CONVERSATION ANALYSIS

Discourse Analysis Course

Setyo Prasiyanto C,. S.S., M.Pd.
CONVERSATION
 Wright (1936: 85) point out that , the English word,
conversation, is made up of a combination of two Latin
roots, ‘con,’ and ‘vers.’ ‘Con’ means with, together. ‘Vers’
mean to turn about in a given direction. Thus, to engage
in conversation literally means to turn about with others.
 Conversation can be said to contain two elements, the
information and the phatic.
 “Phatic communications is used to establish social
relationship rather than impart information. All
conversations contain phatic communication; some
conversations are also purposeful in that the participants
have defined goal, whether to impart information,
formulate a plan, etc. In a purposeful meeting. Every
conversational move ideally contributes to the overall
goal as set by the participants.
CONVERSATION (Cont’d)
 Fairclough (2001:9) states “conversation is
systematically structured, and that there is evidence of
the orientation of participants to these structures in the
way in which they design their own conversational turns
and react to those of others.” Conversation consists of
two or more participants taking turns and only one
participants speaking at any time.
 Conversations are the ideal form of communication in
some respects, since they allow people with different
views on a topic to learn from each other. A speech, on
the other hand, is an oral presentation by one person
directed at a group. For a successful conversation, the
partners must achieve a workable balance of
contributions. A successful conversation includes
mutually interesting connections between the speakers
or things that the speakers know.
DISCOURSE STRUCTURE OF
CONVERSATION
 The discourse structure of conversations is
generally less easy to predict than in many
other genres. For example, conversations tend
to be more open-ended and involve more shift
in topic than is the case with some other
genres.
 conversations are generally divided up into
three main stages. As Burns and Joyce in
Paltridge (2000:85) suggest, these are
typically: Opening Stage, Middle Stage, and
Closing Stage.
DISCOURSE STRUCTURE OF
CONVERSATION (Cont’d)
 Opening stages : Beginnings (e.g salutations and
greetings such as ‘Hello, How are you?’)
 Middle stages : Development of range of topics using
conversational strategies for turn taking, turn
allocation, and keeping a turn, adjacency pairs, preferred
and dispreferred responses, ways of giving back,
changing a topic, asking for clarification, correcting what
was said, etc.
 Closing stages : Preclosing exchanges which signal the
ending of the conversation (e.g. discourse markers and
formulaic expressions, such as : ‘Anyway, well, I’d better
be off’. ‘Thanks for calling’, falling intonation). Closing
(e.g. formulaic expressed such as ‘bye’, ‘see you’).
CONVERSATION ANALYSIS (CA)
 The approach to the analysis of spoken interactions known as
Conversation Analysis (CA) developed from work carried out
by Harvey Sacks, Gail Jefferson and Emanuel Schegloff in the
early 1960s at the University of California.
 CA originated in the field of sociology and started with the
examination of telephone calls made to the Los Angeles Suicide
Prevention Centre. This work then continued with the
examination of more ordinary telephone calls and
conversations.
 In CA, particular attention is given to everyday spoken
interaction such as: interview, interaction in courtroom or in
classroom between teacher and student. Hutcby and Woffitt
(1998:135) says that conversation analysis (CA) concerns with
the problem of social order and how language is created by
social context. Conversation analysis is an analysis of
conversation when the speaker follows in a particular
interaction.
CONVERSATION ASPECTS
 Opening and Closing
 Adjacency Pairs
 Topic Management
 Turn-Taking
 Preference Organization
 Feedback
 Repair
OPENING AND CLOSING
 Opening and closing is an important part in conversation
shown in pairs of utterances. It plays a big role which
determines how the conversation will be started and finished,
and how the conversation will be going on. Another reason why
it is very important is that each culture in this world uses that
method of conversation to sign the relation between one
another. The way to open and close a conversation is also
different depending on where the conversation takes places.
 According to Paltridge (2000: 86), “openings and closings in
conversations are often carried out in typical ways.” They are
also context and speech-event-specific. For example, how we
open a conversation at the bus stop is very different from how
we do it on the telephone. Openings and closings often make
use of pairs of utterances (adjacency pairs), such as: ‘Hi’, ‘How
are you’ and ‘Bye’, ‘See you later’, which are often not meant
to be taken literally. Closings are often preceded by pre-
closings, such as: ‘Okay’, ‘Good’, statements such as ‘Well, it’s
been nice talking to you’ or ‘Anyway, I’ve got to go now’, and
an accompanying fall in intonation.
ADJACENCY PAIRS
 An adjacency pair is a unit of conversation that contains
an exchange of one turn each by two speakers. The
turns are functionally related to each other in such a
fashion that the first turn requires a certain type or
range of types of second turn.
 An adjacency pair, used in conversational analysis, is a
pair of conversational turns by two different speakers
such that the production of the first turn (called a first-
pair part) makes a response (a second-pair part) of a
particular kind relevant. For example, a question, such
as "What's your name?”, requires the addressee to
provide an answer in the next conversational turn. A
failure to give an immediate response is noticeable and
accountable. Many actions in conversation are
accomplished through adjacency pair sequences.
ADJACENCY PAIRS

