TV talk shows are among the most common media programs worldwide as it keeps up to date with events that take place in the world and deals with them politically, socially and economically. Transcripts of TV talk show are written records of naturally occurring conversation which represents a challenging source of authentic language learning material if they can be shown to be structurally accurate.
This book introduces an analysis that compares the interaction of an English language TV talk show with that of naturally occurring conversation. The analysis highlights the degree of similarity and differences within the limits of the turn taking, adjacency pairs, preference organization, pre-sequence and closing sequence systems of conversation.
Table of Contents
SUBJECT
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Nature of Communication:
2.2.1 Mass Media Communication:
2.3 Linguistics and the Study of Conversation:
2.3.1 Structuralism and Generativism:
2.3.2 Functionalism:
2.3.3 Halliday and Systemic View:
2.4 Discourse Structure:
2.4.1 Turn:
2.4.2 Acts and Moves:
2.4.3 Exchange:
2.4.4 Transaction:
2.4.5 Interaction:
2.5 Conversation Analysis (CA)
2.5.1 Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis:
2.5.2 Conversation Analysis and Ethnomethedology:
2.6 Structural Organization of conversation:
2.6.1 Turn-Taking System:
2.6.2 Adjacency Pair System:
2.6.3 Preference Organization System:
2.6.4 Pre-Sequence System:
2.6.5 Closing Sequence System:
2.7 Media Discourse:
2.7.1 Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA).
2.7.2 Talk in Institutional Setting:
2.7.3 TV Talk Show
ANALYSIS
3.1 Model of Analysis
3.2 Turn-Taking:
3.2.1 Turn-Taking Results:
3.3 Adjacency Pair Analysis Method:
3.3.1. Adjacency Pair Data Collection Technique:
3.3.2 Adjacency Pair Data Analysis:
3.3.3 Adjacency Pair Results:
3.4 Preference Organization. Analysis Method:
3.4.1 Preference Organization Data Collection Technique:
3.4.2 Preference Organization. Data Analysis:
3.4.3 Preference Organization. Results:
3.5 Pre-Sequence Analysis Method:
3.5.1 Pre-Sequence Data Collection Technique:
3.5.2 Pre-Sequence Data Analysis:
3.5.3 Pre-Sequence Results:
3.6 Closing Sequence Analysis Method:
3.6.1 Closing Sequence Data Collection Technique:
3.6.2 Closing Sequence Data Analysis:
3.6.3 Closing Sequence Results:
4.1 Results Discussion
4.1.1 Host role responsibilities and their effects on conversation structure:
4.1.2 Guest role responsibilities and their effects on conversation structure:
4.1.3 Reporters role responsibilities and their effect on conversation structure:
Conclusion
Areas for further research:
Apendix
MSNBC HARDBALL TV SHOW TRANSCRIPT
BIBLIOGRAPHY
SUBJECT
TV talk shows are among the most common media programs worldwide as it keeps up to date with events that take place in the world and deals with them politically, socially and economically. Transcripts of TV talk show are written records of naturally occurring conversation which represents a challenging source of authentic language learning material if they can be shown to be structurally accurate. This book introduces an analysis that compares the interaction of an English language TV talk show with that of naturally occurring conversation. The analysis highlights the degree of similarity and differences within the limits of the turn taking, adjacency pairs, preference organization, pre-sequence and closing sequence systems of conversation.
The Conversation that takes place in institutional setting as in the case of TV talk show needs to be investigated to show whether it is as orderly as natural conversation. The aim of this study is to demonstrate the structural accuracy of a TV talk show transcript and its usability as language learning material and to describe and explicate the strategies that ordinary speakers use and rely on in participating in socially and institutionally organized interaction. I described the type of interaction which takes place in Hardball Talk show and to explored its institutional as well as its conversational features.
The study answered questions regarding conversation within TV talk shows and whether it should be orderly as a result of adherence to the structural organization of natural conversation (i.e. Turn taking, adjacency pairs, preference organization, pre-sequence and closing sequence) and their rules stated by Sacks et al. (1974). Another concern that this book addresses regarding thes the institutional setting of the TV talk show and how it affects the complete adherence to naturally occurring conversation structuring systems.
