Sinia Bosanac, Damir Latin, Petra Mikoli

Discourse Analysis: Spoken

Language
Subject: Discourse Analysis

Academic year: 2008/2009

Department of English
Faculty of Philosophy
University of Zagreb
Zagreb, 2009

Contents
1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 4
1.1 The spoken language why is it specific? ..................................................................................... 4
1.2 Language and context ................................................................................................................... 6
2. Methods .............................................................................................................................................. 8
2.1 The conversation ........................................................................................................................... 8
2.2 The recording ................................................................................................................................ 8
2.3. Encoding process: Transcription, Coding and Markup ................................................................. 9
3. Contextual dimensions ...................................................................................................................... 11
3.1 The participants and the Context of Culture ............................................................................... 11
3.2 The context of situation .............................................................................................................. 14
3.3 Knowledge of the world .............................................................................................................. 16
3.4 Co-text ......................................................................................................................................... 17
4. Coding principles ............................................................................................................................... 17
4.1 Division into sections and topics ................................................................................................. 17
4.1.1 Sections ................................................................................................................................ 18
4.1.2 Topics and supertopics ......................................................................................................... 20
4.2 Topic-shift .................................................................................................................................... 21
4.2.1 Topic boundary markers in spoken discourse ...................................................................... 22
4.2.2 Topic navigation ................................................................................................................... 23
4.3 Feedback...................................................................................................................................... 25
5. The analysis ....................................................................................................................................... 28
5.1 Mechanisms of cohesion ............................................................................................................. 28
5.1.1 References ............................................................................................................................ 28
5.1.2 Ellipsis ................................................................................................................................... 34
5.1.3 Paralinguistic signs ............................................................................................................... 34
5.1.4 Addressing (T-V pronouns, nicknames...) ............................................................................. 37
2

5.1.5 Speech acts ........................................................................................................................... 39

5.2 Hedges and evidential ................................................................................................................. 42
5.3. Grammatical properties of the discourse .................................................................................. 44
6. Gricean maxims ................................................................................................................................. 49
6.2 The maxim of Quantity ................................................................................................................ 50
6.3 The maxim of Relevance ............................................................................................................. 51
6.4. The maxim of Manner ................................................................................................................ 53
6.5 Be Polite....................................................................................................................................... 55
7. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 56
8. Literature ........................................................................................................................................... 58
9. Appendix The transcription ............................................................................................................ 59

1. Introduction
1.1 The spoken language why is it specific?
Language is not only a means of communicating information, but
means of establishing and maintaining relationships with other people. We
use language for our own purposes, to manipulate or influence or define the
situation as we wish, and to convey nuances of meaning and personal
intention. This can be achieved through various means, and conversation
was, is and will probably remain the first and foremost thereof.
It is not hard to conclude that spoken language differs from the
written or that of communicational technologies. But while it requires less
effort to produce it and understand it for the participants of the
conversation, those that were excluded from the whole actualization of
conversation find it far more complex than the written text of any kind.
Spoken text is usually preserved by tape-recording which may preserve far
more than a text in its narrowest meaning opening of a bag of sugar,
coughing, noise surrounding the speakers. Even though many will argue
that these manifestations do not constitute a part of the text, they are
important in analyzing the context of situation, culture and speakers
attitude toward one another.
It is also necessary to point out that conversation differs from other
communication technologies according to the channels available while
machine-assisted uses only one (or nowadays with video calls two and more
channels), in interpersonal communication all channels are available (audio
channel (speech), visual channel (gestures, emotions, lip-reading etc.),
olfactive, and tactile).

In order to successfully use the language in conversational interaction,

one must learn, along with grammar and vocabulary, paralinguistic signs
and cultural conventions. For example, one must learn ways to achieve

cohesion in a discourse or speech acts of a particular language and when to

use it.
There are rules for conducting and interpretation of conversation in
general, and they differ from society to society. Conversations have a
structure which is culture dependant. One of the obvious features showing
this structure is the principle of turn-taking, that is, only one person speaks
at a time, while others wait to take their turn. Of course, seldom does it
happen this way. This feature also implies that when a participant takes
their turn, he or she does not only have the right to speak, but also the
obligation to speak. This is the responding turn which can be expressed
linguistically (response) or non-linguistic (feedback). One can say that there
are rules on silence, that is, when is one expected to speak and, also, in
which manner, on which topic etc. Say, a silence of no more than ten
seconds is allowed, or acceptable, even if the two people dont know each
other (for example, two people traveling on a train together in the same
compartment). People then feel embarrassed by silence and feel pressured to
say something, and usually start making small-talk, like Nice weather were
having today, or Its very hot today (the weather is always a good icebreaker).
These rules are very culture specific. In some cultures both silence and
interruptions are perfectly acceptable, or even obligatory, and to speak with
someone you do not know would be considered extremely impolite and long
periods of silence are perfectly acceptable.
Of course, there are also rules on when it is alright to interrupt someone
and, important being, how this is done. This is usually done by
acknowledging ones own transgression, like I am sorry to interrupt, and
with similar expressions.
Another feature of conversations is that they consist of structured
sequences of different types of utterance (Trudgill, 2000:109). These
structured sequences are called adjacency pairs. These pairs describe
the way in which conversations can be segmented into pairs of
exchanges that are connected although they are spoken by different
5

speakers. To put it more simply, when uttering an initiate (statement

or question), a response (agreement, disagreement, direct or indirect
answer, query, compliance or providing service (?)) is expected and
required. Adjacency pairs are important for the communication or
conversation because they provide cohesion to the discourse.
Ellipsis is also one of the features of conversation. Even though some
linguistic elements are omitted, participants make an interpretation on the
conversation. There is a proposition known to participants that makes a
connection between question Could you lend me some money? and
response I havent been paid yet. What holds conversation together is not
only participants knowledge of the language, but also knowledge of the
world.
Looking at these features, we can say that conversations, then, are
structured, rule-governed, non-random sequences of utterances (2000:111).
These rules are something that has to be learned and making good
conversation is a skill one masters with time.

1.2 Language and context

Language can vary according to the social context in which speakers

engage in conversation and not only according to their social characteristics.
Different situations and different purposes require different linguistic
varieties. More than one linguistic variety can be used in a single
conversation. The selection of language (style, register) depends on the topic
of discussion. In our recorded conversation, varieties exchange according to
the topic shifts. When talking about their project, the participants use formal
style and special register, namely that of information sciences; however,
when they talk about temporary or trivial topics and events, they
automatically shift to informal style and register.

In this research we will analyze conversation according to the theory

explained above, that is, according to mechanisms of cohesion, its
grammatical properties and how are the Gricean maxims of conversation
adhered to or broken.

2. Methods

2.1 The conversation

The material analyzed for the purpose of this work is a sound

recording

of

complete

spontaneous

conversation

between

three

participants. This specific conversation was selected because it was

prearranged and it had a predetermined topic to devise a plan and
methodology for a joint project for a class at their faculty. The other reason
was that the author and the participants know each other relatively well and
are in good terms so it was very probable that they would agree to participate
in the research.
The spontaneity of the participants was assured by the fact that they
were not aware from the beginning that they were being recorded. One of the
participants, and one of the authors of this paper who recorded the
conversation, was naturally aware that he was being recorded, but that
apparently did not have significant influence on his spontaneity which is
proved by the fact that both the other participants and the analysts did not
notice any difference in his behavior. This can be due to the fact that the
participant/author himself was distracted by actively participating in the
discussion.
The participants in the conversation gave their consent for using the
recording for the purposes of this work explicitly and the consent is available
on the recording.

2.2 The recording

The total length of the recording after trimming off the blanks at the
beginning and the end is 80 minutes and 36 seconds. The recording was
made by an Olympus WS-210S digital sound recorder in stereo high quality
mode at sampling frequency of 44.1 kHz with built-in noise reduction filter
activated. During the process of recording it was placed in the front pocket
8

author/participants jacket thus providing adequate microphone coverage of

all participants.
Because the conversation took place outdoors and the microphone of
the device is omnidirectional, a lot of background noise, such as birds
singing, traffic, unintelligible speech of other people etc., was also recorded.
Noises not relevant for the conversation, were filtered out and the recording
was cut into sections using sound recording and editing software suite
Adobe Audition 3.0.

