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Waiting to Inhale: On Sniffing in Conversation
Elliott M. Hoey
Department of Linguistics and Literature, University of Basel, Switzerland
ABSTRACT
This article examines sniffing in everyday conversations. It builds on
prior conversation analytic research on respiratory conduct, which has
shown how things like inbreaths, sighs, and laughter are delicately
organized and consequential components of the social occasions into
which they figure. Sniffing—the swift, audible, intake of breath through
the nasal passage—is analyzed by reference to its sequential placement
in talk. Using a collection of 70 cases of sniffs in naturally occurring
conversations, two recurrent uses of sniffing are described. Sniffs placed
before or during a turn-at-talk serve to delay turn progression. Andsniffs
placed in the postcompletion space of a turn can indicate its comple-
tion. This association between postcompletion sniffing and turn com-
pletion is further supported through a comparison with postcompletion
inbreaths. By situating sniffing in its sequential contexts, the organiza-
tion of breathing is shown to be bound up with the organization of
speaking. Data are in American and British English.
Sniffing—theswift,audible,inhalationthroughthenose—is analyzed in this article as a social
interactional phenomenon. Much existing research on sniffing has approached the topic from
medical, physiological, and neurocognitive perspectives, with concerns like “huffing/sniffing”
toxic substances (e.g., Streicher, Gabow, Moss, Kono, & Kaehny, 1981) and olfactory perception
(e.g., Wachowiak, 2011). By contrast, this article offers a naturalistic account of sniffing as an
identifiable and recurrent behavior in everyday conversational interaction. It is situated in the
tradition of research that has shown how linguistically marginal vocalizations like response cries
(Goffman, 1978; Hofstetter, 2020/this issue) and sound objects (Reber, 2012; Reber & Couper-
Kuhlen, 2020/this issue) are interactional practices delicately fitted to their sequential contexts.
On the basis of a range of naturally occurring interactions in English, the analysis demonstrates
how sniffing is used as an organizational resource in turn construction and turn taking.
Respiration in interaction
Respiration is a prerequisite for speech, so we expect forms of breathing to be related to forms
of speaking. The relationship between respiration and speech planning has long been
a concern in psycholinguistics, but such work has historically relied on reading studies and
controlled laboratory experimentation rather than natural conversation (Włodarczak &
CONTACT Elliott M. Hoey elliottmichael.hoey@unibas.ch Department of Linguistics and Literature, University of
Basel, Maiengasse 51, Basel 4056, Switzerland.
A version of this article was presented at the 2018 ICCA panel on nonlexical vocalizations. It has been improved through
helpful feedback from David Aline, Kobin Kendrick, Uwe Kuttner, Steve Levinson, Lorenza Mondada, and ROLSI reviewers
and editors of this special issue.
RESEARCH ON LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL INTERACTION
2020, VOL. 53, NO. 1, 118–139
https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2020.1712962
© 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Heldner, 2017; though see Torreira, Bögels, & Levinson, 2015). Close observation of con-
versation, however, can reveal participants’practical knowledge of breathing and speaking. As
Schegloff(1996, p. 106) observed:
Breathings—whether in or out—are practices; they can be done in various modalities (e.g.,
designed to be heard or not, of different “sizes”or “depths”); they can be placed variously in
the developing structure of the [turn-constructional unit]. They […] are deployable elements
of its construction, and thus candidate building blocks for its grammar.
Breathing has long been recognized as important in the organization of turn taking
(Sacks, Schegloff,&Jefferson, 1974). Inbreaths can show a participant as “gearing up”to
speak (Jefferson, 1986) and recurrently serve as pre-beginning objects that project turn
initiation (Schegloff, 1996). This association between an inbreath and imminent talk is so
conventionalized that releasing that breath is often treated as abandoning preparation to
speak (Lerner & Linton, 2004; Local & Kelly, 1986). The difference between inbreaths-for-
speaking and inbreaths-for-respiration is hearable as well. Pre-beginning inbreaths show
greater amplitude than subsequent same-turn inbreaths (Aare, Włodarczak, & Heldner,
2015). Similarly, inbreaths associated with turn initiation tend to be longer than those
associated with turn holding (Hammarsten, Harris, Henriksson, & Włodarczak, 2015).
An underlying feature of respiratory practices is their manipulability. Participants can
specifically place and design their respiratory doings. Broth (2011), for example, has
shown that theater audiences refrain from coughing and throat-clearing during actors’on-
stage actions, indicating that audience members’positioning of such objects is normatively
organized. Various manipulations of breathing are available to interactants. For example,
relatively intense inbreaths (gasps) can project some reportable matter by indicating that
something was just remembered, noticed, or realized (Lerner & Linton, 2004). The shock
that gasping can display neatly contrasts with its reverse action, relatively intense out-
breaths (sighs), which often convey weakly negative affect akin to resignation (Hoey,
2014). As the cases of gasping and sighing suggest, many respiratory behaviors are
conventionally associated with affect and stance taking. Laughter, of course, is the para-
digm case of this (e.g., Jefferson, Sacks, & Schegloff, 1977), but scholars of interaction have
also documented the situated uses of things such as teeth sucking (Goodwin & Alim,
2010), clicks (Ogden, 2013, 2020; Wright, 2011), and the characteristically French pf
(Baldauf-Quilliatre, 2016). This article continues this line of research by taking sniffing
as its focus.
Sniffing
Analytic interest in sniffing emerges from its potential for social use by interactants.
Research has only recently begun on the social dimensions of sniffing. Work in social
psychology has shown that experimental subjects often snifftheir hands after greeting
a confederate with a handshake (Frumin, Perl, Endevelt-Shapira, & Sobel, 2015) and that
movie viewers mirror the sniffing behavior of on-screen actors (Arzi, Shedlesky, Secundo,
& Sobel, 2014). In nonhuman animals, subordinate rats have been observed decreasing
their sniffing frequency when being inspected by dominant rats, suggesting that sniffing
indicates social hierarchy (Wesson, 2013). This article adopts an interactional perspective
on sniffing and analyzes it as a social practice.