The analyzed data of this study are based on a transcript of Hardball TV talk show. The transcripts’ turns have been numbered chronologically to facilitate analysis. Sacks et al’s (1974) model of conversation analysis is the theoretical model used as the basis for the analytical work. The analysis of the data looked at the five structural organizations (i.e. turn- taking, adjacency pairs, preference organization pre-sequencing and closing sequence) and describe them against counterparts features in naturally occurring conversation. Each structuring system in the transcript has been pointed out and analyzed using certain techniques and devices to achieve the aims.
Findings revealed that turns in the transcript largely adhere to turn taking, preference organization, and pre-sequence rules operating in naturally occurring conversation. Adjacency pairs proved not to be analyzable due to insufficient identification criteria. Closing sequences in the transcript display a unique structure. The unique structure of closing sequences, as well as the few departures from turn taking and preference organization rules is attributed to the exercising of institutional responsibilities in the talk show.
Based on the transcripts adherence to naturally occurring conversation systems, the transcript is recommended as a source of language learning. However, the need to specify speaker selection devices, turn content, and restrict TV talk show roles to single move types are recommended for researchers undertaking related study.
The book falls into five chapters. Chapter one includes an that outlines the problem, aims, hypotheses, and procedures of the study .
Chapter two presents a literature review of the studies, linguistic schools, interaction, conversation, media discourse, and TV talk show. This chapter serves as a theoretical background for the coming chapters. Chapter three includes analysis of the data. This chapter is initiated by displaying the model of analysis and justification for employing it rather than critical discourse analysis model. The analysis aims to show the structural organization of the TV show transcript and its similarity/difference to that of naturally occurring conversation. Chapter four presents discussion of the results and conclusion of the theoretical and analytical work of the present study. It ends up with a pedagogical implication and suggestion for further research.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
2.1 Introduction
The main aim of this chapter is to survey studies and theories of conversation within linguistics and sociology. The ultimate aim is to provide a theoretical background against which the analytical scheme that will be used for this study is described (see chapter four).
Conversation Analysis (hereinafter CA) was developed during 1960s by Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson (Sacks et al., 1974; Schegloff, 1968; Schegloff and Sacks, 1973). CA is a generic approach to the analysis of social interaction. In their introduction to collection of a research paper, Heritage and Atkinson (1984) write:
The central goal of conversation analytic research is the description and explication of the competences that ordinary speakers use and rely on in participating in intelligible, socially organized interaction. At its most basic, this objective is one of describing the procedures by which conversationalists produce their own behaviour and understand and deal with the behaviour of others. (1984:1)
2.2 Nature of Communication:
Communication has been viewed and studied from different perspectives. A simplified model of communication is the one which is derived from information theory (Shannon and Weaver, 1949), which is one of the most well known models. According to this model, the transmission of the message is a simple linear and unidirectional process: there is a source which codifies information in the form of a signal, and transmits it by means of a channel to the other end, where it is codified. It is, then, a model in which communication is described as a transmission process from a transmitter to a receiver by means of codification and decodification of the information itself where subjects are considered as passive recipients of messages.
According to Palmer (1981:5), if language is regarded as a communication system, it will associate a message (the meaning) with a set of signs. This view is derived from the Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure (1959:67) where he refers to these as the signifier and the signified. According to Saussure's model, communication is a form of telementation or thought transference conducted via the medium of spoken linguistic signs (Davis, 2002:4).
In any case, a great deal of human communication is intentional for two good reasons: the first reason is by producing direct evidence of one's informative intention; one can convey a much wider range of information than can be conveyed by producing direct evidence for the basic information itself. The second reason humans have for communication is to modify and extend the mutual cognitive environment they share with one another (Sperbar and Wilson, 1988:64).
The value of studying communication springs from the concept itself, which, as Crystal (2003:85) sees, is a "fundamental notion in the study of behavior which acts as a frame of reference for linguistic and phonetic study".
