When personal names are mentioned in conversations: Presumed known, perhaps known and presumed unknown

Kevin A. Whitehead and Gene H. Lerner
University of California, Santa Barbara | University of the Witwatersrand

Sacks and Schegloff (1979; Schegloff 1996) identify a preference for recognitional references to persons over non-recognitional forms of references. Furthermore, they identify as a subsidiary preference that, among recognitional forms, personal names are preferred over recognitional descriptors. However, as Sacks and Schegloff indicate, these preferences in no way limit the use of names to conclusively recognizable persons, nor do they even inhibit references to persons by name when recognition is not at all practicable. In this report, we first describe those practices that manage (and thereby exhibit) levels of confidence regarding the recognizability of personal names. We then examine several environments in which personal names are employed in introducing persons as previously unknown to recipients, and we describe one family of practices for doing so. Finally, we identify storytelling as a principal environment in which personal names are used, and we describe where unknown persons are introduced by storytellers.

Publication history

Date received: 30 December 2024

Date accepted: 3 September 2025

Published online: 27 January 2026

Table of contents

Names are the solution to the reference problem.

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