2.3. Encoding process: Transcription, Coding and Markup

Edwards (2003) names three types of encoding in transcripts:

transcription, coding and markup. According to her, the transcription tells
us who said

what, to whom, in what manner, and under what

circumstances, the coding is even more interpretive and more closely tied
to particular theoretical frameworks such as syntax, semantics and
pragmatics, and mark-up concerns format-relevant specifications rather
than content that are used mainly by computer software for segmentation
and cataloging the parts of discourse.
The transcription, coding and markup in the analysis were done
mostly manually with the help of an open-source tool called Transcriber. For
some visualizations another open-source tool called Praat was used. Praat
also has advanced capabilities of an in-depth phonetic analysis, but these
functions were not used because they surpassed the scope of this work.
For the purposes of this work we decided to transcribe the
conversation using the modified orthography in order to preserve some
nuances of pronunciation such as regional accents and idiolects. We did not
use phonetic transcription for depicting the variations in accentuation,
tonality and other more complex features of pronunciation but instead
decided to rely on annotations and comments to describe their quality and
function. A more detailed phonetic analysis is possible in the future because
the original recording is preserved unedited and in its full quality.
9

We coded information such as occurrences of mechanisms of cohesion

(references, ellipses), paralinguistic signs and additional information on what
the participants are doing at the given time (e.g. talking on the phone,
looking for a place to sit in the caf). The paralinguistic signs were
deciphered from the recording based on cues provided by distinctive noises
(e.g. the shuffling of clothes when changing poses) or based on memory of
the author who participated in the conversation.
Markup data was added by the software we used and it concerns
timestamps, technical properties of the recording and physical properties of
the sound wave. The data files were also manually divided into smaller parts,
which we named sections, in order to meet the technical restrictions
imposed by hardware and software resources and to facilitate easier
transport over the Internet between the authors.
While doing this, special care was taken in order to preserve coherence
of the segments by separating them at points of topic-shifts. Small part of
the previous segment is always included in the next to allow easier analysis
of the shift. Because of this we must differentiate the timestamp of the
fragment and the timestamp of the whole conversation. The timestamps of
the whole conversation are included in the file-names of the segments. In
this paper all timestamps are shown in hh:mm:ss format.

10

3. Contextual dimensions

3.1 The participants and the Context of Culture

There were three participants in the conversation. We will refer to them as

M, N and S. As mentioned before, two of them, M and N, were unaware that
the conversation was recorded during the most part of its duration, while S
was aware but did not show any obvious signs that it influenced its
behavior. All of the participants are students of information sciences at
graduate level at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb and at the time of
recording knew each other for almost full four years. They were cooperating
on multiple projects for classes and had moderate contact at informal
occasions.
M is female, 24 years of age, born in Biha, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Since three years of age she lives in Zagreb where she finished primary and
secondary school and enrolled faculty.
Her mother tongue is Croatian, tokavian dialect. At primary school
level she learned English and German. At secondary school level she
continued to learn English and started to learn Spanish. At higher education
level she started to learn Swedish.
At secondary level she finished a general-program school in Zagreb.
She is currently studying information sciences at graduate level at the
Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb. She works as a lecturer at a firm holding
courses in informatics. She started to deal with informatics at an early age,
still in primary school. She did not have any or hardly any contact with
matters concerning agriculture except that at biology classes. She does not
have any contacts with other dialects of Croatian except at faculty.
N is male, 24 years of age, born and currently living in Zagreb. He
finished primary and general-program secondary school in Zagreb. His
mother tongue is Croatian, tokavian dialect. He was learning English and
German at primary and secondary school, and stopped learning French after
primary.
11

He studied physics for two years at the Faculty of Science in Zagreb.

He is currently studying information sciences and philosophy at graduate
level at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb. He works as an assistant at a
law firm and is familiar with legal terminology. Ns interests in informatics
began at approximately eight years of age when he got his first computer. He
is acquainted with the terminology related to agriculture through interaction
with his friends and had direct contact with it on his visits to his relatives in
the rural areas. He has moderately frequent contacts with native speakers of
ikavian variant of tokavian dialect while visiting Imotski area.
S is male, 23 years of age, born in Pakrac, lived in municipality of
Hercegovac in Bjelovar-Bilogora County until 18 years of age when he
enrolled faculty and since then spends most of the year living in Zagreb. His
mother tongue is Croatian, tokavian dialect. He learned German at primary
and secondary school, English at secondary school, and currently learns
Russian at the Faculty.
He finished primary school in Hercegovac, and general-program
secondary school in Garenica. He is currently studying English and
information sciences at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb. He is a member
of the Students Council and active in several students associations and is
acquainted with legal terminology. As he spent the most of his life living in a
rural environment, he is familiar and had plenty of direct contact with the
area of agriculture and its terminology. He is interested in informatics and
deals with it since primary school. He has frequent interaction with
kajkavian dialect as his neighbor is from Zagorje and also with ikavian
variant of tokavian dialect through interaction with his friends from
Imotski.
The most important aspect of context of culture is their shared
knowledge of cultural conventions, which is observable from the fact that
they communicate efficiently, with very little misunderstanding. One of the
rare difficulties can be seen in the part where N uses a nickname to refer to
the mayor of Zagreb. The nickname is derived from the suffix of the Brazilian
football player Ronaldihno and M does not recognize it, perhaps not being
12

familiar with such practice of nickname formation which is more peculiar to

those who watch football.

E.g. 1
N:

Ma io sam jutros napokon obavit ovo kod... Bandinja.

M:

Koga?

N:

Kod Bandia.

M:

Aha, za stipendiju si io potpisat se.

The common attributes of all three participants are: age, mother

tongue and dialect, the field of study, the same faculty, they speak at least
three foreign languages, they attend the same classes and know the same
professors and live in the same city. All three share the same sociolects
related to profession: sociolect of informatics and that of students at Faculty
of Philosophy.
All three use a significant amount of forms that belong to languages
foreign from their perspective, namely English and Russian, and other
dialects of Croatian than their own, namely kajkavian and akavian. These
are used mainly for stylistic purposes and the relatively frequent use reflects
the fact that all three know the other speakers good enough to know they
share the same knowledge and will be understood.

E.g. 2
S:

Kak ste kaj kolega!

N:

Tovari!

S:

Zdrao. (shake hands)

E.g. 3
S:

Na svakom putovanju.. to mu je sad recurring fora. njemu je, istina,

smjenije...

13

One of the more noticeable common features of their discourse is the

frequent use of imitated direct speech when talking about other persons in
longer monologues, suggesting that this type of discourse is common in their
culture.

3.2 The context of situation

The context of situation will be described according to features used by

Brown and Yule (1983:38), borrowed from Hymes (1964): addressor,
addressee, audience, topic, setting, channel, code, message form, event and
purpose.
Addressors and addresses are interchangeably the three participants
described in the previous section of this paper. N and M have arrived at the
meeting which would be the last obligation in their schedule for the day and
the time they could spend there was not limited by other engagements. S
had to meet another friend and after that to pack his bags for a trip abroad
by a bus that was to leave approximately 3 hours after the beginning of the
meeting. S was obviously under a certain amount of pressure to finish the
meeting as early as possible to be able to fulfill other engagements. This is
evident from the following comment by him:

E.g. 1
S:

Ovoga, da, mogli bi se mi malo i pourit jer ja

M:

Kad vi putujete? U dvanajst?

S:

U dvanajst, al moram ja jo
Audience has significant influence on what is being said and in what

manner. For example the participants would not shout out loud personal,
embarrassing or confidential information when other guests in the caf could
hear them. Instead they would talk in a lower tone when talking about these
types of topics, or use paralinguistic signs to show that the topic is
confidential, e.g. by looking around, using gestures etc.
14

More on topics is said in Chapter 4 of this paper.

The setting in which the conversation took place is an open terrace of

a caf full of guests. The conversation started at half past eight in the
evening and ended at roughly ten o clock. The weather was cloudy and
somewhat chilly which is also mentioned by the participants.
The communication channel refers to the ways in which the message
travels to the receiver. Sound waves carry spoken words; light waves carry
visual messages. Air currents can also serve as an olfactory channel carrying
messages to our noses messages that are subtle but nonetheless
significant.

(Dominick

1993:8).

The

participants

of

this

particular

conversation use all of the available channels, but as only the data carried
by the audio channel was recorded, that which is carried by other channels
is either lost or must be deciphered from its footprint in the audio channel
or explicit linguistic reactions or reference to it by the speakers.
The code refers to language and dialect used. In the analyzed
conversation the language is Croatian and tokavian dialect. Forms that
belong to other languages (English, Russian) and dialects (kajkavian,
tokavian) were used primarily for their stylistic function. Some English
words are also used because of the economy of language, especially when
talking about information technology and legal terminology; for example
legalese instead of pravni argon or zakuasti pravni izrazi (according to
Bujas).
The message forms vary from casual chat, debate, brain-storming
type flow of consciousness, story-telling, theatrical mimicking of other
people, monologues etc., mostly depending on the topic.
The nature of the communicative event can be described as formal
meeting in its purpose, but informal in the major part of its realization. The
explicit formality in the first section of the conversation was meant to be
ironic. The conversation also had its duration limited in advance because
one of the participants, S, had to leave at a specific time because of other
engagements.
15

The purpose of the meeting (what the participants intended that

should come about as a result of the communicative event) was to establish
and organize methods for the purpose of a research project they were doing
together at the Faculty.classes. The purpose of the event was successfully
fulfilled. The evidence that a purpose exists is observable at a relatively
longer segment of the conversation during which they talk exclusively about
the project without any topic-shifts or digressions.

