Being interrupted

The first section of this article argues for an approach to interruption as a participant's, not an analyst's, phenomenon. For analysts, interruption is best treated as a topic, not a resource. The second section examines how participants go about making interruptions OBSERVABLE events in the flow of interaction - in particular, the ways in which they claim violations of speaking rights. The third section considers some of the ways in which such claims are responded to. In the final section, it is suggested that there is a general need for a more systematic approach to the methods through which acts are constituted in terms of the responses they receive. (Interruption, conversation analysis, interaction)