CHAPTER III

Conversation Analysis

1. Spoken interaction: Transactional

interaction; Classroom discourse;
Interpersonal interaction; Adjacency pairs

2. Negotiation of meaning: Turn taking; Topic

management
 CONVERSATION ANALYSIS (CA)

* Conversation is an activity in which 2 or more

people take turns at speaking.

* The rule of conversation: A stops until B has

finished.

* CA is an object of investigation, rule-governed talk;

* Analysis of conversation produced a number of

concepts: face politeness, turn-taking, adjacency pair.
 * Face politeness: In sociolinguistics & conversation analysis,
politeness are speech acts that express concern for others &
minimize threats to self-esteem ("face") in particular social
contexts.

* Face politeness consists of Positive & Negative

Politeness Strategies (Brown & Levinson. 1987).
+ Positive politeness strategies: claim a common
ground, give/ask reasons, include speaker & hearer in the
activity, intensify hearer’s interest, give gifts to hearer, be
optimistic, use in-group identity markers, joke, seek
agreements, offer/promise, notice & attend to hearer’s
interests & needs & presuppose.
+ Negative politeness strategies include: be indirect,
hedging, minimize imposition, be apologetic, give deference,
impersonalize & using a general rule.
 Cooperation & Culture in turn-taking of conversation

* Knowing when it is acceptable or obligatory to take a turn in conversation is essential

to the cooperative development of discourse.

Factors as knowing how to recognize appropriate turn-exchange points & knowing

how long the pauses between turns should be. It is also important to know how (and if)
one may talk while someone else is talking - that is if the conversational overlap is
allowed.

* Cultural differences in matters of turn-taking can lead to conversational breakdown,

misinterpretation of intentions, & interpersonal intergroup conflict.
 Adjacency pair
* Adjacency pair: 2 parts of exchange where the first speaker initiates the
first of the pair & having been the hearer responds with the second part of the
pair.

> In conversation analysis, an adjacency pair is a two-part exchange

in which the second utterance is functionally dependent on the first,
as exhibited in conventional greetings, invitations, & requests.
It is also known as the concept of nextness. Each pair is spoken by
a different person.
 * Adjacency pairs include such exchanges as
question/answer; complaint/denial; offer/accept;
request/grant; compliment/rejection;
challenge/rejection, instruct/receipt.

Adjacency pairs typically have three characteristics:

Consist of two utterances; The utterances are
adjacent, that is the first immediately follows the
second; Different speakers produce each utterance
Utterance function Expected response

greeting >>>>> greeting

congratulation >>>> thanks

apology >>>> acceptance

infor >> acknowledgement

leave-taking >> leave-taking

 Functions of language

2 main functions: Transactional & Interactional

* Transactional function: Conveying information

from person to person (expressing the content of what
we say or speak) > “ MESSAGE – ORIENTED” (proper
message)

Transaction: Representative, Referential, Ideational,

Descriptive

Written language is for transactional purposes

 * Representatives: commit a speaker to the
truth of an expressed proposition/ judge the truth
value

Paradigm cases: Asserting, Stating, Concluding,

Boasting, Describing, Suggesting (with modal
verbs)

Ex. - I am a great singer. (boasting)

- Bill was an accountant.(stating)
 A reference transaction: an information
contact which involves the knowledge, use,
recommendations, interpretation, or
instruction in the use of one or more
information sources.
* Interactional function/Interpersonal Interaction

> A communication process that involves the exchange of

information, feelings and meaning by means of verbal and non-
verbal messages, between two or more persons.

> Conveying personal attitudes or establishing & maintaining

social relations/rapport.

* Interaction: expressive, emotive, interpersonal, socio-

expressive
Spoken language is primarily interactional purposes
 Expressive interaction: a branch of human
interaction that focuses on expressive
communication between actors performing in a
particular context (e.g., culture, environment).
Expression thereby refers to a quality of
communication that is capable of evoking responses
in return
* 3 domains of expressive interaction- companionship,
sexual/evocative expression, and supportive
communication in predicting relationship satisfaction &
commitment.
 The emotive/emotional interaction
mechanism describes the way emotions affect each
other. Emotions can have an augmenting or
diminishing effect over other emotions. When an
emotion is excited, this one could affect another
emotion behavior, and this affection is what we call
emotional interaction.
 Types of Emotions
According to Paul Eckman: six universal emotions:
Happiness: a pleasant emotion where people feel a greater sense of
well-being& satisfaction.
Sadness: sadness include grief, hopelessness, and disappointment.
Fear: Fear can increase your heart rate, cause racing thoughts, or
trigger the fight-or-flight response. It can be a reaction to actual
threats or perceived threats.
Disgust: Disgust can be triggered by a physical thing, such as
rotting food, blood, or poor hygiene. Moral disgust may occur when
someone sees another person doing something they find immoral or
distasteful.
Anger: Anger can be expressed with facial expressions like
frowning, yelling, or violent behavior.
Surprise: Surprise can be pleasant or unpleasant. Surprise, like fear,
can trigger the fight-or-flight response.
 Social interaction: The process by which we act & react
to those around us. In a nutshell, social interaction includes
those acts people perform toward each other & the responses
they give in return.

