Anticipatory initiations: The use of a presumed reason-for-the-interaction in face-to-face openings

Abstract

For many social encounters, the reason-for-the-interaction is ordinarily produced by the party who makes contact with another. However, it is possible for the contacted party to act on that reason-for-the-interaction before it gets articulated. This article describes one such practice. When an interaction is incipiently underway, the contacted party, seeing the other person, may guess at their reason for making contact and thereby predict the likely shape that the nascent encounter will take. This provides for the usage of an anticipatory initiation: a turn that is positioned prior to and in anticipation of the recipient voicing their presumed reason-for-the-interaction. Conversation analysis of a small collection of anticipatory initiations (n=23) reveals two basic usages: those which align with and support the recipient's presumed project and those which disalign with it. Data are naturally occurring interactions in primarily institutional settings, in English and Spanish with English translation.