Drinking up endings: conversational resources of the café
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Date
2008Author
Laurier, Eric
Metadata
Abstract
A first theme of this article is the abiding relationship between the café and conversation.
A relationship which begins with Habermas’s emphasis on political debate in early
modernity and continues to more contemporary studies of the service encounter. A
second theme is conversation analysis and its concern with closing sequences of
phonecalls. Drawing on the work of Goodwin I examine the importance of gesture and
materials in closing sequences in one of the many conversations we have off-line. Given
that it is the café the bodily movements of speakers are in and around both the
architectures of the café and, centrally, the drinking of drinks. An illustrated transcript of
two co-workers closing their conversation, and stay, in café is analysed to flesh out the
argument over the resource that drinking provides for talking together.