3.3 Knowledge of the world

A certain degree of shared knowledge of the world among the

participants is an absolute necessity forany kind of communication process
to be successful. The most basic knowledge in this sense is the one of code
by which the communication is carried out.
One of the basic functions of language is the informational function
to convey information in order to create knowledge. We will observe this
function from a rather simplified viewpoint in an excerpt in which S and N
teach M what disc harrows are.
As it is visible from 3.1 S possesses knowledge about disc harrows
which he gained from his direct experience, N has a lesser degree of
knowledge about them which he because he learned about them indirectly,
and M does not have any knowledge about the mentioned agricultural
implement. When the harrows are mentioned, M gives direct feedback
requesting an explanation of the term. S and N readily provide information
about it, and at this point S obviously gives too much information on
purpose, partly in order to create a humorous effect, and partly to brag
about his knowledge. At this point M responds with explicit negative
feedback, as obviously the information provided is not relevant to her, and S
and N, from her point of view, are clearly breaking Grices maxim of
relevance.
Disc harrows are discussed in the second half of Section 2 of the
recording, available in the appendix.
16

3.4 Co-text

In written text, co-text refers to the text surrounding the text that is
analyzed. In spoken discourse it would refer to any previous conversations
on topics discussed in the observed conversation. There are several ways
how this is realized; by referring explicitly to the content of a topic previously
discussed using a kind of exoforic reference, and implicit reference is
realized by simply continuing the topic where it ended in previous
conversations. In written text it is realized by referencing to another part of
the text e.g. See Ch2, and it is recognized by phrases such as
aforementioned.
The following example is from the part of the conversation where
participants are talking about disc harrows. S and M had a previous
conversation about it which is shown in the following statement by M:

E.g. 1
M:

Ti si to objasnio, al ja i dalje ne kuim ta je to

4. Coding principles

4.1 Division into sections and topics

Because of the considerable length of the recording it was necessary to

divide it into manageable segments to meet the technical restrictions, but
also to make the encoding process easier, and to select particular areas of
interest in the conversation. Our first instinct was to divide the recording so
that its parts correspond with topics. Brown and Yule (1983:68) suggest that
the determining the topic is hard by stating that the formal attempts to
identify topics are doomed to failure. During the process of analysis we
verified the truthfulness of their claim and gave up on trying to partition the
conversation based on topic-shifts.
17

4.1.1 Sections

Instead, we decided to divide the conversation into sections based on

properties such as following of a general topic and the relative level of
activity of the participants, and at the same time taking care that parts
maintain an sufficient degree of completeness. It would seem logical to found
the division into sections purely on topic boundaries, but in order to
precisely determine topics it is necessary to take a bottom-up approach, and
that is feasible only if the discourse is already divided into smaller
fragments. This is the main reason why we took a top-down approach and
divided the discourse into sections relying mostly on intuition, even before
transcribing it.
Sections are represented by separate audio files. They are sequentially
numbered and time stamped indicating the overlaps in sections and the total
duration of the conversation. There are fifteen sections in total, out of which
thirteen are chronologically sequenced parts of spontaneous conversation.
The fourteenth (timestamp 00:50:49 00:52:00) is a fragment where several
closely spaced topic-shifts occur, and the fifteenth starts at the point where
the fact that the conversation was being recorded was revealed to the
participants and they gave their consent on using the recording for the
purposes of this paper.

18

Section 1 00:00:00 00:03:57

1(S and N greeting) 2(where is M) 3(early arrival) [calling M on cell
phone] 4(punctuality) [walking towards the caf] 5(whats new?)
6(where to sit) 7(smoking ban) [M arrives] 8(punctuality) 9(S, N
greeting M) 10(about formal greetings and anecdote) 11(weather and
sitting location) 12(N tells an anecdote about weather and his friend)1

E.g. 1
Beginning of Section 1, Topic 1:
S:

Kak ste kaj kolega?

N:

Tovari!

S:

Zdrao! {shake hands}

E.g. 2
Closing of Topic 12:
N:

Smrzavaj se malo! {imitating himself in previous situation, decisive}

Daj nemoj srat! {imitating his friend, begging}

M:

Zanimljiva situacija.

Opening new topic, end of Section 1, no pause, slightly overlapping with M:

S:

Ehm, ste vi bili danas na Tumanu?

topics shown in (), actions and events - shown in []

19

4.1.2 Topics and supertopics

Topic is traditionally defined as what we talk about. Brown and Yule
(1983:70) differentiate sentential and discourse topics and introduce a new
term called the topic framework. Sentential topics are used in descriptions of
sentence structure, and people determine a discourse topic when they report
what a conversation was about . Topic framework is a type of
representation of a topic by a contextual framework consisting of activated
features of context within which objects and events talked about are situated
(Brown 1983:75).
Chafe (2003:674) defines topic from the aspect of a force that gives
direction to the flow of thoughts and functions as a coherent aggregate of
thoughts introduced by some participant in a conversation, developed either
by that participant or another or by several participants jointly, and then
either explicitly closed or allowed to peter out.
For the purpose of discourse analysis, topics are segments of
discourse during which one or more of the speakers talk about the same
thing

and

they

are

identifiable above

all

from their

content.

Hierarchically, there are basic-level topics, which can be included into

supertopics (Chafe 2003:674).
As mentioned in 4.1.1, to precisely determine a topic is hard and it is
important to emphasize that the division used in this paper is a very
subjective one. For the purpose of this paper we consider a topic to be a
segment of discourse during which participants talk about the same objects
and events in the same context. A supertopic consists of one or more basiclevel topics. We have determined six supertopics, which can be combined if a
particular topic meaning eludes accurate definition by just one.
Topics within a section are indexed in Arabic numerals. Basic-level
topics are given a descriptive name and supertopics are indicated by letters
as follows: IS immediate surroundings, E a particular event, W the
world, general principles, P person, F related to faculty, general
principles, A the assignment all three are working on.
20

4.2 Topic-shift

Topic-shift is a point in discourse at which the topic is shifted from

one to another. In order to determine the point of a topic-shift, it is
necessary to analyze the material primarily on the semantic level but also to
observe some phonetic features such as pitch, tone and pause.

In our analysis we encountered these types of topic-shifts:

A shift to a new topic unrelated to the previous following a pause.

E.g. 1
To je poprilino jasno.

M:

// 1.4 s pause //
to si ti Toliu radio protekla tri tjedna?

Topic-shift: 1(disc harrows) 2(activities of N)

A gradual topic shift during a longer monologue

E.g. 2
S:

Ne, strava. I kad sam doo.. sad sam bio ..pre-ko, ta, prvi maj, bio sam
doma.
I onak sam skuio da nisam trenirku izvadio iz torbe etri dana jer,
jednostavno, samo sam bio u tome za faks, doem doma, piama
(snoring sound)
Ujutro se probudim, opet faks, navee jedanaest doma, ne isplati mi se,
ta u ja trenirku sad vadit, normalno u pidamu i odma spavat.
Mislim, zbog ovih pizdarija s tom blokadom, ono, ta vijea, pizdarije.
Nisam ni brojao koliko je tih sjednica bilo.
Znam da jedno triput sam bio na odsjeku, po..tipa jedno dva tri sata, i
ove.. ove maratonske fakultetskog vijea.
I onda jo studentski zbor, onda malo na plenum vidit ta ima.
21

ta je jo najbolje, ne sudjelujem u organizaciji blockade.

Totalno sam se povuko, glavu dolje, da me nitko nemoe prozvat, al ne
uspjevam.

Topic-shift: 1(filthy apartment) 2(protest at the faculty)

A shift caused by entering of a new participant

A shift realized by metalingual comment explicit request for topicshift

E.g. 3
A ta emo mi s tim projektom?

S:

A shift realized by negative feedback it differs from the above

mentioned in that the other topic is not introduced while the current is
explicitly terminated.

In the analyzed material there were also smaller deviations from the
topic that were to insignificant to classify as separate topics.

