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Presents a study which argued the horizontal and vertical comparative research in language and social interaction. Explanation of the primordial site of sociality in talk-in-interaction; Discussion of studies of mundane and institutional talk-interaction across culture and language; Studies of the acquisition of conversational structures; Accessibility of primary data in support of published analyses.

In this paper we argue that the organization of citizen calls to emergency services reveals how the sequential machinery of conversation is adapted by speaker-hearers to organize, coordinate and exhibit to one another their knowledge and purposes on particular occasions. It is in the way such knowledge is brought to bear, and purposes at hand made evident, that recurrent sequences of interactionally and institutionally relevant activity are built out of local and particular materials. Thus, the sequential organization of conversation is a fundamental resource for social activities directed to matters outside of, but addressable through talk, and for achieving regular, recurrent patterns of action in the face of varying details and circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]