ABSTRACT
As competent speakers of the language natural to our particular social order, we have little difficulty in accepting the following, fairly self-evident observations. First, that there is a large number of social situations in which participants to the talk which forms the interactional bedrock of the situation perform conversational activities which might be grossly characterized as asking questions and giving answers. Secondly, that, in certain ‘institutional’ settings, engagement in these kinds of activities appears to be a major part of the business being conducted in the social encounters which are enacted in these settings. Thirdly, that the ways in which such conversational work is done in particular ‘institutional’ settings is audibly different from (a) the way it is accomplished in other such settings and (b) the way it is routinely ‘brought off or recognized as appropriate in ‘naturally-occurring’ stretches of talk.
