Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis

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Lecture (7)

Conversation Analysis

Studying What’s ‘Being Ordinary’

Harold Garfinkle ‘Ethnomethodology’ How do people make interaction orderly? How do people make sense of interaction? Studying people’s actions on their own terms rather than

with reference to a theory

What Is Conversation? Conversation as a discourse type has been defined by

Cook (1989) in the following way: It is not primarily necessitated by a practical task. The number of participants is small. Turns are quite short. Talk is primarily for the participants and not for an

outside audience.

Conversation Analysis (CA)

CA - the study of recorded, naturally occurring talk-in-interaction.

CA - marginally interested in language as such, but first and foremost in language as a practical social accomplishment.

Its object of study is the interactional organization of social activities.

CA aims at discovering how participants understand and respond to one another in their turns at talk, with a central focus on how sequences of actions are generated.

Conversation Analysis (CA)

“Pure” CA: Concerned with the general issues, structure of talk “as such,” regardless of context, institution

“Applied” CA—courtrooms, meetings, interviews, and so on.

Conversation Analysis (CA) Developed in the 1960’s by Sacks, Schegloff and

Jefferson Study of telephone conversations Fine tuned (‘microanalytic’) analysis of the sequential

structure of conversations Conversation unfolds ‘one thing after another’ No a priori assumptions Looking for patterns in actual conversations Understanding how people ‘make sense’ of

conversations Search for ‘patterns’ and ‘regularities’ in talk

Context of CA Only valid ‘context’ is the immediate context of the

conversation Context is dynamic We create context by what we say and respond to the

context other people create by what they say Factors external to the talk is only relevant if

participants make it relevant ‘Pure’ conversational data Based only on what participants actually say/do

Example of a Conversation Look at the following interaction and comment on how participants display their understanding of what is going on. Mother: Do you know who’s going to that meeting? Rus: Who? Mother: I don’t know! Rus: Oh, probably Mr. Murphy and Dad said Mrs. Timpte an’ some of

the teachers.

Some Research Basics: CA

What are the underlying assumptions Approach is: ◦ Top-down? [theory data]: Theory = lens ◦ Bottom-up? [data theory]: Theory = explanatory

framework Social structure can be seen: What counts as data? ◦ Collecting data ◦ Transcribing data

Transcription

Transcription is… ◦ A process of selection ◦ Driven by analyst's theoretical stance

Gail Jefferson Transcription conventions (developed by Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2008).

The structure of conversations Openings ◦ Initiating exchanges that establish social relations

Middle ◦ Topic negotiation and development ◦ Turn taking mechanics ◦ Feedback

Closings ◦ Pre-closing exchanges ◦ Closings

Topics in CA

How utterances are related to each other (‘adjacency pairs’)

Preference organization Turn-taking Topic initiation Feedback Openings and closings Repair

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The Basic Notions of CA We’re Covering

1. Turn taking 2. Adjacency pairs 3. Insertion sequences 4. Preferred and dispreferred responses 5. Repair

1. Turn-Taking The starting point is the observation that conversation

involves turn-taking and that the end of one speaker’s turn and the beginning of the next latch on to each other with almost perfect precision.

Overlap of turns (when two or more participants talk at the same time) occurs in about 5% of cases and this suggests that speakers know how, when and where to enter.

They signal that one turn has come to an end and another should begin.

Components Of Turn-taking 1.Turn Construction Units (TCU) Turns at talk can be seen as constructed out of units

which broadly correspond to linguistic categories such as sentences, clauses, single words (e.g., ‘Hey!’, ‘What ?’) or phrases.

Features of TCU A. Projectability – it is possible for participants to

project, in the course of a turn-construction unit, what sort of unit it is and at what point it is likely to end.

B. Transition relevance place – at the end of each unit there is the possibility for legitimate transition between speakers.

Components Of Turn-taking

Components Of Turn-taking

2. Turn distribution (e.g. who dominates the conversation in terms of

number of turns taken, length of turns) There is no strict limit to turn size, given the extendable

nature of syntactic turn-constructional units; There is no exclusion of parties; The number of parties can change

Turn-Taking Rules a) if C (current speaker) selects N (next speaker) in

current turn, then C must stop speaking, and N must speak next.

b) if C does not select N, then any other party self-selects, first speaker gaining rights to the next turn

C) if C has not selected N, and no other party self-selects, then C may (but need not) continue.

Overlapping Rules Where, despite the rules, overlapping talk occurs, studies

revealed the operation of a system: one speaker drops out rapidly as soon as one speaker ‘gets into the clear’, he typically

recycles precisely the part of the turn obscured by the overlap.

If one speaker does not immediately drop out, there is available a competitive allocation system, whereby the speaker who ‘upgrades’ most, wins the floor. (uppgrading = increased amplitude, slowing tempo, lengthened vowels, etc.)

2. Adjacency Pairs certain classes of utterances in conversations conventionally

come in pairs. Example: question answer greeting greeting invitation acceptance(declination) offer acceptance (refusal) compliment acknowledgement request grant (Clark & Clark, Ch. 6)

2. Adjacency Pairs

A pair of utterances in which the first part predicts the second part

Second Pair Parts (SPP) is functionally dependent on the First Pair Parts (FPP).

