Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vfjqv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T16:56:28.155Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Customers’ Inquiries about Products

Establishing Grounds for the Decision to Buy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 January 2023

Barbara Fox
Affiliation:
University of Colorado Boulder
Lorenza Mondada
Affiliation:
University of Basel
Marja-Leena Sorjonen
Affiliation:
University of Helsinki
Get access

Summary

The chapter examines the formatting of initial turns by customers at the counter, before they decide and in order to select what to buy. On the basis of recordings in bakeries in Finland, France, and Switzerland, it is shown how customers may face a range of practical problems in making decisions as to what or whether to purchase, including seeing items that might look appealing but which they don’t recognize or for which they do not know the ingredients. Through the design of their questions, drawing on verbal, material, and embodied resources, customers make publicly available to the sellers their epistemic access to the products (e.g., they do not know enough about the item to formulate its identity with anything more than a demonstrative pronoun or demonstrative determiner plus ‘empty’ noun). With their answers sellers provide information that may be immediately useful for the customer in making their decision, or which may need further elaboration. The referential practices employed by both customers and sellers reveal features of items that are locally relevant for the practical purposes of buying, in particular sequential, material, and embodied locations in interaction.

Type
Chapter
Information
Encounters at the Counter
The Organization of Shop Interactions
, pp. 73 - 108
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ainiala, T., & Saarelma, M. (2012). Names in Focus: An Introduction to Finnish Onomastics. Helsinki: The Finnish Literature Society. https://doi.org/10.21435/sflin.17Google Scholar
Bilmes, J. (2015). The Structure of Meaning in Talk: Explorations in Category Analysis, Volume 1: Co-categorization, Contrast, and Hierarchy. Manoa: University of Hawaii. www2.hawaii.edu/~bilmes/. Accessed March 28, 2019.Google Scholar
Curl, T. S., & Drew, P. (2008). Contingency and action: A comparison of two forms of requesting. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 41(2), 129153. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351810802028613Google Scholar
Deppermann, A. (2011). The study of formulations as a key to an interactional semantics. Human Studies, 34(2), 115128. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746–011-9187-8Google Scholar
Deppermann, A. (2019). Interaktionale Semantik [Interactional semantics]. In Hagemann, J. & Staffeldt, S., eds., Semantiktheorien. Band 2. Tübingen: Stauffenburg, pp. 172215.Google Scholar
de Ruiter, J. P., ed. (2012). Questions: Formal, Functional and Interactional Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139045414Google Scholar
De Stefani, E. (2011). “Ah petta ecco, io prendo questi che mi piacciono”. Agire come coppia al supermercato. Un approccio conversazionale e multimodale allo studio dei processi decisionali [“Oh wait here, I’m getting these, cos I like them.” Acting as a couple at the supermarket. A conversational and multimodal approach to the analysis of decision-making]. Rome: Aracne.Google Scholar
De Stefani, E. (2014). Establishing joint orientation towards commercial objects in a self-service store: How practices of categorisation matter. In Nevile, M., Haddington, P., Heinemann, T., & Rauniomaa, M., eds., Interacting with Objects: Language, Materiality, and Social Activity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 271294. https://doi.org/10.1075/z.186.12steGoogle Scholar
Enfield, N. J., & Stivers, T., eds. (2007). Person Reference in Interaction: Linguistic, Cultural and Social Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511486746Google Scholar
Eriksson, M. (2009). Referring as interaction: On the interplay between linguistic and bodily practices. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(2), 240262. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2008.10.011CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Etelämäki, M. (2009). The Finnish demonstrative pronouns in light of interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(1), 2546. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2008.09.005Google Scholar
Fox, B., & Heinemann, T. (2015). The alignment of manual and verbal displays in requests for the repair of an object. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 48(3), 342362. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2015.1058608Google Scholar
Fox, B., & Heinemann, T. (2016). Rethinking format: An examination of requests. Language in Society, 45(4), 499531. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404516000385CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fox, B., & Thompson, S. A. (2010). Responses to wh-questions in English conversation. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 43(2), 133156. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351811003751680Google Scholar
Garfinkel, H. (1991). Respecification: Evidence for locally produced, naturally accountable phenomena of order, logic, reason, meaning, method, etc. in and as of the essential haecceity of immortal ordinary society (I) – an announcement of studies. In Button, G., ed., Ethnomethodology and the Human Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1019. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611827.003Google Scholar
Goodwin, C. (2003). Pointing as situated practice. In Kita, S., ed., Pointing: Where Language, Culture and Cognition Meet. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 217241. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781410607744Google Scholar
Hakulinen, A., & Selting, M., eds. (2005). Syntax and Lexis in Conversation: Studies on the Use of Linguistic Resources in Talk-in-Interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/sidag.17Google Scholar
Harjunpää, K., Deppermann, A., & Sorjonen, M.-L. (2021). Constructing the Chekhovian inner body in instructions: An interactional history of factuality and agentivity. Journal of Pragmatics 171, 158174. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2020.09.034Google Scholar
Heinemann, T. (2006). ‘Will you or can’t you?’ Displaying entitlement in interrogative requests. Journal of Pragmatics, 38(7), 10811104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2005.09.013Google Scholar
