Phraseology and Culture in English

7. Conversational routines on the answering machine 
In the following sections I will discuss routine phrases in messages left on 
answering machines and their properties. 

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334
Karin Aijmer 
7.1. Greetings 
The hello beginning a telephone conversation has often been seen as a re-
sponse to the situation rather than a greeting (answer to a summons) (cf. 
Schegloff 1979). When hello is used in the opening on the answering ma-
chine it is more like a greeting. It is used together with a name to identify 
the intended receiver. 
Table 1. Greetings in the LLC and the Surrey Corpora
LLC 
SURREY 
hello + name 
2 
22 
hello
2 
14 
name 
– 
8 
hi + name
– 
7 
good morning 
1 
5 
good morning + name
2 
– 
oh + name 
– 
3 
good afternoon
– 
2 
hi 
– 
1 
so hi
– 
1 
hello hello
– 
1 
no greeting
49 
5 
Greetings as the first move are typical of face-to-face conversation. On 
the telephone the greetings may come after the caller has identified him-
self.
When one compares the LLC and the Surrey corpus (Table 1) the main 
difference is that the messages in the LLC corpus
1
do not start with a greet-
ing (49 examples). Instead of greetings you find for example: 
(1) 
CE> [@:m] . I ^have a 'message from . :Mr Pr\eston# . 
CE> ^who !isn`t w\ell tod/ay# 
CE> ^and is !sorry that he 'can`t [?] be /in# - 
CE> [@:m] but he "^sh\/ould be 'back# . 
CE> 
to^m\/orrow# 
CE> ^if you _could 'very 'kindly 'leave a 'note on his 
d/oor# 
CE> to ex^pl/ain this# - 

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Idiomaticity in a cultural and activity type perspective
335
CE> ^th\anks# (9.3 57) 
(9. 3 571147–54) 
The omission of a greeting in the London-Lund Corpus suggests that the 
caller does not address a constructed recipient for the message and that 
therefore no politeness is required. When the answering machine was 
new some people felt unease at speaking to the machine. This attitude
has to a large extent been replaced by the acceptance of the idea that the 
message left by the owner represents the owner (a person) and not a ma-
chine.
7.2. Self-identification 
Self-identification is important when one leaves a message on the answer-
ing-machine. Some type of caller identification was found in all the mes-
sages in the LLC (see Table 2). 
Table 2. Routines for self-identification in the LLC and the Surrey corpora
LLC 
SURREY 
this is X
21 
13 
this is X speaking 
10 
2 
my name is X 
7 
3 
it’s X here 
3 
4 
the name is X 
1 
– 
this is X here 
1 
3 
name here 
1 
3 
name 
1 
3 
telephone number
1 
– 
name + organization + telephone 
1 
– 
it is (it’s) X 
– 
30 
ø 
– 
8 
There is however a difference between the London-Lund Corpus and the 
Surrey corpus with regard to the phrase which is used. The form of the 
identification phrase is typically ‘this is X’ in the LLC material and ‘it is 
(it’s) X’ in the Surrey corpus of messages. Both phrases are typical of tele-
phone openings but ‘this is X’ is more formal: 

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336
Karin Aijmer 
(2) 
CF> ^this is 'Mr L\/yonson# . 
CF> [@:] my ^telephone 'number is :eight 'one /one# . 
CF> ^five 'five 'two "[/@u]# - - 
CF> I ^rang \/earlier# . 
CF> a^bout [@:] the re!sults . 'of . my 
ex'amin:\/ations# 
. 
(9.3 58 1155–59) 
In (3) the caller identifies herself by means of ‘the name is’ rather than 
‘my name is’ and the message is closed by ‘end of message’. The caller 
refers to herself as ‘his wife’: 
(3) 
BG> the ^name 'is . !L\/erner# . 
BG> the ^message . is for Pro!f\essor [?]L/erner# . 
BG> ^t\/ell 'him# . 
BG> his ^w\/ife# . 
BG> will "^l/eave# 
BG> his ^w\/atch# . 
BG> and ^other 'things he 'has for:g\/otten# . 
BG> ^in 'his !r\/oom# - 
BG> ^some'time . be'fore :three o`cl\ock# - 
BG> ^\end of m/essage# 
(9.3 33 721–730) 
In a single example, the caller has used the same identification formula 
as in ordinary conversation (I’m Miss Traleman). This suggests that the 
caller has not yet learnt the expected routine phrase for identifying herself 
or that such routines have not yet evolved: 
(4) 
BW> [@:m] - - "^[@u] 'five '[@u] \/eight# . 
BW> ^five eight tw/o# . 
BW> ^double four "=one# - 
BW> I`m [?] ^Miss !Tr\/aleman# . 
BW> and I`d ^like to 'know :whether or 'not - Miss 
!H\/alters# 
BW> ^=and# - - 
BW> [@:m] - ^Graham !B\/ateson# 
BW> ^will be . :in the uni:versity tod/ay# 
(9.3 49: 996–1003) 

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