RESEARCH ON LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL INTERACTION 119
Sniffing has features that seem to afford communicative use, especially as a practice
distinct from inbreaths. First, sniffing moves air at a higher velocity than modal breathing,
resulting in its characteristic sound. That is, sniffing is auditorily distinct from inbreaths,
and so participants may treat them differently. Second, the anatomical mechanics of
sniffing may predispose it to interactional use. If the lungs are near capacity, sniffing is
relatively difficult, suggesting that deep inbreaths (i.e., in preparation to speak) are in
complementary distribution with sniffs. Furthermore, sniffing is most easily done with lips
closed, which is often understood as a visible display of nonspeakership. And third,
sniffing can be presumed to be done volitionally and therefore as designed in both its
placement and form.
Goffman was perhaps the first to attend to sniffing as a social activity. Though sniffing
itself was never his express interest, Goffman (1974) developed a framework for under-
standing it as an “out-of-frame”activity that fits into a “directional stream”of interaction,
where it may organize participants’attention and regulate activity progress. He specifically
characterized sniffing as a “creature release”alongside other bodily attentive acts like
scratching and coughing. Lerner and Raymond (2017) similarly argued that bodily
attentive conduct could be used to regulate participation, insofar as things like self-
grooms offer participants “somewhere else to go and something else to do”(p. 312).
The ways in which sniffing may frame or regulate interactional behavior has been the
subject of some conversation analytic work. Hepburn (2004) examined sniffing and
“sniffling”during episodes of crying by callers to a support helpline (see also Hepburn
& Potter, 2007). Her preliminary look at sniffing showed substantial variation in form:
Sniffing varied in intensity and routinely accompanied other nasolaryngeal sounds to
produce hearably “wet”and “snorty”sniffs. Additionally, Hepburn observed that “the
positioning of sniffs often seems interactionally interesting”(p. 264), noting in particular
its occurrence in lapses (Hoey, 2015), after bouts of sobbing, and prior to same-speaker
talk. The association between sniffs and “trouble”broadly understood was also observed in
later studies. In a study of second-language classroom interactions, Hosoda and Aline
(2012) demonstrated how sniffs and other nonvocal conduct recurred amidst trouble in
formulation and suggested that they served to “buy extra time”(p. 65). Ticca (2013)
similarly suggested that sniffs in the prebeginning region of an answer could presage
a dispreferred response.
Taking these observations and studies as a point of departure, this article explores the
recurrent uses of sniffing in everyday conversations. It seeks to develop an account of the
respiratory behavior by reference to its placement in the course of the participants’
situated activities.
Data and methods
The analysis is based on a collection of 70 cases of sniffing, which refers to the swift,
audible intake of breath through the nasal cavity that occurred out of sync with normal
respiration. These were located via text search of transcripts for the terms ((sniff)), .snf,
and minor variants thereof. I used transcripts of audio/video recordings of natural
interactions in American and British English (e.g., Newport Beach, Holt/Field corpus,
and Santa Barbara Corpus). Most were transcribed using Jeffersonian conventions (2004),
though some were created using Discourse Transcription (Du Bois, Schuetze-Coburn,
120 E. M. HOEY
Cumming, & Paolino, 1993) or GAT2 (Selting & Auer, 2011). Nearly all cases (96%, n
= 67) came from casual conversations between family, friends, and intimates; the remain-
ing three cases appeared in a Watergate telephone call, a workplace meeting, and a doctor-
patient interaction. These recordings were collected by researchers with the participants’
informed consent.
Acoustically, the sniffs in my collection were relatively consistent in form. Figure 1
shows a sniff(from Extract 1), which is representative of most cases: It lasts about 250 ms,
occurs under one respiratory contour, and, as shown by the blue line, rapidly builds in
intensity/loudness, peaking at 66 dB then decreasing in energy.
Sniffs can, of course, depart in form from this typical instance, though the variation in
my collection is less than the diversity of formats that Hepburn (2004) found in crying-
related sniffing. Sniffduration ranged from 150–900 ms. Regarding intensity, most were
clearly hearable, and others were almost inaudibly soft. While most cases (86%, n= 60)
appeared under one respiratory contour, there were also compound sniffs, such as long
continuous sniffs with two peaks of inspirational intensity—these were counted as single
sniffs in the collection.
To approximate the phenomenon acoustically, all sniffs for which audio was available
are transcribed as >.nh< (cf. Hepburn, 2004, p. 264). The >< symbols capture the rapidity
of sniffing, which is the qualitative acoustic criteria used to distinguish them from other
nasal inbreaths, which are transcribed as .mh or .nh (see Mondada, 2020/this issue on
olfactory nasal inbreaths). Some transcripts were taken from existing publications, and
audio data was not available; the sniffs in these transcripts (Extracts 5, 13) appear as in the
originals.
The sniffing behavior examined in this article is distinguishable from olfactory sniffing
(see Mondada, 2020/this issue). None of the sniffs in my collection appeared to be odor-
directed. Moreover, most cases (84%, n= 59) came from telephone calls, meaning that
Figure 1. Spectrogram and waveform of a typical sniff.
RESEARCH ON LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL INTERACTION 121
participants were in separate olfactory environments, which largely controls for the
possibility of sniffing to detect what others are smelling (see Arzi et al., 2014).
Though sniffing is often associated with illness, allergies, crying, etc. (i.e., sniffing to prevent
fluid/mucus from escaping the nose), no distinction was made a priori between that and
sniffing that is done for apparently “no reason.”Though we may suspect that these are
different phenomena, it remains to be seen whether they are in fact organized differently in
conversation. And methodologically we should avoid speculating about whether a participant
“actually”needs to sniff. Furthermore, while there may be auditory differences between such
“wet”and “dry”sniffs, that is not invariably so. For this article, then, I remain agnostic
regarding the relationship between sniffing and the participant’s physical condition.
The analysis follows a conversation analytic approach (see Hoey & Kendrick, 2018),
which assumes that social interaction exhibits “order at all points”(Sacks, 1984).
