CHAPTER 5:

DISCOURSE and
CONVERSATION
 1. Background to conversation analysis

(Paltridge, p.90)
 Conversation analysis is an approach to the analysis of spoken discourse.
 CA looks at:
 how people manage their everyday conversational interactions, and
 how social relations are developed through the use of spoken discourse.
(p.91)
 Ordinary conversation as the most basic form of talk.
 The primacy of data as the source of information:
 no speaker’s reflections, field notes or interviews (for they may represent
idealizations).
 CA avoids starting with assumptions:
 Phenomena which regularly occur in the data
 “Anything anyone says in a conversation both builds on what has been said or
what has been going on… as well as creates the conditions for what will be
said next”. (Gardner, 1994:102)
 The transcription of the data is also the analysis.
 3. Sequence and Structure in Conversation

 3 main stages:
o Opening stage: beginnings, initiating exchanges that establish social
relations.
o Middle stage: development of topics using conversational strategies.
o Closing stage: pre-closing exchanges signaling the ending of the
conversation, closing.
Opening conversations (p.94)
 Telephone conversations:

((ring))
Recipient: Hello
Caller: Hi Ida?
Recipient: Yeah
Caller: Hi, this is Carla
Recipient: Hi Carla
Caller: How are you?
Recipient: Okay
Caller: Good
Recipient: How about you.
Caller: Fine. Don wants to know ….
 A radio call-in programme:
Announcer: For husband Bruce of 26 years Carol has this dedication (.)
So how are things going.
Caller: Absolu::tely wonderful.
Announcer: That’s great to hear you’re still happy.
Caller: Oh yes (0.5) very much so.
Announcer: And what’s your dedication all about for Bruce.
Caller: Well:: we’re going away tomorrow to the Whitsundays (.) and
(0.5) umm:: I’m looking forward to it very much and I know he is
too:: for a break.
Closing conversations (p.95)
 Pre-closing: two turn units (OK, all right + falling intonation)
 Closing: two further units (bye, goodbye)
 Closing may be preceded by:
- making an arrangement
- referring back to something previously said
- good wishes
- restating the reason for calling
- thanks for calling
 Closing may be foreshortened or extended.
 Sensitive to the speaker’s orientation to continuing, closing (or not wanting to
close) the conversation.
 Turn taking (p.95)
 Rule for turn-taking
One person speaks at a time, after which they may nominate another speaker, or
another speaker may take up the turn without being nominated.
 Ways to signal the end of a turn?
completing of a syntactic unit
failling intonation + pausing
signals: mmm,anw,...
eye contact, body position and movement
pitch nd loudness
 Ways to keep a turn?
- not pausing too long at the end of an utterance
- pausing in the middle of an utterance
- extending a syllable or a vowel
- speaking over someone else’s attempt to take the turn
 Overlap: (2 speakers speak at the same)
- can be used as a strategy for taking a turn, and to prevent someone else from

taking the turn.

 Turn taking depends on:

• situation
• topic of the conversation
• whether the interaction is relatively cooperative
• relative status of speakers (older people, higher social status,...)
Overlap
 ingeneral, conversations for the most part take place smoothly,
 Overlapping is common, mostly unproblematic
Adjacency pairs (p.97) (next to)
 Produced by two successive speakers
 The second utterance: an expected follow up of the first one
 Basic rule:

The first speaker stops and allows the second speaker to produce the expected
second part to the pair of utterance.
(A conversation in a radio call-in programme)
Announcer: Sharon Stone’s on the phone. (.) how are you.
Caller: very good.
Announcer: I bet you get hassled about your surname.
Caller: yes I do::
Announcer: and what do you want to tell Patrick.
Caller: umm that I love him very much (0.5) and I (0.5) and I wish him a
very happy birthday
(An argument about the need for a bouncer at a party)
Ryan: I’m gonna have to get Peter to come
over too
Marie: why
Ryan: so people don’t crash the party
Marie: oh they won’t crash the part sweetheart
Ryan: oh yeah, yeah. Maybe twenty years ago
mmm. You know like today. I … there be easy
another forty people if you didn’t have a person at
the gate.
 Adjacency pairs and stage of the conversation:
- The particular context and stage of the conversation in assigning the status of an

utterance
- An utterance may play more than one role in a conversation.
- (occurs frequently in a convo) , u need to know when it happens (the context, the

role) so dat we can choose appropriate responses

 Adjacency pairs across cultures :

Different cultures / norms will generate different structures for adjacency pairs.
4. Preference organization
(p.99)
 The freedom in responding to some FPP.

 Some SPP may be preferred and others dispreferred.

Example?
Invitation
-> Acceptance (preferred) and Rejectio (dispreffered)
 How is a preferred SPP different from a dispreferred SPP?
 Dispreffered SPP: more complex, often indirect and less immediat

usually mitigated, elaborated, accmpanied by delay, preface/hedge, discourse marker,

accourt/ excuse
 Preffered SPP:

Short, Immeidate, direct

 Insertion sequence (p.100)
Ryan: and can I have a DJ too is that OK
Marie: John
John: what
Marie: can he have a DJ
Ryan: cause you won’t be spending much on food so I thought
John: well how much does a DJ cost?
Ryan: yeah I’ve got to find out.
 Pre-expansion (Dau), insert-expansion (chen giua, truoc khi
response), post-expansion (cuoi, eg: thank you, abcdz)
  A: What are you doing tonight?
B: Nothing.
B: I’m having dinner with Craig.
B: Why?
 A: Do you know what I did today?
B: What?
A: I made a fool of myself in front of a whole lot of people.
 A: May I have a bottle of Mitch?

B: Are you 21?

A: No.

B: So no.
 5. Feedback
(p.101)
 The way that listeners show they are attending to what is being said
 Verbally?
 Non-verbally?
 6. Repair
 The way speakers correct things that have been said in a conversation.
2 kinds of repairs?
 7. Discourse markers
 Discourse markers: items in spoken discourse which act as signposts of
discourse coherence.
 Somecommon discourse markers: oh, well, yeah, right, but, so, now, really,
y’know, sort of, kind of,….
 At the beginning, middle or end of an utterance
 Used for a variety of pragmatic functions
 10. Criticism of Conversation Analysis
 Based on the conversation only, does not need other data  problematic as
researchers only see the conversation as spectator, not participants
 Should be combined with other qualitative approaches
 CA lacks attention to issues of power, inequality and social disadvantages /
wider historical, cultural, social and political issues

11. A sample study: Refusals

 11. A sample study: Refusals
 Based on the conversation only, does not need other data  problematic as
researchers only see the conversation as spectator, not participants
 Should be combined with other qualitative approaches
 CA lacks attention to issues of power, inequality and social disadvantages /
wider historical, cultural, social and political issues