Cover not available

In:Mobilizing Others: Grammar and lexis within larger activities
Edited by Carmen Taleghani-Nikazm, Emma Betz and Peter Golato
[Studies in Language and Social Interaction 33] 2020
► pp. 253–278

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Chapter 10
Doing more than expected

Thanking recognizes another’s agency in providing assistance

 | Leibniz-Institute for the German Language
 | University of California at Los Angeles
 | University of Portsmouth
Published online: 13 May 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/slsi.33.10zin
Abstract
In informal interaction, speakers rarely thank a person who has complied with a request. Examining data from British English, German, Italian, Polish, and Telugu, we ask when speakers do thank after compliance. The results show that thanking treats the other’s assistance as going beyond what could be taken for granted in the circumstances. Coupled with the rareness of thanking after requests, this suggests that cooperation is to a great extent governed by expectations of helpfulness, which can be long-standing, or built over the course of a particular interaction. The higher frequency of thanking in some languages (such as English or Italian) suggests that cultures differ in the importance they place on recognizing the other’s agency in doing as requested.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Data
  • Thanking in response to volunteered action
  • Treating compliance with a request as not taken for granted
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations used in glossing
  • References
References (41)
References
Antaki, Charles. 2002. ““Lovely”: Turn-Initial High-Grade Assessments in Telephone Closings.” Discourse Studies 4 (1): 5–23. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Appadurai, Arjun. 1985. “Gratitude as a Social Mode in South India.” Ethos 13 (3): 236–45. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Auer, Peter. 2015. “The Temporality of Language in Interaction: Projection and Latency.” In Temporality in Interaction, ed. by Arnulf Deppermann, and Susanne Günthner, 27–56. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bangerter, Adrian, Herbert H. Clark, and Anna R. Katz. 2004. “Navigating Joint Projects in Telephone Conversations.” Discourse Processes 37 (1): 1–23. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness. Some universals of language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clayman, Steven E., and John Heritage. 2014. “Benefactors and Beneficiaries: Benefective Status and Stance in the Management of Offers and Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 55–86. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coulmas, Florian. 1981. “Poison to Your Soul. Thanks and Apologies Contrastively Viewed.” In Conversational Routine: Explorations in Standardized Communication Situations and Prepatterned Speech, ed. by Florian Coulmas, 69–91. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth. 2014. “What Does Grammar Tell Us About Action?” Pragmatics 24 (3): 623–47. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Curl, Traci S. 2006. “Offers of Assistance: Constraints on Syntactic Design.” Journal of Pragmatics 38 (8): 1257–80. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Curl, Traci S., and Paul Drew. 2008. “Contingency and Action. A Comparison of Two Forms of Requesting.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 41 (2): 129–53. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ervin-Tripp, S. (1976). Is Sybil there?: The structure of some American English directives. Language in Society, 5, 25–66. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fasulo, Alessandra, Heather Loyd, and Vincenzo Padiglione. 2007. “Children’s Socialization into Cleaning Practices: A Cross-Cultural Perspective.” Discourse and Society 18 (1): 11–33. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Floyd, Simeon, Giovanni Rossi, Julija Baranova, Joe Blythe, Mark Dingemanse, Kobin H. Kendrick, Jörg Zinken, and N. J. Enfield. 2018. “Universals and Cultural Diversity in the Expression of Gratitude.” Royal Society Open Science 5 (5): 180–391. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Floyd, Simeon, Giovanni Rossi, and N. J. Enfield (eds.). in press. Getting Others to Do Things: A Pragmatic Typology of Recruitments. Berlin: Language Science Press.
Gleason, Jean B., Rivka Y. Perlmann, and Esther B. Greif. 1984. “What’s the Magic Word: Learning Language Through Politeness Routines∗.” Discourse Processes 7 (4): 493–502. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gleason, Jean B., and Sandra Weintraub. 1976. “The Acquisition of Routines in Child Language.” Language in Society 5 (2): 129. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heritage, John. 1984. Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Keller, Heidi, Monika Abels, Jörn Borke, Bettina Lamm, Wingshan Lo, Yanjie Su, and Yifang Wang. 2007. “Socialization Environments of Chinese and Euro-American Middle-Class Babies. Parenting Behaviors, Verbal Discourse and Ethnotheories.” International Journal of Behavioral Development 31 (3): 210–17. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kendrick, Kobin H. in press. “Recruitment in English: A Quantitative Study.” In Getting Others to Do Things: A Pragmatic Typology of Recruitments, ed. by Simeon Floyd, Giovanni Rossi, and N. J. Enfield. Berlin: Language Science Press.
Kendrick, Kobin H., and Paul Drew. 2016. “Recruitments: Offers, Requests, and the Organizationof Assistance in Interaction.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 49 (1): 1–19. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen C. 2013. “Action Formation and Ascription.” In the Handbook of Conversation Analysis, ed. by Tanya Stivers, and Jack Sidnell, 103–30. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ochs, Elinor, and Carolina Izquierdo. 2009. “Responsibility in Childhood: Three Developmental Trajectories.” Ethos 37 (4): 391–413. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Reddy, Vasudevi. 2012. “Moving Others Matters.” In Moving Ourselves, Moving Others, ed. by Ad Foolen, Ulrike M. Lüdtke, Timothy P. Racine, and Jordan Zlatev, 139–164. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rossi, Giovanni. in press. “The Recruitment System in Italian.” In Getting Others to Do Things: A Pragmatic Typology of Recruitments, ed. by Simeon Floyd, Giovanni Rossi, and N. J. Enfield. Berlin: Language Science Press.
. 2012. “Bilateral and Unilateral Requests: The Use of Imperatives and Mi X? Interrogatives in Italian.” Discourse Processes 49: 426–58. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. The Request System in Italian Interaction. Doctoral Dissertation. Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rossi, Giovanni, Lorenza Mondada, Marja-Leena Sorjonen, Matylda Weidner, and Jörg Zinken. 2018. “PECII: A Parallel Corpus for Comparative Research.” Panel at the 5th International Conference on Conversation Analysis, Loughborough, UK, July 2018.
Schegloff, E. A. (2007). Sequence organization in interaction: A primer in conversation analysis. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Searle, J. (1975). Indirect speech acts. In P. Cole & J. L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and semantics. Part 3: Speech acts (pp. 59–82). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Selting, Margret, Peter Auer, Dagmar Barth-Weingarten, Jörg Bergmann, Pia Bergmann, Karin Birkner, Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen. 2011. “A System for Transcribing Talk-in-Interaction: GAT 2.” Gesprächsforschung 12: 1–51.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stivers, Tanya. 2004. ““No No No” And Other Types of Multiple Sayings in Social Interaction.” Human Communication Research 30 (2): 260–93. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stivers, Tanya, and Frederico Rossano. 2010. “Mobilizing Response.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 43 (1): 3–31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles. 1989. Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tomasello, Michael. 2008. Origins of Human Communication. Cambridge: MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wootton, Anthony J. 1997. Interaction and the Development of Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhan, Kaicheng, Wan Wei, Darcey Searles, Jonathan Potter, Song Hee Park, Lisa Mikesell, Jenny Mandelbaum, Alexa Hepburn, and Galina Bolden. 2018. “Gratitude in Recruitment Sequences.” Paper presented at the 5th International Conference on Conversation Analysis, Loughborough, UK, July 2018.
Zinken, Jörg. in press. “Recruitments in Polish.” In Getting Others to Do Things: A Pragmatic Typology of Recruitments, ed. by Simeon Floyd, Giovanni Rossi, and N. J. Enfield. Berlin: Language Science Press.
. 2016. Requesting Responsibility: The Morality of Grammar in Polish and English Family Interaction. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zinken, Jörg, and Arnulf Deppermann. 2017. “A Cline of Visible Commitment in the Design of Imperative Turns: Evidence from German and Polish.” In Imperative Turns at Talk: The Design of Directives in Action, ed. by Marja-Lena Sorjonen, Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, and Liisa Raevaara. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zinken, Jörg, and Eva Ogiermann. 2013. “Responsibility and Action: Object Requests in English and Polish Everyday Interaction.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 46 (3): 256–76. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zinken, Jörg, and Giovanni Rossi. 2016. “Assistance and Other Forms of Cooperative Engagement.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 49 (1): 20–26. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (6)

