Citation

Edwards D, Stokoe E. Res. Lang. Soc. Interact. 2007; 40(1): 9-32.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/08351810701331208

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In telephone calls to United Kingdom mediation centers for disputing neighbors, participants deal with clients' prior efforts at resolving the problem. Where no such efforts are mentioned in initial complaint narratives, there follows a typical sequence of actions. On the evident completion of the complaint, mediators (M) ask whether efforts have been made to speak with the problem neighbor. Clients and M treat the question not only as information seeking but as normatively accountable, orienting to this by various kinds of “dispreference” marking, speech perturbation in M's question turn, and by the elicitation and provision of accounts. Accounts claim various kinds of inability, difficulty, strong probability of failure, or reasons to be fearful of the consequences. It is generally at this point that M provides a description of what the mediation service can offer given that mediation will involve precisely what the client has just accounted for as problematical—talking to the neighbor.