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12 - Action and Accountability in Interaction

from Part III - Revisiting Action Ascription

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2022

By
N. J. Enfield  and
Jack Sidnell
Edited by
Arnulf Deppermann  and
Michael Haugh
Arnulf Deppermann
Affiliation:
Universität Mannheim, Germany
Michael Haugh
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
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Summary

What is the relation between words and action? How does a person decide, based on what someone is saying, what an appropriate response would be? We argue: (1) Every move combines independent semiotic features, to be interpreted under an assumption that social behaviour is goal-directed; (2) Responding to actions is not equivalent to describing them; (3) Describing actions invokes rights and duties for which people are explicitly accountable. We conclude that interaction does not involve a binning procedure in which the stream of conduct is sorted into discrete action types. Our argument is grounded in data from recordings of talk-in-interaction.

Keywords

actionaccountabilityspeech actsphilosophy of languagesocial practiceconversation analysis
Type
Chapter
Information
Action Ascription in Interaction , pp. 279 - 296
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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