Accordingly, the orderliness that sniffing presumably exhibits is what the following
analysis seeks to describe. I proceed structurally, analyzing what sniffing does according
to where it occurs in the organizations of turn (Schegloff, 1996) and sequence (Schegloff,
2007). I first describe sniffs by selected next speakers, who may sniffbefore beginning
a response (n=5), and by current speakers, who may sniffmidturn before a first place of
possible turn completion (n= 13). I argue that these sniffs delay the progressivity of the
speaker’s turn. Then I describe sniffs that speakers produce after possible turn completion
(n= 29), which, I argue, routinely mark turn completion and yield the turn space. In the
final analytic subsection, I compare postcompletion sniffs with postcompletion inbreaths,
and through distributional evidence and deviant case analysis, I argue that these are
different practices, rather than merely alternate means of respiration.
1
Analysis
Delay and delicacy
Sniffing is a determinate acoustic occurrence. It not only occupies some stretch of time in
interaction but also physiologically inhibits concurrent speech. Perhaps for these reasons it
stands among the class of devices for delaying the initiation or progression of a turn-at-talk.
Next speaker sniffs before beginning response
When a participant is selected to speak next, he/she may sniffbefore beginning their
response (n= 5).
2
The placement of a sniffin this prebeginning position (Schegloff, 1996)
amounts to delaying a next item due (Hosoda & Aline, 2012, p. 66fn) and can prefigure
a dispreferred response. In Extract 1, two couples (Vivian and Shane; Nancy and Michael)
are working out the logistics of attending an event together. Nancy asks Michael when the
1
The reader may note that the analysis is restricted to speakers’sniffs and covers only 48/70 cases. The
remaining 22 cases occurred in the following environments: recipient sniffs at TRP of current speaker’s
turn (n= 9), recipient sniffs in middle of current speaker’s turn (n= 8), participant sniffs in a long
lapse (n= 3), and recipient sniffs in postbeginning of current speaker’s turn (n= 2). Fuller analysis of
these is reserved for another report.
2
Though only two examples are shown in this section, all five precede an analyzably dispreferred or
misaligned response.
122 E. M. HOEY
other couple should “c’m over t’morruh.”Michael is now obligated, as next speaker, to
respond (Schegloff& Sacks, 1973). Transcripts follow Jefferson (2004) conventions.
(1) ChickenDinner_2340
01 NAN: Soo w'time sh'd they c'm over t'°morruh.°
02 MIC: >.nH< ((withdraws gaze))
03 (1.5)
04 MIC: I don'know wuh ti-:me
05 (1.1)
06 MIC: °ah:::m°=
07 SHA: =He's g'nna ask me. He's he's goin=
08 SHA: =Ee[z (gotta resoom) tuh ask me.
09 MIC: [Sha (prohibly)c' c'm over abah:t- (0.5) no later'n
10 eight thirdy.
Michael, rather than responding right away, shows considerable difficulty in answering.
This is first observed in his sniff(line 2), which occurs in the transition space of Nancy’s
turn. Its placement here, an environment where turn transfer should properly occur,
renders the sniffhearable as a pre-beginning element (Schegloff, 1996) to Michael’s turn to
come. Michael’s coparticipants also treat Michael’s turn as forthcoming, insofar as they do
not treat the lack of an answer as due to disattention or misunderstanding. The sequential
placement of this sniffshows it to be an alternative to turn initiation; it displaces his turn
by occurring in the place normatively reserved for beginning a response.
Michael’s sniffis a first component of several that indicate an upcoming dispreferred
response. After he sniffs, Michael withdraws his gaze and allows silence to develop (line 3),
both of which portend trouble (Kendrick & Holler, 2017). And indeed, in his response he
doesn’t provide a relevant answer (i.e., a “time when they should come over”) but
a dispreferred nonanswer “I don’t know”(Beach & Metzger, 1997; Keevallik, 2011;
Stivers & Robinson, 2006).
A similar case follows, taken from a recording of a family dinner. Virginia implores her
brother Wesley to intercede on her behalf and convince their mother to increase her
allowance. Virginia first summons his attention then makes her plea.
(2) Virginia_1716
01 VIR: °Wesley. °Wesley.
02 PRU: Mm hm.
03 (.)
04 VIR: °Plea:se try tuh help me talk Mom (into't.)
05 please?<I'd do it for you,
06 (0.4)
07 WES: EHHHH! [hih-heh-huh.uh! °huh-huh ] (.) °uh
08 PRU: [Ah-hah-hahh-uh-huh-huh-huh]
09 VIR: Plea::se.
RESEARCH ON LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL INTERACTION 123
10 (0.9) ((WES lifts drink))
11 WES: >.nh<
12 PRU: °uh .hhh
13 (0.4) ((WES suspends glass before face))
14 WES: eh-uh:: (.) I'll think about it.
After Virginia’s plea, there is a gap followed by disaffiliative laughter from Wesley (who is
joined by his girlfriend Prudence). Their laughter treats Virginia’s plea as risibly overdone
(Clift, 2016). It is a reaction to the formatting of her action rather than to the action itself,
which allows Wesley to avoid responding to her request (Sacks, 1989). Virginia never-
theless pursues with “Plea::se”(line 9), providing Wesley another opportunity to respond.
In this environment, Wesley reaches for his glass as a gap develops (see Hoey, 2018b), and
while he brings it to his face, he sniffs (lines 10–11). This sniffprecedes the suspension of
his glass before his face (see Raymond & Lerner, 2014) and a noncommittal “I’ll think
about it”(lines 13–14). Like the last extract, this sniffheralds a dispreferred response.
What this extract shows in greater detail is how the sniffmarks a change in the speaker’s
interactional trajectory.
3
Wesley’s sniffmarks a shift in stance regarding Virginia’s request
from openly disaffiliative to noncommittal. This parallels an embodied change too: His
sniffmarks a shift from “bringing drink to face”to “suspending drink before mouth.”
Selected next speakers may thus sniffbefore beginning a response, which delays that
action and can portend a dispreferred turn.