First parts Second Dispreferred

partsPreferred
Request Acceptance Refusal

Offer/invite Acceptance Refusal

Assessment Agreement Disagreement

Question expected Unexpected

answer answer or non-
answer
Compliment Acceptance Rejection
REQUEST –
ACCEPTANCE/REFUSAL
 Requesting is asking someone to do something which
can be responded with acceptance or refusal.
e.g.:
A: “Would you mind closing the door?” (Request)
B: “Of course.” (Acceptance)
Or
A: “Would you mind closing the door?” (Request)
B: “ Sorry, I am busy” (Refusal)
OFFER/INVITE – ACCEPTANCE/
REFUSAL
 Offering something to someone, it may be in the form of
goods or services. It can be responded into acceptance
or refusal, or generally called granting.
e.g.:
A: “Will you come to my house sometimes?”
B: “Yes, I will.”
OR
A: “Will you come to my house sometimes?”
B: “No, never.”
ASSESSMENT –
AGREEMENT/DISAGREEMENT
 Assessment can be formed into opinion seek or
comment, which is asking another’s opinion or
agreement. It is responded with agreement or called
opinion provide.
e.g.:
A: “What do you think about that kitten?”
B: “So cute.”
OR
A: “What do you think about that kitten?”
B: “Disgusting.”
QUESTION – ANSWER/UNEXPECTED
ANSWER OR NON-ANSWER
 Question can be formed into information seek,
clarification seek, etc. It is about asking something to
someone. It is responded with information provide,
clarification provide, etc.
e.g.:
A: “Where do you live?”
B: “I live in Semarang.”
OR
A: “Where do you live?”
B: “Is it important?”
COMPLIMENT –
ACCEPTANCE/REFUSAL
 Compliment is the way of praising another person about
something he or she has. It is responded with
acceptance.
e.g.:
A: “What a nice cloth?”
B: “Oh, thanks.”
OR
A: “What a nice cloth?”
B: “Are you kidding?”
OTHER ADJACENCY PAIRS
 Beside the adjacency pair above there also other kinds of
adjacency pairs carried out by Paltridge (2000:98-99), they
are:
 Greeting-greeting
The way of saying hello and salutation
e.g.:
A: “Hi!”
B: “Hello!”
 Leave taking adjacency pair
The utterances which have purpose to end the conversation.
e.g.:
A: “See you.”
B: “See you”
OTHER ADJACENCY PAIRS
 Complaint-apology
Complaint is utterances which indicate feeling unsatisfied
about something. However, apology is the way to response
the complaint, which express regretfulness.
e.g.:
A: “This food is too salty.”
B: “I’m sorry, sir. I’ll give you another one.”

