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In:Enabling Human Conduct: Studies of talk-in-interaction in honor of Emanuel A. Schegloff
Edited by Geoffrey Raymond, Gene H. Lerner and John Heritage
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 273] 2017
► pp. 231–271

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Opening up closings in Russian

Published online: 24 May 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.273.13bol
Taking its inspiration in “Opening Up Closings” by Schegloff and Sacks (1973), the chapter investigates how the activity of closing a conversation is initiated in Russian telephone conversations. Two distinct practices for initiating closings – tacit and explicit closings initiations – are examined, in terms of their lexical and prosodic composition and their position. Conversation closings may be launched tacitly when a closing implicative environment has been established. Prosody plays an important role both in establishing a closing-implicative environment and in accomplishing a move into closings. Closings may also be initiated explicitly (via a request or offer to end the conversation) when a closing-relevant environment has not been established or in order to accomplish additional relationship-reaffirming work.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Tacit and explicit practices for moving into closings
  • 3.Sequential placement of closing initiations
  • 3.1Initiating closings tacitly in closing-implicative environments
  • 3.2Designedly monotopical calls
  • 3.3“Designedly last” topics
  • 3.4Closing a “possibly last” topic
  • 3.5Expanded pre-closing sequences
  • 4.Environments for explicit initiation of closings
  • 4.1Non-interruptive uses of explicit closings
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
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