4.2.1 Topic boundary markers in spoken discourse

Brown and Yule (1983:100) refer to structural units of spoken

discourse as paratones as opposed to paragraphs in written texts. For
marking the boundary of topics they firstly rely on the phonetic properties of
speech such as change in pitch and amplitude and lengthy pauses (over one
second). The semantic markers suggested by them are introductory and
summarizing expressions. Along with the content, for the purpose of
recognizing boundaries of topics Chafe (2003:674) suggests the use of
phonetic cues such as: longer-than-normal pause, heightened pitch,
22

loudness, acceleration, new voice quality at the outset, and a tapering off in
the same prosodic features at the end of a topic.
There are also occurrences of possible completion points (Brown 1983:
104) that are not used for topic-shift. This is due to the fact that the topic in
progress is not exhausted or the participants try to expand it because they
do not want to shift the topic for some other reason. In that case an
utterance incompletor is used, usually a connector clause.
Paralinguistic signs such as speakers gaze, gesture, facial expression
are also used in conjunction with the mentioned boundary markers and
methods of topic-shift. These are in most part not recognizable on the audio
recording, but there is one example which can be reconstructed with the
help of the author/participant.
In the given example it is visible that not all topic-shift attempts are
successful. In this occasion the probable reason for unsuccessful topic-shift
was the preference of the project-related topic that remained unfinished in
order to fulfill the purpose of the meeting as the time available for S is
running out because of other obligations in his schedule.
In more formal settings, where a predetermined agenda is established,
a formalized type of topic-conclusion and topicshifts are used such as formal
summarizing of the topic, formulating of conclusions and possibly offering
them for a vote.

4.2.2 Topic navigation

Topic as a conceptual unit is too large to be accommodated within the
limited capacity of fully active consciousness so it is navigated by a more
limited focus of active consciousness producing included ideas one after
another until the topic is judged to have been adequately covered an closure
is judged appropriate. The navigation process is often guided by a schema,
some familiar pattern that provides a path for a speaker to follow and also
by the less predictable interaction between conversational participants
(Chafe 2003:675).
23

In our analysis, we termed topics that share a common element within

their schemas as related topics, and in the representation marked them with
the sign >.
In their sequential ordering, related topics follow the natural order by
which the most salient entity will be mentioned first. The topics should
also follow the pattern of normal ordering: general - particular, whole part, set - element, including included, large small, outside inside,
possessor possessed (Brown 1983:145).
However, a pattern of going from particular to general was noticed to
appear such as in:

6(where to sit)
7(smoking ban)

IS
>W

9(S, N greeting M)

IS

10(about formal greetings and anecdote) >W

According to the purpose of the communicative event the central topic

of the conversation should be the project. The topic is started and
interrupted six times during the conversation. The longest interval in which
the participants talked about the main topic was 6 minutes. The total time
spent on the topic was approximately 21 minutes.
The project was for the first time mentioned in the third section, at
timestamp 00:10:33 by M.
E.g. 1
N:

Moro bi ovih seminara odradit

M:

E toga, toga ima u ovih etri tjedna..

A ovo za Tumana
The topic about the project was closed by a longer summarizing

sequence at the end of Section 13., approximately at timestamp 01:17:00.

24

4.3 Feedback

One of the most important mechanisms of topic-shifting is feedback.

According to Dominick (1993:), feedback refers to those responses of the
receiver (of the original message) that shape and alter the subsequent
messages of the source. Feedback is useful to the (original) speaker because
it informs him of the quality of his communication, and it is useful to the
listener because it allows him to attempt to change some element in the
communication. There are two basic types of feedback according to
stimulation: positive and negative. Positive feedback encourages the speaker
to continue communicating, and negative feedback is provided when the
listener wants to change the communication or to terminate it.
Feedback can be of various size (duration), form and intensity. It can
be transmitted in a fraction of a second as a paralinguistic sign in a form of
a wink and nod that signal the speaker that what he is saying makes sense.
On the other hand it can last for several minutes and become a separate
topic of the same conversation if for example the listener finds himself
offended by something that was said and feels that he must make the record
straight.
It is difficult to precisely determine what part of conversation is
feedback because in almost all exchanges there are some features that in
some measure inform the speaker of the quality of his contribution and/or
stimulate him to continue, change or terminate the communication.
The most reliable method of determining that some sort of feedback is sent,
received and understood is to rely on the reactions of interlocutors.
Positive feedback is a type of response that encourages the speaker to
continue speaking. It is most often in the form of paralinguistic signs such
as nodding or gaze that shows interest, or aha with a marked pitch.
Feedback as a request for change in communication is most often in
the form of request for additional information or clarification.

25

E.g. 1

N:

Ma io sam jutros napokon obavit ovo kod... Bandinja.

M:

Koga?

N:

Kod Bandia.

M:

Aha, za stipendiju si io potpisat se.

Negative judgment of the communication does not have to be

expressed explicitly but it is implied from the request to change the current
topic to a different one.
In our analysis, we recognized negative feedback as one of the
mechanisms of topic-shift.

S:

A ta je tek hidromat?

M:

Nemoj vie! {laughing}

Ajde ti pojednostavi!

N:

(giving the turn to another speaker)

Nije Ma, ne znam

Negative feedback can be also given in the form of paralinguistic signs

and gestures.

E.g. 2
After a longer monologue by M about her Swedish professor, of whom
S and N know nothing about, S and N start to fiddle with their notes and
pens and at one moment S shows N his pen that he got from at a conference
and addresses N looking directly at him:

M:

i nikom nita, svi su dobivali il etvorke il petice

i onda se na meni prelomi kad sam prevela cijeli lanak s engleskog
ono..

26

S:

intere.. internenl kon.. ne, konvenn of slavist lajbrerijans.. {pulls

out a pen and shows it to N}

N:
M:

[laughs]
zna ta, on e jednog dana radit u nekoj prodaji ili bit e direktor
prodaje jel..

27

5. The analysis

5.1 Mechanisms of cohesion

As we are all aware, discourse is not a bunch of unrelated sentences

without mechanisms to hold it in one place and make a coherent whole.
What keeps those utterances and sentences together is cohesion which
manifests itself through various mechanisms or a set of relations. It is
important to mention the fact that the concept of cohesion is a semantic one,
as Halliday and Hasan state it in their Cohesion in English, because it refers
to relations of meaning that exist within the text, and that define it as
text(1976:4).

Cohesion

is

best

seen

when

the

interpretation

or

understanding of the meaning of one word, or more precisely one element of

the text, depends on another. Then we presuppose the element substituted
or ellipted.

These mechanisms can be either linguistic, such as references, ellipsis,

substitution, way of addressing (T-V pronouns), speech acts and intonation,
or they can be paralinguistic, such as gestures and facial expressions.

5.1.1 References

References show the way in which a word or a phrase relates to the

rest of the text. Reference is a semantic unit, and, as Lyons (1968:404) said,
it is the relationship which holds between words and things since words
refer to things.
There are several types of reference exophoric, when it refers to language
outside of the text and endophoric, when it refers to something inside of the
text. Endophoric reference is further divided into anaphora, previously
defined, and cataphora, something not yet defined. They are usually in the
form of a single word (eg. a pronoun) which refers to a larger syntagma.

28

When it comes to spoken language references are the rule rather than
the exception, because they require less effort and less time to utter and,
since they are usually just one very short word, they prevent the
conversation from becoming tedious by constant repetition of full syntagmas.

5.1.1.1 Anaphora

Anaphora is a way of referring to something that was already

mentioned, that is, one word refers back to, or is anaphoric to, a previous
word. Anaphora is probably the most widespread type of reference;
practically all pronouns function in this way. Here are a few of many
examples from the conversation:

E.g. 1
S:

Pa to je on isto dao datum do prvog estog tak da se mi useremo da to

napravimo na brzinu jer se njemu neda to preko ljeta, al to e najesen
bit gotovo fino. A mislim, nije, nije sad da ja to prieljkujem, ja bi isto s
tim htio bit gotov, al sam, ono, malo realist.

The first and second to are anaphora which refers to the statement from the
beginning of the episode when one of the speakers asks what they shall do
with the project they are having for one of their subjects. But the third to
refers to the sentence before, that is, the one that states that the project will
be done in autumn. The other two, not underlined to are exophora on which
we will elaborate later on in the paper.
E.g. 2
S:

Pa da, ono, ako uspijemo.. to, al ne znam da to onda podjelimo u te dvije

faze, lako je to onda spojit.

