DISCOURSE ANALYSIS FINAL ASSIGNMENTAnalysis of turn-taking in a
scripted conversation
2014
1. INTRODUCTIONThis paper is a discourse analysis of a food and
drink dyad from a student course book (appendix 1). The analytical
approach used is Conversation Analysis (CA). The study focuses on
turn-taking, and shows how a scripted audio recording is an
unnatural representation of what happens in natural conversational
discourse.In order to put the study in context, a summary of the
history of CA is given and a brief definition of the approach is
outlined in 1.2. Next an overview of the discourse being analysed
in the study is given in 2.0. The discourse is then considered with
reference to turn-taking and a more detailed look at adjacency
pairs is discussed in 2.1 and 2.2. In 3.0 contextual and cultural
factors are analysed leading to a brief discussion about scripted
discourse and authenticity. \Due to the nature of the scripted
dyad, and word count limitations, the analysis focuses primarily on
adjacency pairs and omits direct discussion about pre-sequences,
insertion sequences and turn keeping.
2. CRITICAL FRAMEWORK
2.1 What is Conversation Analysis?CA is the study of natural
talk in interaction. Its aim is to see how people communicate,
whether casual or institutional (in the school, government office
or any other establishment). CA developed from ethnomethodology in
the late 1960s and early 1970s principally from work by the
sociologist Harold Garfinkel, who was interested in the question of
how people interpreted daily life and developed a sense of social
order. In 1974 work by Harvey Sacks and his close associates
Emanuel A. Schegloff and Gail Jefferson on turn-taking in
conversation further developed what is known today as CA. In short
CA, Focuses on detailed recorded conversations, analysing them for
specific features of their moment by moment production, and
interpreting the significance of the utterances in the light of
their environments of action. (Heritage, 1984.p.292)
The central and interdependent issues of CA are contextual
sensitivity, accountability and the sequential organisation of
conversation. \Contextual sensitivity in CA is concerned with the
expectations of language use. How people interact in different
contexts is analysed and interpretations of language use are made.
Particular consideration is given to whether interactants meet or
fail expectations of what is considered appropriate in the context
in which they occur. Additionally the social identities of speakers
are considered and how there verbal actions maintain or break
perceived social conventions. CA realises interactants understand
social codes and rules of conduct and are accountable for their
verbal actions. The approach recognises that interactants are aware
of the consequences of not conforming and that utterances are
shaped as much by what reaction is expected as by what they
actually want to say.Early observations in CA studies with natural
data, (Sacks et al., 1974) revealed the approach was useful for
looking at how patterns emerge as interaction unfolds. This
research led to the developments of theoretical systems about
turn-taking and adjacency pairs. From this came recognition of a
general principle underlying conversational organisation: that of
the sequential implicativeness of talk. Eggins and Slade (1997)
assert that this is the idea that conversation turns make sense
because they are interpreted in sequence. They note, CA suggests
that the most significant placement consideration in conversation
is that of adjacency. Thus wherever possible the speakers current
turn will be interpreted as implicating some action by the
responder in the next turn (P29,1997) Adjacency pairs are seen as
prototypical elements of a broader conversational principle of
sequential relevance. This paper now applies CA theories about
turn-taking and adjacency pairs to the scripted food and drink dyad
(appendix 1).
CA suggests that the most significant placement consideration in
conversation is that of adjacency. Thus wherever possible the
speakers current turn will be interpreted as implicating some
action by the responder in the next turn (P29,1997).
Adjacency pairs are seen as prototypical elements of a broader
conversational principle of sequential relevance. This paper now
applies CA theories about turn-taking and adjacency pairs to the
scripted food and drink dyad (appendix 1).
3. DATA PRESENTATIONThe food and drink dyad is taken from Reward
Starter, a beginners English course book. The conversation is a
scripted discourse used as a listening activity, in which students
are asked to listen to Finn and Selina talking about their
favourite food and drink. While listening learners are asked to
tick the things they like and cross the things they do not like
from a list of food given in an earlier exercise in the text
book.3.1 Turn Taking A central feature of CA is the study of
turn-taking. The analysis of turn-taking is concerned with how
interactants take turns speaking and how who speaks when is
determined. Early conversation analystsSacks et al.1974) suggested
that at any given point of viable turn transfer two possibilities
exist. Firstly, that the current speaker self-selects and continues
speaking. Secondly, the current speaker selects the next speaker,
which would mean the selected speaker could take the next turn and
speak or select another speaker to take the turn. An example of
this can be given by looking at appendix 1. Turn 1 shows Finn (the
speaker) selects Selina to take a turn speaking by asking her a
question. Turn 2 shows Selina cooperating with Finn and deciding to
answer thus taking a turn speaking. This particular kind of turn
taking is called an adjacency pair and is discussed in more detail
in 2.2 Prior to this it is useful to look at other features that
affect turn-taking. In natural conversation overlap occurs. This is
when an interactant starts speaking before the turn of the other
speaker has finished. Ervin-Tripp (1979) observes that overlap,
(interruptions or simultaneous speech), in turns happens in
approximately 5 per cent of conversation. This suggests that
speakers usually know, through complex verbal and nonverbal
signalling, when a turn is ending.McCarthy (1991) notes overlap is
significant in conversation as it normally signals, urgency,
annoyance, or the desire to correct what is being said. The food
and drink dyad contains no interruptions or overlaps. This implies
the turn-taking is cooperative rather than competitive. Overlap in
conversation can also be a sign of heightened emotional
involvement. Tannen (1989) defines co-operative overlap as a sign
of a high-involvement style in which interactants show concord,
enthusiasm and interest in each others talk. An example of this is
shown in turns (13) and (14) at the end of the food and drink dyad.
