Direct complaints in (Italian) calls to the ambulance: The use of negatively framed questions

This paper focuses on the deployment of negatively framed questions in institutional calls to the ambulance emergency service. Such questions are interpreted and responded to as assertions of a specific kind: complaints against recipients. Complainees rebut these turns immediately through an admission of the complained-of-action while at the same time denying any direct responsibility for it. Such results corroborate the fact that preference organization is differentiated in relation to specific actions and is strictly linked to the resources participants use to design such activities.