Adjacency Pairs
Adjacency pairs are the fundamental structural unit of Conversation Analysis. They consist of two turns produced by different speakers, where the first turn (the first pair part) makes a particular type of second turn (the second pair part) conditionally relevant.
Definition
Schegloff and Sacks (1973) identified adjacency pairs as sequences that are:
- Two utterances long
- Produced by different speakers
- Adjacently placed (one follows the other)
- Ordered — first pair part (FPP) precedes second pair part (SPP)
- Typed — the FPP constrains what type of SPP is expected
Common Types
| First pair part | Preferred second | Dispreferred second |
|---|---|---|
| Greeting | Greeting | — |
| Question | Answer | Non-answer, "I don't know" |
| Request | Acceptance/compliance | Refusal |
| Offer | Acceptance | Rejection |
| Invitation | Acceptance | Decline |
| Complaint | Apology/remedy | Denial/justification |
| Compliment | Acceptance/downgrade | Rejection |
| Assessment | Agreement | Disagreement |
Preference Organisation
Not all second pair parts are equal. Pomerantz (1984) showed that responses are organised into preferred and dispreferred structures:
- Preferred responses are structurally unmarked: delivered without delay, briefly, directly.
- Dispreferred responses are structurally marked: preceded by hesitation, delay, hedges, accounts, and apologies.
Example:
A: "Would you like to come for dinner Saturday?" B (preferred): "Yes, I'd love to!" B (dispreferred): "Oh... well... that's really kind of you, but I'm afraid I've already got something on that evening. I'm really sorry."
The dispreferred turn is longer, delayed, and includes mitigation — a universal pattern across languages. This links to Face management: dispreferred responses are face-threatening and require softening.
Insertion Sequences
Adjacency pairs can be expanded by insertion sequences — additional pairs inserted between the FPP and SPP:
A: "Can you give me a lift?" (FPP — request) B: "Where to?" (insertion — question) A: "The station." (insertion — answer) B: "Sure." (SPP — acceptance)
L2 Relevance
Adjacency pairs are a productive teaching tool:
- They provide natural frameworks for practising Speech Acts (requesting, refusing, inviting)
- Dispreferred responses are harder for learners — they need the hedging, mitigation, and accounting language
- Understanding what is conditionally relevant helps learners interpret when an expected response is missing (significant absence)
- Role-plays structured around adjacency pairs give learners predictable but authentic conversational practice