THE CONSTRUCTION OF TOPIC IN THE TURNS OF TALK AT THE MEETINGS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

This is a study of how members of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) produce their talk, using the principles of ethnomethodological conversation analysis. The focus is on two interralated phenomena of the openings of turns. Recurrently, the first words of the turns, i.e., greetings and self‐identification, are followed with a resonse space during which members display their orientation to coparticipants through allusions to prior speakers. Positive references to prior speakers are stated directly and addressed explicitly, typically through a phrase such as: “I identified with X and what X said,” wheras critical remarks are stated implicitly and without any address. Through this procedure, members establish their individual position in each meeting without posing challenges to other members. The allusions occasions initiation of a subsequent topic of the turn that characteristically is biographically relevant for the speaker. This procedure of organization of talk permits AA meetings to handle delicate issues in a sociable, nonconfrontive way.