29

Here once again they talk about their project. The first to refers to one of the
speakers proposition on how to organize and what type of analysis to use for
their project. This speaker is simply stating that they might not have time to
do such an analysis. The second to goes back to the project itself, while the
third one refers to these two parts of the project mentioned.
E.g. 3
N:

I imali su gadnih problema s time tu, jer je to kod nas neustavno.

Speaker here refers to the story he told about Western Union and their
contracts. Our knowledge of the situation helps us to interpret these units.
In that way we know that tu refers to Croatia. Besides that knowledge, there
are markers that show us what is meant even if we did not know whether
the speaker refers to state, town, actual place where they are sitting or
something else. The phrase kod nas indicates that tu refers to the
speakers surrounding and the word neustavno inticates that he is talking
about the state as whole.
The simplest case of anaphora can be seen in the next example:
E.g. 4
S:

Gdje je Mateika? Nema je.

The personal pronoun je clearly refers to the girl whose surname is Matei
as mentioned in the sentence before.
Anaphora is used extensively, clearly to save time and space to say
other things. However, for speakers there is evidently no need to repeat
themselves since they are all engaged in the conversation and know what
each anaphora refers to even though the referred element might have been
mentioned at the beginning of the conversation.

5.1.1.2 Cataphora
30

As mentioned above, cataphora is a way of referring to something not

yet been mentioned but will be defined later on in the statement or text.
According to our recorded conversation, cataphora is not nearly as frequent
as anaphora, but it does occur once in a while, especially when speakers
start their statement insecure or have not yet well processed what they
wanted to say.
E.g. 1
M:

Zna to sam ti ja htjela predloit? Da uzme, mislim ako te to zanima,

one alate za vizualizaciju.

Here cataphora is used in an embedded sentence which functions here as

hedge, that is, the speaker is not certain whether her proposition will be
accepted or not hence it appears as cataphora. It might also have been used
in order to pause, as a function of filler, or to create suspense.
E.g. 2
S:

Ne, strava. I kad sam doo...sad sam bio...pre-ko, ta, prvi maj, bio
sam doma.

This would be an example of not clearing ones thoughts before speaking or a

simple rush to say what he wanted to say. Another example of this would be:
E.g. 3
S:

Ne, tak je bilo sranje negdje, u San Francisku il negdje.

Another example of function of the cataphora is when we can not remember

a certain word, phrase or name:
E.g. 4
N:

Ja sam vidio, recimo, ta ima ovaj...Western Union.

31

5.1.1.3 Exophora

Exophora refers to a language, context or situation outside of the

conversation. It occurs quite often since the speakers share some common
knowledge of events and topics. This common knowledge arrives from
common historical background, events and the situation that surrounds the
speakers at that moment, or has been mentioned some time before.
An example of events or situation surrounding the speakers is the beginning
of our recorded conversation where speakers joke about the proper greeting:

E.g. 1
M:

Meni su to one bapske fore, zna ono (impersonates)daaaaj.

Here the speaker uses exophora to refer to something that was at the given
moment AKTUALNO and arrived from the situation. She gives her personal
opinion and mimics the manner of greeting. The word one is exophora
because we do not know to what specifically she is referring to. Her
participants did not know either until she gesticulated what she meant by
that, as well as with ono which refers to a particular action she mimics later
on.
Another exophora refers to common background, either historical or
momentary:
E.g. 2
M:

Ne, sorry, ali argumenti, to (anaphora to plenum) je, to je djeji vrti. Oni
ulaze u to jako naivno i daju argumente koji su djeji vrti. Tak nemre
igrat se, mislim, to su gluposti, nakon tri...ta je ovo, etvrti tjedan.

The speaker here refers to the situation at the faculty. For someone who is
not familiar with that situation, it might be unclear who and what is doing
what. The first exophora, to, probably refers to the blockade of the faculty,
while tak refers to the way this blockade functions, and the last one, to, to
the whole idea of the blockade which was in its fourth week.
32

Speakers quite often comment current situation with no need to

explicitly say what they refer to. Instead, they prefer exophoric reference
which does not hinder their participation in conversation.

33

5.1.2 Ellipsis

Ellipsis is another mechanism of cohesion. Although some elements

are ellipted, that is, not uttered, cohesion remains. At the same time, there
are other mechanisms, such as context, that make it possible for us to
correctly interpret the missing element.

E.g. 1
S:

Ah tu, tu se moe puit, tu se ne moe... (puit)

This is an example of a more simple ellipsis since the presupposed element

has been uttered in the first part of the sentence, right before it was ellipted
in the second part.
In the next example, ellipsis relies more on the context and topic they are
discussing:

E.g. 2
M:

to radi (za projekt/seminar)? Koja ti je tema?

N:

Nemam pojma.

M:

Nisi odabrao?

(temu)

To conclude, ellipsis is often used in spoken language. It is possible to do so

because it heavily relies on the context. Speakers also use it because it is
highly economical, saves the time and energy yet efficient.

5.1.3 Paralinguistic signs

In interpersonal communication when we want to say something we

use so much more than just the linguistic properties of language
(vocabulary, grammar). There are even ways of saying something without
actually saying anything. Say, someone is talking and you roll your eyes;

34

this would be your way of saying to them youre talking nonsense, without
uttering a single word. This is the domain of paralinguistic.
A speaker has a whole range of ways of producing utterances, such as
vocal effects, facial expressions, posture and gestures. With these means
speakers may provide a specific effect to the words they utter. One and the
same sentence may be produced differently depending on what the speaker
really wants to say. One of the best examples of paralinguistic cues is irony
where the speaker does not say directly what he means but indirectly
through his attitude and vocal quality.
Other paralinguistic signs may be intonation, pausing, pitch of the
voice, facial expression and gestures.

E.g. 1
N:

Mislim, iako nije da je neko vrijeme za bit vani, al...

Even though at the end of the sentence the speaker said but, which would
probably be something as but okay if he had finished the clause, the
speakers intonation clearly shows that he is not satisfied with the idea. He
also shows that he is not willing to start a discussion over it.
Another example of paralinguistic sign is gesture. In our recorded
conversations speakers often used gestures to mimic what they wanted to
say rather than uttering:

E.g. 2
S:

Ne, ne, ne, ne, prvo se mi ustanemo, onda ti sjedne, onda nas dvojica
sjednemo...

N:

Da.

M:

E sad su to ve komplikacije.

N:

Moemo jednostavno ko Mesi, ovaj... (gesture, mimicing Mesi)

E.g. 3
N:

Ali, gle, i dalje ljudi ne kue da ih... (mimicing)

35

M:

Da, ba tako (laughter)

N:

Tih pet ljudi ta radi u firmi ih sve ovak dri...(showing) da ne kaem za

ta, jel.

Laughter is also one of the paralinguistic signs and according to our taped
conversation, it is often accompanied by approvement:
Da, ba tako! + (laughter)
Through their vocal quality, speakers may express anger, approval and
disapproval, mood or even their personal opinion on the matter, as in the
next example:

E.g.4
M:

Ne, sorry, ali argumenti, to je, to je djeji vrti (higher pitch)!

(aggressive)

Here the speaker states her opinion on the situation that was going on at
their faculty at that time through her vocal qualities and intonation. She
pronounces a particular phrase, djeji vrti, with a higher pitch to stress
that she believes that the situation is absurd and ridiculous. Her aggressive
tone shows us that it is a delicate matter for her.

E.g. 5
S:

ta je jo najbolje, ne sudjelujem u organizaciji blokade, totalno sam se

povukao, glavu dolje, da me nitko nemoe prozvat, al ne uspjevam.

N:

Ima ti zato kapovia da on to radi, jel..

S:

Ma... (facial expression + gesture)

N:

Je da, sve jasno. Tako je!

(laughter)

It is important to mention that paralinguistic cues can play a role in marking

a sentence. They are also indicators that show us how to interpret particular
statements, and other speakers opinions.
36

In some cases they are even more important than the linguistic component
of utterance, because it is by reading the paralinguistic dimension we
decipher the real meaning behind the linguistic one. We dont just listen to
people, we read people.

5.1.4 Addressing (T-V pronouns, nicknames...)

Another important feature is the way we address other participants of

the conversation. It is also a feature of social context which can have effect
on the formality of the language used. It is the context of the person spoken
to which shows the role relationships and statuses of the participants. For
instance, if we were to record a conversation between individuals of unequal
rank (e.g. a professor and a student) this conversation is likely to be less
relaxed and more formal than it would be between the equals, as were our
examinees. These formal situations require different forms of address that
are produced according to degrees of status difference or level of intimacy.
Speakers also tend to use different degrees of politeness.
In our taped conversation, conversation is more or less relaxed and informal
where speakers address each other according to their nicknames which
show some level of intimacy.