Current speaker sniffs midturn
Sniffing can also implement a delay after recognizable turn beginning and before that
turn’s possible completion (n= 13). Speakers may sniffat a place of syntactic incomple-
tion, where some determinate linguistic item has yet to arrive (see Ford & Thompson,
1996; Schegloff, 1996). These midturn sniffs regularly occur in the doing of “hesitation”or
“delicacy”(see Lerner, 2013). In the following, Gordon is producing the very sensitive
action of breaking up with his girlfriend Denise over the phone.
(3) G&D:II_Breakup
01 GOR: I think maybe u- u- I w- (0.2) um would like tuh-
02 stop really goin ou:t at least for right no:w
03 DEN: Yeah.
04 GOR: .hh U::m I jus- .hhhh (0.5) u::h hh I feel really ba:d
05 because I- u:m (1.0) >.nh< I wish- I think I just we
06 don’t have as much in common as: I think we both tho:ught
Breaking up with someone generally accompanies a “reason for breaking up.”Gordon
projects his reason with “I feel really ba:d because,”then cuts offthat turn constructional
unit (TCU). In the space where some explanation is expected, we instead see an “u:m,”
a 1-second pause (Jefferson, 1989), and a sniff(line 5). These turn constructional devices
3
I thank a reviewer for suggesting this line of analysis.
124 E. M. HOEY
constitute Gordon’s action as sensitive. Had he produced a “reason for breaking up”with
no display of difficulty, he could be seen as glib or insufficiently sympathetic. But by
arresting the forward progression of that action, he exhibits it as difficult to formulate.
After these hesitation devices—the last of which is a sniff—Gordon’s turn shifts slightly in
trajectory: While he had projected a “reason for feeling bad,”where he ends up is “we
don’t have as much in common as I think we both thought.”This shift echoes what was
seen with the sniffin Extract 2 and comes into plainer view in the following extract.
In Extract 4, Jill sniffs while formulating a disagreement with her boyfriend Jeff, who
makes the dubious claim that you can legitimately make assumptions based on your
feelings because sometimes “it turns out to be that way.”
(4) SBC028_1837
01 JEF: you know like (.) you ca::n (.) make an assumption
02 (0.4) and, (0.2) .mh you can assume something that
03 feels (0.3) y’know really- (0.5) (e)- (.) correct
04 and<and it turns out to be that way.
05 (0.5)
06 JIL: .h sure, some of the time?
07 (0.3)
08 JIL: KHEHehheh=
09 JEF: =.H (0.4) uh yeah.
10 (0.2)
11 JIL: .H: £I feel like,£ (0.2) well: if you also felt that
12 (.) º>.nh< ↑I: don't know you could feel ºsomething that
13 (0.6) ↑wouldn't be proved right¿º
14 JEF: .mk yeah.
Jeff’s claim is initially met with silence, portending disagreement, which Jill provides in
the form of less-than-full agreement (Pomerantz, 1984) moderated through postcomple-
tion laughter (Shaw, Hepburn, & Potter, 2013). What is relevant here is some account
for her disagreement. Jeff’s acknowledgment (line 9) orients to this by passing on the
chance to respond (Schegloff, 1982). Jill’s account for disagreement begins with an “I feel
like”hedge produced with smile voice quality, which auditorily indexes a nonthreatening
stance. She then abandons that phrasing and embarks in another direction using a well-
prefaced (Heritage, 2015) conditional statement “if you also felt that”(line 11). This if-
clause projects a complement clause, but rather than producing that clause, Jill pauses,
sniffs, and restarts her account. This extract, then, structurally resembles the previous
one: While producing a disaffiliative action, the speaker halts turn progression, pauses,
sniffs, and shifts direction. That is, the midturn placement of the sniffnot only
constitutes her action as delicate but also prefigures a change in trajectory. In this
case, Jill had projected a complement clause but then, after sniffing, reworks her turn
as an “I don’t know”-qualified counterargument (lines 12–13).
RESEARCH ON LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL INTERACTION 125
The delicate actions shown here are constituted as such in part through the midturn
placement of sniffs. This emerges from the more general feature of sniffs as a device for
delaying the progressivity of talk. In the following cases, speakers’midturn sniffs operate
as part of word searches (see Goodwin & Goodwin, 1986), specifically “approximation”
searches.
(5) T15:11–12 (from Zimmerman, 1993)
01 A: An all the- fraTERnides an’saRORities are having’
02 ((sniff)) che:ers and stuff like that
03 B: heh-heh
(6) SBC028_1101
01 JEF: he went from like the romantic- sexual getawa:y, to:=
02 JIL: =UHhhm=
03 JEF: =>yknow< a soul searching_ (.) >.nh< bond with nature
04 type’a: hh deal.
(7) NBIV13_0916
01 EMM: Da:mn turkey y'c'd put'n the .hff >.nh< thing in the
02 oven 'n ba:sting it'n errything'n
In each case, the speaker stops speaking at a place of syntactic incompletion then
sniffs before producing a searched-for word. Each case also has a “general extender”
formulation (Overstreet, 1999): “and stufflike that, type’a: hh deal, and ‘n errything.”
Theseinvokeabroadersemanticdomainthat encompasses the searched-for word
and retroactively exhibit it as an “imprecise but good enough”formulation.
4
These extracts demonstrate how speakers use sniffing as a turn constructional
device for delaying a turn’s forward development. Speakers sniffas an alternative to
producing some projectably relevant talk, either in the course of or just prior to
aspeaker’s turn. These positioningsallowspeakerstoprefigure an upcoming dis-
preferred response, show “delicacy”in formulation, and do “approximation”word
searches.
5
In the following subsection, I move forward in the organization of a turn
to examine sniffs placed after the possible completion of a turn or TCU.
4
Contrast with “precision”searches (see Lerner, 2013), where speakers are accountably invested in
“getting it right”(e.g., person or place name). Contrastively, in doing “approximation”speakers seem
less attached to their searched-for word and may indicate the acceptability of alternates (through,
e.g., yknow or general extenders).
