Formulating the request for survey participation in relation to the interactional environment

Abstract

In this article, we analyze the practices of requesting participation in telephone survey interviews. Recent conversation analytic work on requests has focused on the interactional functions of request formats and their relationship to abstractly defined institutional and ordinary contexts. We add to this line of inquiry by demonstrating that the design features of the requests in our collection are largely shaped by and responsive to specific details of the sequences of talk in which they are embedded. We identify two types of request formats – high contingency and low contingency – and show that requests are built in such a way that addresses features of the local sequential environment. High contingency requests that present the recipient with the option of doing the interview ‘now’ or doing it ‘later’ recognize that when an interview is done may be a contingent issue and as such are produced with greater frequency in discouraging interactional environments, whereas requests that embed the single option of doing an interview ‘now’ presume a lack of contingencies and are produced less frequently in discouraging environments.