However, the lack of involvement shown by the speakers in the
preceding turns makes the sudden interest sound forced and
unnatural. Further indicators for turn taking are highlighted by
Wardhaugh (2002) who points out that a change in pitch level often
signals closure or the end of a turn. This happens in the food and
drink dyad. Pitch changes can be heard when listening to the last
words of turns (4), (9), (11) and (12) (see appendix 1 and CD
enclosed). The words often, tea, mayonnaise and though have fall in
tone. Pauses are also used to indicate the end of a turn in
conversations. This is illustrated in the turn change between turns
(9) and (10). Here the short pause, of approximately 0.8 of a
second, after the word mayonnaise signals the end of the turn.In
conversation listeners often like to show the speaker they are
interested, understanding, agreeing or simply attending to the
message. This is usually done by inserting a word such as sure,
right, or yeah . In addition back- channel vocalisations such as
hmm, ahh, and eh-eh are commonly used by the listener as
non-interrupting signals to the speaker.Other utterances that
typically signal the end of a turn are phrases like you know, or
something and do you know what I mean? Appendix 1 has no examples
of back-channel or any short words or phrases to show the speaker
they are attending to the message. As McCarthy notes,
Natural conversational data can often seem chaotic because of
back channel, utterance-completions and overlaps (1991.p127)
The food and drink dyad lacks many natural conversation
elements. This paper now looks atthe adjacency pairs in the dyad to
determine whether they are authentic representations of adjacency
pairs that occur in natural conversation.
3.2 Adjacency PairsAdjacency pairs allow speakers to allocate
and give up turns. Sacks et al (1974) identify adjacency pairs as
major turn types. As with the example above the most common is the
question/answer adjacency pair. The food and drink dyad contains
six question/answer adjacency pairs. There is no talk (or
pre-sequence) prior to the opening sequence and no insertion
sequences Pre-sequences and insertion sequences are linguistic
elements ofnatural conversations that are not included in the
scripted dyad.Different adjacency pairs occur in spoken discourse.
For example:
(1) offer/accept: A) Ill make dinner (2) request/grant: A) Can I
sit here?B) Thanks B) Yeah, no problem
The adjacency pairs above show that different utterances are
likely to be followed by particular responses. An offer is followed
by acceptance and so on. Writers such as Guy Cook identify further
patterns,
In an adjacency pair there is often a choice of two likely
responses. A request is most likely to be followed by an acceptance
or a refusal. (1989 p.53)Linguists refer to the two response
choices as preferred and dispreferred.3.3 Preferred and
dispreferred responsesEggins and Slade (1997) note preferred
responses tend to be shorter and linguistically simpler than
dispreferred responses. They suggest that this is because preferred
responses are usually supportive, compliant and orientate towards
closure. Whilst dispreferred responses are generally longer as
respondents are more likely to want to justify or explain
themselves. Adjacency pair 1 (appendix 2) illustrates this point
about dispreferred responses. When asked what her favourite food is
the respondent explains she is a vegetarian, thus eliminating meat
foods from her thoughts about favourite foods. The preferred
response adjacency pairs 2/4/5 and 6 (appendix 2) also confirms
Eggins and Slades observations; each response is short, supportive
and compliant.McCarthy (1991) observes another characteristic of
dispreferred responses is that they tend to require some sort of
linguistic softener. Linguistic softeners are elements of informal
but polite conversations that are usually used to smooth over
potentially embarrassing situations. They help people save face in
responses and are often necessary for speakers not to appear
impolite or rude. Cook (1989) also points out that in an adjacency
pair any response that is not a preferred or dispreferred could be
interpreted as rudeness or a lack of attention. Examples of
softeners are in bold text below, (5) I dont like coffee, its too
bitter for me (6) (A) Fancy a drink?(B) I Cant gotta get back to
workTurns 2/4/ and 6, (appendix 1), show dislikes without any kind
of linguistic softening (or politeness). No attempt has been made
to explain the dislikes and consequently the dyad appears more like
an interview than a conversation. It is as if the speaker is
responding to a questionnaire or does not care that the speaker
might like some of the things that s/he dislikes.In authentic
conversation, interruptions and overlaps are part of the
negotiation of turns. Smooth speaker switches are negotiated with
no simultaneous speech or perceptive pauses. This signifies the