For those concerned with communication, information has long been at the heart of the matter. When Shannon and Weaver (1949) put information at the center of their mathematical theory of communication, they were in effect formalizing and quantifying a position less explicit in play for many other workers. Derived from this Schegloff (1995:187) asserts that among the robust traditional anchors for the analysis of language beyond the level of syntax is orientation to information and truth. It is critical that the analysis of discourse incorporates attention not only to the propositional content and information distribution of discourse units, but also to the actions they are doing.
2.2.1 Mass Media Communication:
As media discourse (in the form of TV talk show) is the realm of this study, something needs to be mentioned about mass-media communication.
Van Dijk (1985:16) defines mass communication as the mass-produced communication and is the extension of institutionalized public-making beyond the limits of handicraft or other personally mediated interaction. It is the continuous mass production and distribution of systems of messages to groups so large and widely dispersed that they could never interact face-to-face or through any other but mass produced and technologically mediated message systems. This becomes possible only when technological means are available and social organizations emerge for the mass production and distribution of the messages.
Levels and kinds of communication which take place on a TV talk show are part of mass communication. For example, when the host is talking to a guest, he is also taking care of other guests' needs, mediating the on-stage interaction to the audience in the studio, being also aware that the whole interaction will be watched by thousands of people (Morizumi, 1997:66).
2.3 Linguistics and the Study of Conversation:
CA was developed during 1960s by Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson (Sacks et al, 1974; Schegloff, 1968; Schegloff and Sacks, 1973). Though these scholars are sociologists, CA resulted in many linguists to be interested in it. The main school of linguistics viewed discourse and conversation studies in different perspectives.
2.3.1 Structuralism and Generativism:
Linguistic structuralism is a school of linguistics that focuses on the study of structure of a language as objectively as possible without reference to any other language, and structuralists felt that meaning is a poor guide to the analysis of the structure. American structuralists and transformationalists alike had concentrated massively on problems within phonology and the grammar of the clause, and put a side attempts to deal with paragraphing or meaning. Verbal and non-verbal contexts were ignored as having little bearing on grammatical or phonological description (Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975:1).
Chomsky's mid-sixties model completely ignores Firth's semantics and in so doing can ignore both performance and higher units of structure (Ibid: 2). Structuralism, similarly, treats discourse as a structured emergent phenomenon. The claim is that "Conversation is not a structural product in the way that a sentence is, it is rather the outcome of the interaction of two or more independent, goal directed individuals" (Levinson, 1983:294). One of the criticisms most commonly made of structuralism is that it exaggerates the orderliness and generality of the relational patterns in the data that it investigates (Lyons, 1981:223).
Though was a reaction to Structuralism, Generativist approach is concerned with the study of forms to come up with universals among languages and exclude any concern with the discursive aspect of language (Lyons, 1981:229). Rather than focusing on the communicative competence, Chomsky's generativists focused on the communicative competence and hence, been described as a one-sided theory of language (Widdowson, 1996: 15). Units larger than sentence and meaning which compose discourse receive no attention from both structuralism and Generativism.
2.3.2 Functionalism:
The functional orientation of linguistics in Czechoslovakia such as the interest in notions like "Topic" and "Comment" in the study of functional sentence perspective, provided a natural stimulus to take discourse structure into account (van Dijk, 1985:4). This is so due to the fact that functionalism is closer to the study of discourse than both structuralism and Generativism. It has tended to emphasize the instrumental character of language. There is, as Lyons (1981:224) points out, a natural affinity between the functionalist viewpoint and that of the sociolinguist or the more embracing notion of social interaction. This requires a dramatic shift of attention away from the idea that meanings are contained within the words and structured toward explaining and understanding meanings constructed by all products of language (Birch, 1993:20).
2.3.3 Halliday and Systemic View:
Halliday (1984:3) argues that structuralism and Generativism missed an important facet of language as a whole, of language "seen simultaneously as system and as process". Halliday argues in favor of 'a systemic' view of language which attempts to "interpret simultaneously both what language is and what language does" (Halliday,1984:6). Language can be modeled as a collection of system network in which the entry point to each network is specified syntagmatically and each network offers a set of appropriate choices which stands in a paradigmatic opposition. Malouf, (1995: 6) points out that this systemic view of language has been developed into a model of discourse by Sinclair and Coulthard.