5
This section shows five examples of midturn sniffs out of 13 in the collection. The remaining eight
cases were categorized as follows: two “delicate”types, three “word search”types, and three “activity
shift”types. Activity shift sniffs were not shown for space considerations, but a brief description can
be given: Participants may sniffmidturn prior to a change in activity, such as going from a prosaic
description to an embodied reenactment or depiction. This is consistent with the analysis of other
midturn sniffs in that activity shift sniffs preface a slight change in the speaker’s trajectory.
126 E. M. HOEY
Marking turn completion and yielding the turn space
The primary locus of turn-taking activity is the transition relevance place (Sacks et al.,
1974; Schegloff, 1996), and so conduct appearing around there will be organized relative to
the practical problems of coordinating turn transfer. In this section I argue that sniffs
occurring post-possible-turn completion (n= 29) routinely mark turn/sequence comple-
tion and yield the turn space. These cases appeared in a variety of sequential positions:
after a possible sequence-final turn (n= 14), after a first pair-part (n= 8), at possible story
completion (n= 5), after the recognizable launch of a story (n= 1), and after a backchannel
during a telling (n= 1).
Post-possible-completion sniffs
Speakers regularly arrive at possible turn completion and then sniff.
6
In the following
cases, speakers produce an initiating action and then sniffdirectly after turn comple-
tion.
(8) NB:IV:10R_p2_1446
01 EMM: Isn'that a pretty place that Spa:, >.n[hh< >.nh<]
02 LOT: [Ye:ah.Gee en ]we
03 jist hadda ba:ll
(9) NB:IV:4_1058
01 LOT: Howard didn'have enough left yihknow en'e gay me the
02 money? [>.nHh<
03 EMM: [Ye:ah.
04 (.)
05 LOT: tSo ah ent do:wn there'n got et (.) Rancho a fresh one.
In these cases, sniffing occurs in the transition space of a sequence-initiating action and
overlaps with the next speaker’s response. The coincidence of the sniffand response
6
Some postcompletion sniffs seem to have a physiological motivation of recovering breath. This is
apparent after laughter, which involves relatively great respiratory exertion. In the following, Lottie
completes her turn with laughter and then sniffs.
NBIV10R2_1841
01 LOT: I yelled in et'er tuh Ad'line 'n God s(h)he b(h)een up
02 f::er (.) ↑HOU:RS YIHKNOW EN she's gunnuh be quiet fer
03 ↑ME¬*:..h[k hu[.>.nhhHh<
04 EMM: [°¬*Oh:° [°*bless'erhear:t.°
This postlaughter environment doesn’t exclusively host sniffing, however. Oral inbreaths are common
after laughter (Jefferson et al., 1977, p. 66; Hepburn & Varney, 2013). Furthermore, sniffing also occurs
after bouts of sobbing (Hepburn, 2004). Laughter and sobbing are both respiration-heavy activities
and may occasion the intake of breath. Postlaughter sniffs may thus be part of a more general
practice whereby inbreaths—oral or nasal—follow a respiration-heavy activity.
RESEARCH ON LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL INTERACTION 127
reveals participants’convergent orientations to this space as one where turn transfer
should occur.
We can contrast sniffing with alternative occupants of this environment. The “default”
case would be ordinary turn completion through prosodic, syntactic, and pragmatic
completion (Ford & Thompson, 1996). This environment also provides for turn extension,
for example through abrupt joins (Local & Walker, 2004). In contrast to practices for turn
completion and turn extension, sniffing may act as a turn-yielding device, similar to tag
questions (Sacks et al., 1974) and sequence recompletion (Hoey, 2017). Sniffing augments
other turn-completion practices by audibly showing the participant as doing something
that precludes speech.
To more fully appreciate how post-possible-completion sniffs can mark turn completion
and turn yielding, we can consider them in a range of sequential environments. One
environment where coordinating turn transfer is a systematic problem is at possible sequence
completion (Hoey, 2018a). In this environment, participants have treated the current course
of action as adequately complete and in need of no further action (Schegloff,2007).This
normally provides all participants the opportunity to self-select and proceed to something
else. But it’s also systematically provided that no one in particular ought to speak next. These
circumstances provide for the relevance of turn yielding and therefore for the relevance of
asniff. In Extract 10, Jill and Jeffare chatting on the phone, marveling at the rapid pace of
their friend’s“medical school year.”After his “fast”assessment (line 1) Jefflaunches
a question-answer sequence with “when did they start”(line 3).
(10) SBC028_1200
01 JEF: That's a fast (.) medical school year.
02 JIL: Unh hu::h..h=
03 JEF: =↑Wo:w when did they start,
04 JIL: ih’was ↑really quick,<I ↑think=h u:m, like mid-August?
05 JEF: ºmid-Au:gustº
06 JIL: ye::ah.
07 (.)
08 JIL: or maybe mi- (0.3) maybe the beginning of August.
09 (0.3)
10 JIL: >.nhh<
11 (0.6)
12 JIL: .mTSK [maybe the beginning.
13 JEF: [↑Wow
This question-answer sequence arrives at possible completion in line 8, where Jill
revises her answer. Possible sequence completion permits movement onto other tra-
jectories of action (Schegloff, 2007). But here, rather than moving onto something else,
a silence develops into which Jill places a sniff(lines 9–10). With this, Jill recognizably
passes up the opportunity to speak. Due to its placement in a sequence closure
environment, her sniffoperates retrospectively, by treating the prior sequence as
adequately complete, and prospectively, by displaying momentary reluctance to self-
128 E. M. HOEY
select. In this way, it marks a place where self-selection by Jeffis possible. Additional
evidence for this analysis comes from the participants’subsequent behavior. As the
interaction continues, the silence lengthens (line 11), indicating an impasse regarding
who should speak. Finally, Jill produces a self-repeat, “maybe the beginning.”Self-
repeats in environments of possible sequence closure allow a speaker to show their
prior turn as adequate and in no need of revision (Hoey, 2017). This retroactively
locates her sniffas possibly sequence-final—a position that provides for self-selection
by anyone. This analysis is further confirmed by Jeff’sself-selectioninoverlapwith
Jill’s self-repeat (line 13); the near simultaneous start reveals his understanding of her
sniffas opening the floor to him.