E.g. 1
N:

Sinki, jel ti gajba slobodna ovaj vikend?

E.g. 2
S:

Kak ste kaj, kolega?

The speakers would also jest about the forms of addressing:

E.g. 3
N:

Gospodine Bosanac...
37

E.g. 4
S:

Gospodine...

E.g. 5
N:

Kolegice

M:

Kolega, Vas nismo dugo vidli. Oemo se kao rukovat, onak slubeno.
kao, potovanje.

S:

emo se i mi rukovat onda kad...potovanje, kolegice

Often they address each other according to their last names:

E.g. 6
N:

E, Bosanac...

It is important to note that each form of addressing has its rules for its
usage, as well as the frequency of its usage which are quite complex.
These rules often vary depending on class, age-group and place.

38

5.1.5 Speech acts

John L. Austin, philosopher of language, introduced the original theory

of speech acts, theory of illocutionary act of performative and constative
utterances. In his book How to do Things with Words (1962), Austin also
mentions that there are other types of acts which distinguish from
illocutionary act. Illocutionary act is an act performed in saying something,
locutionary act of saying something and prelocutionary by saying something.
The concept of illocutionary act is often defined as identical to speech acts.

Generally speaking, speech acts are acts of communication. To

communicate is to express attitude, opinion, request, desire, an apology or a
greeting. It can be said that it is an utterance that serves a function in
communication. They include real-life interactions and require not only
knowledge of the language, but also knowledge of culture, that is, using that
same language within a given culture in an appropriate way. There are many
types of speech acts organized in four major categories: constatives,
directives, commissives and acknowledgement.
By constatives we refer to, according to Bach and Harnish (1979), affirming,
alleging,

announcing,

concurring, confirming,

answering,

attributing,

claiming,

classifying,

conjecturing, denying, disagreeing, disclosing,

disputing, identifying, informing, insisting, predicting, ranking, reporting,

stating, stipulating utterances.
Directives comprise advising, admonishing, asking, begging, dismissing,
excusing, forbidding, instructing, ordering, permitting, requesting, requiring,
suggesting, urging, warning utterances, commissives refer to agreeing,
guaranteeing, inviting, offering, promising, swearing, volunteering and
acknowledgements to apologizing, condoling, congratulating, greeting,
thanking, accepting (acknowledging) utterances.

Our taped conversation, as presumed, starts with a speech act, that is,
greeting:
39

E.g. 1
S:

Zdravo!

N:

Zdravo!

When two people meet it is expected to use speech act of acknowledgement

that is, greeting. The first act was initiating, while the second was a
responding one.
The rest of the text if full of speech acts of various sorts:

E.g. 2
S:

Gdje je Mateika? Nema je.

asking speech act, announcing

speech act

N:

Daj vidi ta emo.

ordering, requesting speech act

S:

emo ju zvrcnut?

proposing, suggesting speech act

Mmm, aaa da.

announcing speech act

Da vidimo.

announcing speech act

Dobro, uranio sam dvije minute.

announcing speech act

N:

Mmm.

agreeing speech act

S:

Inae kasnim po dvadeset.

reporting speech act

N:

Ma, dobro.

dismissing speech act

This section only is full of various speech acts so that the only conclusion
can be that most of the communication consists of speech acts.

Speech acts can be also classified as direct, indirect nonliteral speech acts.
As Austin observed, the content of what is said can not always be
determined what is meant by the sentence being uttered. People tend to use
ambiguous words or phrases which a listener must disambiguate. We can
perform speech act directly or indirectly by performing another speech act,
literally or nonliterally, which depends on how we use our words, and

40

explicitly or inexplicitly, which depends on whether we fully utter what we

mean.

Here is an example for indirect speech act:

E.g.1
S:

Trebali smo se mi ustat, ovjee!

N:

Da, pa ja sam se ustao.

M:

Pa on se je ustao.

S:

A ja sam sjebo. emo ponovit?

M:

Ajmo!

suggesting speech act

Here the speaker uses suggesting speech act functioning as requiring. The
speaker actually requires something to be done but in an indirect way which
his companions had recognized.
The next example can be classified as both indirect and nonliteral speech
act:

E.g. 2
N:

Ima pljugu?

asking speech act

S:

Da, imam.

(he gives him the cigarette)

Although the second speaker could have interpreted the question not as a
request, he did not do so because of the context of culture which conditions
the mutual understanding regardless of what is uttered on the surface. In
speakers context of culture, this type of asking speech act functions as
requesting.

Inexplicit speech acts refers to utterances not fully realized:

E.g. 3

41

M:

Recimo ovo metodoloki (not completed), nama ovo ne klapa, moramo to

malo bolje jer ovo ne, ne, nije, nije dobro. Ja sam se trudila svim, sve
mogue gledala, ta, kako, zbog ega, a-a. Uvijek je ista paterna metoda
koja se korsti, tako da... (not completed)

Here the speaker uses a lot of ellipsis and uncompleted thoughts.

Uncompleted thoughts are used to a large extent in a spoken language. An
example of unfinished thoughts from the example above is tako da. This
phrase may have also been used in order to shorten what the speaker has to
say.

It is clear, considering the examples above, that speech acts constitute

a great deal of out language, that each utterance has its function and that
each utterance reflects speakers intentions.

5.2 Hedges and evidential

The way of showing the knowledge is the use of hedges and

evidentials. Evidentials are used when we have proof that something if true,
that is, we utter in that way. Hedges refer to borderline cases of reliability,
that is, when speakers are not certain if that which they utter is correct or
when.

E.g. 1
M:

Ja mislim (hedge) da nam trebaju neki okvirni rezultati koje mi njemu

trebamo predoiti, jer on, ti si reko, ja se drim toga, rekao je (evidential)
da imamo vremena da mi to jel uobliimo u lanak.

Here the speaker uses both hedges and evidentials in one sentence. The
speaker used the evidential when she provides other participants of the
conversation with the information she believes to be correct. In order for
42

others to believe her, she uses evidential rekao je. But when she was not
certain if the information was correct, she used a hedge in order to distance
herself from consequences that may arise if her statement was wrong.

The speakers also used full sentences as an evidential to confirm a

statement (example in bold):

E.g. 2
M:

Mislim (hedge) da emo mi biti jedini koji emo kao neto prezentirat, jer
ja sam se konzultirala s ostalima (evidential)

N:

Kaj, nisu ni poeli, a?

M:

Jesu! Aaaa, jesu jesu.

S:

Ja sam vidio (evidential) Tomiku danas kod Tumana, su ga

zahaltali na stepenicama i onda su ga ne oko ovoga.

According to our taped conversation, the most often hedge is mislim while
phrases as uo sam od, vidio sam are most often used evidentials:
E.g. 3
N:

Ja sam vidio, recimo, ta ima ovaj...Western Union.

E.g. 4
M:

To bi ve bilo lake nai, al mislim da nam kocitatna analiza fest (buka)

ako emo radit s time.
To conclude, it is clear that the speakers used hedges when they

wanted to limit their normal responsibility for the truth of assertions.

Evidentials, on the other hand, are used to make a speaker more reliable
and truthful.

43

5.3. Grammatical properties of the discourse

As it has already been stated in the introduction, spoken language,

especially spontaneous one, is very different from the written language. The
differences arrive from various properties of spoken language. Speech is
produced at the given moment with no chance for editing and with many
pauses for thought (fillers). Spoken language, by default, involves intonation,
rhythm, voice quality and pitch. It is usually accompanied by facial
expressions, gestures and mimicry.

The syntax of spoken language is typically much less structured than that of
written language:

E.g. 1
M:

Nije, utio je on dugo. Mene je udilo da onda se nijei da je bio tako

kul i jer...ja znam njegovog sina koji je lajav, lajav, lajav, lajav, taj bi
najradije na guzicu neto...(laughter) fakat. I onda me udilo da je
ovjek tak suzdran, grozno suzdran.

Our recorded conversation contains, as it is the case with spoken language

in general, many incomplete sentences, often simply sequences of phrases.

E.g. 1
S: Ne, ne, ne, ne, ma to smo...

(the speaker was interrupted)

E.g. 2
S:

Ak to hoemo kak treba napravit

M:

A ti misli u potpunosti...

S:

Da, da, cijeli lanak.

E.g. 3
M:

(...) uvijek je ista paterna metoda koja se korsti, tako da...

44

(the speaker has finished her sentence)

What is interesting here is the last phrase, 'tako da...', which is, according to
our taped conversation, often used to wind up the sentence.

