La référence aux lieux et à la proximité mutuelle et l'émergence de projets de rencontre dans les conversations mobiles

The aim of this paper is to analyse the way in which social gatherings are collaboratively arranged in mobile phone conversations. After discussing the use of availability-oriented pre-sequences in landline conversations leading to joint projects to meet, we study similarly oriented mobile phone conversations. This enables us to show how participants engage in co-localization; how they formulate places as thresholds in mobility and activity paths, and themselves as mobile or immobile subjects; and how such collaborative co-localization work can occasion the mutual recognition or diagnosis of 'co-proximity' within a relevant availability time frame. This takes place within a single utterance and through different means, such as an explicit mention and assessment of the mutual proximity of participants, or the use of place deictics that eventually anchors participants in a relationally-defined 'proximal' area (summarizing that they are both 'around', or 'in the neighbourhood'). Finally, we show how such a recognition or diagnosis enacts the relevance of an encounter; it is treated as the first part of a pre-sequence projecting an invitation, offer, announcement or request to meet as a relevant outcome.