Another environment where turn-taking matters are a going concern is the begin-
ning and ending of storytellings (Sacks, 1989). Participants entering a storytelling
activity have as their practical task the suspension of turn-by-turn talk and conversely
at the end of a story the resumption of turn-by-turn talk. The next extract shows
asniffplaced after the recognizable launch of a story (line 9). This sniffis potentially
oriented to the coordinationofturntransferinthatitmarkstheopportunityfor
something from Geri, the story recipient.
(11) GeriShirley_0910
06 SHI: YihKNOW Gabbi, (.) Warren Miller's ex girlfrie[nd,]
07 GER: [Yee]ah.
08 GER: [°°M-hm?°°]
09 SHI: [.hhhhhhhh] Okay. Gabbi came in las'night. >.nHh<
10 (0.4)
11 SHI: .t
12 (0.6)
13 SHI: .p Whenever she comes in she always wants me t'do
14 something fer her,
15 GER: M-hm,
Ordinarily, after the recognizable launch of a story, the story recipient may explicitly
align with the structural asymmetry that a story projects—for example, through
atokenlikemhm (Stivers, 2008). Here, however, Geri does not do so after line 9,
and instead a silence grows (lines 10–12). This silence shows Shirley as not imme-
diately continuing with her story, which may orient to the absence of alignment from
Geri. This supports an analysis of sniffing as turn yielding in that the sniffaudibly
marks the opportunity for alignment, and the growing silence marks its absence.
Speakers may also sniffin the closing of a story. In Extract 12, the teller sniffsasshe
progressively distances herself from her story after less-than-enthusiastic uptake from
her story recipient. Emma reports an exciting recent event: Her son Larry met and
accompanied some visiting marines, which Emma found “wo:nderf’l”(line 6). Emma’s
story receives subdued reception, however, occasioning pursuits of more favorable
uptake from Lottie and then finally story exit.
RESEARCH ON LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL INTERACTION 129
(12) NB:IV:12_0056b
01 EMM: Theh gon' take'm down th'beach now 'n wa:lk'm down the
02 beach<ih [wz so: cute'n one of'm's BLA:ghCK hn
03 LOT: [°↑Oh::: ¬goo:d.°
04 (.)
05 LOT: uAt's u [We:-
06 EMM: [That's wo:nderf'l is[n'it?=
07 LOT: [I-
08 LOT: =[I wz js tell'n [Ea:rl we ha::d a: f[ew up there=
09 EMM: =[.snh [hhhhahhh [.snhh
10 LOT: =la:st night the firs'time we've ever had um.
11 EMM: .hhhhh (.) ↑Well they looked so ↑cute'n their uniforms
12 they wen'i[::n en they took off ther coa:ts now=
13 LOT: [Mmm::,
14 EMM: ='n ther ¬waghlkin down the street yihkn[ow isn'that uh=
15 LOT: [Ye::h?
16 EMM: =rils well I oughta(d) (.) ¬done that t'da:y¬
17 LOT: °Ye[:a::h. That's ni::[ce.°
18 EMM: [°¬Well,° [Ya:h,
19 LOT: °Ye:a:[h.°
20 EMM: [W'l LARRY'S a good bo:y, >.nh<
21 LOT: =Ye:ah.
22 EMM: En then weg-<we ev'n tagh:lked to the ma:n across
23 s'street 'e came over talk tih Bud a lo:ng ti:me he
24 siz he goes intuh Wilshire Boulevard erry day. >.nh<
25 LOT: Uh huh?
26 EMM: .t Well ah'll tahlk tihyuh ¬later dear.¬
The highlight of Emma’s story is met with subdued approval “º↑Oh::: ¬goo:d.º”(line 3)
and occasions a small reciprocal telling from Lottie (lines 8, 10). Lottie’s reciprocal telling
apparently displays insufficient appreciation of Emma’s story, as Emma reissues its main
point: how “↑cute”the scene was (lines 11–12, 14, 16). Again, however, Lottie gives only
a muted “Ye:a::h. That’s ni::ce”(line 17). In light less-than-enthusiastic uptake, Emma
distances herself from her telling. She projects a departure with turn-initial “well”
(Heritage, 2015) then hearably proposes closure of the storytelling activity with “W’l
LARRY’S a good bo:y”(line 20). This proposes closure by repeating “Larry,”an element
from the start of the story (not shown; Schegloff, 2011), and by offering a summary
assessment of him (Schegloff, 2007). Having made this move away from the telling, Emma
sniffs, treating her turn and telling as complete.
In this environment, Lottie may relevantly align with Emma’s movement to closure, for
instance by agreeing with her summary assessment. However, Lottie maintains
a disengaged stance with a plain “Ye:ah”acknowledgment (line 21). Given Lottie’s
minimal engagement, Emma pivots to something new. She reports other events of
130 E. M. HOEY
that day and caps offthat topic shift with a sniff(lines 22–24). Her postcompletion sniff
audibly marks turn completion and furnishes a space for Lottie to do something with
those new topical materials. But Lottie responds with an “uh huh?”elicitor, treating
Emma’s action as the start of an informing rather than an opportunity to engage in
topic talk. Finally, Emma orients to Lottie’s apparent disinterest by moving to end the call
(line 26).
Facing weak engagement, storytellers can pursue more substantial or favorable uptake.
In this case, Emma’s postcompletion sniffs orient to Lottie’s weak engagement by marking
turn completion, which provides for responsive action by Lottie. Also register how after
each sniff, Emma moves onto another matter—from closure of the telling, to topic shift, to
ending the call. These movements to other matters display Emma’s understanding of her
sniffs as prefacing shifts in interactional trajectory.
In a similar use of turn-yielding sniffs, participants can indicate that they will not
pursue some matter any longer. In the following phone call, Leslie tells her mother that
the biscuits she got cost around “one pou::nd ten pee”and asks “is that alright.”
