engaging turn for the
members of the group channel. Without a targeted recipient, Stan designs a
generic engaging turn. And without a purpose for the call or an
announcement that would be appropriate to broadcast over the group
channel, Stan is unable to do more than summon a person(s) who may be
available at the moment. After Mimi responds, giving Stan the first
opportunity to launch the purpose of the call for which he is accountable
as the caller (Schegloff 1986), he instead makes
an inquiry about Mimi's activities. Stan produces a summons to engage
in lieu of the purpose of the call, because he seems not to have a
noteworthy purpose for the call. Thus, two features of this conversational
exchange contribute to the shape of its opening sequence: the caller does
not have a noteworthy purpose for the call, nor does he select a
particular recipient.
When producing a summons for a targeted recipient, direct address is
often used. In (9), Alexis is contacting Gaby after more than a half
hour's lapse:
Alexis establishes Gaby's recipiency prior to launching her
reason for the call, an invitation to meet later that evening. Engaging a
conversational exchange with a summons-answer sequence rather than with
the purpose of the call gives the speaker information about a
recipient's availability without having to invest in producing
substantive talk that the recipient may not be available to receive.
The greater the time elapsed since the last connection was made, the
less information the caller has about the recipient's state of
activity, and the greater the doubt about his or her availability to
receive talk. In (10), the speaker orients to this uncertainty in the
repair of her engaging turn, which is initially designed for a recipient
who had been recently contacted.
Alexis packages her engaging turn with a greeting plus direct address
and a self-identification preceding the launch of the purpose of her call.
Then, just as she is about to produce substantive talk about the purpose
of the call, she halts her in-progress utterance and restarts by issuing a
summons. This shows that she is oriented to the ambiguity surrounding the
recipient's state of readiness to receive talk. Once Gaby responds,
she restarts and launches the purpose of the call.
While the caller's challenge is to determine whether the
recipient is available to engage in a conversational exchange, the
recipient's challenge is to recognize the caller when
identification-recognition sequences are often absent (Schegloff 1979). It is possible for recipients to
recognize callers from the “voice samples” provided by the
first turn (Schegloff 1979); however, poor audio
quality, inattention, or environmental noise can hinder such recognition.
An additional resource made available by the mobile radio handset is a
visual display of the name of the most recent caller; because this display
is shown only briefly, it is useful mainly if the phone is close at
hand.
This issue of speaker recognition is especially difficult when the
caller is addressing the group channel. For calls received on the group
channel, the handset display lists only the name given to the group
channel (e.g., “house”), not the particular person making the
call. Consider how Alexis handles the recognition issue when Gaby issues
an engaging turn on the group channel in (11) (an extended version of ex.
7):
In response to Gaby's group channel announcement, Alexis produces
several actions. She responds to the engaging turn by inquiring about the
speaker's identity, offering her understanding of the speaker's
identity (is that Gaby) and labeling her the slacker in
response to the content of the announcement. Once Gaby confirms her
identity, Alexis responds directly to the announcement by echoing
Gaby's laughter in line 10. It is interesting to note how speakers,
prevented by the half-duplex channel from laughing together, instead
sequentially accomplish the coordinated social activity of laughing (Glenn 1995, Jefferson, Sacks &
Schegloff 1987); Alexis conveys her solidarity with Gaby by
imitating the number of beats and the prosody of Gaby's initial
laughter (Sanders 2003).
To summarize, in conversational exchanges via PTT mobile radio, the
first turn-at-talk often launches the purpose of the call. Unlike the
organization of telephone calls, actions such as summoning,
identification-recognition, and the exchange of greetings or initial
inquiries are rare. If a significant amount of time has elapsed since the
speakers were last in contact (often 30 minutes or more), speakers may
insert a greeting form before they launch the purpose of the call to alert
the recipient to upcoming talk. When recipiency is in doubt, however, PTT
users revert to telephone practice and issue a summons and wait for a
response before initiating topic talk.
