Cover not available
Part of
Grammar in Action: Building comprehensive grammars of talk-in-interaction
Edited by Jakob Steensig, Maria Jørgensen, Jan K. Lindström, Nicholas Mikkelsen, Karita Suomalainen and Søren Sandager Sørensen
[Studies in Language and Social Interaction 37] 2025
► pp. 47–77

Chapter 3
‘Idea-Suggestions’ in an interactional grammar

Sequential organization and grammatical formats

 | University of Helsinki
 | University of California Santa Barbara
In this chapter, we explore the grammar of ‘Suggestions’ and the sequences they engender. ‘Suggestion’ is used here as a technical term to refer to a speaker forwarding an action to be performed by the recipient that will benefit the recipient. The data suggest several sub-types of Suggestion, the focus here being on the sub-type in which a speaker initiates a sequence by volunteering an idea for something that the other might do to their benefit, which we call ‘Idea-Suggestion’, or ‘I-Suggestion’. We discuss the formats that speakers of American English use to put forth these kinds of Suggestions, and argue that the tentativeness built into the work that I-Suggestions do reveals what participants orient to in the trajectory of the ensuing sequence. A final section explores how our findings might be captured in an Interactional Grammar of American English.
Keywords: Suggestion, advice, recruitment, Idea-Suggestion, benefit, social action format, why don’t you, hypothetical conditional
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data and procedure
  • 3.Features of Idea-Suggestion sequences
    • 3.1Preliminaries to I-Suggestions
    • 3.2Formats for I-Suggestions
      • 3.2.1‘Why don’t you’ (WDY) formats
      • 3.2.2Formats with obligation and necessity modals
      • 3.2.3Hypothetical conditional formats
      • 3.2.4Formats with ability and possibility modals
      • 3.2.5Formats with ‘you want to’
    • 3.3Responses to I-Suggestions
  • 4.Idea-Suggestions vs. Advice-Suggestions
  • 5.Idea-Suggestions in an interactional grammar
    • 5.1Idea-Suggestions: From action to grammar
    • 5.2Idea-Suggestions: From grammar to action
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
References (49)
References
Atkinson, J. Maxwell, and John Heritage (eds). 1984. Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan 1998. “The Emergent Lexicon.” CLS 34: The Panels, 421–435. University of Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Clayman, Steven E. 2013. “Agency in Response: The Role of Prefatory Address Terms.” Journal of Pragmatics 57:290–302. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clayman, Steven E., and John Heritage. 2014. “Benefactors and Beneficiaries: Benefactive 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: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth. 2014. “What does Grammar Tell us about Action?” Pragmatics 24 (3):623–647.Google Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth, and Sandra A. Thompson. 2022. “Action Ascription and Deonticity in Everyday Advice-giving Sequences.” In Action Ascription in Interaction, ed. by Arnulf Deppermann, and Michael Haugh, 183–207. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Curl, Traci S. 2006. “Offers of Assistance: Constraints on Syntactic Design.” Journal of Pragmatics 38:1257–1280. DOI logoGoogle 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):129–153. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Deppermann, Arnulf, and Michael Haugh. 2022. “Action Ascription: Interaction in Context.” In Action Ascription in Interaction, ed. by Arnulf Deppermann, and Michael Haugh, 1–27. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Drew, Paul. 1984. “Speakers’ Reportings in Invitation Sequences.” In Structures of Social Action. Studies in Conversation Analysis, ed. by J. Maxwell Atkinson, and John Heritage, 129–151. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Drew, Paul, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen (eds). 2014. Requesting in Social Interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Enfield, Nick J. 2013. Relationship Thinking. Agency, Enchrony and Human Sociality. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Enfield, Nick J., and Jack Sidnell. 2017a. “On the Concept of Action in the Study of Interaction.” Discourse Studies 19 (5):515–535. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2017b. The Concept of Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ervin-Tripp, Susan. 1976. “’Is Sybil there?’ The Structure of Some American English Directives.” Language in Society 5 (1):25–66. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ewing, Michael C. 2018. “Investigating Indonesian conversation: Approach and rationale.” Wacana 19 (2):342–374. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ford, Cecilia E. 1997. “Speaking Conditionally: Some Contexts for If-clauses in Conversation.” In On Conditionals Again, ed. by Angeliki Athanasiadou, and René Dirven, 387–413. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ford, Cecilia E., Barbara A. Fox, and Sandra A. Thompson. 2013. “Units and/or action trajectories? The language of grammatical categories and the language of social action.” In Units of Talk – Units of Action, ed. by Beatrice Szczepek Reed, and Geoffrey Raymond, 13–56. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fox, Barbara A. 2007. “Principles Shaping Grammatical Practices: An Exploration.” Discourse Studies 9 (3):299–318. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Günthner, Susanne. 2000. “From Concessive Connector to Discourse Marker: The Use of ‘obwohl’ in Everyday German Interaction.” In Cause – Condition – Concession — Contrast, ed. by Bernd Kortmann, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 439–468. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hatsuda, Hayana. 2024. “Japanese tara doo desu ka: A Canonical Advice Form. Or is it?” Paper presented at IIEMCA, Seoul.Google Scholar
