Summons Turns: The Business of Securing a Turn in Busy Classrooms

Abstract

In order to engage in talk it is necessary for all participants to be oriented to the talk as an event. One of the achievements of an exchange of greetings is the establishment of joint agreement that the encounter is the possible start of a conversation. If there is no visual contact through gaze, the establishment of joint attention may require a summons, such as calling out the intended recipient’s name. Gaze is important in the establishment of engagement frameworks, as it indicates current attention and availability for participation in an interaction and helps identify an intended recipient (Robinson 1998), and the success of summonses in face-to-face interactions requires co-presence and gaze contact through ‘facing formations’ (Goodwin 2006). Whereas greetings only occur at the beginning of conversations, summonses, with their attendant answers or responses, can occur once a conversation is underway, typically when there has been a hiatus in the talk between the summoner and the targeted recipient. Thus, summonses can occur regularly where there are large numbers of potential participants, such as in open-plan offices or other workplaces where people may be focused on a work task (Filliettaz 2011), at large social gatherings or parties (Good and Beach 2005), or in classrooms (Cekaite 2008).