Abstract
In this article, I use conversation analytic methods to analyze interactional junctures in which transitions to the first conversational topic are accomplished. I examine several ways in which parties in ordinary (and especially telephone) conversations coordinate the launching of first "talkables," focusing specifically on environments in which such moves are delayed. I observed that many such moves are prefaced with the discourse marker so suggesting that it plays an important role at this interactional juncture. In the article, I demonstrate that the underlying meaning of so as a marker of "emergence from incipiency" serves to characterize the upcoming action as introducing the conversation's first intended topic-something that was projected by the very act of initiating the contact and oriented to by participants as having been pending or incipient. In addition to mundane telephone conversations, I briefly examine several institutional encounters to explore how so gets deployed for introducing institutional agendas.