Cited by six other publications

Chalfoun, Andrew, Giovanni Rossi & Tanya Stivers
2025. The Magic Word? Face-Work and the Functions of Please in Everyday Requests. Social Psychology Quarterly 88:1 ► pp. 66 ff. DOI logo
Alshammari, Bandar & Michael Haugh
2024. Troubles-Complaints and the Overall Structural Organization of Troubles-Remedy Sequences. Research on Language and Social Interaction 57:2 ► pp. 215 ff. DOI logo
Killmer, Helene
2024. How parents with aphasia deal with children’s resistance to requests. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics 38:6 ► pp. 529 ff. DOI logo
Clayman, Steven E & Heidi Kevoe-Feldman
2023. Dispatching First Responders: Language Practices and the Dispatcher’s Operational Role in Radio Encounters With Police Officers. Discourse & Society 34:5 ► pp. 547 ff. DOI logo
Weidner, Matylda
2023. Responses to polar questions in Polish. In Responding to Polar Questions across Languages and Contexts [Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 35], ► pp. 109 ff. DOI logo
Küttner, Uwe-A., Anna Vatanen & Jörg Zinken
2022. Invoking Rules in Everyday Family Interactions: A Method for Appealing to Practical Reason. Human Studies 45:4 ► pp. 793 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue