Conversation and Preference Structure

Pragmatics Final Test

Yetsyah P Y 5031711035

Nadhilah Nur Sabrina 5031711024

Novita Lestari 5031711009

Ega Pratiwi 5031711005

Elane Priskila Tobing 5031711006

English Literature Department

Universitas Bangka Belitung

Introduction

Pragmatics is a subject area in linguistics that concern on analyzing the meaning of

communication carried out both by the speaker and listener. Basically, pragmatics is the
study of speaker meaning. It is a study that clearly defines the meaning expressed by people
through the analysis of communication created.Communication is a tool for people to convey
messages, information and news. Communication has various types, one of which is oral
communication commonly referred to as conversation.

Conversation is a talk between two or more people in which thought, feelings, and
ideas are expressed, questions are asked and answered, or news and infromation is
exchanged. In a conversation there are speaker and listener who have their respective roles.
Conversation can be found in daily life, both in formal and informal situations, directly or
through the media.

In pragmatic studies there is a "Conversation and Preference structure" section.This

study aims to analyze the conversation and preference structure chapter in which there is a
conversation analysis; pauses, overlaps, and backchannels; conversational style; adjacency
pairs; and preference structure. Further explanation about “Conversation and Preference
structure” will be disscussed in the disscussion chapter.
Discussion

Conversational Analysis

Conversation analysis is the dominant contemporary method for the analysis of social interaction. In
pragmatics, the term, Conversational analysis' is used to mean the investigation into and analysis of
natural conversation so as to reveal what the linguistic features of conversation is and how
conversation is used in ordinary life. That is, conversational analysis studies three things. Those are:

1. Firstly, the techniques that the speaker employs in deciding when to speak during a
conversation, such as rules of turn-taking,

2. Secondly, the ways in which the utterances of more than one speaker are related, for instance,
conversational maxims, adjacency pair, inserted sequence, etc, and

3. Thirdly, the different functions that conversation is used for, for example, establishing roles,
communicating politeness, etc.

1. Turn Taking

Turn to speak is the time when the speaker takes over speaking from the previous
speaker, and vice versa.

There are three types of interaction in turn strategy, namely:

• Taking the floor is when the first speaker or the next speaker takes over the conversation.
Floor types include:

- Starting (starting a conversation) can be done with doubt (starting to hesitate) or clear
speech (clean start).

- Taking over speaking (can begin with conjunctions).

- Interruption, which is taking over the conversation because the speaker who will take over
the conversation that needs to be delivered by the speaker before is enough so that changing
the speech is taken over by the next speaker. Transcript symbol (//)

- Overlap, the next speaker predicts that the previous speaker will immediately give a talk to
the next speaker, so he takes over the conversation.

Transcript symbol (=).

• Holding the floor, which is when the speaker is uttering utterances, and how the speaker
maintains the way he speaks.

• Generate a floor where the speaker talks to the next speaker.

 For example :

(1) Adi: Dino undang kami makan siang, nih. Kamu mau pergi gak?

(2) Boby: Pergi dong, Aku lagi gak sibuk juga sekarang.

(3) A: Baguslah kalo gitu.

(4) B: Apa kita harus membawa sesuatu?

Explanation : In this example, in line three speaker Adi expects that Speaker Boby
completes his turn on the first TRP and Speaker Adi selects himself, but speaker Boby does
not and continues his turn, so that the next speaker overlaps with the current speaker. Speaker
Adi gives floor speaker Boby on line four and stops talking to correct mistakes in
conversation.

2. Adjacency Pairs

In conversation analysis there is a relationship between one utterance with another utterance.
This joint response test has an automatic sort order called adjacency pairs. Two terms are
asked, namely the preferred response (the response given by the speaker in accordance with
what is expected by the speaker) and dispreferred response (the response given by the speaker
does not correspond to what is expected by the speaker).

 For example :

Ome : Aku kan Cuma mau mengingatkanmu supaya tidak terulang lagi
kesalahanmu, tapi kamu malah...

Odi : Iya deh, aku lagi sibuk.

Explanation : In the conversation snippet above, ome gave advice to Odi, but did not accept
and reject the suggestion, so the response given was not in accordance with what was
expected by related parties.
 3. Pre-sequence

Pre-sequence is the opening utterances that start the utterances before entering into the actual
topic or purpose.

 For example :

Ani : Eh, kamu tahu gak film Dilan terbaru udah dirilis belakangan ini?

Dina : Iya, aku tahu kok.

Ani : Hari rabu kita nonton, yuk!

Dina : Dengan senang hati dong.

Explanation : In the conversation of the first utterance Ani’s utterance is a pre-sequence in

which it is pre-invitation, because the main purpose of Ani in the conversation above is
inviting Dina to watch the latest Dilan movie.

4. Conversational style

Every human needs to interact with other people. Human needs conversation in order
to make the interaction. In the conversation, every human has their own style; sometimes
there are people who speak loudly, fastly, and also slowly. This kind of the style in
conversation called as conversational style.

There are two types of conversational style they are high involvement style and high
considerateness style. High involvement style is type of conversational style that make the
speaker speaks loudly, fast and almost without pausing (Yule, 1996). The speaker who speaks
with this style will dominate the conversation because she/he is really active in the
conversation. While, high considerateness style is the type of the conversational style that
make the speaker speak slowly and has a long pausing (Yule, 1996). The speaker who speaks
with this style will be the listener in the conversational and seem like she/he does not have
much thing to say.

Conversation could be something important in society and in a conversation, both the

speaker and the listener take turns for taking part, but implicit actions may be preferred or
inferred. Each conversation has its own systematic pattern and the patterns are predictable,
although it is sometimes difficult to predict. This refers to the term adjacent pairs. Schegloff
(2007: 3) argues that adjacency pairs are a consecutive turn of the speaker and listener, whose
speech can be “tracked where they come from, what they do and where they can go” during
the conversation. A conversation consists of an ordered order delivered by the speaker and
the listener. Such a series is known as a few utterances that are expected to be linked. In
addition, Schegloff and Sacks (1973: 259-296) claim that there are certain actions in the
adjacent pair that are performed by the speaker and listener, and they are usually noticeable,
such as greeting, question-answer, accept / decline offer.

Adjacency pairs consist of a first pair and a second pair. Each linked part is identified
by looking at the speaker's and listener's statement. The first pair section enables the adjacent
second pair section (Schegloff, 2007). Coulthard (1985: 70) defines adjacent pairs as
facilitating exchanges in a conversation, as adjacent couples help identify the first speaker
whose job it is to initiate the conversation, and the second speaker as the listener, who
provides an answer based on of the initiated action of the speaker. Adjacency pairs also help
maintain the role of both the speaker and the student and prevent them from abusing their
course during a conversation. This is confirmed by Yule (1996: 77), who believes that
adjacent pairs are systematically created in two statements by the speaker and the listener,
respectively. Each conversation has its own ordered exchange, which is determined in the
form of actions between the first and second positions.

Adjacency pairs contain such type of utterance exchanges as greetings-greetings;

offer-accept/refusal; request-acceptance; compliment-thanking; question-answer; complaint-
denial, etc. The following are examples of conversations of each type of adjacency pairs:

1. Greetings-Greetings (Indonesian)
A: Halo, Rina!
B: Hai, Ega!
2. Offer-Accept/Refusal (Bangkanese)
Offer-Accept:
A: Ka nek kue dak?
B: Nek be.
Offer-Refusal :
A: Ka nek kue dak?
B: Gak dak.
3. Request-Acceptance/Refusal (Bangkanese)
 Request-Acceptance:
A : Pacak dak ka tutup pintu ya, tulong?
B : Aoklah.
Request-Refusal
A : Pacak dak ka tutup pintu ya, tulong?
B : Tutuplah surang.
4. Compliment-Thanking/Refusal (Bangkanese)
Compliment-Thanking
A : Gile! Bagus ge bajuk ka.
B : Makasih, Doni.
Compliment- Refusal
A : Gile! Bagus ge bajuk ka.
B : Bulek ka.
5. Question-Answer (Bangkanese)
A : Dimana ok buku ku?
B : Di ates meja.
6. Complaint-Denial (Bangkanese)
A : Ka ni ngidup lampu tapi pas keluar dak dipadem.
B : Bukan ku yang ngidup e.

Pause, Overlaps, and Backchannels

When a person start making a conversation with two or more people, it is likely to
have transition between one speaker and another. The transition can be a smooth or a rough
one. Thus, pauses, overlaps, and backchannels are the transition that occurred within a
conversation.

A. Pauses
Pause occurs when a speaker within a conversation stop speaking for seconds. It can
be divided into two types:
a) Short Pause
Short pause means someone stop talking for a short period of time. It usually
indicates hesitation within someone’s. For instance:
 A given situation: Dila dan Ayu merupakan teman dekat. Pada suatu hari, Ayu
kehabisan uang dan ingin meminjam uang kepada Dila. Namun ia merasa
ragu-ragu untuk menanyakan hal tersebut.
Ayu : Mbak Dil..
Dila : Iya, kenapa mbak?
Ayu : … (2 seconds)
Itu, kamu lagi punya uang ga?
2 seconds of pauses that given by Ayu, or we name it as short pause, it means
that she hesitated to express what on her mind was.
b) Long Pause
Long pause occurs when someone stop talking for a long period of time such
as 7 seconds or above. It indicates silence between one speaker and another.
For instance:
A given situation: Dila dan Ayu merupakan teman satu kamar kos. Suatu hari
Ayu akan pergi ke Pangkalpinang dan berpamitan kepada Dila. Disaat
bersamaan Dila tengah focus menonton drama Korea.
Ayu : Mbak Dil, aku pergi dulu ya.
Dila : … (15 seconds)
Oh, iya mbak.
15 seconds is considered as a long period of time. It creates silence
atmosphere before Dila answering to Ayu’s utterance. Therefore, we call it as
long pauses.
B. Overlaps
Overlaps occur when the first and the second speaker speak at the same time. It makes
the utterance that produced by them collided. It commonly occurs within three
situations:
a. When two speakers just met and made an acquaintance, they tend to
confuse about the topic they should discuss and feel awkward of each
other. At the end, they come up with speaking at the same time. For
instance:
A given situation: Dila dan Ayu merupakan mahasiswa baru di universitas
Bangka Belitung. Saat masa orientasi berlangsung, keduanya tanpa
sengaja duduk bersampingan. Disaat bersamaan, kakak tingkat menyuruh
 para mahasiswa baru untuk saling berkenalan dengan orang yang duduk
disamping mereka.
Dila and Ayu look at each other face and smile in an awkward way.
Dila : Nam-- // Ayu: Kamu--
They speak at the same time as the result of awkwardness atmosphere
surround them.
b. When the participants in a conversation are close to each other, they likely
will interrupt to their friends while they were talking that caused overlaps.
If the topic is interesting, it will increase the excitement atmosphere within
the conversation and overlaps will occur frequently. For instance:
A given situation: Dila dan Ayu merupakan teman dekat. Mereka berdua
selalu bersemangat saat menceritakan film Thailand ber-genre komedi.
Suatu hari setelah liburan semester, mereka menceritakan film baru
dengan begitu bersemangat.
Ayu : Ya ampun sumpah lucu banget jirr filmnya.
Dila : Iya! Apalagi waktu adegan boncengan pas dia jat-- // Ayu : Yang
waktu jato--
Keduanya : HAHAHAHA..
Because the excitement they felt after watching the movie, their utterances
collide with each other and the collision named as overlaps.
c. When there is a debate event that triggered the participants to provoke to
each other, it is usually one of the situation that caused overlaps. For
instance:
A given situation: Para peserta Indonesia Lawyer Club atau ILC yang
tayang di TV nasional tvOne tengah memperdebatkan isu hangat
pemilihan presiden.
A : Tadi anda menyebutka-- // B: Ya tidak seperti itu!
The overlaps occur in the debate event as the result of both party A and B
did not want to surrender.
C. Backchannels

Backchannels occur when the listener giving a response to the speaker when he/she talks.
It can be verbal or nonverbal such as nodding and etc.For instance:
 A given situation: Dila dan Ayu sedang membicarakan tugas UAS Children Literature
melalui panggilan via WhatsApp.

Ayu : Jadi itu bahas yang A dulu, baru bahas yang B ya kan?

Dila : uh-hu, iyup.

The response that given by Dila is called as non-verbal backchannels because she just
answer it by using uh-hu and iyup.

Conclusion

Conversation structure has been assuming as common thing throughout many of the
preceding discussion. In the conversation, turn-taking is the situation attempted to control the
speaking sector. Turn-taking is operated in accordance with a local management system and
it is changed with transition relevance place. In the conversation, there is a part that you stop
speaking for a while so called pauses. It is divided into two types that consist of short and
long pauses. There is also a situation when you and your friend speak in the same time which
is called as overlaps. There is also a situation when the listener give feedback to the speaker
in the conversation that is called as backchannel. Conversation has two type of styles that
determine the speaker to speak loudly, fastly, slowly, and scarcely. If there are two people
with the different conversational style participate in one conversation then the speaker with
high involvement style will dominate the conversation and the person with high
considerateness style. The pattern of the conversation is automatically set. Such as the
conversation that we can do every day is automatically set in the pattern. The way how to
answer the question or how to reply the dialogue have been set automatically and called as
adjacency pairs. The preference structure is divided into two types consist of preferred and
dis-preferred. When structure of the conversation is expected then it is the preferred but when
the structure is not expected then it is the dis-preferred structure.
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