TURN-INITIAL VERSUS TURN-FINAL LAUGHTER - 2 TECHNIQUES FOR INITIATINGREMEDY IN ENGLISH ITALIAN BOOKSHOP SERVICE ENCOUNTERS

This article analyzes patterns of laughter in bookshop service encount ers in England and Italy with the function of initiating remedy. Laugh ter sometimes occurs in the turn of a dispreferred response by the ass istant (i.e., the book required is not available, it cannot be supplie d, etc.), both in English and Italian. However, the preferred organiza tion of laughter in such turns is different: In the English corpus lau ghter is recurrently rum-initial, anticipating an account by the assis tant in the same turn, whereas in the Italian corpus it is recurrently rum-final, leaving to the customer the possibility of elicitating an account and/or an alternative solution. The different mechanisms adopt ed in such remedial sequences in English and Italian can provide clues to culture-specific regularities in the organization of talk in the t wo languages.