Conversation Analysis 

: Turns and Moves

What a given speaker says in a dialogue before another one speaks is referred to as a
Converstional Turn. Example (1) below is part of a dialogue and involves three
conversational turns: two by speaker A and one by speaker B:

A: Can you tell me why you eat all that food?

B: To keep myself strong.

A: To keep you strong, yes, to keep you strong. Why do you want to be strong?

Within a turn, there may be different functional Moves. In (1), for example,
speaker A’s second utterance has one turn, but two moves (Coulthard 1977:69): an
evaluation of speaker A’s utterance (To keep you strong, yes, to keep you strong) and
a further question (Why do you want to be strong?).

Longacre (1996) identifies different kinds of moves (he calls them utterances). First,
there is an Initiating Move (IM), which begins a dialogic exchange. This exchange is
in some sense terminated, or given closure, by means of a Resolving Move (RM). In
(1), for example, both questions posed by speaker A (Can you tell me why you eat all
that food? and Why do you want to be strong?) are initiating moves. In turn, speaker’s
B answer to A’s first question (To keep myself strong) is a resolving move which
terminates the exchange. The first two conversational turns of (1) may, therefore, be
labeled as follows:

(2) A: Can you tell me why you eat all that food? (IM)

B: To keep myself strong. (RM)

Whatever else may be found in the dialogue of which (2) is a part, (2) itself forms
a recognizable unit, or chunk, of discourse. Chunks occur in all types of discourse.
Here we simply observe that in dialogue we often find a characteristic kind of chunk,
which begins with an initiating move and ends with a corresponding resolving move.
This chunk is sometimes called an Adjacency Pair (Coulthard 1977:70).
Longacre identifies another type of move in dialogue: a Countering Move (CM),
which, coming between the initiating move and the corresponding resolving move,
delays the resolution or closure At times, a countering move may have a second
function, as an initiating move in its own right, and in consequence may give rise to
its own resolving move. This is seen in the following dialogue chunk (Longacre
1996:132f). Three countering moves represent new initiatives, which result in four
levels of resolution (the indentation indicates relevant pairings of initiating moves and
resolving moves):

A: I’m inviting you to dinner with me at 2 pm Thursday. (IM)

B: Can I bring one of my sons? (CM/IM)

A: Bob or Bill? (CM/IM)

B: Does it matter which? (CM/IM)

A: Yes, it certainly matters. (RM)

B: Okay, Bob, the older one. (RM)

A: Very well. (RM)

B: Okay, thanks, we’ll be there. (RM)

Of course, not all dialogues have such symmetrical closure. In the following
sentence, for instance (Longacre 1996:131), what the final utterance resolves (to use
the term loosely) is A’s immediately preceding utterance; A’s original initiating move
remains unresolved, as does B’s continuing/initiating move:

A: Where are you going, Bob? (IM)

B: Why do you want to know? (CM/IM)

A: You always get mad like this. (CM/IM)

B: Liar! (RM)
*Notions such as initiating, resolving, and countering moves are helpful in analyzing
dialogue. Often, however, things are more complicated than this.

*Conversations do not always take place in neat “turns”. Even in American English,
with its norm of only one person speaking at any given time, there are sometimes
“gaps” (when no one is speaking) and “overlaps” (when more than one person is
speaking) (Coulthard 1977:53). Some cultures routinely allow simultaneous speakers,
so that participants are both speakers and hearers at the same time.

*Cultures also have different ways to indicate that a speaker’s turn has ended or come
to a “possible completion.” Signals of this can be grammatical (e.g., the end of a
utterance), paralinguistic (e.g., loudness, rate of speech), or kinesic (eye contact, hand
motions, etc.) (Coulthard 1977:52–62).