Abstract
This paper considers how people gain particular participant's orientation in multiparty settings, and explicates its structural features. For that purpose, we did videotape and examine naturally occurring interactions between elderly visitors and care workers within nursing care home for elderly.
We analyze how interaction is initiated between elderly visitors and care workers, and how interaction is coordinated between them. In relation to this, Schegloff (2002=2003) and Heath (1984) discussed actions as a pre-initiating activity. Heath (1984) made a definition of it: ‘...whereas a display of availability serves as a pre-initiating activity providing an environment for the occurrence of a range of actions...’(Heath, 1984: 250).
In particular, we focus on cases in which a care worker is not displaying availability to an elderly visitor who want to talk to this care worker. In such a situation, an elderly visitor does extra work in order to gain the care worker's availability. Then, When do an elderly visitor gain the care worker's availability? As a result, a care worker's utterance and behavior that suggests possibility of disengagement from participant framework by then are very useful resource for an elderly visitor who want to gain the care worker's availability.
