Discourse and conversation analysis

"Conversation analysis" is a popular approach to the study of discourse. It is a way of thinking about and
analyzing the pragmatics of ordinary conversation, focusing on the interactive, practical construction of
everyday interchanges”.

What is a conversation?

A conversation is the impromptu, spontaneous, everyday exchange of talk between two or more people.

"Conversation is a process in which people interact on a moment-by-moment, turn-by-turn basis. During

a sequence of turns participants exchange talk with each other, but, more important, they exchange
social or communicative actions. These actions are the moves of conversation considered as a collection
of games. Indeed, conversational actions are some of the most important moves of the broader game of
everyday life." (Nofsinger, p. 10). Not all kinds of verbal exchange operate this way: a formal speech is
planned in advance, and is managed primarily by the person giving it.

So not every kind of verbal exchange is a conversation. However, interactions that are not conversations
in this sense can still be analyzed using CA. For example, consider the following exchange between
student (S) and teacher (T):

1 S: So, I was wondering would you be in your office after class this week?

2 (2.0)

3 S: Probably not

4 T: Hmm no

[Modified from (39) in Levinson]

Here the two-second pause after the student’s question -- a hitch in the conversation -- is interpreted as
a negative answer to the question. Although a silence has no features on its own, conversational
significance is attributed to it on the basis of the expectations that arise from its location in the
surrounding talk.

"A fundamental methodological point can be made with respect to [this example], and indeed most
examples of conversation.

Conversation, as opposed to monologue, offers the analyst an invaluable analytical resource: as each
turn is responded to by a second, we find displayed in that second an analysis of the first by its recipient.

Such an analysis is thus provided by participants not only for each other but for analysts too" (Levinson,
p. 321). When we are trying to understand a particular utterance or conversational action it is important
to consider where and how that action is located in a sequence of other conversational actions.

When people speak in an ongoing conversation, they do so in the light of what has just been said, and in
anticipation of what might take place in the future.
They "design" or "construct" their own speech, and understand the talk of other people, accordingly.
They also shape their utterances to take account of the identity of the speakers and what their interests
are.

Recipient design:

The meaning of an utterance -- the way it is interpreted, and the way it was designed -- depends, then,
on its context, both verbal and non-verbal. This construction of utterances is called recipient design.

Turn-taking

It is an evident fact about conversation is that it takes the form of turn-taking: two or more participants
take turns to speak. But how does this happen? How does someone "get the floor"?

It may seem that people simply wait for the speaker to stop, and then talk, but the gaps between turns
are generally too short for this to be the case: sometimes they are just micro-seconds in length, and on
average they are no longer than a few tenths of a second.

Turn-construction

Turns can be made up of a single word, a phrase, a clause, or a full-sentence. They are not syntactic or
semantic units, but genuinely pragmatic units. The recognizable potential end of a turn is called in CA a
"transition relevance place" (TRP). A TRP may be identified by "a change in the pitch or volume of the
voice, the end of a syntactic unit of language, a momentary silence, or some sort of body motion"
(Nofsinger, p. 81). Transition between speakers usually occurs at such a point, and it is at a TRP that
speakers employ the conversational techniques that CA aims to discover.

Turn-allocation

Sacks et al. (1974) suggest a handful of techniques that assign the rights and responsibilities of the
participants in a conversation. In simplified form, these techniques are the following:

1. Current speaker selects next: The current speaker (C) can select the next speaker (N) while still
talking, but must then stop talking at the next TRP.
2. Self -selection: If N is not selected, anyone can jump in, and the first to do so gains rights to the
floor.
3. Speaker continuation: If neither (1) nor (2) occurs, C may (but need not) continue talking
4. If (3) happens, rules (1)-(3) apply again at the next TRP.
Note: For example, technique 1 can be employed by pointing, using a name, making eye contact,
etc.
5. Another way the current speaker can select the next speaker is to use the first part of an
"adjacency pair," as described next.

Adjacency Pairs:

Conversational actions tend to occur in pairs.

We speak of an "exchange of opinions" and "an exchange of greetings" because many

conversational actions call for a particular kind of conversational response in return.

Greetings and farewells typically call for another utterance of the same type

Other actions call for a different type of action: invitations with acceptances (or rejections);
congratulations with thanks; offers with acceptances (or refusals).

Such pairs of conventionally linked conversational actions are said to have two "parts": a "first part"
and a "second part." The pairs are said to have "conditional relevance.

More formally stated, adjacency pairs are sequences of two utterances that are:
(i) adjacent (unless separated by an "insertion sequence")
(ii) produced by different speakers
(iii) ordered as a first part and a second part
(iv) typed, so that a particular first part requires a particular second (or range of second parts) -
e.g. offers require acceptances or rejections, greetings require greetings, and so on.
There is a "rule" governing the use of adjacency pairs, namely:
Having produced a first part of some pair, current speaker must stop speaking, and next speaker
must produce at that point a second part to the same pair:
 Adjacency pairs are often found linked together in closely integrated ways, and the next
two sections describe two of these.
 One pair may follow another (question, answer; question, answer), or one pair may be
embedded inside another pair.
 A "presequence" is an example of the former, an "insertion sequence" is an example of
the latter.
Presequence
A presequence occurs when some preliminary action is taken before initiating the first part of an
adjacency pair, and the preliminary action itself involves an adjacency pair.
Before making a request, for instance, it often makes sense to check whether the other person
has the item one wants.
Here a question-answer pair (turns 1 and 2) prepares for a request-agreement (or request-
rejection) pair (initiated in turn 3) A: Do you have the spanner? presequence
B: Yes.
A: Can I have it please? R-A pair
B: [...]