Leech (2000:48) justifies the shift of attention from the focus on the grammar within the sentence level to the grammatical characteristics of speech by two reasons: the first is the need to know more about spoken English, because of the increasing focus on oral communication in language use, and second, the opportunity of satisfying that need that has recently arisen through the availability of electronic corpora of spoken discourse.
One of Halliday's (2003:195) assumptions in his systemic theory is that language is functionally variable. The different kinds of situation that collectively constitute a culture engenders different kinds of text, but viewing language as a social semiotics, Halliday asserts that the semiotic properties of a situation we can make predications about the meanings that are likely to be exchanged in the same way that the interactants make prediction and in so doing facilitate their own participation.
Discourse, then, challenges the structuralist concept of language as an abstract system and relocates the whole process of making and using meanings from an abstracted structural system into particular historical, social and political conditions. Discourse, then, is language in social use. Discourse Analysis (DA) differs from linguistic analysis in focusing on what statements are made rather than how they are. At this level, then, discourse is the means by which those conditions are made to make sense within the social relations that structure them. It is structural and structuring, for it is both determined by its social conditions and affects them. Discourse also operates on a lower level on which a number of discourses put discourse in general into practice, and this is the level where it can be most particularly analyzed ( van Dijk, 1985: V).
2.4 Discourse Structure:
In dealing with talk-in-interaction, the sentence can no longer be treated as the unit of analysis. Instead, utterances constitute the unit of analysis and these are built from lexical items phrases and clauses and sentences (Heritage and Roth, 1995:13). Although, identifying standard units of structure remains problematic in discourse and conversation analysis, scholars have come up with powerful units of analysis.
2.4.1 Turn:
Conversation Analysts examine how participants orient to and thereby enact the moment-by-moment, turn-by-turn organization of talk. In these ways, CA delineates the structure of social interaction and provides the loci of actions (Beach, 1991:357). Sacks et al, (1974) referred to these as turn constructional units (TCU). These units are the building blocks of turns at talk and are deployed within a system (Thornbury, 2005:8). The turn-taking system and its rules will be tackled in more details later in this chapter.
Some scholars consider turn as practical and analytic units of interaction and provided linguistic analysis of turn-taking and turn construction (Steenstra and Mazeland, 1982). The challenge of accounting for interaction units exists for conversation analysts and for discourse analysts alike. In CA, many analysts base their research on notions of turns and turn-taking (Ford, 2004: 31).
In DA, van Dijk (1985: 1) points out that at least three main issues have to be tackled in describing the structure of interaction: the segmentation of that stream into appropriate units, the classification of those units, and the formulation of rules that will generate the orderly behavioural sequences which can and do occur.
2.4.2 Acts and Moves:
The smallest unit of discourse structure is the act. Acts are expressed by clauses or single words. The second smallest unit of discourse structure is the move, which corresponds to the basic functional unit of discourse. Sinclair and Coulthards' notion of move has many similarities to the conventional notion of speech act, but it also has important differences (Malouf, 1995: 5). Moves typically are realized by a head act, with optional starter, pre-head, and post-head acts. The basic move types are framing, opening, answering, eliciting information, acknowledging and directing. This notion seems to be similar to the more traditional speech act theory (e.g. Searle, 1969).
2.4.3 Exchange:
Exchange is a minimal group of moves. It consists of an initiating move, a responding move and a follow up move. DA differs from research in the CA tradition (e.g. Schegloff and Sacks, 1973) in rejecting the two part adjacency pair in favor of the three part exchange. Exchange is divided into two basic types: organizational exchanges and conversational exchanges. Organizational exchange can be further divided into bounding exchanges (made up of framing moves) and structuring exchanges (made up of opening moves) (Malouf, 1995: 6).
2.4.4 Transaction:
Transaction is the second largest unit of discourse structure. It corresponds more or less to a single topic unit and consists of a preliminary exchange, a sequence of one or more medial exchanges, and optional terminal exchanges (Malouf, 1995: 6). Communication has been viewed as transactions in which communicators attribute meaning to events in ways that are dynamic, continuous, circular, unrepeatable, irreversible and complex (Al-Jassim, 1998: 5).
