This talk shows how the action of offering an object here and now (vs. offers to do a future action) is multimodally produced, involving the body manipulating the offered material objects, and is recognized on the basis of its visible-audible features. The paper also reveals offers’ potential ambiguities, both from the perspective of action formation and action ascription: the study focuses on possible “genuine” offers vs. offers that are treated as preliminaries to other actions, and accepted/refused in relation to them. This multiple-barreled nature of offers contributes to current debates and thoughts about action formation and action ascription. It also shows how the distinction between benefactor/beneficiary is questioned and even subverted, in relation to the way offers index and create specific rights and obligations. Finally, the paper discusses several sequential environments that might favor certain action ascription over others, making e.g. genuine offers unproblematically accepted or rather making offers in service of another action legitimate (or not).

The analyses focus on offers of food samples in markets (see Mondada 2022), with some references to (and differences with) similar offers in shops (see Mondada, 2021). Despite their similarities, offers of samples to taste diverge importantly in the way they are recognized and (dis)aligned, inviting to reflect about the details that make an offer acceptable or not and about the comparability of actions in context. While offering food can be seen as a gift, in commercial encounters it can be made and interpreted as part of a larger activity (selling) and in service of its progressivity (offers as conducive to buying). Participants orient to these distinctions, shaping the sequential trajectory of offers and their responses, as well as the sequential environment within the larger activity in which they are produced. Video data are in French and German, collected in various markets in Alsace.