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two chapters (Chapters 6 and 7). Here however I want to sketch out the
collective activity of sociability within these two main phases.
Turning to my own data then, greeting phases included both arrival
greetings and departure greetings. Arrival greetings consisted of the gathering
and welcoming of newcomers to the gathering and usually took place at the
start of proceedings (on occasion being replayed in an abridged format if
additional participants entered later in the gathering. Verbal interaction normally
consisted of 'ask after other' type questions from hosts (e. g. And how are you?
Und, wie geht's [So, how are you? ], followed by abridged responses from
newcomers, normally indicating that all was well (Not so bad / Danke, gut
[Thanks, good]). These formulaic exchanges seldom developed into any
extended account of how recipients really 'were', but were rather restricted to
cursory reciprocal exchanges (see Sacks 1975). Certain topics were also
proffered during gathering phases. These often took the form of reporting
activities that newcomers had recently been involved in, and often took the form
of 'tellings' (e. g. reporting feeling exhausted from the days work or having just
returned from a pleasant day out). Hosts would also often attempt to initiate
such tellings by asking general questions (e. g. 'So, what have you been up to'
or'So, what do you know'/ Und was machst du so? [So what have you been up
to? ]), as well as more specific ones, drawing on topics that had previously been
talked about or information that was already generally known ('How did your
holiday go'PUnd, wie wars in Tegernsee' [How was it Tegernsee]). Verbal
interaction in these phases commonly focused around signalling the closeness
of the relationship between participants - as supportive interchanges (Goffman
1971) or positive facework (Brown and Levinson 1987) - rather than being
treated as a site for extended discussion of a given topic. In departure phases,
direct reference to the immediately preceding events, and potentially future
gatherings commonly formed the conversational focus. Invariably, enjoyment of
the evenings events were normally expressed, augmented with compliments to
the host(ess). Often offers to meet again in the near future were made, and
subsequently accepted. Alongside these formulaic displays, conversational
topics from the main phase did sometimes spill over as, to use one of
Goffman's analogies, the conversational motors 'ran on' after the ignitions had
been turned off. These were quickly snuffed out however in favour of departure
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