Heritage, J. (2012). Epistemics in action: Action formation and territories of knowledge. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(1), 129. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2012.646684CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hindmarsh, J., & Heath, C. (2000). Embodied reference: A study of deixis in workplace interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 32(12), 18551878. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378–2166(99)00122-8Google Scholar
Kuroshima, S. (2010). Another look at the service encounter: Progressivity, intersubjectivity, and trust in a Japanese sushi restaurant. Journal of Pragmatics, 42(3), 856869. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2009.08.009CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindström, A. (2005). Language as social action: A study of how senior citizens request assistance with practical tasks in the Swedish home help service. In Hakulinen, A. & Selting, M., eds., Syntax and Lexis in Conversation: Studies on the Use of Linguistic Resources in Talk-in-Interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 209230. https://doi.org/10.1075/sidag.17.11linGoogle Scholar
Merritt, M. (1976). On questions following questions in service encounters. Language in Society, 5(3), 315357. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500007168Google Scholar
Mondada, L. (2007). Multimodal resources for turn-taking: Pointing and the emergence of possible next speakers. Discourse Studies, 9(2), 194225. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445607075346CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mondada, L. (2012). Deixis: An integrated interactional multimodal analysis. In Bergmann, P., Brenning, J., Pfeiffer, M., & Reber, E., eds., Prosody and Embodiment in Interactional Grammar. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 173206. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110295108Google Scholar
Mondada, L. (2014). Pointing, talk and the bodies: Reference and joint attention as embodied interactional achievements. In Seyfeddinipur, M. & Gullberg, M., eds., From Gesture in Conversation to Visible Utterance in Action. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 95124. https://doi.org/10.1075/z.188.06monGoogle Scholar
Mondada, L. (2016). Challenges of multimodality: Language and the body in social interaction. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 20(3), 232. https://doi.org/10.1111/josl.1_12177CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mondada, L. (2019). Contemporary issues in conversation analysis: Embodiment and materiality, multimodality and multisensoriality in social interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 145, 4762. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2019.01.016CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mondada, L. (2021). Sensing in Social Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mondada, L., & Sorjonen, M.-L. (2016). First and subsequent requests in French and Finnish kiosks. Language in Society, 45(5), 733765. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404516000646CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, R. J. (2008). When names fail: Referential practice in face-to-face service encounters. Language in Society, 37(3), 385413. https://doi.org/10.1017/S004740450808055XCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pomerantz, A. (1988). Offering a candidate answer: An information seeking strategy. Communication Monographs, 55(4), 360373. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637758809376177Google Scholar
Raymond, G. (2000). The Structure of Responding: Type-conforming and Nonconforming Responses to Yes/No Type Interrogatives. Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Raymond, G. (2003). Grammar and social organization: Yes/no interrogatives and the structure of responding. American Sociological Review, 68(6), 939967. https://doi.org/10.2307/1519752CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sacks, H. (1963). Sociological description. Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 8, 116.Google Scholar
Sacks, H. (1989). Lectures 1964–1965. Edited by Jefferson, G., Introduction/Memoir by Schegloff, E. A.. Human Studies, 12(3–4), 1408.Google Scholar
Sacks, H. (1992). Lectures on Conversation, Vols 1 & 2. Edited by Jefferson, G.. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sacks, H., & Schegloff, E. A. (1979). Two preferences in the organization of reference to persons in conversation and their interaction. In Psathas, G., ed., Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology. New York: Irvington, pp. 1521. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511486746.003Google Scholar
Schegloff, E. A. (1972). Notes on a conversational practice: Formulating place. In Sudnow, D., ed., Studies in Social Interaction. New York: The Free Press, pp. 75119.Google Scholar
Schegloff, E. A. (1996). Some practices for referring to persons in talk-in-interaction: A partial sketch of a systematics. In Fox, B., ed., Studies in Anaphora. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 437485. https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.33.14schGoogle Scholar
Sorjonen, M.-L. (2001a). Responding in Conversation: A Study of Response Particles in Finnish. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.70Google Scholar
Sorjonen, M.-L. (2001b). Simple answers to polar questions: The case of Finnish. In Selting, M. & Couper-Kuhlen, E., eds., Studies in Interactional Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 405431. https://doi.org/10.1075/sidag.10.18sorGoogle Scholar
Sorjonen, M.-L., & Raevaara, L. (2014). On the grammatical form of requests at the convenience store: Requesting as embodied action. In Drew, P. & Couper-Kuhlen, E., eds., Requesting in Social Interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 243268. https://doi.org/10.1075/slsi.26.10sorGoogle Scholar
Stivers, T., Enfield, N. J., & Levinson, S. C., eds. (2010). Question-response sequences in 10 languages. Journal of Pragmatics, 42(10), 26152860. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.04.001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Svinhufvud, K. (2011). Varovasti edeten ja taas perääntyen: Opponentin palautevuoron rakentuminen [Gently forward, then back again: Constructing opponent feedback]. Virittäjä, 115(2), 156192.Google Scholar
Thompson, S. A., Fox, B., & Couper-Kuhlen, E. (2015). Grammar in Everyday Talk: Building Responsive Actions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139381154Google Scholar
Vilkuna, M. (1997). Into and out of the standard language: The particle ni in Finnish. In Cheshire, J. & Stein, D., eds., Taming the Vernacular: From Dialect to Written Standard Language. London: Longman, pp. 5167.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×