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.
Schegloff and Sacks (1973) identified adjacency pairs as sequences that are:
| First pair part | Preferred second | Dispreferred second |
|---|---|---|
| Greeting | Greeting | None |
| 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 |
Not all second pair parts are equal. Pomerantz (1984) showed that responses are organised into preferred and dispreferred structures:
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.
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)
Adjacency pairs are a productive teaching tool: