Part of
Requesting in Social InteractionEdited by Paul Drew and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen
[Studies in Language and Social Interaction 26] 2014
► pp. 1–34
Edited by Paul Drew and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen
[Studies in Language and Social Interaction 26] 2014
► pp. 1–34
Requesting – from speech act to recruitment
In this introduction we outline some of the background to and evolution of the work on social action and requesting, then introduce some of the key analytic themes in investigating requesting in talk-in-interaction. This sets the scene for what is becoming a particularly significant perspective on requesting, which is that in face-to-face interaction requesting should be understood as one of the ways in which one person recruits another’s assistance in some matter. Seen in a fuller spatial and corporeal context, it is evident that recruitment of the other(s) assistance requires us to broaden our analysis, to understand how a fuller range of linguistic and semiotic resources are deployed and engaged – together with gesture, bodily movement, gaze and so forth, in a physical setting – to do what we have traditionally and colloquially termed requesting.
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