In this chapter, two fundamental principles of the Board are explained: order and preference. The sequences the author discusses are pairs of questions and answers (also, which show how they can be used to lock (or link) multiple sequences in two parts together in larger units. The preferences he discussed were agreement and contiguity in the conversation. The chapter provides a background that allows the reader to understand something about the name of what we do: sequential analysis of conversations. We are primarily interested in the social organization of interaction, and as long as we talk about natural interaction, sequences are the most natural types of objects to study. Each member of a culture knows whole sections of these sequences when it comes to the organization of conversations. Conversations often begin, mainly, with welcome exchanges, and these, for two parts, are small two-unit things. Preferred organization was once a leading concept in the analysis of the conversation, but it has been interpreted in a series of ways incompatible with both parties and is now used very limitedly. However, the publication of the presentations collected by Harvey Sacks allowed for a reassessment of the concept and a criterion of preference.
This document shows that preferences can be explained in the form of significant absence and responsibility. The preferred action is the “seen but unnoticed” action (Garfinkel, 1967), while the preferred action is of two types. The first is noticeable and responsible, but not sanctioned, while the second is sensitive, responsible and punishable. The document shows how this concept works in three key bag presentations and in data statements. This article examines two types of preferential organizations in the interaction: in response to a question that selects a next spokesperson in the multi-party interaction, the preference for unanswered responses is preferred as a category of response. and preference for the next spokesperson selected to respond. It is argued that the rotational allocation rule imposed by Sacks, Schegloff-Jefferson (1974), which states that a response by the next spokesperson selected at the transition reference site is influenced by these two preferences beyond a normal transition space.