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Responding to the Double Implication of Telemarketers’ Opinion Queries

University of Groningen

During a call, telemarketers sometimes solicit respondent’s opinions about a product or service. This turns out to be a query with multiple implications, and respondents are alive to them. On the one hand, the recipient orients to a local preference to evaluate the telemarketer’s product positively. On the other hand, a positive assessment may result in expectations and commitments that survive the sequence and that are relevant for the call’s outcome. The recipient is faced with two types of preference structures, one grounded in the sequence and the other one in the course of action it is part of. The preferences may be incompatible. Analysis shows that the shape of response turns with congruent preferences is observably different from response turns with cross-cutting preferences. In the latter case, the dispreferred character of the response to the caller’s ultimate purpose – that is, making a proposal for a commercial transaction – dominates over the response to the opinion query as just an opinion query in its own right. To generalize, the analysis shows that preparatory sequences in standardized courses of action in institutional settings are a special type of presequence. The participants develop a course of action through ordered series of preparatory sequences. Although locally responding to initiatives of the interlocutor, each response shows an orientation to both the local contingencies of the ongoing sequence and to the overall course of action it is contributing to.

Key Words: course of action • institutional interaction • multiple preference structures • opinion query • preparatory sequences • scripted interaction • telemarketing call

Discourse Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1, 95-115 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/1461445604039443


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