ANTH 3602W Midterm

Conversation Analysis

• Social science approach that aims to describe, analyze, and understand talk as a basic and constitutive feature of human social life

• Set of methods for working with audio and video recordings of talk and social interaction

Talk-in-interaction

In responding to a previous utterance a recipient displays a hearing or understanding of that utterance

Machineries

• Talk is produced by multiple simultaneously operating organizations of practice

• Includes

  • Turn-taking and construction

  • Sequence organization

  • Repair mechanisms

  • Recipient design

  • Overall occasion structure

Recipient Design

• Speakers talk specifically for their listeners, demonstrating sensitivity to whom they're addressing

• Speakers presume that their recipient will understand referents based on shared context

Naturalistic Data

audio or video recordings of social interactions that occur in everyday life or institutional settings, unmanipulated by researchers

Audio/Video Recording

methodological approach to studying social interaction by analyzing detailed, verbatim transcripts of recorded, naturally occurring talk-in-interaction

Transcription

• Notations of what occurs in details of conversation, focusing on what participants attend to (intonation, breath, pacing, overlaps)

• Use of Jeffersonian conventions to represent talk precisely

• Selective and subject to the individual transcriptionist

Square Brackets []

indicate overlapping speech, layered like music

Equals sign =

indicates latching, where there is no discernible gap between the end of one speaker's turn and the start of the next

Micro-pause (.)

 a brief pause / a beat

Timed pause (0.0)

a silence measured in seconds

Period

falling intonation

Comma

continuing or slightly rising intonation

Question Mark

strongly rising intonation at the end of a word or phrase

Arrows

mark a sharp rise or fall in pitch

All Caps

indicates increased volume or emphasis

Degree Signs

indicates decreased volume

Underline

indicates emphasis or stress on a specific syllable

Colons

indicates a prolonged sound (more = longer stretch)

> <

indicates the speech inside is sped up

< >

indicates the speech inside is slowed down

.hh / hh

the dot before indicates an audible inhalation (alone indicates an exhalation like a sigh or laughter)

Collection

• Compiled once a phenomenon has been located

• Using different cases reveals different features of the phenomenon and allows for views to change as the collection grows

Single Case Analysis

examination of a specific, recorded interactional fragment to uncover how participants manage social actions through detailed, moment-by-moment talk and non-verbal behavior

Comparative / Next-Turn Analysis

compares different data sets—such as cross-linguistic studies, interactions in different contexts, or speakers—to identify how social interaction is organized

Turn-at-talk

a single, bounded contribution by a speaker, representing one part of the alternating, coordinated process of interaction

Turn-constructional Unit (TCU)

• Composes turns

• Elements that indicate a potential change in turn

Transition Relevant Place (TRP)

• Points where a turn reaches possible completion

• Driven by syntax and grammatical norms

Self-selection turn allocation

party initiates talk without being selected specifically by the current speaker

Other-selection turn allocation

A current speaker may select a next speaker (i.e. addressing a question to another party)

One-at-a-time Principle

The machinery of turn-taking is organized so as to minimize gaps in which no one is talking and overlaps

Overlap

• When one party speaks over top of the other

• Seen as a source of impairment and parties work to resolve/repair

Interruption

Conversational overlap that involves competing trajectories of action

Action Formation

Methods that speakers use to construct a turn at talk, enabling recipients to understand what action (e.g., inviting, complaining, requesting) is being performed

Next-turn Proof Procedure

• Looking to the next turn to see how the prior turn was understood

• Responses transform prior talk to fit current speaker's purposes

Adjacency Pair

• Sequence of action composed of a first pair part and a second pair part that are related through conditional relevance

• Ex: question-answer, offer-accept/decline, greeting-greeting, complaint-remedy

Conditional Relevance

• Occurrence of a first pair part makes the second relevant

• Relationship between paired utterance types is a norm to which participants orient themselves in constructing orderly sequences of talk

• Creates an obligation to respond

Intersubjectivity

• Joint or shared understanding between persons

• Explained by convergent knowledge

Preference Organization

Structural patterns in conversation with specific conversational responses being favored over others

Preferred Action

Response to the first pair part that promotes the accomplishment of the activity

Delays

inter-turn gaps or turn-initial pauses

Palliatives

appreciation, apology, or token agreement

Accounts

explanations for dispreferred responses

Pro-forma Agreement

"yes, but…" constructions

Agreement / Disagreement

• Assessment responses

• Preference for agreement

Acceptance / Rejection

• Rejection/declination often requires an explanation

• Offer responses

• General preference for acceptance, but can be built to have a preference for rejection

Mitigation

Goal of lessening the impact of unpleasant messages by hedging, being indirect, using disclaimers, or overexplaining