Another example:
Teacher: Mike, do you think you know the answer to question four? (presequence)
Mike: Yes.
Teacher: Can you tell the class, then, please? R-A pair
Mike: [...]
Insertion sequence
The person towards whom the first part of an adjacency pair has been directed may want to
undertake some preliminary action before responding with the second part.
A request for clarification by the recipient will take place after the first pair part, but before the
second pair part. This is an insertion sequence.

Here turns 1 and 4 make up one adjacency pair, and turns 2 and 3 make up a second adjacency
pair inserted between the two parts of the first pair: P: Martin, would you like to dance?
M: Is the floor slippery?
P: No, its fine.
M: Then I’d be happy to.
Another example of this:

Teacher: Will you tell us the answer to question four?

Mike: Is that on page six or seven?
Teacher: Six.
Mike: Oh, okay. The answer is factorial two.

Silence
Depending on where silence occurs in a conversation, and its location in the conversational
structure, it will be interpreted as
 a gap between turns,
 a lapse in the conversation, or
 a pause that is attributed to the designated speaker.

A Gap

A gap is silence at the TRP when the current speaker has stopped talking without selecting
the next speaker, and there is a brief silence before the next speaker self-selects. A gap does
not "belong" to anyone.

A lapse

A lapse is silence when no next speaker is selected, and no-one self-selects: the
conversation comes to an end for at least a moment. ( a gap and a lapse can be
distinguished from one another only in retrospect.)

A pause 

A pause is silence when the current speaker has selected the next speaker and stopped
talking, but the next speaker is silent. A pause is also silence that occurs within a participant
turn (i.e., before a TRP is reached). A pause "belongs" to the person currently designated
speaker.

Preference

When speakers have a choice between two conversational actions, one will typically be
considered more usual, more normal, than the other. This phenomenon is called
"preference.“

The term doesn’t refer to the psychological desires of a speaker, but the norms of the
intersubjective conversational system. These shared norms mean that "any of the
conversational tendencies and orientations that we commonly attribute to participants
personalities or interpersonal relationships derive (at least in part) from the turn system"
(Nofsinger, p. 89). For example, in response to the first part of an adjacency pair some
second part responses are preferred, while others are dispreferred. Refusals of requests or
invitations are nearly always dispreferred, while acceptances are preferred.

Mutual Understanding as Alignment

For a conversation to run smoothly and effectively the organization of turns must be
managed, but in addition the conversation must also be kept on track.

How do participants in a conversation get a sense of understanding and being understood?

The response to an utterance often provides some kind of interpretation of the prior
utterance, and so indicates the alignment.

Assessments ("That’s good"), 

News marks ("Oh, wow!"), 

Continuers ("uh huh"),

 Formulations (giving the gist of what has been said),

 Collaborative completions (finishing the speakers sentence),

All provide evidence to the speaker of how their talk is being understood.

Repairs

Repairs are the things done to fix a conversational breakdown and restore alignment. It is
the process by which a speaker recognizes a speech error and repeats what has been said
with some sort of correction. For example

We don't really move. I mean, we'd like to, but my mom is sort of attached to the
house. Attached is, I guess, not the right word. She's pretty much wedged in."
(Johnny Depp as Gilbert in What's Eating Gilbert Grape, 1993)

Breakdowns

It can be misunderstandings ("What did you say?"; "What do you mean?") as well as
disagreements ("I think you’re wrong"), rejections ("No, I won’t") and other difficulties.

Revisions

 may occur when the speaker can anticipate that trouble is likely and reformulates talk
accordingly. Alignment is displayed and adjusted not only in responses to an utterance but
also in advance. 

Preventatives 

such as disclaimers ("I really don’t know much about this, but...") are examples of such "pre-
positioned alignment devices." Pre-sequences do this too.

Alignment is especially important at the openings and closings of conversation.

Conclusion
Our goal as interpretive researchers is to understand and articulate the way the participants
understand their interaction. We want to understand the constituting, the construction, that
produces the phenomena of social reality.

It is in social interaction that human being is remade. In addition, settings are continually
reconstructed, at the same time as they are used as grounds for human activity. Both the
world and persons in at are socially constructed.

It is this social construction that is the broad object of interpretive inquiry.

Nofsinger points out that conversational utterances are both context-shaped and context-
renewing: "Context, in this immediate and narrow sense, is composed not just of what
people know, but of what participants do to show each other which items of their shared
knowledge should be used in making interpretations.

The conversational actions produced by participants create an interpretive resource that is

used to align conversational understanding” ( Nofsinger, p. 143)