Sustaining a conversational exchange
The half-duplex operation of the PTT mobile radio system affects the
way in which conversational exchanges are produced. Most important,
because speakers do not maintain a joint channel, they are precluded from
closely coordinating their turns at talk to minimize gap8
Jefferson 1988 found that the
standard maximum silence between turns at talk in American phone
conversational interaction is approximately one second, and silences
longer than that often result in a repair initiation. For example, on the
telephone, noticeable silence by one party causes the other to produce a
summons, “Are you there?”
and overlap. Speakers can
decide autonomously when to surrender the channel and end their turns, and
next speakers need only to listen for the content and conclusion to the
turn-in-progress to prepare to speak next. In other words, when speakers
engage in a conversational exchange via PTT mobile radios, all turns at
talk occur in sequence.
Because speakers know that the operation of the mobile radios imposes
gaps between each turn-at-talk and that this silence is not directly
accountable to a particular speaker, it becomes a resource for speakers to
manage their participation in a conversational exchange. For recipients,
the gap extends their response time, which in turn reduces the
intrusiveness of an engaging turn produced at an inopportune moment and
increases the likelihood that a response will be forthcoming when the
engaging turn does interrupt an in-progress activity. This is the case in
(12), where Stan summons Mimi while she is working with Alexis to resolve
a printing problem. Following Stan's engaging turn, Alexis, in
copresent conversation with Mimi, identifies the caller:
When Stan's engaging turn in line 4 goes unanswered, he must
assume that Mimi is not there or available. Stan's only
recourse is to reissue the summons or abort his effort to engage her in a
conversational exchange.9
Stan does not have
the option of leaving a message here because the PTT mobile radio system
does not include a message persistence feature analogous to voicemail.
However, had the system enabled him to leave a message, it is interesting
to note that Mimi would be more accountable for responding to the message
than she is for responding to Stan's (non-persistent) vocal summons.
In this way, the technology mitigates what would otherwise be a
potentially intrusive audio environment (resulting from the general use of
the speakerphone feature) by maintaining the ambiguity regarding
one's recipiency.
In line 12, Stan produces a subsequent
engaging turn in overlap with Mimi's attempt to secure a
connection.
Mimi coordinates the copresent printing activity and the engaging turn
in parallel; Mimi's talk to Alexis in copresence overlaps with her
activity to open the channel to respond to Stan in lines 15–16. The
operation of the PTT mobile radios enables recipients (as well as
overhearing, copresent participants) to juggle ongoing copresent
activities with their participation in a conversational exchange. Because
PTT's half-duplex system gives the speaker sole access to the
transmittable channel, he or she can autocratically regulate two aspects
of turn-taking that are usually collaboratively managed in real time: (i)
speaker change, and (ii) the length of a turn-at-talk (Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson 1974). Because
recipients do not have to collaboratively manage speaker change or
negotiate when the current speaker should terminate his turn-at-talk, they
can continue to engage in ongoing copresent activities while they monitor
for content and for the technology to signal the end of the current
speaker's turn with the “over” beep.
With PTT mobile radios, pauses and gaps between turns-at-talk are not
treated as problematic, as they potentially would be in copresent or
telephone interaction. In (13), Mimi responds to Alexis's initiating
turn on the group channel. Alexis initially launches into a story, then
restarts to establish Mimi's recognition of one of the story's
main characters. Mimi's trouble recognizing the person results in
extended phases of silence preceding her turns:
The 3.0-second gap in line 11 foreshadows Mimi's difficulty in
identifying Gary. The 10.0-second gap in line 16 is another indication of
her trouble. But Alexis does not treat the silence as problematic,
attempting to intervene in line 17 after 10 seconds of silence. The
silence occurs within the structure of a sequence of action which has a
projected completion; that is, Mimi is accountable to respond to the
recognition inquiry or to produce an action that is prerequisite to her
responding to the recognition inquiry if need be, which she does in line
18.
Silent phases within a sequence of action can be substantial. In one
conversational exchange, the recipient delays several minutes before
responding, yet the initiating speaker does not pursue a response. In
(14), Mimi contacts Randy at work to ask him a question:
After Mimi has posed a question to Randy, a phase of more than three
minutes of silence ensues. In the absence of a response, Mimi does not
pursue it. Mimi knows that Randy is at work and may momentarily need to
focus on something more important than her question. She may also be
allowing the conversation to lapse because the answer to the question is
not time-sensitive.
In sustaining a conversational exchange, speakers overwhelmingly treat
silent phases as unproblematic. Because the speakers do not conjointly
maintain an open audio channel, plausible deniability enables them to
delay responses (or not to respond) and reduces late responders'
accountability. Speakers can participate in a conversational exchange as
they juggle ongoing copresent activities, and because speakers know that
their recipient is likely doing something else in addition to engaging in
a conversational exchange, silences are often unproblematic.
This treatment of silences is related to a phenomenon found in a study
of boaters socializing over maritime two-way radio (Sanders 2003). In these encounters, “prolonged
gaps are almost always tolerated and not oriented to as breaches”
because members understand that having “a hand free [at all
times to operate a radio] is not something one can count on from
anyone currently operating a vessel” (Sanders 2003:313, 314). However, boaters can assume that
anyone in an exchange over maritime two-way radio is in a boat (and
usually in one of a few specific locations in a boat); by contrast, mobile
PTT radio can be operated anywhere and does not necessarily give speakers
insight into a recipient's circumstances. Even knowing that Randy is
at work (itself an assumption) is not necessarily a strong indicator of
competing copresent activity.
Disengaging a conversational exchange
Once a conversational exchange has been initiated, speakers face the
problem of closing the interaction or recognizing when a lapse in
turn-by-turn talk is implicated. In a telephone call, or when people take
leave of one another when face to face, speakers collaborate to produce a
closing sequence (Schegloff & Sacks 1973).
This closing sequence provides a place for either party to raise other
topics or unmentioned mentionables and to reopen the conversation. If no
other topic is raised, speakers agree to close the conversation and depart
or disconnect. The existence of a full-duplex channel in telephone
communication necessitates the coordinated closing of the conversational
interaction; without a coordinated closing, one party would be in effect
“hanging up” on the other. However, the PTT mobile radio is a
half-duplex system, and in our corpus, closing sequences akin to those of
a telephone call are rare.10
It is not
necessarily the case that closings must be rare in the use of any
half-duplex system. For example, a study of maritime two-way radio (Sanders 2003) did not observe that closings were rare,
which may be due in part to regulatory differences – users are
supposed to follow formal, specified procedures for ending an exchange
(though in practice they often appear not to do so). However, it is
critical to recognize that maritime two-way radio exchanges almost always
start with an initial exchange on a common hailing channel, continue with
a switch to a less-used channel, and end with the users switching back to
the hailing channel. This medium therefore has a technological equivalent
of hanging up the telephone; if one party switches back to the hailing
channel, the parties will be unable to communicate further until both
somehow arrive at the same channel. Hence, while parties in maritime
two-way radio may orient more frequently to the “potential for
discontinuation” (Sanders 2003:316) than
do parties in a telephone conversation, it is not surprising that closings
would be common.
Disengaging a conversational exchange at sequence
boundary
Instead of producing a separate sequence to close the exchange,
speakers orient to the potential close of a conversational exchange at
sequence completion. Upon completion of a sequence of action, participants
have several options: (i) to extend the prior sequence and continue
turn-by-turn talk, (ii) to treat the prior sequence as complete and
initiate a new sequence, or (iii) to treat the prior sequence as complete
and not produce further talk implicating a lapse in turn-by-turn talk. For
example, in a minimal two-turn conversational exchange, closing is
relevant once the second pair part has been produced.
In (15), Mimi's response to Gaby engages the conversational
exchange and at the same time implicates the exchange's close pending
a next turn-at-talk:
Here Gaby contacts Mimi to announce her leaving. Mimi acknowledges
receipt of the announcement and assesses her plan of action. Mimi's
response is sequence-closing and lapse-implicative. Her turn functions as
a possible pre-closing (Schegloff & Sacks
1973); she shows that she has nothing new to say, breaks with the
prior topic, and gives the next speaker a turn either to raise a new topic
or to initiate a closing. In this case, Gaby does not produce another
turn, and talk lapses.