(13) Holt:X:1:2:7
02 LES: I’ve got them: o[ne pou:]:nd ten pee or something=
03 MUM: [Oh good.]
04 LES: =is that alright,
05 (0.9)
06 MUM: ↑Pard’n luv?
07 LES: ABOUT ONE POUND TEN pence [is that alr-
08 MUM: [Oh↑that’so↓ka:y yes
09 LES: Yes.
10 (0.6)
11 LES: THAT wz ABOUT the cheapest you could ↑ge:t.
12 (.)
13 MUM: ↑Oh my goodness.
14 (0.5)
15 MUM: ↑Oh you should’n- I: didn’t mind about cheapness
16 but I wanted.hh a pound in weight.
17 LES: YES WELL THEY’RE not QUITE A POUND in weigh[t.
18 MUM: [↓Oh well
19 (.) ◦never mind◦.↓
20 (0.2)
21 MUM: ((sniff))
22 (0.2)
23 LES: Yes.
24 (.)
25 LES: But I thought that wz.hhh a ↑lot’v money but (.)
26 that wz the cheapest we could get at the International
27 MUM: Oh well that didn’matter
RESEARCH ON LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL INTERACTION 131
Leslie’s purchase turns out to have been not what her mother wanted. She opted for “the
cheapest you could ge:t”(line 11) whereas her mother “didn’t mind about cheapness”and
instead would have preferred “a pound in weight”(line 16). Mum accepts this news with
a“disappointment finalizer”—“Oh well”—then begins to move past the matter with “never
mind”(lines 18–19; Couper-Kuhlen, 2009). There is then a small gap, indicating the comple-
tion of Mum’s turn and embodying her decision against continuing with the matter. These
prepare a place for Mum’ssniff(line 21), which is hearable as “dropping the matter”or “letting
it go.”
Comparison with postcompletion inbreaths
What should be clear from the preceding analyses is that sniffing after possible turn
completion across a variety of sequential environments recurrently indicates nonconti-
nuation. We can consolidate our understanding of these sniffs by comparing them to
inbreaths in the same sequential environment. Like sniffs, inbreaths recur in the transition
space, as in the following.
(14) Debbie and Shelley
01 SHE: it w's like awright fi:ne, I'll let you: (·) buy my-
02 my plane ticket, thats not a problem, [.hh a]n: now=
03 DEB: [uhuh,]
(15) NBIV10R
01 LOT: How is she doi[n.
02 EMM: [Ohgh: fi::ne she heard f'm Bill: he
03 arri:ve'sa:fely:'nd (.) a:[nd uh]
04 LOT: [°Uh huh]
05 (.)
06 EMM: He's doin fi:ne, .hhu:hh Gee: uh-m-did Ear:l getta turkey
(16) Watergate_ekalm
01 KAL: y:ou: en Bo:b en the Presidint jis’too good (0.3) too good
02 frie:nds[.hhh.[tih ever put me in the pihzish’n where
03 EHR: [(°Mh-[hm°)
In these examples, the postcompletion inbreath is immediately followed by same speaker
turn continuation. This contrasts with the previous postcompletion sniffs, where the same
speaker continued only contingently after providing space for turn transfer to occur
(Extracts 10–11). This suggests that inbreaths and sniffs are distinct practices, not simply
alternate ways to breathe after speaking. Whereas postcompletion inbreaths forecast same
speaker turn continuation, postcompletion sniffs indicate turn completion.
Distributional evidence supports this generalization. Out of 29 cases of postcompletion
sniffs, 93% (n= 27) were followed by silence or turn exchange, and only 7% (n=2)
132 E. M. HOEY
followed by immediate turn continuation (i.e., a micropause or less separating postcom-
pletion sniffand turn continuation).
7
This is consistent with the previous analysis and strongly suggests that postcompletion
sniffing marks turn completion and turn yielding. An alternative explanation is that sniffs
only disfavor turn continuation rather than mark turn completion/yielding, given that
sniffs are typically done with the mouth closed, which disfavors immediate turn continua-
tion. However, further inspection of the 27 postcompletion sniffs suggests this is not the
case. If speakers’postcompletion sniffing acts as a turn-yielding cue, then we would expect
another participant to speak after the sniff. And indeed, this is what the data show: After
a postcompletion sniff, there are 20/27 cases of turn transfer, 6/27 cases of silence followed
by same speaker continuation (e.g., Extracts 10–11), and 1/27 case of ambiguous turn
transfer.
We may also look to postcompletion inbreaths for evidence. Using seven of the same
recordings used to build the collection of sniffs,
8
I located the first 10 postcompletion
inbreaths, collecting a total of 70 cases. Of these, 77% (n= 54) were followed by immediate
turn continuation, which is consistent with the analysis that postcompletion inbreaths project
same-speaker talk. Moreover, I can account for 12/16 of the cases deviating from this pattern.
Five are explained by the inbreath’s placement after laughter, as in the following.
(17) Virginia
01 PRU: That was what I got. (m)yeah. nih-hih-huh-huh-huh .hhh
02 (0.2)
7
One of the two deviant cases follows, taken from the opening of a call from Dana to her boyfriend
Gordon, who had called late the previous night, drunk, angering her mother.
HOLT:U&88-1-4:1
01 GOR: How are you.
02 (0.5)
03 DAN: I[‘m okay
04 GOR: [.tplk
05 (.)
