ABSTRACT
We all do it. We apologize to friends for not returning phone calls, we make excuses to our bosses for missing deadlines or meetings, and we justify breaking traffic laws when pulled over by police. We hope that people will accept our explanations and not think any less of us. In short, we regularly employ these linguistic devices called accounts “whenever an action is subjected to valuative inquiry” (Scott & Lyman, 1968, p. 46). Valuative inquiry is a request for an explanation of either an inappropriate or unexpected behavior, or a failure to engage in an appropriate or expected behavior. Sometimes we freely offer an account, without a request for one, when we realize that an explanation for our behavior is in order. Other times, people demand one of us explicitly (“Where were you?”) or implicitly through a look of disgust or annoyance (McLaughlin, Cody, & O'Hair, 1983; McLaughlin, Cody, & Rosenstein, 1983).