Spoken language typically also contains rather little subordination:

E.g. 1
S:

Pa da, ono, ako uspijemoto, al ne znam, da to onda podjelimo u te

dvije faze, lako je to onda spojit. Prva faza, kljune rijei i naslov, i
druga faza onda, citate i to

In this example, the speaker used mostly coordination with the conjunction
i.
In contrast to written language, simple metalingual markers are used (al, i,
ako) and speakers are less explicit than writers are:
E.g. 1
S:

A ne, al da mi uzmemo tu kocitatnu analizu, al da nejdemo...samo taj

dio koji uzima kljune rijei, da nejdemo u tekst jer ipak ono, nije nama
tu sad cilj to tono...

Our

speakers

used

simple

noun

phrases

with

no

complicated

premodification:

E.g. 1
S:

ta emo mi s tim jebenim projekto-M?

(stress on the letter m)

E.g. 2
M:

Ja mislim da nam trebaju neki okvirni rezultati koje mi njemu trebamo

predoiti.
45

Often did the speakers correct themselves or refine their utterances:

E.g. 1
M:

A ti ugovori za poslove, to zna bit tako mutavo..mutavo, mutavo. Si ti

morao potpisivat za ovaj svoj neki..isto.. poseban...

N:

(question)

Ma ne..mislim, trebao sam, ali nisam nikad na kraju pa ono.. mislim,

stadardni, ono..

The speakers have also used a more generalized vocabulary, with exception
when they started talking about their project:

E.g. 1
M:

I to su te bibliometrijske metode koje sam *izlagala proli put. Ili emo

kocitatnu analizu ili analizu citata ba kao takvih, tak da, ono...Mislim
to moe bit ba guba rad, ali moramo metodologiju malo...Ma mislim,
neuronske mree se ak koriste..

The speakers tended to use a large number of fillers (kao, kakti, ono, kui,
). One of the most often used fillers is mislim by which speaker either
corrects himself or to take the lead in the conversation:

E.g. 1
N:

Mislim, iako nije da je neko vrijeme za bit vani, al...

This is an example of taking the lead in the conversation. The next example
is with filler mislim used to correct oneself:
S:

ekaj, al u vezi kljunih rijei nema nita?

Mislim, nek neki rad kljunih rijei...

46

The next filler, also quite often used is ovoga mainly used to start the
conversation on particular topic or to simply take a second or two to clear
ones thoughts:
E.g. 2
S:

Ovogaaa, s im se ti bavi za vrijeme revolucije?

The filler ono is also used to pause for a second or two:

E.g. 3
N:

Da. jedino to sam se, ono, ulijenio sam se, spavam malo due ujutro

In the next example the filler znai is not used to correct oneself but rather
to start the sentence and confirm the previous statement:

E.g. 4
M:

Ja sam mislila da e biti hladno. Ja sam obukla, ono, dolevitu, majcu...

N:

A, ono...

S:

Znai, mi smo ak razmiljali da bi unutra ili, al eto

The first ono is used as a filler to pause, while the phrase A, ono would
not be filler but rather a speech act of complaining.
The next two fillers (kao, jel) is often used and can easily be replaced with
the filler ono:
E.g. 5
M:

Kolega, Vas nismo dugo vidli. oemo se kao rukovat, onak slubeno.

kao, potovanje
E.g. 6
M:

Rekao je da imamo vremena da mi to, jel, uobliimo u lanak.

47

This filler is used to wind up the sentence, to shorten it, probably in order
not to become boring for other speakers:

E.g. 7
M:

(...) ili emo kocitatna analizu ili analizu citata ba kao takvih, tak da,
ono...

This filler is used to take the lead in the conversation:

E.g. 8
S:

E, al ovoga..

Finally, it is important to mention that rhetorical organizers, such as

prije svega, meutim etc. are missing in our recorded conversation. It is
also one of the features of spoken language. Another feature of spoken
language in general is variable S-P form of sentences. However, it is not very
common in Croatian since the verb carries the information on subject also.
To conclude, spoken language relies more on paralinguistic mechanisms as
we have already mentioned. Speakers often use gestures, intonation and
mimicry to communicate and much of the conversation is based on those
signs.

48

6. Gricean maxims

Gricean maxims are a part of his theory of implicature. Grice did not
develop these maxims as rules to which a conversation must adhere to. The
maxims are envisioned more as guidelines for efficient and effective use of
language in conversation, that is, they suggest that if you want to make
good conversation, you have to speak the truth, be clear, be relevant and
give enough information, and, if possible, be polite. Like we said in the
introduction, Grice based this theory, these maxims, on the co-operative
principle. According to this principle there is a shared belief among the
participants of a conversation that all persons conversing want to contribute
to the conversation, their knowledge and information. This would imply that
for every exchange of utterances between two persons they each assume that
the others response is relevant in some way to their initiate, even though on
the surface the response is an apparent failure of co-operation. This
phenomenon is what Grice calls conversational implicature; it implies
understanding of propositions which havent been adequately expressed.
6.1 The Maxim of Quality

According to this maxim, one should speak the truth the whole truth
and nothing but the truth. Well, you wont go to jail if you dont adhere to
this maxim, but it does suggest that you should try to make your
contribution one that is true, that is, do not say what you believe to be
false and do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
Adhering to this maxim is usually realized by stating the source which
proves what we say, like I heard on the radio, Grice says, and so on.
These statements are called evidentials, since they in a way provide evidence
to what we are saying.
In the next example there are actually two evidentials, one embedded into
another, onrekao je and ti si reko.

49

E.g. 1
M:

Ja mislim da nam trebaju neki okvirni rezultati koje mi njemu trebamo

predoiti, jer on, ti si reko, ja se drim toga, rekao je da imamo vremena
da mi to, jel, uobliimo u lanak.

When we dont want to break the maxim, that is, we dont know if what we
are about to say is entirely thruthful, and we dont want to say anything
false, we use expressions like as far as I know... or I think.... These
statements are called hedges, since they function like a hedge with which we
distance ourselves from any liability. In the example above there is a hedge
Ja mislim.

6.2 The maxim of Quantity

First of all, this maxim suggests that you should make your
contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes of the
exchange, which means, please do share what you know about the subject
and do not keep information to yourself, because nobody likes quiet people.
However, the second part of the maxim says that you do not make your
contribution more informative than is required, which means that nobody
likes a blabbermouth, and warns us not to turn a conversation into a
monologue. To cut a long story short, this maxim suggests just that, cut a
long story short.
Here are two examples showing how this is done:

E.g. 1
S:

(...) ta emo, kak emo, budemo fino napisali izjavu i bumo potpisali,
ono, ig faksa tra la la i to im faksiramo i dobro.

E.g. 2
S:

Ono, zvat emo ekipu iz Maarske, Srbije, Slovenije, bla bla bla okolo, i
...
50

Of course, we advise you to use these expressions only in very informal

conversation with your friends, as is the case with our example, because if
you use it in a business meeting, you could get fired.

The next example shows how one speaker violated the maxim of quantity by
talking too much, and how the other speaker reacted to the violation.

E.g. 3
M:

Meni se jednom na vedskom

(after a long minute)
i onda se na meni prelomi kad sam prevela cijeli lanak s engleskog...

S:

International Convention of Slavist Librarians

In order to show that he was bored and to show the speaker M that s/he
was not interesting, S took a pen from the table and read the label using a
Russian accent and looking at the third participant, N, who knew the story
behind the pen, and thus S changed the topic. This wasnt very polite of
them, but so is usurping the conversation.
This was the only instance of violating the second part of the maxim of
quantity in our conversation, namely that one concerning the dont be too
informative rule.
Concerning the first part of the maxim, the one that says do make your
contribution, we noticed that the speaker N was rather quiet, and didnt
participate in the conversation as much as the other two participants.

6.3 The maxim of Relevance

Like the name says, this maxim suggests that you make your
contribution relevant, which basically means, stay on topic (if were talking

51

about apples, talk about apples; and if were talking about oranges, talk
about oranges).
The nature of interpersonal communication is such that topics change
very often, especially if it is a very informal conversation. It probably has to
do with the way human brain works. We hear a certain word or a story and
it triggers a memory which then, we could say, diverts our stream of
thoughts onto another topic. This happens almost unconsciously, and the
new topic is sometimes related with the previous, and sometimes completely
different.

E.g. 1
N:

Nita, sve e ih maknut sa liste. Nek mi netko neto prigovori, al pipu

zatvaram.. nema carneta vie.. nema niega

S:

Ne, tak je bilo sranje negdje, u San Francisku il negdje. Nekog

administratora su ili sterat iz, valjda, gradske uprave.

