Conversation Analysis

Pragmatics 1
Conversational analysis
Discourse prgamatics
Cross-cultural pragmatics
Conversational Analysis (CA)
CA
studies conversational interaction in order
to reveal the organisational features of
naturally occurring talk
• empirical: analysis based on naturally
occurring data rather than intuition
• inductive method: searches for recurring
patterns across many records of naturally
occurring conversations
http://www.coli.uni-saarland.de/courses/pragmatics07/Slides/PD.07.4.ConversationStructure.pdf
CA
• is the study of talk in interaction (both verbal and non-
verbal in situations of everyday life)
• attempts to describe the orderliness, structure and

sequential patterns of interaction, whether institutional (in
school, a doctor's surgery, court) or in casual conversation
• inspired by ethnomethodology
• developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s principally by

the sociologist Harvey Sacks and his close associates
Emanuel Schlegoff and Gail Jefferson.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversation_analysis
Interaction
'an interpersonal exchange of talk' (Yule 1996:71)
e.g.
a lecturer talking to a student
a doctor talking to a patient
a father talking to his son
a teacher talking to a pupil
A conversation is one form of interaction:
The spoken exchange of thoughts, opinions, and
feelings
http://www.thefreedictionary.com
Conversation
Conversation
A conversation is the taking of turns at holding the
floor
Speakers can cooperate to hold the floor
OR
fight to keep the floor or take it from others
• Smooth transitions are generally preferred.

• Long pauses or overlaps are avoided
The structure of conversation
the floor: the right to speak
the turn: having control of the floor
turn-taking: taking control of the floor
(who should talk and when)
local management system: conventions for getting,
keeping or transferring turns
transition relevance place (TRP): a point of change-
of-turn
local management system
conventions for getting, keeping or transferring turns
Speakers expect their partners to signal that they

are indeed listening:
nods, smiles, facial expressions, gestures, or
backchannels: uh-uh, yes, mmm
Lack of backchannels may be interpreted as lack

of agreement or attention.
TRP markers
a point of change-of-turn
the end of a structural unit (phrase/clause)

usually marked by a pause
Signal that one wants to keep turn:

e.g. Let me tell you a story...
There are three reasons...
Discourse Analysis (DA)
Discourse analysis (DA)
general term for a number of approaches to

analyzing written, spoken, signed language use
or any significant semiotic event.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_analysis
DA
According to Yule (1996: 83)
'discourse analysis covers an extremely wide
range of activities, from the narrowly focussed
investigation of how words such as 'oh' and 'well'
are used in casual talk to the study of the
dominant ideology in a culture as represented,
for example, in its educational or politcal
practices.'
DA
• once you have the floor, you have to organise your
discourse (Yule 1996: 83)
• focus in pragmatics on what is unsaid or unwritten,

yet communicated, within discourse (Yule 1996: 84)
• explores what the speaker has in mind
• in contemporary research, discourse covers both

monologues and dialogues, as well as spoken and
written language
DA
• Discourse is a communicative event
• requiring a sender (writer, speaker), a receiver (reader,

listener), and a message
• message is not just a concatenation of clauses; but

forms a unified, coherent whole
• both sender and receiver normally have implicit

agreement that the message being communicated is
coherent
http://www.autotutor.org/publications/newpapers/Louwerse-Coherence.pdf
Communication is made possible through:
• coherence
• background knowledge
• cultural schemata
Coherence and cohesion
Cohesion and coherence
Cohesion:
unity of text achieved through linguistics
devices/techniques:
• anaphora: pronouns
• conjunction: then, however, in fact, and
consequently, therefore, so
• linking words/phrases: as stated previously, the
aforementioned
Help the reader associate statements with eaqch

other
Cohesion and coherence
Coherence...refers to discourse relations which
may or may not be explicitly signalled whereas
cohesive devices are surface, textual indicators
of interconnectiveness.
http://www.readability.biz/Coherence.html
Coherence
Making sense of an expression in terms of one's

normal experience:
e.g.
plant sale
garage sale (Yule 1996: 84)
no dogs
no rabbit
Coherence
We automatically fill in details and provide
sensible interpretations to make semse of a text:
e.g.
• SIGN IN A CHURCH:
For those of you who have children and don’t
know it, we have a nursery downstairs.
• Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge
• Kids Make Nutritious Snacks

Background knowledge
Background knowledge
We use pre-existing knowledge to create an
interpretation of what is NOT stated explicitly/
Schema(ta):
• Frames
• Scripts
Schema(ta)
a pre-existing knowledge structure in memory
that 'function like familiar patterns from previous
experience that we use to interpret new
experiences' (Yule 1996: 85)
• frame
• script
Frame
a fixed static schema (pattern) often serving as a
protoype (Yule 1996: 86)
What constitutes a flat, a school, etc.