Heritage, John, and Steven E. Clayman. 2024. “Making Arrangements: A Sketch of a ‘Big Package’.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 57 (3):279–300. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heritage, John, and Sue Sefi. 1992. “Dilemmas of Advice: Aspects of the Delivery and Reception of Advice in Interactions between Health Visitors and First-time Mothers.” In Talk at work. Interaction in institutional settings, ed. by Paul Drew, and John Heritage, 359–417. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail. 2004. “Glossary of Transcript Symbols with an Introduction.” In Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation, ed. by Gene H. Lerner, 13–31. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jefferson, Gail, and John R. E. Lee. 1981. “The rejection of Advice: Managing the Problematic Convergence of a ‘Troubles-telling’ and a ‘Service Encounter’.” Journal of Pragmatics 5:399–422. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kendrick, Kobin H., and Paul Drew. 2014. “The Putative Preference for Offers over Requests.” In Requesting in Social Interaction, ed. by Paul Drew, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, 87–113. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kendrick, Kobin H., Penelope Brown, Mark Dingemanse, Simeon Floyd, Sonja Gipper, Kaoru Hayano, Elliott Hoey, Gertie Hoymann, Elizabeth Manrique, Giovanni Rossi, and Stephen C. Levinson. 2020. “Sequence Organisation: A Universal Infrastructure for Social Action.” Journal of Pragmatics 168, 119–138. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kevoe-Feldman, Heidi, and Jeffrey D. Robinson. 2012. “Exploring Essentially Three-turn Courses of Action: An Institutional Case Study with Implications for Ordinary Talk.” Discourse Studies, 14 (2): 217–241. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Laury, Ritva. 2012. “Syntactically Non-integrated Finnish jos ‘if’ Conditional Clauses as Directives.” Discourse Processes 49:213–242. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lindström, Jan, Camilla Lindholm, and Ritva Laury. 2016. “The Interactional Emergence of Conditional Clauses as Directives: Constructions, Trajectories and Sequences of Action.” Language Sciences 58:8–21. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maschler, Yael, Simona Pekarek Doehler, Jan Lindström, and Leelo Keevallik (eds). 2020. Emergent Syntax for Conversation: Clausal Patterns and the Organization of Action. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Raymond, Chase W., Jeffrey D. Robinson, Barbara A. Fox, Sandra A. Thompson, and Kristella Montiegal. 2020. “Modulating Action through Minimization: Syntax in the Service of Offering and Requesting.” Language in Society 50 (1):53–91. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Robinson, Jeffrey D., and Heidi Kevoe-Feldman. 2016. “The Accountability of Proposing (vs. Soliciting Proposals of) Arrangements.” In Accountability in Social Interaction, ed by Jeffrey D. Robinson, 264–293. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A. 1980. “Preliminaries to Preliminaries: ‘Can I Ask You a Question?’”. Sociological Inquiry 50:104–152. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1988. “Description in the Social Sciences I: Talk-in-Interaction.” Papers in Pragmatics 2 (1):1–24.Google Scholar
2007. Sequence Organization in Interaction: A Primer in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sidnell, Jack. 2017. “Action in interaction is conduct under a description”. Language in Society 46 (3):313–337. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sidnell, Jack, and Nick J. Enfield. 2012. “Language Diversity and Social Action: A Third Locus of Linguistic Relativity.” Current Anthropology 53(3):302–333. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2014. “The Ontology of Action, in Interaction.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Anthropology, ed. by Nick J. Enfield, Paul Kockelman, and Jack Sidnell, 423–446. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Steensig, Jakob, Maria Jørgensen, Nikolas Mikkelsen, Karita Suomalainen, and Søren Sandager Sørensen. 2023. “Towards a Grammar of Danish Talk-in-interaction: From Action Formation to Grammatical Description.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 56(2):116–140. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stivers, Tanya, and Makoto Hayashi. 2010. “Transformative Answers: One Way to Resist a Question’s Constraints.” Language in Society 39:1–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stivers, Tanya, John Heritage, Rebecca K. Barnes, Rose McCabe, Laura Thompson, and Merran Toerien. 2017. “Treatment Recommendations as Actions.” Health Communication 33(11):1335–1344. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stivers, Tanya, and Federico Rossano. 2010. “Mobilizing Response.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 43(1):3–31. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stivers, Tanya, and Jack Sidnell. 2016. “Proposals for Activity Collaboration.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 49(2):148–166. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Terasaki, Alene K. 2004. “Pre-announcement Sequences in Conversation.” In Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation, ed. by G. H. Lerner, 171–223. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thompson, Sandra A., and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen. 2020. “English ‘why don’t you X’ as a Formulaic Expression.” In Fixed Expressions. Building Language Structure and Social Action, ed. by Ritva Laury, and Tsuyoshi Ono, 99–131. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thompson, Sandra A., Barbara A. Fox, and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen. (2015). Grammar in Everyday Talk: Building Responsive Actions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thompson, Sandra A., Barbara A. Fox, and Chase W. Raymond. 2021. “The Grammar of Proposals for Joint Activities.” Interactional Linguistics 1(1):123–151. DOI logoGoogle Scholar