First is also dependent on the second: SPP provides evidence of how the FPP was understood

Conditional Relevance ‘Preferred Responses’

2. Adjacency Pairs

3. Insertion Sequences

Also known as expansion sequence and it comes as:

1. Pre-expansions 2. Post-expansions 3. Insert expansions

See pages 124-127

3. Insertion Sequences

Clara’s acceptance in the example (l. 7, Yeah) is thus foreshadowed by Nelson’s pre-invitation (l. 4, ‘Watcha doin’ . ).

3. Insertion Sequences

blocking type of pre-invitation

3. Insertion Sequences

the hedging pre-invitation

Side Sequences (additional)

= side sequences where the topic is different from that of the main sequence:

E.g: Father (on the phone to university: So Ithink I’ll be in tomorrow, when P is a little better.

And if you could tell the ethics committee…HEY STOP THAT RIGHT AWAY

Secretary: You want me to stop WHAT? F: Sorry. I was talking to the cat. Hold on S: …….. F: The damn cat was fixing to sit on the baby’s face.

Noticeable Absence (additional)

The absence of a second pair part is most often treated participants as a noticeable absence, and the speaker of the first part may infer a reason for the absence. Example in a question/answer sequence: Child: Have to cut these Mummy. (1.3) Child: Won’t we Mummy. (1.5) Child: Won’t we. Mother: Yes

4. Preference Organization Of Adjacency Pairs

An inferential aspect of adjacency pairs stems from the fact that certain first pair parts make alternative actions relevant in second position.

In some adjacency pairs there is a choice of two likely responses, of which one is termed preferred response (because it occurs more frequently), and the other dispreferred (because it is less common).

Preference Organization 1. Offer A: Like a lift? -acceptance (preferred) B: You saved my life. -refusal (dispreferred) B: Thanks, but I’m waiting for my

friend 2. Compliment A: That’s a nice shirt. -acceptance (preferred) B: Thanks -rejection (dispreferred) B: Well, I think it makes me look old -agreement (preferred) B: It’s quite nice, isn’t it? -shift B: Judy found it for me. -return B: Thanks, I like yours too. 3. . Blame A: You broke the glass - denial (preferred) B: I didn’t do it. - admission (dispref) B: Sorry, I didn’t see it.

5. Repairs

Repair is a generic term used in CA to cover a wide range of phenomena, from --- seeming errors in turn-taking, such as overlapping talk, to any of the forms of what is commonly called ‘corrections’ – that is, substantive faults in the contents of what someone has said.

The Organization Of Repairs Repair types The repair system embodies a distinction between 1) the initiation of repair (marking something as a

source of trouble), and 2) the actual repair itself. There is also a distinction between 1) repair initiated by self (the speaker who produced

the trouble source), and 2) repair initiated by other. Consequently, there are

four varieties of repair:

The Organization Of Repairs

four varieties of repair: 1. Self-initiated Self-repair 2. Other-Initiated-Self-Repair 3. Self-Initiated Other-Repair 4. Other-Initiated Other-Repair

See page 131-132

The Organization Of Repairs

The Organization Of Repairs

The Organization Of Repairs

The Organization Of Repairs

Topic Management

Appropriate and Taboo Topics Rules on who initiates topics How topics are initiated Changing topics

Talk In Institutional Settings

What special considerations apply that make talk in institutional settings different from casual conversation? ◦ Goal oriented ◦ Special constraints on allowable contributions ◦ Context specific inferential frameworks

CA Steps: Overall Process (Ten Have, 1999)

(Assuming you already have transcript) 1. Locate data fragment (“sequence”) 2. Analyze “interlocking organizations”

a. Turn-taking b. Sequence c. Repair d. Turn construction/design

3. Take notes on transcript or notebook 4. Try to formulate general observations

CA Steps: Interlocking Organization (Ten Have, 1999)

1. Turn-taking: ◦ Gaps, pauses ◦ Overlaps and Interruptions Overlaps: Continues the previous turn of the other (Person A

continues) Occurs at a TRP (Transition-Relevant Place)

Interruptions: Takes turn away from other (Person B continues

speaking) Occurs NOT at a TRP

◦ TCU: Turn-Constructional Unit ◦ Indication of next turns [three rules, if naturally

occurring conversation]

CA Steps: Interlocking Organization (Ten Have, 1999)

2. Sequence: ◦ Adjacency pairs ◦ Relevant and accountable responses ◦ Inserts; presequences; core sequences ◦ Prefaces, summaries ◦ Glosses; [summary for possible expansion] ◦ Cycles (QA, jokes, Tags that anticipate answers, etc.) ◦ Recipient design!

CA Steps: Interlocking Organization (Ten Have, 1999)

3. Repair: ◦ trouble sources ◦ self- and other-initiated repairs ◦ NTRI: Next-turn repair initiator: huh? What? ◦ TRPs: Transition-relevant places ◦ “occasionally usable” repairs ◦ “continuers” ◦ misalignment

CA Steps: Interlocking Organization (Ten Have, 1999)

4.Turn construction/design: turn length Address “speaker design” preference organization (what would typically follow,

such as an apology) turn shape: ◦ Ex: acceptance versus rejection of an invitation ◦ Ex: How does first pair part suggest second pair part?

A Final (Possible) Step (Pomerantz & Fehr)

Implication of identities, roles, relationships ◦ What do turns tell you about relationship of

interactants? ◦ What do you know about social structure, status

(individual or group)? For example, does the text incorporate “gendered” identities (Note: you can only tell from the data, not from previous research on gender and communication!)

End of class 07