speakers are negotiating turns cooperatively, rather than
competitively where interruptions would feature more. Apart from
the speaker switch between Selina and Finn (shown in turns (9) and
(10) of appendix 1) where a perceptive pause occurs between
mayonnaise and what the other speaker switches are smooth.However,
the smooth speaker switches intuitively sound odd and unnatural. If
a person likes coffee and somebody says to them, I dont like
coffee, a probable response might be an interruption to find out
why the person does not like coffee. Alternatively a person might
seek to defend their position of liking coffee and interrupt the
speaker to hail the benefits of an early morning cuppa. Either way,
for someone to remain quiet and listen attentively to someone
listing their likes and dislikes without any reasons or linguistic
softening for their choices appears unusual. 3.4 Scripted Discourse
and AuthenticityTurn-taking signifiers are complex and range from
drops in intonation, to the response expectations inherent in
adjacency pairs. Even in casual conversation speakers have
different roles whether they are friends, co-workers or strangers.
These different roles determine how people interact with each
other. Guy Cook illustrates this point saying, students fall silent
when the professor speaks - in the bar as well as the seminar
(1989.p53). Without a context a layer of meaning is removed from
the message and the listener may not personalise the language, and
misunderstand its grammatical function.A context is not provided
for the food and drink dyad. The listener is given no clues as to
where the conversation is taking place or what the relationship
between the speakers might be. The lack of context provides an
unnatural situation for the listener. Different roles and settings
generate different structures, without any context or any idea of
the relationship between the two speakers an interpreter of the
conversation is left only with the structures which provide few
clues to how, when and with who the language might be used. Even
the pace of the conversation is uniform and in received
pronunciation without the variability of authentic conversation. As
Porter and Roberts (1981) note regarding scripted dyads in ELT, the
intonation has sounds like a mother talking to a child with
unusually wide and unusually frequent pitch movement. (p37)English
brings with it its own cultural conventions to turn-taking, shorter
pauses and overlaps are more common in English than in Japanese for
example. McCarthy (1991) notes that silence is more acceptable in
Japan and where a short pause might indicate a point of possible
turn transfer in English it may well not in Japanese. These
cultural rules can cause all sorts of cultural misunderstandings.
The inclusion of more authentic elements such as overlaps in
scripted conversations in classroom listening activities can help
the learner appreciate the different conventions English has
compared with their native tongue. Back-channel sounds vary from
language to language; the Japanese tend to oohh rather than uh-hu
for example.However, as Guariento and Morley (2001) note with lower
level students, unless the content of authentic material is very
carefully selected with due attention paid to the materials
familiarity, predictability and syntactic simplicity, the use of
authentic texts,
may lead them to feel frustrated, confused, and, more
importantly, demotivated. And this would seem to undermine one of
the main reasons for using authentic texts in the first place
(p.348)
4. CONCLUTIONThrough its focus on turn-taking, this study has
shown the scripted discourse in appendix 1 is unnatural. It has
done this by applying CA observations made by linguists, about
turn-taking in natural speech, to the scripted- dyad and discussing
the differences. The analysis of conversation is complex and this
paper has merely touched the surface of one school of thought,
namely CA. However, it has shown authenticity is an issue in
scripted dyads used in English learning.
Appendix 1
1. F: Whats your favourite food, Selina?=2. S = Well, I dont eat
meat, so I like lots of salad things: lettuce and tomatoes etc,
and3. vegetables. I like pizza and pasta very much, too, and I eat
a lot of cheese. I like4. potatoes, but I dont eat themoften.=5. F:
And whats your favourite drink?=6. S: = I like mineral water and
cola. I dont like coffee, but I liketea. What about you?7. Whats
your favourite food?.=8. F: Well, I like chicken but I dont like
beef. I like tomatoes and lettuce as well. I like9. potatoes,
especially baked potatoes with tuna andmayonnaise10. S: What do you
like to drink?=11. F: = Oh, I like tea.=12. F: Do you know what my
favourite food is, though?.=13. S: No, what?=14. F: = [p] Chocolate
cake!=15. S: = [f] Oh yes! I like chocolate cake, too.
Appendix 2
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