Most PTT mobile radio conversational exchanges consist of more than
two turns at talk or a single sequence of action. In longer conversational
exchanges, speakers monitor for the completion of the initiated
sequence(s) to determine when an exchange can possibly be complete. The
activity-based nature of turn-by-turn talk via PTT mobile radios enables
speakers to project the completion of a sequence-in-progress (Lerner 1995). In (16), Mimi contacts Alexis to
announce her arrival at the lab. Alexis responds by initiating another
question-answer sequence in which she inquires about the weather:
At the completion of each turn in (16), the speakers can project what
it will take to complete the action(s) that have already been produced. At
the end of Mimi's turn in lines 4–6, the completion can be
projected as one action, the response to her announcement. At the end of
Alexis's turn in line 8, the completion of the conversational
exchange is projected to be two more actions – the answer to the
question and a response to the announcement. In this case, Alexis
acknowledges receipt of Mimi's answer in line 13 before producing the
responsive action to the announcement in line 14. At this point, the
speakers may treat the sequence as complete and go on to initiate a new
sequence, or they may refrain from producing any further talk and allow
the conversational exchange to lapse.
In (17), a similar two-sequence conversational exchange is occasioned
by the mobile radio's channel connection signal. Alexis hears her
phone signal an upcoming transmission, but she does not receive any talk,
so she attempts to resolve the trouble and successfully initiates a
conversational exchange:
Mimi's technological connection to Alexis in (17) serves as a
summons that recruits Alexis into participating in a conversational
exchange. Alexis responds to the summons by verbally initiating the
conversational exchange. The first sequence deals with the trouble of
having received a signal for transmission without a forthcoming message.
Upon completion of Mimi's response in lines 7–8, talk could
have lapsed. Instead, Alexis initiates another sequence, a greeting
sequence. Mimi completes this sequence with a return greeting, and again a
lapse is implicated. Note that it is the completion of the in-progress
sequence(s) of action that implicates a lapse in the conversational
exchange, not the particular actions of the sequence itself; here, the
completion of a greeting sequence, typically used to initiate turn-by-turn
talk, causes talk to lapse.
Because most participants use the PTT mobile radios with the speaker
audio, the conversation is an interactional resource for copresent persons
to participate in the conversational exchange. In (18), an extension of
(16), this participation does not occur until the primary
conversationalists have reached a point when a lapse in talk would be
relevant. Here, Randy and Stan, in copresence with Mimi and Alexis
respectively, produce a post sequence (Sacks et al.
1974) which implicates and results in a lapse in turn-by-turn
talk.
After having overheard Alexis and Mimi talk about the weather, Randy
produces a weather announcement which Stan acknowledges. Randy and Stan,
who witness Mimi's and Alexis's exchange, accomplish several
actions with their sequence of talk. First, they show that they overheard
the prior exchange by producing further talk about the weather. Second,
the form of Randy's turn, a weather announcement, shows him orienting
to PTT mobile radio as if it were a commercial broadcast radio show.
Third, Randy's and Stan's exchange shows the fluidity of the
closing boundary of a PTT mobile radio conversational exchange; just as
the conversational exchange lapses for Alexis and Mimi, turn-by-turn talk
continues by two other speakers.
Disengaging a conversational exchange in the absence of
a next turn-at-talk
The completion of one or more already initiated sequences is one of
two features of a conversational exchange that implicate closing. The
other feature is the lack of a next turn-at-talk. Even when all initiated
sequences have been completed, a speaker may elect to produce another
turn-at-talk and extend the conversational exchange. In (19), an extended
version of (3), Mimi and Alexis complete a noticing-response sequence in
the first two turns, which implicates a lapse, but Mimi extends the
exchange by producing another sequence and one more turn-at-talk before
talk lapses:
In (19), talk lapses as turn-by-turn talk fades. Alexis verbally
responds (lines 6–7) after Mimi's initial noticing. Then Mimi
extends the conversation by detailing Stan and Randy's activity in
lines 9–11; Alexis vocally responds by performing her laughter in
line 13, as evidenced by her increase in volume when she is transmitting
to Mimi. Mimi produces another comment emphasizing the humor of the
situation, and this time Alexis laughs to herself.
This analysis of PTT mobile radio use shows that conversational
exchanges rarely lapse with a coordinated closing sequence, as do bounded
conversations such as telephone calls, because the end of the call does
not coincide with a break in the technological connection. Instead, a
“break” occurs at the end of every single turn-at-talk. What
remains for the speakers to coordinate with PTT mobile radio is the social
action being accomplished through the conversational interaction. A lapse
is the byproduct of the recognizable completion of a course of action. A
lapse occurs when, at a completed sequence boundary, a next turn-at-talk
is not forthcoming.
