Sex and the economy of speaking turns

Abstract

Rejecting Talbot's (1992) account of my work, I also reject the structuralist ‘text reveals structure’ pragmatism Talbot and other ‘conversation analysts’ advocate. Recognition of interruption or of other native categories does not require complaints or palliatives to have been uttered by interlocutors at the time of their occurrence. Post hoc interpretations by participants are not transparent and need to be evaluated critically, but are a valuable resource that analysts should not eschew out of methodological asceticism.