(two turn-takes)
N:

Mislim, imaju..pokuavaju..s onim legaliz vrajima. A ono, to te obveu

tim kojekakvim ugovorima, glupostima.

In this example we see that the story of the faculty administrator speaker N
is talking about, triggered a memory in S, about what he read on some
administrator in San Francisco; which then, after two turn-takes, starts
them talking about work contracts.

One speaker can during his monologue change several topics,

depending where his thoughts are taking him. Here is an example from our
conversation:

S:

Ne, strava. I kad sam doo.. sad sam bio ..pre-ko, ta, prvi maj, bio sam
doma. I onak sam skuio da nisam trenirku izvadio iz torbe etri dana
52

jer, jednostavno, samo sam bio u tome za faks, doem doma, piama
(hrkanje), ujutro se probudim, opet faks, navee jedanaest doma, ne
isplati mi se, ta u ja trenirku sad vadit, normalno u pidamu i odma
spavat. Mislim, zbog ovih pizdarija s tom blokadom, ono, ta vijea,
pizdarije. nisam ni brojao koliko je tih sjednica bilo. znam da jedno
triput sam bio na odsjeku, po..tipa jedno dva tri sata, i ove, ove
maratonske fakultetskog vijea. I onda jo studentski zbor, onda malo
na plenum vidit ta ima. ta je jo najbolje, ne sudjelujem u organizaciji
blokade, totalno sam se povukao, glavu dolje, da me nitko nemoe
prozvat, al ne uspjevam.
We see how the speaker changed several topics the way his stream of
thoughts took him; his apartment - his home - his track suit - his daily
routine - the situation in the faculty - his meetings at the faculty, and so on.
When we see the entire process, we understand the switches; while the topic
he started with and the one he finished with, on their own, seem to have no
connection.
There are situations when we deliberately break the maxim in order
not to offend someone. Say someone asks us Does my hair look all right?,
and we answer Man! Look at the time!. Clearly, we are in major violation of
the maxim, because we went off topic. This has to do with face management,
which is a common reason for violating the maxim of relevance; we dont
want to offend the other person by saying to their face that we dont like
their hair.
The E.g. 3 from the previous topic could be also used here; the speaker S
didnt want to tell M in the face, that is, directly, that s/he was boring, so
he did it indirectly.

6.4. The maxim of Manner

The maxim of manner suggests us to be perspicuous, that is, to be
brief and be orderly, to avoid obscurity and ambiguity. This basically means,
talk in a way that everyone can understand you.
53

Whether we realize it or not, people are often very indirect when they speak,
namely, we use metonymy, metaphors, idioms and other different figures of
speech, and are often ironic or sarcastic.
According to George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1980), metaphors are
something we live by. They suggest that metaphors do not only make our
thoughts more vivid and interesting, but they actually structure our
perceptions and understanding.
When we use metaphor or irony the maxim is broken, or rather, it is
flouted. This means that we let listeners know that we are aware of the cooperative principle and of the maxims, and that communication is not
broken, but rather that we have chosen an indirect way of achieving it. There
is also a possibility that something in the context of situation prevents us
from being direct; something like politeness, which we already mentioned in
the analysis of previous two maxims. Rhetorical questions are also breakers
of the maxim of manner.
Let us examine this example:
E.g. 1
S:

(on the cell phone) Ej bok, ej, mi emo ti bit tu vani u onom bircu gdje

smo prije bili s Bojanom. Jel pae?

N:

Baracuda!!

The speaker S is giving directions about the meeting place to his colleague.
Instead of being direct and just giving the name of the place like speaker N,
he is being descriptive. He is in major violation of the maxim of manner; he
is neither brief, nor orderly, and he certainly isnt trying to avoid ambiguity.
On the other hand, if the person S is giving directions to doesnt know
where the place is just by name, than S is correct to give descriptive
directions, and N is breaking the maxim of quantity by not being as
informative as required. Giving both the name and description would
probably be the best solution.

54

We can see that, in conversation, adhering to one maxim might cause the
violation of other maxims (as seen in the example above). Also, maxims are
so inter-dependent that if one is broken, so is another, which was shown on
the example of politeness. This brings us to the fifth maxim, namely, one
that says be polite.
6.5 Be Polite
This maxim is not one of Grices, but it is often considered as the fifth
maxim, and as its very name states, it suggests that we are polite when
making conversation.
This maybe has to do with the old saying a kind word goes a long
way. If we treat people with respect, they will treat us the same, and it might
also influence them to do something we ask of them. But, as we have seen,
this maxim is also very controversial because it often causes the violation of
other maxims.
When we take a look at our conversation, we see that the vocabulary is often
not very polite. One of the most frequent words, or lexeme, is probably
jebiga, jebote and other versions of the Croatian f-word.
Since this is a very informal conversation between three friends, this does not
mean that our participants are rude to each other. In modern times, this kind of
language is perfectly normal, among younger generations, for keeping good
relations.

We shall not give examples of the usage in order not to violate the
maxim and be polite.

55

7. Conclusion

The data used for the purpose of this work is inadequate for us to
draw any confident conclusions not only about the spoken language in
general but also about the speakers themselves and their language use. The
reason for this is, obviously, the small sample of just one conversation. For a
more serious analysis it would be necessary to record conversations in
different situations with the same participants or to record different
participants in the same situation.
One of the strongest points of this work is the fact that it was done
using data which consists of a relatively high-quality recording of an
authentic spontaneous conversation. The authors had available for analysis
only the audio channel of the whole communication and had to decipher
what

was

happening

in

other

channels.

This,

combined

with

the

participants extensive relying on background knowledge and usage of

ellipsis, stresses the importance of physical presence of the analyst during
the conversation to fully grasp the meaning that is conveyed.
The main goals we tried to achieve in our work was to compare the
results of our analysis with contemporary linguistic literature on spoken
language, to note peculiarities in the analyzed conversation, and to provide a
material for comparison of results with other works done at the course in
Discourse Analysis which dealt with properties of language in types of
communication other than face-to-face.
The

multiple

communication

channels

available

in

face-to-face

communication can be used to transfer information not only explicitly and

concerning the active topic but also a significant amount of metainformation which is necessary to keep the communication going on
smoothly. This meta-information is realized in the form of paralinguistic
signs such as changes in phonetic properties of speech, use of gestures,
body language, actions etc. In machine-assisted communication, due to the
lesser number of communication channels (most often just one), the meta56

information is compressed and sent via the main channel. The most
prominent example is the use of emoticons in written computer-mediated
communication.
Usage of non-native languages and dialects was also quite frequent,
primarily for stylistic and purposes of economy.
The conversation is coherent in spite of frequent shifting of topics,
owing to the mechanisms of cohesion and the ability of speakers to
backtrack to every point in the conversation. Speakers often refer not only to
what was previously said in the current conversation but also in previous
conversations. They are working together on fulfilling the main, strictly
professional, purpose of the communicative event, but also to fulfill other
functions of communication primarily phatic communion, informing about
their surroundings, both immediate and distant, and catching up on recent
events.
Gricean maxims are sometimes broken but that does not interfere with
the communication as the speakers correct themselves based on the direct
feedback that is provided instantly. The multitude of words regarded as
profanities are most often used as mechanisms of cohesion or for stylistic
purposes, so we could not take them as breaching the maxim of politeness.
The converging point of our analysis is the economy of language. It is
the principle by which we could explain almost all the features we
encountered. Our conclusion is that efficiency is the most highly appreciated
value in any type of communication and that face-to-face communication
using spoken language is still the most efficient type of communication
according to amount and quality of information which can be transferred
and understood by the participants.

57

8. Literature

1. Austin, J. L. (1962), How to do Things with Words. Oxford University

Press

2. Bach, K. and R. M. Harnish (1979), Linguistic Commuication and Speech

Acts. Cambridge, Mass. MIT Press.

3. Brown, G. and Yule, G. (1983), Discourse Analysis. Cambridge University

Press.

4. Chafe, W. (2003) The Analysis of Discourse Flow. The Handbook of

Discourse Analysis. Blackwell.

5. Dominick, J. R. (1993) The Dynamics of Mass Communication. McGrawHill, Inc.6. Edwards, J. A. (2003) The Transcription of Discourse. The
Handbook of Discourse Analysis.Blackwell.

7. Halliday, M and Hassan, R. (1976), Cohesion in English. Longman.

London.

8. Lakoff, G., Johnson, M. (1980) Metaphors we live by. The University of

Chicago Press.

9. Lewinson, S. C. (1983) Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press.

10. Trudgill, P. (2000) Sociolinguistics: an introduction to language and

society. Penguin.

58

9. Appendix The transcription

59