Finally and more importantly Gee (1998:88) points out that DA is based on the details of speech or writing that are arguably deemed relevant in the situation and that are relevant to the argument the analyst is attempting to make. It is not based on all the physical features presents.
2.4.5 Interaction:
Interaction is the largest unit of structure. It consists of a sequence of transaction. DA researchers have had relatively little to say about the structure of interaction, and have even claimed that interactions have no linguistically relevant structure (Malouf, 1995: 7). Francis and Hunston (1992: 13) argue that whatever interactional structure is found is primarily the result of situational or institutional factors.
In the case of TV talk shows, the interaction structure is surely motivated more by situational and institutional factors than by linguistic conversations. The basic structure is an introduction transaction followed by a series of questions, unit transactions and all transactions with introduction transactions at regular intervals. The TV show host must balance the desires to explore each topic in depth with the need to allow several topics to be covered in a very limited time span.
Stenstorm (1994:1) points out that spoken interaction belongs to the area of discourse which can be defined as any unit of language beyond the sentence. CA is concerned with describing the methods by which the members of a culture are engaged in social interaction. A key goal of CA is to examine social interaction to reveal organized practices or pattern of actions under the fundamental assumption that interaction is structurally organized (Woodruff and Aoki, 2006: 10).
Conversation is, then, fully interactive such that utterances both construct and maintain social contexts. It is also locally managed (Gale, 2000; Verschuern, 1999:37): the participants themselves, during the course of interaction, determine which people get to speak, in what order they speak and for how long.
2.4.5.1 Multi-Party Interaction:
In face-to-face interaction, participants in conversation are able to alternate their speech in an orderly way so as to avoid overlaps and gaps. The general principle of conversational exchange becomes known as no gaps no overlaps. Duranti (1997:248) inquires how such a system can work? How can participants be as good at coordinating with one another's actions as to know when to start and when to stop talking? Duranti went on to conclude that participants could decide that according to an independently assigned rank system.
The model of turn-taking proposed in the 1974 paper by Sacks et al. presumes an unspecified number of participants. The allocation of turns among more than two participants cannot be derived from the pattern characteristic for two (i.e. patterns of alternation). For two, the pattern is AB AB AB…; for three it is not ABC ABC ABC…; nor does it appear to be a determinate or formulaic patterns for three or more (Schegloff, 1995: 32 ).
The most common default "numerical" value of speakership in talk-in-interaction is one party talking at a time. Talk by more than one person at a time in the same conversation is one of the major departures that occur. Yet more than two interactants are managing their talk in a simultaneous way (Schegloff, 1995: 33). In multi-party setting, where there are four or more, if more than one person is talking, it can be claimed not that rule has been violated, but that more than one conversation is going on (Schegloff, 1968:1078). Thus Bales wrote:
The conversation generally proceeded so that one person talked at a time, and all members in the particular group were attending the same conversation. In this sense, these groups might be said to have a single focus that is they did not involve a number of conversation proceeding at the same time (Bales et al. 1951:416).
TV talk show interaction analysis depends crucially on the interaction among multiple participants.
2.5 Conversation Analysis (CA)
Wardhaugh (2002, 297) defines conversation as a cooperative activity in the sense that involves two or more parties, each of whom must be allowed the opportunity to participate. It is also worth noting that the possibility of the universal features in conversation is central to talking culture. A considerable portion of the analysis is founded and indeed empirically rests on the noticing of features of social action (Beach, 1990:353). According to CA , conversation or talk-in-interaction is the primordial mode of social interaction. As a practice, ordinary talk is not considered by its practitioners to be particularly skilled , yet CA shows it to be a precision instrument, wielded by maestros. Subtle ,nuanced and highly sensitive , yet structured, normative and accountable ; it displays order at all points, yet is entirely improvised .For CA, naturally occurring ordinary conversation is at once the most mundane and the most consequential social phenomenon( Ibid: 54).