Sequence Organization

how turns-at-talk are ordered and combined to structure social actions, such as requests, invitations, or stories

First Pair Part

the initial utterance of an adjacency pair that initiates a social action and creates a normative expectation for a matching pair part

Second Pair Part

The responsive utterance in an adjacency pair

Pre-sequence

• Preparatory sequences that occur before the base first pair part

• Allow recipient to encourage or block projected action

Insert Expansion

• Sub-sequence inserted between the first and second pair parts

• Address prerequisite tasks before responding

Post-expansion

• Sequences that occur after the second pair part

• Can propose sequence closure or extend interaction

Base Sequence

the core, two-part unit of interaction

Repair

Organized set of practices through which participants in conversation address and potentially resolve problems of speaking, hearing, or understanding

Trouble Source

The segment of talk to which repair is addressed

Self-initiated Repair

The repair is initiated by the speaker of the trouble source

Other-initiated Repair

The repair is initiated by another participant

Self-repair / Other-repair

• Self correction v. correction by another party

• General preference for self-repair

Repair Initiation Device

• Disjunction with the immediately preceding talk

• include open class, wh-word, repeat + wh-word, repeat, understanding check

Multi-unit Turn

a single speaker's utterance composed of two or more turn-constructional units 

Turn-beginning

the initial elements of a speaker’s turn, often signaling an intention to take the floor, managing topic shifts, or initiating interaction

Increment

• Element added to a TCU that grammatically extends and recompletes it

• Building onto an already completed turn

Parenthetical / Appositional Unit

a segment of talk inserted into a TCU that temporarily suspends the progression of the main sentence or action sequence

Projectability of turn completion

the ability of listeners to anticipate the end of a speaker's TCU before it happens, allowing for smooth turn-taking with minimal gaps or overlaps

Contiguity Preference

Preference for adjacency in sequential organization, keeping components that belong together next to each other

Story

• Requires more than one utterance

• Problem of having the story teller be able to secure an extended turn-at-talk to tell the story

Story Preface

• When someone says something that appears to be leading into telling a story

• Carves out a space for story in talk and provides clues about the story content

Story Recipient

• Stories have to be recognized as stories by the recipients in order to secure extended, multi-unit turns

• Recipients have different knowledge that impacts the storytelling experience

Story Climax/Upshot

the concluding formulation that summarizes the core point, significance, or moral implication of a narrated sequence of events

Story Response

Participant reactions focusing on how recipients display their understanding and alignment with the story

Opening Sequence

the initial, structured phase of an interaction where participants are oriented in accomplishing gate-keeping, constituting the relationship, and establishing topic

Closing Sequence

collaborative, multi-turn process participants use to end a conversation without abruptness

Summons-answer Sequence

• Adjacency pair used to secure attention or establish availability that indicates readiness

• Non-terminal

Identification/Recognition Sequence

Interactional sequence where participants exchange information to establish the identity of who they are talking to

Greeting Sequence

Opening exchange to initiate interaction and recognize participants

Pre-closing Sequence

preliminary exchange (e.g., "okay," "well") that signals a desire to end a conversation, allowing participants to avoid abrupt endings

Terminal Exchange

the final sequence of turns in a conversation, typically consisting of a pair of closing utterances that allows mutual ending of the interaction

 

Topic

What the conversation is about

Topic Initiation

• New topics are often introduced after sequence completion

• Ex: "oh, by the way" "what's new?" "did you hear?"

Topic Shift

participants intentionally or unintentionally move from one topic to another, changing the direction of the flow of ideas

Topic Maintenance

the ability of speakers to stay "on topic" by providing relevant, contingent responses that continue a discussion rather than abruptly shifting it

Topic Termination

• When topics reach points of possible completion

• Marked by assessments, formulations, or summaries

Stepwise Topic Movement

Topic shift occurs gradually rather than abruptly, with successive turns building incrementally on prior talk

Topic Elicitor

Conversational device used to move from greetings or silence into a substantive topic

Context

Factors of the conversation and its environment that affect the tone and word choice used during the interaction

Context-Free Organization

basic organizational rules apply regardless of specifical social contexts

Context-Sensitive Organization

adaptation of social rules to individual interaction situations

Membership Categorization

how speakers assign identities—and associated behaviors or expectations—to themselves and others during interactions

Category-bound Activity

actions inherently linked to specific social categories (e.g., "teaching" for a teacher, "arresting" for a police officer)

Institutional Talk

spoken interactions within specific professional or institutional settings that are task-oriented, restricted, and defined by the participants' professional roles

Interaction Order

social interactions follow implicit, methodical, and rule-governed sequences that are generated and maintained by participants through turn-taking, repair mechanisms, and communicative actions