The Handbook of Discourse Analysis

Discourse as an Interactional Achievement III 229
12 Discourse as an Interactional
Achievement III: The
Omnirelevance of Action
EMANUEL A. SCHEGLOFF
0 Introduction
There are two themes on which I would like to focus attention, whose full incorporation
into the analysis of discourse is, in my view, critical for its optimum further
development. What needs to be incorporated is an orientation (1) to action and (2) to
interaction. It will turn out that orientation to each of these themes confronts the
student of discourse with a sort of challenge whose depth and consequentiality has
not yet been fully registered or explored, but is likely to be substantial. What becomes
inescapable in facing up to action and interaction is the challenge of contingency.
What exactly I mean by “contingency” will only come into view over the course of
the discussion of empirical materials; as it cannot be usefully elaborated here, I will
return to the import of contingency at the end.
But before launching into this agenda, I need to make clear several premises of
what I have to say – both as context for my central points and to make explicit my
understanding of discourse’s place in the world.
1 Points of Departure
The first point is that I take real-world, naturally occurring ordinary discourse as the
basic target; it is as a student of that that I offer what follows. There may well be
grounds for those with other interests to opt for a different point of reference or a
different target of inquiry; but for me these involve departures from the natural and
cultural bedrock.
Second, I take it that, in many respects, the fundamental or primordial scene of
social life is that of direct interaction between members of a social species, typically
ones who are physically copresent. For humans, talking in interaction appears to be a
distinctive form of this primary constituent of social life, and ordinary conversation is