06 GOR: .pk Good,
07 (0.5)
08 DAN: Actually I'm no[t but (.) the(h)re we go:,=
09 GOR: [.hhh
10 GOR: =.hhhhehhhhe:hh .hh But (.) yih (.) you are but you're
11 not. .hh[h=>.nhh< Hey listen I'm sorry about last ni:gh,
12 DAN: [(Right)
13 DAN: [Mm:,
14 GOR: [.km.tch I didn't think your mum would go (0.5) .pt.k
15 over the top,
Dana is hearably irked; her response to “How are you”is a downgraded “okay”(Jefferson, 1980), which
gets revised into “Actually I’m not.”Gordon treats her response as laughable (see Sacks, 1992), then in
the transition space of his turn he takes an inbreath-turned-sniff. He immediately continues speaking
to produce an apology. I account for this deviant case by reference to the structure of call openings
(Schegloff, 1986). Ordinarily, after the how-are-you phase the caller (Dana) produces a reason-for-the-
call. Given this normative structure, for Gordon to apologize as soon as possible, he would need to
wrest from Dana that structurally provided opportunity. He does this with a postcompletion sniff
followed by a misplacement marker “Hey listen”(Schegloff& Sacks, 1973).
8
Debbie and Shelley, HOLT M88.1–5, NB:IV:10:R, NB:IV:13:R, SBC28, Virginia, and Watergate419ekalm.
RESEARCH ON LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL INTERACTION 133
03 PR?: In high school?
Because laughter does not conform to the one-at-a-time feature of conversation and
because laughter is a respiration-heavy activity that may require an intake of breath,
these cases do not properly deviate from the pattern shown by other postcompletion
inbreaths.
Seven other deviant cases are accounted by their occurrence in overlap. In the follow-
ing, Debbie concludes her turn with an inbreath and then does not continue speaking.
(18) Debbie and Shelley
01 DEB: ya shoudn't be defensive I mean theres been pa:rtie:s
02 like here comere here do this or whatever:an [.hhh
03 SHE: [you were
04 at the halloween thing.
05 DEB: huh?
This is related to Shelley’s entering to speak in overlap with Debbie’s inbreath. Speakers
are normatively allotted a single TCU, and next speakers are entitled to self-select at the
first possible completion of that TCU (Sacks et al., 1974). The contingent occurrence of
turn transfer in overlap with Debbie’s inbreath accounts for this and other cases where
a postcompletion inbreath is not followed by turn continuation.
This subsection shows that postcompletion sniffs regularly display that participant as
“no longer speaking”and indicate both turn completion and the possibility/relevance of
turn transfer. A comparison of postcompletion sniffs and postcompletion inbreaths
revealed, through distributional evidence and deviant case analysis, that sniffing and
inbreaths are not alternate methods for breathing but distinct turn-taking practices in
this environment.
Discussion
This article constitutes sniffing as an orderly object—a social fact as well as a respiratory
act. It shows sniffing as intimately bound up with the production of talk by analyzing its
occurrence in various structural positions in talk-in-interaction. Sniffing was shown to be
a turn constructional device for delaying talk. The placement of a sniffprior to the
beginning of a turn may precede a dispreferred response (Extracts 1–2). And when placed
in the course of a turn-at-talk, sniffing implements a delay that can contribute to doing
“hesitation”or “delicacy”(Extracts 3–4) or “searching for a word”(Extracts 5–7). This
confirms prior observations about the association between sniffing, dispreference, and
difficulties in formulation. It also suggests that sniffing forms a natural class of delay
devices along with objects like uh(m) and throat clearings.
It was also shown that possible turn-completion sniffs systematically mark turn com-
pletion and turn yielding. This was observed in various sequential environments: after
initiating actions (Extracts 8–9), at possible sequence completion (Extract 10), at the
beginning (Extract 11) and ending of tellings (Extract 12), and in environments marked
134 E. M. HOEY
by disappointment (Extract 13). The association between postcompletion sniffs and turn
yielding was further supported through a comparison with postcompletion inbreaths. In
a turn’s postcompletion environment, sniffing recurrently indicates turn completion,
whereas an inbreath recurrently indicates turn continuation. Sniffs and inbreaths, then,
are not alternate modes of inspiration but distinct interactional practices.
These findings suggest that sniffing is an orderly alternative to speaking—orderly in
that it is understood by reference to the organizations of turn construction and turn
taking. Based on its placement in the course of action underway, a sniffcan be heard as
a display of not currently speaking, just finished speaking, not going to continue, or not
speaking right away. Speakers who sniffamidst active projections could be seen as not yet
producing that projected material. And given a particular sequential context, this can
invite interpretations of the sniffas a display of delicacy, unsureness, inability, etc. Sniffing
thus may enter the “directional”track of interaction (Goffman, 1974); though not focal
itself, it is monitored because it organizes what participants attend to.
9
The usage of sniffing as an organizational resource for interaction may emerge from the
affordances of the act and how it is conventionally understood. Its characteristic closed-lip
formation and the impossibility of concurrent vocalization provide physiological ground-
ing for the association between sniffing and nonspeakership. An equally important basic
feature is that sniffing directly suggests the need to clear the nasal passage. Participants
normally accord to others a legitimate right to such “creature releases”(Goffman, 1963)
and thereby treat sniffing as an evergreen engagement. This permissibility may relate to
the omnirelevance of presenting oneself as competent (Goffman, 1959): Sniffing is always
permitted because it is always relevant to show yourself as in control of your body, its
functions, and especially its effluvia. The swiftness of a sniffmay also be pertinent. As the
self-same denotation and resolution of a bodily need, sniffing is near instantaneous and so
minimally intrusive. Sniffing is thus a “ready-made”resource (Lerner & Raymond, 2017)
for organizing participation. This extends to nonfocused interactions too, where it may
display “civil inattention”(Goffman, 1963). Sniffing audibly broadcasts one’s presence,
acknowledges co-present other(s), and discreetly advertises no intention to engage—for
example, the sniffheard from a stall in a public restroom when someone else enters.
Indeed, the audibility of sniffing predisposes it to such situations: It is not only perceptible
in the absence of visual access but perceptible precisely in/for situations where sustained
mutual gaze is avoided.
Funding
This work was supported by a Rubicon grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific
Research [#44617010].
9
Not to suggest that sniffing is always disattended . Sniffing can be a meaningful act itself. For example,
a sniffaccompanied by widened eyes and raised brows can display surprise. Or if at a night club one
asks, “Why did they go to the bathroom?,”a sniffin response can answer “to do cocaine.”
RESEARCH ON LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL INTERACTION 135
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