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Conversation Analysis

This document provides an overview of conversation analysis (CA) in 3 paragraphs or less: 1. It defines conversation as a social interaction between two or more participants that can vary in number, length of contributions, and development. CA emerged in the 1960s as a sociological approach to study the organization of talk-in-interaction through empirical analysis of real conversations. 2. CA focuses on recurring patterns found through inductive analysis of language data from multiple conversations. It aims to understand the systematic properties and sequential organization of talk without premature theories. Key concepts include turns, transition relevance places (TRPs), and adjacency pairs. 3. The document provides examples of turns, TRPs, and adjacency pairs to illustrate

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kongo25
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167 views3 pages

Conversation Analysis

This document provides an overview of conversation analysis (CA) in 3 paragraphs or less: 1. It defines conversation as a social interaction between two or more participants that can vary in number, length of contributions, and development. CA emerged in the 1960s as a sociological approach to study the organization of talk-in-interaction through empirical analysis of real conversations. 2. CA focuses on recurring patterns found through inductive analysis of language data from multiple conversations. It aims to understand the systematic properties and sequential organization of talk without premature theories. Key concepts include turns, transition relevance places (TRPs), and adjacency pairs. 3. The document provides examples of turns, TRPs, and adjacency pairs to illustrate

Uploaded by

kongo25
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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11/25/2014

1. What is conversation?
a way of using language socially, of doing things with words
an interaction of two or more participants
number of participants and length of contribution to the
conversation can vary
open-ended, has the potential to develop in any way
planned occasions for speaking, such as meetings or debates

2. Conversation Analysis (CA)


What is conversation?

Harold Garfinkel, 1960s, ethnomethodological/ sociological


approach

there is no such thing as a correct conversation.

organization of talk-in-interaction

Conversation is what happens (Mey)

empirical approach which avoids premature theory construction

yet, conversation is not unruled

methods are inductive- search for recurring patterns

rules people use are more like those people have developed for

gathering data and analysis of data of actual pieces of language,

other social activities

real-life-conversations.

Conversation Analysis (CA)

Conversation Analysis (CA)

CONTRAST TO DA: immediate categorization of restricted

avoids analyses based on a single text

data
in place of theoretical rules: emphasis on the interactional and
inferential consequences of the choice between alternative
utterances.
CONTRAST TO DA: as little appeal as possible to intuitive

as many instances as possible of some particular phenomenon


examined across texts.
discover the systematic properties of the sequential
organization of talk and the ways in which utterances are
designed to manage such sequences.

judgments; emphasis on what can actually be found to occur.

11/25/2014

2.1 Turn-Taking

2.1 Turn-Taking

turn: basic unit of conversation


may contain many illocutions - everything a speaker

length and topic of contribution not specified in advance

communicates during a unit of conversation

current speaker may select another speaker or parties may

turn-taking: basic form of organization for conversation

self-select in starting to talk

speaker-change occurs

transition from one turn to the next without gap or overlap

mostly, one speaker talks at a time

turn order and size not fixed

transition from one turn to the next without gap or overlap

repair mechanisms: deal with turn-taking errors and violations.

turn order and size not fixed

2.2 Transition Relevance Places (TRP)

2. Previewing TRPs

transition: a relay of the right to speak to the next speaker

Why are we often able to predict the end of somebodys speech?

mechanisms of
TRP can

selection (self- or other-)

be exploited by the speaker holding the floor

a) directly, for the purpose of allocating the right to speak to a next


speaker of his/her choice

Adjacency Pairs
changes of speed delivery
intonation
word-choice patterns

b) indirectly, by throwing the floor wide open to whoever


speaker

may just ignore the TRP and continue.

2.3 Adjacency Pairs

2.3 Adjacency Pairs

discovery that became a starting point for a whole new

Adjacency Pairs are characterized by their type, e.g.

approach (similar as speech acts to pragmatics)

greeting-greeting

two subsequent utterances constituting a conversational

question-answer,

exchange
distinction

complaint-acceptance/denial,
between fist pair part and second pair part.

invitation-acceptance/denial
offer-acceptance/rejection

11/25/2014

2.3 Adjacency Pairs: Examples

3. Exercises

Complaint/denial
Ken : Hey yuh took my chair by the way an I dont think that was
very nice
Al:

Can you find Turns, Transition Relevance Places and


Adjacency Pairs?

I didnt take yer chair, its my chair.


A : Are you doing anything tonight?

Compliment/rejection

B: Why are you asking?

A:

Im glad I have you for a friend.

A: I thought we might see a movie.

B:

Thats because you dont have any others.

B: Well, no, nothing in particular. What do you want to see?

Example for
an original
transcript
with the
system used
in CA

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