DISCUSSION
This study shows that the ways in which speakers organize their
conversational interaction via PTT mobile radios is similar to the ways in
which they organize a continuing state of incipient talk in copresence. As
in copresence, speakers using PTT mobile radios do not use greetings to
engage turn-by-turn talk or exchange goodbyes to disengage. Instead, to
engage talk, they immediately launch the purpose of the call. By design,
the PTT engaging turn subordinates the interactional work accomplished by
the conventional telephone opening sequences (summons-answer,
greeting-greeting, etc.) to the conversational interaction commonly
identified with the body of the conversation. That is, by producing the
engaging turn, the speaker accomplishes three actions: summoning the
recipient, providing a voice sample so identification can be made, and
launching the first topic of talk. To disengage turn-by-turn talk, PTT
mobile radio users do not typically coordinate the production of a closing
sequence; instead, they monitor for the projected completion of a
sequence-in-progress which makes relevant a lapse. Projecting the
completion of an in-progress sequence of talk is facilitated by the
activity-based nature of the speakers' turn-by-turn talk; speakers
commonly engage in conversational exchanges to update their location
(I'm at Tenth and Atlantic…), report a current
activity (Randy and Stan just keep playing pilot…), or
solicit some targeted information (Hi Tra:cy, are you having fun at
lunch?).
The operation of the PTT mobile radio technology enables its users to
sustain a remote continuing state of incipient talk. Speakers can
incipiently connect with each other at the push of a button. The members
of the established social group participating in this study oriented to
their continuing recipient status; they received and promptly responded to
incipient engaging turns, even those issued after more than a 30-minute
lapse. Without the ability to see if a targeted recipient is available to
engage in conversation, speakers in a remote continuing state of incipient
talk act based on the notion of plausible deniability, which accounts for
delayed or absent responses without invoking unfavorable social
consequences. In addition, the technologically imposed silent phases
between each turn-at-talk help speakers manage a remote continuing state
of incipient talk amid ongoing copresent activity. This silent space is an
interactional buffer; because every next turn-at-talk is mechanically
delayed, speakers may extend this existing silence to accommodate other
activities.
In a remote continuing state of incipient talk, speakers orient to the
time elapsed as they do to timing in copresence. As Goffman 1963 noted, initial engagements are easily
made upon coming into copresence, so strangers on a train car will
typically exchange greetings upon meeting. This initial exchange invokes a
continuing state of incipient talk, enabling them subsequently to reengage
turn-by-turn talk rather than producing a delayed initial engagement. In a
remote continuing state of incipient talk, in the design of their engaging
turn, speakers orient to how long it has been since the last
conversational exchange occurred. Overwhelmingly, speakers immediately
launch into the purpose of the call if the recipient had been contacted
within the last 10 minutes. When more than 30 minutes has elapsed,
speakers work to differing degrees to establish an available recipient.
When a recipient's availability is more certain, the speaker launches
the purpose of the call preceded by a greeting form, and when recipiency
is less certain, the speaker initiates a summons-answer sequence to
confirm the recipient's availability prior to launching the purpose
of the call.
The mobility of the PTT radio enabled the members of the study's
established social group to use it to extend their copresence in a remote
continuing state of incipient talk. For example, Alexis immediately
connected to notify those waiting for her in the car that the store did
not have any coconut rum cheesecake. And both Alexis and Stan used their
PTT mobile radios to transition into copresence: Alexis initiated a series
of direction-giving conversations before meeting up with Mimi, and Stan
intermittently contacted Mimi on his walk home from class until he arrived
to greet her at their house.
This study describes how a small, established social group used PTT
mobile radios, a communication technology seemingly impoverished when
compared to copresent talk-in-interaction or conventional telephony. Yet
the findings show that the technology supports turn-by-turn talk which is
structurally organized in ways that are similar to a context-rich,
copresent, continuing state of incipient talk. Specifically, the ways in
which speakers engage, sustain, and disengage turn-by-turn talk show that
the structures of social action, especially sequence organization,
compensate for the PTT mobile radio's half-duplex channel, which
prohibits interactants from closely coordinating their talk-in-interaction
and disconnects them at the completion of each turn-at-talk. Further
research is needed to understand the structural organization and
interactional circumstances of other emergent technologically mediated
remote continuing states of incipient talk.