 Warning-acknowledgement
Warning is utterances to warn someone about something.
While acknowledgement is statements which show that the
warning is already acceptable.
e.g.:
A: “Beware of the hole in the street.”
B: “Okay. Thank you.”
OTHER ADJACENCY PAIRS
 Blame - Denial
Blame is utterances that express that someone is
responsible about the mistake. Denial is statement to
say that something is not true.
e.g.:
A: “You loose the key, don’t you?”
B: “No. I don’t.”
 Threat - counter-threat, etc
Threat is utterances that indicate the intension of harm.
However, counter-threat is utterances that express the
defeat of someone’s threat.
e.g.:
A: “You got to get out of here or I’ll call the
security.”
B: “No, I won’t.”
TOPIC MANAGEMENT
 Topic management is one of the important aspects of
conversation. In doing the conversation, how the
speaker maintain the topic is related to the social culture
where the speaker appears. The speaker should not talk
about topic thought as a taboo by the society. There is
an effort to maintain the topic so it won’t change easily
before another speaker follows the previous topic.
 “Topic management also includes an awareness of how
speakers deal with changes in a topic, how they maintain
a topic, and how they repair the interaction when a
misunderstanding occurs”, (Burns and Joyce in Paltridge
(2000:94).
TOPIC MANAGEMENT (Cont’d)
 Moreover, there are often culture-specific rules for who
initiates a topic and how it is done, and who develops
the topic and how it is developed. That is, there are
often culture specific strategies that people use to
introduce, develop, or change topics in a conversation.
Equally, there are conventions and constraint on the
choice of topic in particular conversational contexts,
depending on the genre, or speech event, situation, and
culture in which they occur.
 An initial question is what sorts of thing can form topics
in conversation. “Some topics are not relevant to
particular conversations because it is a general rule
about conversation that it is your business not to tell
people what you can suppose they know” (Malcolm,
1971: 79), and the suitability of other topics depends on
the person one is talking to.
TURN TAKING
 In conversation, there is a situation when a speaker
takes the chance to speak, that is turn. Turn-taking
gives a chance for speakers to do conversation
smoothly, so there won’t be a dominant speaker in the
conversation. First speaker utters something which is
then followed by another speaker. It may make a
simultaneous conversation.
 Malcolm (1985: 59) suggests that “there is an
underlying rule in American English conversation: at
least and not more than one party talks at a time.” This
is not an empirical fact because there are obviously
many instances of short pauses and short overlaps, but
rather a normative or observably oriented to feature of
conversation; in other words, it is a rule used by
conversationalists themselves.
TURN TAKING (Cont’d)
 In conversations, there are norms for who talks, when,
and for how long. The basic rule in English is that one
person speaks at a time, after which they may nominate
another speaker or another speaker may take up the
turn without being nominated. There are a number of
ways in which we can signal that we have come to the
end of a turn, such as the completion of a syntactic unit
followed by a pause.
 We may also signal the end of a turn through eye
contact, body position and movement, or pitch and
loudness. For example low pitch may indicate we are
willing to give up our turn whereas maintained pitch may
indicate we wish to hold it.
PREFERENCE ORGANIZATION
 Preference organization is a pair which gives freedom in
responding to some first pair part, whether it is preferred
or dispreferred one. There is, however, a certain amount
of freedom in responding to some first pair parts, such
as in:
A: That’s a nice shirt. Compliment

B: Oh thanks. Accept
or
Actually…I don’t really like it; Reject

got it for Christmas.

PREFERENCE ORGANIZATION (Cont’d)
Thus, some second pair parts may be preferred and others
may be dispreferred, for example: an invitation may be
followed by an acceptance (the preferred second pair part) or a
rejection (the dispreferred second pair part). When this
happens, the dispreferred second pair part is often preceded
by a delay, a preface, and/or an account, for example:
A: Would you like to come to the movies on Friday?Invitation
B: Uhhh… Delay
I don’t know for sure. Preface

I think I might have something on that night. Account

Can we make it another time? Rejection

FEEDBACK
 Feedback shows how the listener responds to
what is talking about by the speaker. Feedback
can be done both verbally or non-verbally
which signaling response. Feedback also varies
cross-culturally. For example, a common
feedback token in Japanese is ‘hi’ which, taken
literally, means ‘yes’. However, in Japanese
interactions the use of this feedback token
does not necessarily mean agreement as ‘yes’
might in English, but rather, simply, ‘I am
listening to what you are saying’, much as ‘uh
huh’ might in English.
REPAIR
 Repair is a correction of what has been said by the speaker
about the previous statement they said during the
conversation. There are two types of repair, self repairs and
other repairs. Self repairs is repairs done by speaker about
what has been said before. Nevertheless, other repairs is
repairs done by another speaker as interlocutor. For
example, we might correct what we have said (self repair)
as in:
A : I’m going to the movies tomorrow…I mean the opera
Or the other person might repair what we have said (other
repair):
A : I’m going to that restaurant we went to last week. You
know the
Italian one in Brunswick Street?
B : You mean Lygon Street, don’t you?
A : Yeah. That’s righ,t Lygon Street.
REPAIR (Cont’d)
 Repair organization describes how parties in
conversation deal with problems in speaking,
hearing, or understanding. Repair is classified
by who initiates repair (self or other) and by
who resolves the problem (self or other) as
well as by how it unfolds within a turn or a
sequence of turns.