Social interactions include a large number of behaviors.

In sociology, interaction is divided into 5 categories:
exchange, competition, cooperation, conflict and coercion.
 Interpersonal interaction: a communication
process that involves the exchange of information,
feelings & meaning by means of verbal & non-
verbal messages, between two or more persons.

* Four types of interpersonal interaction - oral,

verbal, nonverbal, & listening
 2. Negotiation of meaning
* Turn-taking, Adjacency pair are 2 most important
mechanisms – the object of intensive investigation

Turn-taking begins when an interlocutor starts solo

talking & ends when a different interlocutor starts solo
talking.

> Turn-taking occurs in a conversation when one

person listens while the other person speaks. As a
conversation progresses, the listener & speaker roles are
exchanged back & forth (a circle of discussion).
 Topic management refers to the related topic subjects discussed by
the speakers during the turn taking.
* Topic Management are usually relevant to the current topic or will
attempt to initiate new topics.
In formal situations there may be a predetermined topic or set of topics
that is discussed in a systematic way. (e.g. a meeting, interview or lecture).
In informal interactions, conversations will drift from topic to topic.
The main topic (the reason for the exchange) may not come first.
 * Topic plays a very important role in practicing the speaking skill
in any learned language because one cannot control a communication
without managing the related topic. Topic introduction, shifting, &
maintenance are essential elements for providing conversational coherence
& continuity.

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,
& how they repair the interaction when a misunderstanding
occurs.
 Classroom Discourse
* Definition: It refers to the language that teachers &
students use to communicate with each other in the
classroom. (Classroom discourse is an interaction between
teachers & learners & between learners & learners.)
* The nature of classroom discourse: brings clarity, its
distinctiveness in the speech. During interaction teachers have
the scope to identify the talent, intelligence & excellence of
the pupils.
* Types of DA: 3 patterns:
+ Silent (the teacher talks almost all the time & asks only
an occasional question);
+ Controlled;
+ Active (the teacher facilitates while the students talk
 CONTEXT
* In semiotics, linguistics, sociology &
anthropology, context refers to those objects
or entities which surround a focal event.
* In a communicative event Context is
"a frame that surrounds the event &
provides resources for its appropriate
interpretation".
 FEATURES OF CONTEXT
Context embraces the following categories:

* The relevant features of participants:

persons & personalities (verbal/oral action
or non-verbal action of participants).
* The relevant of objects
* The effect of the verbal action
 Hymes identifies the following listing of context features:
Addressor (speaker or writer) & addressee (hearer or
listener/decoder of utterance); Audience (unintended
addressees); Topic (range of language); Setting (place,
time, posture, gesture, facial expression; Channel (how the
contact between participants: speech, writing, signing,
signal); Code (kind of language, style of language);
Message-form (chat, debate, sermon, fairytale, love letter,
lecture, radio talk, play…); Event (nature of
communication, genre: opening speech, welcoming
speech, papers); Key (evaluation); Purpose (outcome the
participant want to happen).
 Principle of Local interpretation
The extend of the context within which the hearer will
interpret where they are (speaker & hearer)/the local setting.
Ex. “A man & a woman sitting in the living room…the
man’s bored, goes to the window, looks out the window…
and goes out to a club, has a drink, talks to the barman.”
> (Hearer assumes that the entities(man &woman) will
remain & local setting will stay constant. The hearer
interpreted that ‘the window’ is of & in the living room, the
club is near to the living room)
 PRINCIPLE OF ANALOGY

An Analogy is a relation of similarity between two

or more things, so that an inference (reasoning from
premise to conclusion) is drawn on the basis of that
similarity.
 The principle of analogy enables the hearer or
listener to interpret discourse in light of his past
experience & background knowledge.

> When the hearer encounters a new situation he

selects from his memory a type of experience he
has generalized before & relates it to his
background knowledge in order to interpret

>> Analogy with previous similar discourse.

 Revision of Chapter III
1. What is conversation and conversation analysis?
The characteristics of conversation analysis?
2. What are Transactional & Interactional, their
types?
3. What are interpersonal interaction, Adjacency,
Turn-taking, Topic management and Classroom
discourse?