Conversation analysis, conversational style and preference structure

spoken interaction (governed by two principles: speakers cooperate and take turns)


Some important terms:

floor ‑ turn ‑ turn‑taking - floor-holding devices - local management system ‑ transition relevance
place - overlap (overlapping speech) ‑ simultaneous speech ‑ backchannels (backchannel
signals/backchannelling) - pause - attributable silence ‑ conversational style ‑ high involvement
style - high considerateness style ‑ adjacency pair - first part - second part - insertion sequence
‑ question‑answer sequence ‑ preference structure - preferred and dispreferred social acts -
preface - hesitation


Example 1:

Jane:    Dave I’m going to the store.

(2 seconds)

Jane:    Dave?

            (2 seconds)

Jane:    Dave ‑ is something wrong?

Dave:   What? What's wrong?

Jane:    Never mind.


Examples of floor‑holding devices:

2a. There are three points I’d like to make ‑ first ...

  b. There’s more than one way to do this ‑ one example would be ...

  c. Did you hear about Cindy’s new car? ‑ she got it in ...

  d. Didn’t you know about Melvin? – oh it was last October …


Adjacency pairs:

There are many almost automatic patterns in the structure of conversation.

FIRST PART              SECOND PART

3.         A: What’s up?                         B: Nothing much.

            A: How’s it going?                  B: Jus’ hangin’ in there.

            A: How are things?                 B: The usual.

            A: How ya doin’?                    B: Can’t complain.


4.         A: What time is it?                              B: About eight‑thirty.

            A: Thanks.                                           B: You're welcome.

            A: Could you help me with this?         B: Sure.


Adjacency pairs represent social actions. Not all social actions are equal when they occur as
second parts of some pairs, some are preferred and some are dispreferred. For example, an
acceptance is structurally more likely than a refusal. This structural likelihood is called
preference. Preference structure divides second parts into preferred (the structurally expected
next acts) and dispreferred (the structurally unexpected next acts). In any adjacency pair, silence
in the second part is always an indication of a dispreferred response.


5.         Insertion sequence

Jean: Could you mail this letter for me?         (Q1 ‑ Request)

            Fred: Does it have a stamp on?                      (Q2)

            Jean: Yeah.                                                      (A2)

            Fred: Okay.                                                     (A1 ‑ Acceptance)


6.         FIRST PART SECOND PART

                                                  PREFERRED DISPREFERRED

            Assessment                 agree                           disagree

            Invitation                     accept                          refuse

            Offer                           accept                          decline

            Proposal                      agree                           disagree

            Request                       accept                          refuse


            FIRST PART                          SECOND PART

7a.       Can you help me?                               Sure.

 b.        Want some coffee?                              Yes, please.

 c.        Maybe we could go for a walk.           That’d be great.


How to do a dispreferred second                 Examples

    1. delay/hesitate                                          pause; er; em; ah,

    2. preface                                                    well; oh

    3. express doubt                                          I’m not sure;

                                                                        I don’t know

    4. token Yes                                                that’s great; I’d love to

    5. apology                                                   I’m sorry; what a pity

    6. mention obligation                                  I must do X;

                                                                        I’m expected in Y

    7. appeal for understanding                        you see; you know

    8. make it non‑personal                              everybody else; out there

    9. give an account                                       too much work; no time left

   10. use mitigators                                         really; mostly; sort of; kinda

   11. hedge the negative                                 I guess not; not possible

From a pragmatic perspective, the expression of a preferred act clearly represents closeness and
quick connection, while the expression of a dispreferred represents distance and lack of
connection.


Restatement of assessment in order to avoid silence:

8. Sandy:         But I’m sure they’ll have good food there.

                        (2 seconds)

   Sandy:          Hmm ‑ I guess the food isn’t great.

   Jack:             Nah ‑ people mostly go for the music.


Hesitations and prefaces in dispreferred second parts:

9. Becky:         Come over for some coffee later.

Wally:         Oh ‑ eh - I’d love to ‑ but you see ‑ I - I’m supposed to get this

finished ‑ you know.


The following symbols will be used when analysing texts from A Corpus of English Conversation (by
Svartvik and Quirk):

A,B,C              speaker identity (surreptitious speaker – doesn’t know about recording)

a,b,c                 speaker identity (non‑surreptitious speaker)

* yes *             simultaneous talk

(laughs)           contextual comment

<<yes>>          incomprehensible words

 .. ._ _ _ .         pauses