Adjacency Pairs

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Preferred answers differ from person to person. But these all seem to be correct to me. I think you are cute too could be an adjacency pair depending on who you are talking to and what the context is.

Dr. Myers put a chart up with the preferred answers to different speech acts. Even though it seems strange to dictate what is 'preferred' when you'd think it would vary from person to person, the way to tell which is the preferred answer is that it is the one which requires the least amount of response/explaining.

So for: "Will you help me move?"
The preferred answer to a request is an acceptance. If you refuse, you will be expected to give a longer explanation of why you aren't accepting.

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Maggie Fennell

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Maggie Fennell
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Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift, that's why we call it the present.

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