I. Brainstorming

We talk with others every day. But have you thought about the conversational structure?

II. Analysis of conversation 

The global analysis–to analyze the whole structure, the whole process of a conversation.

The local analysis – to understand the internal structure of a conversation, the turn-taking.

1. Turn-taking 

• Turn-taking refers to having the right to speak by turns. 

• Conversations normally follow the pattern of “I speak – you speak – I speak – you speak”, if there are two participants. 

• Any possible change-of-turn point is called a transition relevance place (TRP). TRP is closely linked with social norms. 

• It is important in any culture for an individual to know when to speak and when to remain silent.

There are two types of indication: paralinguistic signals, such as nodding, gestures, smiles, and other facial expressions; vocal signals, mmm, yeah and so on. These vocal indications are called back-channel signals.

2. Adjacency pair 

• Adjacency pairs are a fundamental unit of conversational structure. They are sequences of two utterances as the result of turn-talking. The two utterances are ordered as a first part and second part. A particular first part requires a particular second part.

• Greeting/greeting, question/answer, invitation/acceptance, offer/decline, complaint/denial are common cases of adjacency pairs.

3. Insertion sequence 

• Not all first parts are immediately followed by second parts. It often occurs that the answer is delayed by another pair of question and answer. Look at the following example:

- May I have a bottle of Mich? (Q1)

- Are you over 21? (Q2)

- No. (A2)

- No. (A1) 

• The second part of adjacency pair is violated here. 

• A conversation sometimes is organized in a preferential way.

4. Pre-sequence: Dispreferred second part is generally avoided as they do harm to the face of the speaker. One way to avoid contexts for dispreferred second parts is to use pre-sequences.

• Pre-invitation: before performing the act of invitation.

E.g.

A: What are you going to this Friday evening?

B: Nothing important so far.

A: Shall we dine out?

B: Ok.

• Pre-request

e.g.

A: Are you busy now?

B: Not really.

A: Type this for me, please.

B: Ok.

• Pre-announcement: are used by speakers to check the hearers’ attention or to gain an extended turn in the conversation. It can call attention and follows something surprising or amusing. This is often use of in comic talks or talk shows.