Arising within sociology, CA emerged from the cognitive revolution that swept across the social sciences in the 1960s and placed new emphasis on participants' orientation to indigenous social and cultural constructs. It seeks to describe the underlying social organization (Goodwin and Heritage, 1990:283).
2.5.1 Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis:
CA has developed from pioneering work of Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson to provide an elaborate and systematic account of talk-in-interaction. It is a fast growing and notably cumulative field which was highlighting major deficiencies in the speech act approaches that psychologists often look to for an account of language practices (Levinson, 1983), as well as providing striking analysis of topics as diverse as intersubjectivity (Schegloff, 1992: 1340).
CA is relevant to DA in two ways: First it provides a powerful and general underlying interaction that has the potential to illuminate a wide range of research questions. After all, much human interaction is performed through conversation and to understand many of the more psychological and social phenomena that discourse analysts are interested in it, it is necessary to understand how they emerge out of the general pragmatics of conversation, i.e. turn organization, paring of actions (Potter, 1996: 7).
DA, however, was originally developed as a tool of systematic study of classroom interaction. But Van Dijk (1985:1) claims that the origin of DA can be traced back to the study of language, public speech, and literature more than 2000 years ago. One major historical source is classical Rhetoric, the art of good speaking. It deals with the percepts for the planning, organization, specific operation and performance of public speech in political and legal settings.
2.5.2 Conversation Analysis and Ethnomethedology:
Garfinkle (1967:62) points out that ethnomethedology proposes the study of social order as it is constituted in and through the socially organized conduct of the societies members. One strategy of ethnomethedology is CA. it involves the study of ordinary practices by first mechanically recording some of their products by the use of audio or video equipment. These recordings are then transcribed in a way that limits the use of commonsense procedures to hearing what is being said and noting how has been said. The transcription is used to locate some orderly products. It is the analyst's task, then, to formulate a device which may be used to produce that product and phenomena (Sacks, 1984:58).
Tehrani and Yeganeh (1999:77) define ethnomethedology or ethnography of speaking as a descriptive science of language concerned not simply with language structure but with language use, with rules of speaking, the ways in which speakers associate particular modes of speaking topics, or message forms with particular setting and activities. Both CA and ethnomethedology are concerned with two levels of accountability. On the one hand, there is the taken-for-granted level of reasoning through which a running index of action and interaction is created and sustained. On the other, there is the level of overt explanation in which social actors give accounts of what they are doing in terms of reasons, motives or causes (Heritage, 1988:128).
Thus, conversation analysts and analysts working in the ethnomethedological tradition have paid close attention to conversation, how talk proceeds in turns, how one utterance relates to another, how topics are introduced, developed and changed, and so on. They share the concern of the very orderliness of talk. Their goal is to explain that order and those skills (Wardhaugh, 2002:296).
2.6 Structural Organization of conversation:
The structural accuracy of a TV talk show transcript is investigated by demonstrating the transcript's display of and adherence to five fundamental conversation structuring systems. Each system is defined and its rules of operation are summarized below.
2.6.1 Turn-Taking System:
The turn-taking system controls turn construction and next speaker selection to produce the characteristic A-B-A-B-A-B turn distributions found in naturally-occurring conversation with two participants (Levinson, 1983:296).
Conversation participants, rather than consciously applying turn-taking system rules structure conversation largely through unconscious adherence to turn-taking rules (Heritage, 1990:326). The turn-taking system and its rules operate on the sentence, clause, and noun phrase units composing utterances to regulate the timing and identity of the subsequent speaker (Sacks et al., 1974).
As the turn-taking system has been shown to operate in a variety of conversation setting (Larrue and Trognon, 1993:177), its rules of operation must be simple enough to be adjustable to the distinct requirements of diverse conversation environments. Additionally, the rules must be applicable regardless of the number of conversation participants, length of turns of speaking, order of speaking, and channel of speech (Levinson, 1983:297).
