CHAPTER-5 DISCOURSE AND CONVERSATION

SUMMARY

Conversation Analysis, then, provides a way of carrying out fine-grained analyses of spoken
discourse which can help not just describe the social word, but understand how, through the use
of language, it is constructed. There are differing views, however, as to whether looking at the
data alone is sufficient to explain what is going on in conversational interactions. Many
conversation analysts would argue that it is. Others, however, suggest combining conversation
analysis with more ethnographic descriptions in a kind of ‘multi-method/multi-level’ analysis
which combines the strengths of the insights that can be provided by conversation analysis with
data that can be gathered using procedures such as interviews, questionnaires, and participant
observations (Wodak 1996). Cicourel (1992) supports this view, arguing that what is most
important is for researchers to justify explicitly what has been included and what has been
excluded in an analysis and how this relates to their particular theoretical and analytical goals.

1. Central Idea of the Chapter Conversation analysis. Conversation analysis is an important

component of discourse analysis. It is an approach of spoken source that looks at the way in
which people manage their everyday conversational interaction. Paltridge gives a transcribed
extract to clarify the particular transcription conventions that are used as part of conversation
analysis where intonation, prolongation of sounds, and stress matter. For example,
underlining and the use of capitals implies loud talk and word stress.

2. Transcription Conventions. Specific transcriptional conventions are used in conversation

analysis. The rise and fall of pitch/ intonation, the length of sentences, and the pauses
indicated in the transcription all contribute to the analysis of the transcriptions.

3. Sequence and Structure in Conversation . Aspects of conversational interactions that have

been examined from this perspective include conversational openings, closings, turn taking,
sequence of related utterances and preferences for particular combination of utterances.
Adjacency pairs are a fundamental unit of conversational organization and a key way in
which meanings are communicated and interpreted in conversation. These pairs put the
conversation in the sequence and treat the sentences spoken by each of the speakers as
consequential to each other's utterance s. Adjacency pairs across cultures their stage and
convention is fundamental to the analysis to the spoken discourse.

4. Preference Organization. The basic rule for adjacency pairs is to allow and give time to the
other participant. Thus having gained sufficient time to take turns and respond to the other
participant of the conversation, the speakers complete the entire body of the conversation
rendering it all as a complete body of discourse ready for analysis.

5. Feedback. Feedback means the ways In which listeners show by saying "mm;m" and
"yeah" or through body position and the use of eye contact. The functions response items
 such as "mmm", "yeah" and "OK" are also influenced by the Intonation, place and timing of
the utterances. So, the feedback on the speaker's performance is what encourages the speaker
to continue or to head towards the culmination of the conversation. The feedback also speaks
of the face threatening act or politeness in conversation on part of the listener.

6. Repair. As the term simply signifies that the speaker corrects / repairs blemishes he commits
in the conversation. He does it either himself or with the help of another person. The act of
repair also concentrates on what exactly the listener of the conversation has understood of the
discourse.

7. Gender and Conversation Analysis. Discourse analysts have also investigated the
construction of gender reality by speakers in their discourse/conversation. For example
excessive use of Child-care vocabulary discloses the speakers as being a female and
beyond that a mother exactly. The researchers have examined the social construction
of social reality, and have examined the social construction of gender from a conversation
analysis perspective.

8. Conversation Analysis and Second Language Conversation. Introduction of Discourse

analysis, as an academic subject, is not traced back in centuries rather in only a few
decades. Initially the subject remained limited to the attention of the native speakers later the
attention shifted to the second language speakers as well. The non-native talk will, in future,
contribute a lot in the development of teaching methods and techniques.Though
psychological analysis is not the mandate of discourse analysis but attention, somehow or the
other, will be drawn to this this aspect to promote the second language acquisition.

9. Criticism on Conversation Analysis. The major criticism on conversation analysis is that

when we analyze data from the conversation analysis perspective we are working as
“spectators” not “participants” in the interaction. It is thus, not really possible for us to know
how the participants view the conversation unless we ask them. This is to mind a misplaced
criticism as the entire conversational analysis is not only the transcript analysis rather in the
modern era the video recording facility with revolutionize the conversational analysis
because the availability of real time footages will make it possible to contextually analyze
the decontextualized conversation.