Accomplishing interpersonal relationship: The telephone openings of strangers and intimates

Message‐extrinsic perspectives on relational communication, those treating communicative interaction as consequential to interpersonal relationship‐states, cannot account for the details in the first few seconds of telephone calls. Message‐intrinsic perspectives consider how telephone partners, in the details of talk itself, achieve alignment on relationship‐states and offer an edifying addition to message‐extrinsic perspectives. We argue for a reflexive stance toward the concept of relationship‐state‐one that allows description of message details, and that conceptualizes relationships in terms of communicative accomplishment as well as social categorization. From this stance, we consider how telephone partners accomplish relationship‐states within the first few seconds of telephone conversations. We show some uses to which speakers put these accomplishments.