In the turn-taking system described by Sacks, et al. (1974: 689), speakers create turn from sentence, clause, and noun phrase units. Speakers signal and listeners recognize the end of the turn via intonation cues applied to these sentence, clause, and noun phrase units. Turn-taking is occasioned via the claiming of next turn rights by a speaker. If a speaker is selected within a turn, that speaker has, and should claim, next turn rights, if no speaker is selected, any speaker, including the current speaker, may claim next turn rights. Turn-taking continues through the successive signaling and recognition of end of turn units, and the claiming of next turn rights. The turn-taking system has two rules (Sacks, et al., 1974: 704).
Rule 1: For any turn, at the initial transition-relevance place (TRP) of an initial turn-constructional unit:
a) if the turn so far is so constructed as to involve the use of a 'current speaker selects next' technique, then the party so selected has the right and is obliged to take next turn to speak; no others have such rights or obligations and transfer occurs at that place.
b) If the turn so far is constructed as not to involve the use of a 'current speaker selects next' technique, then self-selection for next speakership may, but need not, be instituted; first starter acquires rights to a turn, and transfer occurs at that place.
c) If the turn so far is constructed as not to involve the use of a 'current speaker selects next' technique, then current speaker may, but need not, continue, unless another self selects.
Rule 2: If, at the initial transition relevance place of an initial turn construction unit, neither 1a nor 1b has operated, and following the provision of 1c, current speaker has continued, then the rule-set a-c re-applies at the next transition relevance place, until transfer is affected.
Rule 1a provides for turn taking at the first TRP of the first turn construction unit. Rule 2 occasions turn-taking at all subsequent TRPs.
A key feature of turn-taking that Sacks et al (1974) addressed is the precision timing of turn beginnings: whether a next speaker begins in overlap with a current speaker, starts up just at the end of a turn, or make strategic use of silence by allowing a gap to form between turns, the timing of turn initiation is an essential semiotic resource for human interaction ( Ford, 2004:27)
While the turn-taking system is a fundamental system organizing turn structure and allocation over many types of conversation, the turn-taking system may be suspended at certain times and in certain settings. For example when a speaker needs an extended turn at talk, the turn-taking system can be temporarily suspended (Drummond and Hopper, 1993:162). Moreover, when the fundamental turn-taking system cannot effectively structure and allocate turns, these functions are accomplished by setting-specific, supplementary turn-taking systems. Court meetings and news interviews are two examples of settings where meeting and broadcast interview specific turn-taking systems have been shown to operate (Larrue and Trognon, 1993: 185; Heritage and Roth, 1995: 49).
2.6.2 Adjacency Pair System:
As investigation in conversation turn sequences produced by the turn-taking system will reveal that turns are largely organized into exchange units. While different researchers ascribe to different characterizations of exchange structure (Goffman, 1971; Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975), this thesis analyzes exchanges as adjacency pairs (Sacks et al., 1974). Adjacency pairs seem suitable, since news interview broadcasts are organized into interviewer questions and interviewee responses (Heritage and Roth, 1995:51). The TV talk show displays features similar to news interviews and should also proceed largely through question-answer pairings.
Adjacency pairs are complementary pairings of utterances typically realized in greeting-greeting, question-answer and request compliance pairs (Levinson, 1983:303). As a "fundamental of conversation organization" (Coulthard, 1977:70), adjacency pairs are found in a wide range of interaction. They arise in part from the operation of the turn-taking system organizes turns into units that respond to previous turns and are conditional for next turns (Heritage and Roth, 1995:49). Adjacent A-B-A-B-A-B pairs are one way to organize the chain of turns produced by the turn-taking system.
Adjacency pairs have structural regularities. They are adjacent, produced by different speakers, ordered as first and second members, and typed into regular pairings (Schegloff and Sacks, 1973: 311). There are, however, exceptions to these regularities. As adjacency pair members may be separated by insertion sequences, it, should, nonetheless, be relevant to the completion of the main adjacency pair.
Methods for isolating adjacency pair theory are built on speech act theory. The result was reflected in the intentionalist labels (e.g. greeting-greeting, request-compliance) applied to adjacency pair members. Such intentionalist labels have since fallen out of fashion with CA analysts (Heritage, 1990:328). Instead, institutional roles and their ascribed behaviours, have allowed for a less-interpretive typing of utterances. Adjacency pairs cannot be delineated based on role and role-sanctioned behaviour criteria (Heritage and Roth, 1995: 52).