E.g. Flat for rent at €50.
Understood on the basis of:

a flat frame
an advert frame
Assume it has a kitchen etc.
Assume rent is per month
Script
a more dynamic schema involving event sequences
to interpret accounts of what happened

e. g. a restaurant script
a supermarket script
You do not need to mention every detail because

you assume that the hearer/reader knows certain
things
Cultural schemata
developed on the basis of our experiences in our
culture
People from different cultures might have different

scripts, which might lead to misinterpretaions,
expectations
E.g. eating your food in a restaurant with your

hands
Asking: 'How are you?' Answer: 'Fine, thanks.'
(Nota real question but a greeting.)
Cross-cultural pragmatics/
contrastive pragmatics
Wierzbicka, Anna (2003) Cross-cultural
Pragmatics. The semantics of human
interaction. (2nd edition) New York: Mouton
de Gruyter
Cross-cultural pragmatics/
contrastive pragmatics
'the study of differences in expectation based on
cultural schemata'
(Yule 1996: 87)
E.g. in turn taking

in some cultures silence is more relevant
'The typical American English style of complimenting

creates great embarassment for some Native American
receivers (perceived as excessive)'
Contrast: Greeks and Germans telephone
conversations
• Pavlidou (2000) examined telephone conversations in Greek
and German and found marked differences in the way Greeks
and Germans manage each of the three sections of a telephone
conversation, i.e., opening, main topic, closing:
• Greeks usually answer the phone with utterances like ne
('yes'), while it is more typical in German telephone calls for
the answerer to identify himself/herself with his/her last
name.
• Greeks seem to enter into quite a lengthy opening sequence,
whereas Germans come to the point of their call much faster.
• Greeks use more phatic sequences in both social and
transactional calls than Germans do.
• Greek closing sequences can be expected to be longer than
German ones.
http://www.usq.edu.au/users/sonjb/sllt/4/Pohl04.html
Anna Wierzbicka, about her own
experience as a Pole living in Australia:
'I had to start learning new "cultural scripts"...and...
I became aware of the old "cultural scripts"....I also
became aware...of the reality of "cultural scripts"
and their importance to the way one lives one's life,
to the image one projects, and even to one's
personal identity'
Wierzbicka (2003:x)
Anna Wierzbicka, about her own
experience as a Pole living in
Australia:
'...when I was talking on the phone...to my mother

in Poland...with my voive loud and excited..., my
husband would signal me: "Don't shout!" For a long
time, this perplexed and confused me...'
Wierzbicka (2003:x)
Wierzbicka is very critical of the work on
politeness by Brown and Levison, and
especially their claim that concepts like 'face'
are not universal.
'as a number of recent studies have shown,

the basic conceptual tools introduced and
relied on by Brown and Levinson...have in
fact a strong anglocentric bias' (Wierzbicka
2003: 68)
another example
Leech's (1983) maxims of 'modesty'

and 'approbation'
Approbation maxim:
(a) minimise dispraise of other;
(b) maximise praise of other
Modesty maxim
(a) minimise parie of self;
(b) maximise dispraise of self
However:
According to Wierzbicka 2008, quoting Kochman
(1981), 'in Black American culture the norm of
'modesty' does not apply, and...self-praise is not
viewed negatively.'
Moreover, according to Mizutani & Mizutani

(1987), 'show that 'approbation' or 'praise of other'
is not encourage in Japanese culture' (Wirzbiecka
2003: 68)
Cultural variety
Not restricted to different nations but includes also
e.g. different ethnic groups in society, or different
social different classes
New directions in the study of language
• In different societies, and different communities,
people speak differently, in a profound and
systematic way,
and
• these differences reflect different cultural values.
(Wierzbicka 2003: 69)

Conversation Analysis

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Conversation Analysis

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Pragmatics 1

• attempts to describe the orderliness, structure and

• developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s principally by

• Smooth transitions are generally preferred.

Speakers expect their partners to signal that they

Lack of backchannels may be interpreted as lack

the end of a structural unit (phrase/clause)

Signal that one wants to keep turn:

general term for a number of approaches to

• focus in pragmatics on what is unsaid or unwritten,

• explores what the speaker has in mind

• in contemporary research, discourse covers both

• requiring a sender (writer, speaker), a receiver (reader,

• message is not just a concatenation of clauses; but

• both sender and receiver normally have implicit

Help the reader associate statements with eaqch

Making sense of an expression in terms of one's

• Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge

• Kids Make Nutritious Snacks

What constitutes a flat, a school, etc.

Understood on the basis of:

to interpret accounts of what happened

You do not need to mention every detail because

People from different cultures might have different

E.g. eating your food in a restaurant with your

E.g. in turn taking

'The typical American English style of complimenting

'...when I was talking on the phone...to my mother

'as a number of recent studies have shown,

Leech's (1983) maxims of 'modesty'

Moreover, according to Mizutani & Mizutani

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