Person Reference and a Preference for Association in Emergency Calls

ABSTRACT

Person reference is pervasive in talk. Conversation analytic work has identified preferences in person reference relating to recognitional reference. However, the principles shaping nonrecognitional reference are less well understood. We propose a preference for association in an institutional setting in which recognition is not relevant. Our data are calls to the New Zealand police emergency line that were institutionally classified as family harm. Using a collection methodology, we found that nonrecognitional person reference typically takes the form my x which directly associates speaker and referent, for example, “my partner,” “my ex-partner,” “my dad.” Initial references that suggest no association (e.g. “someone” or “an abusive guy”) were subsequently revised by callers using self-repair or targeted by call takers through questions that seek clarification about association. The shifts from nonassociative to associative references demonstrate participants’ orientations to the relevance of association and are evidence of a preference for association in the setting under examination. Data are in English.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Chelsey Gardiner for her tireless support redacting the data and to Kate Mora and the team at Evidence Based Policing Centre for making this project possible.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ The term “family violence” is widely used in place of “domestic violence” in New Zealand, reflecting legislative change that replaced the Domestic Violence Act (1995) with the Family Violence Act (2018).