Adjacency pair formation begins with the production of a first member in accordance with one's role. For example, in broadcast news interviews, interviewers produce questions (Heritage and Roth, 1995: 55). The production of a first member creates the expectation for the production of a relevant second member by a different speaker. In news interviews, the second member will typically be in interviewee's response. While the question and response need not be adjacent, insertion sequences will be relevant to the completion of the adjacency pair. Yule (2000:77) points out that not all first parts immediately receive their second parts. It often happens that a question-answer sequence will be delayed while another question-answer sequence intervenes. Delay represents distance between what is expected and what is provided.
McCarthy (1991:22) defines adjacency pair as "pairs of utterances that are mutually dependent". The second utterance in a pair is usually predictable or automatic. According to Gago (2006:877) the adjacency pairs are thought as the fundamental unit of conversational organization, because they are responsible for the local organization of talk-in-interaction.
2.6.3 Preference Organization System:
Preference organization is a conversation structuring system wherein utterances can be classified into preferred and dispreferred categories on the basis of structural formal (Levinson, 1983:333). Structural differences among preferred and dispreferred utterances signal conversation participants about the content of immediate and future turns (Ahrens, 1997:83). These signals allow conversation participants to alter their contributions to conversation as necessary to handle the conversation in progress (Davidson, 1984:107).
Structural differences among utterances affect both the content of turns and the placement of material within turns, permitting classification into preferred and dispreferred categories. For example, when confronted with a conversant's opinion, conversation participants may, among other options, agree or disagree with the opinion. Agreeing turns characteristically have less content than disagreeing turns (Levinson, 1983:333). As for the placement of intra-turn material, agreeing actions occur at the beginning of turns and immediately follow previous turns. Disagreeing actions, on the other hand, occur late in the turn and are separated from previous turns by delays, prefaces, accounts, and declination components (Levinson, 1983; Pomerant 2, 1980). Schegloff (2000:1947) points out that disagreement with, or rejection of, another's talk are often not marked by 'no' et al. When 'no' is a part of such a turn, it is often not initial, but preceded by other things including silence to mark dispreferredness. Relatively less content and early placement of actions in turns immediately following previous turns are characteristics of preferred actions. More content, later-in-turn placement, and separation from previous turns by delays, prefaces, accounts, and declination components are characteristics of dispreferred actions. It is worth noting that the use of preferred and dispreferred labels has no connection to psychological preference, rather the distinction is related to the structural notion of markedness.
Preference organization, while operating over much of conversation, has been shown to be context sensitive (Pomerant , 1984: 2). For example, in conversation where agreement is expected, agreeing turns occur in preferred format, while disagreeing turns occur in dispreferred format. In contrast, where disagreement is expected, as during controversy, the formats are reversed. Disagreeing responses display the simpler, turn-proximal qualities of preferred turns, while agreeing responses display the delays, prefaces and accounts typical of disrpreferred turns (Kotthoff, 1993: 202). This is an important finding of CA. It is the ranking of the second pair part or a scale of most preferred to least preferred (Cashman, 2000:36).
Structural differences among preferred and dispreferred responses serve as signals of conversation where agreement is expected, for example, the placement of turn content immediately after preceding turn will signal agreement. In contrast, the placement of actions late in a turn, via the use of intervening delays, prefaces and accounts, will signal disagreement. These signals allow conversation participants to predict immediate and future turn content and to alter their future conversation contributions.
2.6.4 Pre-Sequence System:
Pre-sequences are conversation structures that invite collaboration in an upcoming turn sequence (Levinson, 1983:346). By inviting collaboration, the pre-sequence ensures that the following turns will proceed without face-threatening refusals and disagreements. Pre-sequences are thus invoked to minimize the occurrence of dispreferred actions (e.g. refusals and disagreements) and to maximize the occurrence of preferred actions in the upcoming turn sequence. It is, then a conversational procedure that is employed strategically by interactants (Schegloff, 1980).
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