Conversation: “Conversation [is the] most basic and widespread linguistic means of conducting human
affairs. Because of the pervasive, everyday nature of conversing, its scientific study has proved
particularly complex. It has been difficult to obtain acoustically clear, natural samples of spontaneous
conversation, especially of its more informal varieties."
(David Crystal in The Oxford Companion to the English Language, ed. by Tom McArthur. Oxford Univ.
Press, 1992)
Conversational Analysis (CA): "CA is the study of recorded, naturally occurring talk-in-interaction. But
what is the aim of studying these interactions? Principally, it is to discover how participants understand
and respond to one another in their turns at talk, with a central focus on how sequences of action are
generated." (Ian Hutchby and Robin Wooffitt, Conversation Analysis. Polity, 2008)
Conversational Grounding: the interactive process by which speakers and listeners work together to
ensure that messages are understood as intended. "In conversation, each participant's messages build
on previously established common ground. New contributions are presented and then 'grounded' through
an acceptance phase. In some cases, contributions may be grounded immediately by an
acknowledgment ('uh huh,' 'okay'). In other cases, sequences of questions, repairs, clarifications, and the
like may be required before grounding is established (Jefferson, 1972; Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson,
1974). The term grounding refers to the interactive process by which communicators exchange evidence
about what they do or do not understand over the course of a conversation, as they accrue common
ground (Clark & Brennan, 1991)."
Turn-taking: The manner in which orderly conversation normally takes place. The underlying principles
of turn-taking were first described by sociologists Harvey Sacks, Emanuel A. Schegloff, and Gail
Jefferson in "A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation," in the journal
Language, December 1974. "Once a topic is chosen and a conversation initiated, then matters of
conversational 'turn-taking' arise. Knowing when it is acceptable or obligatory to take a turn in
conversation is essential to the cooperative development of discourse. This knowledge involves such
factors as knowing how to recognize appropriate turn-exchange points and knowing how long the pauses
between turns should be. It is also important to know how (and if) one may talk while someone else is
talking--that is, if conversational overlap is allowed. Since not all conversations follow all the rules for turntaking, it is also necessary to know how to 'repair' a conversation that has been thrown off course by
undesired overlap or a misunderstood comment. "Cultural differences in matters of turn-taking can lead to
conversational breakdown, misinterpretation of intentions, and interpersonal intergroup conflict."
(Walt Wolfram and Natalie Schilling-Estes, American English: Dialects and Variation. Wiley-Blackwell,
2006)
Turn constructional component: The turn constructional component describes basic units out of which
turns are fashioned. These basic units are known as turn constructional units or TCUs. Unit types
include: lexical, clausal, phrasal, and sentential.
Turn allocational component. The turn allocational component describes how participants organize
their interaction by distributing turns to speakers.
Taking/holding the floor. The speaker is the person who holds the floor. Turn-taking results in changes
in who “holds the floor.” Interruptions leading to a change in speaker can be “floor taking” moves.
Transition relevant place. A natural break in one speaker’s utterance that signals giving up the floor to another
speaker or a place in conversation at which a change of speaker is relevant (for example, one person asks another
person a question).
Overlap: Two utterances occur simultaneously in part or in whole.
Interruption: When one speaker’s overlap results in a change of speakers. Inadvertent interruptions
may occur when one speaker overlaps another causing a floor shift unintentionally. Violative
interruptions occur when one speaker overlaps another with the intention of taking the floor.
Sequence organization: This focuses on how actions are ordered in conversation.
Discourse Marker. A particle (such as oh, well, now, and you know) that is used in conversation to make
discourse more coherent but that generally adds little to the paraphrasable meaning of an utterance. In
most cases, discourse markers are syntactically independent: that is, removing a marker from a sentence
Glossary of terms related to conversation
still leaves the sentence structure intact. Discourse markers are more common in informal speech than in
most forms of writing. "Although somewhat dated, [this list of functions based on Laurel J. Brinton
(1990:47f)] is still relevant to current studies of discourse markers. According to this list, discourse
markers are used:
- to initiate discourse,
- to mark a boundary in discourse (shift/partial shift in topic),
- to preface a response or a reaction,
- to serve as a filler or delaying tactic,
- to aid the speaker in holding the floor,
- to effect an interaction or sharing between speaker and hearer,
- to mark either foregrounded or backgrounded information."
(Simone Müller, Discourse Markers in Native and Non-Native English Discourse. John Benjamins, 2005)
Echo utterance: Speech that repeats, in whole or in part, what has just been said by another speaker:
Back channel: A noise, gesture, expression, or word used by a listener to indicate that he or she is
paying attention to a speaker.
Intensifier: A word that emphasizes another word or phrase. Intensifying adjectives modify nouns;
intensifying adverbs commonly modify verbs, gradable adjectives, and other adverbs.
Downtoner: A degree adverb (such as slightly, somewhat, less, rather, quite, almost, nearly, and kind of)
that decreases the effect of a modified item.
Hedge (hedging): A word or phrase that makes statements less forceful or assertive. Contrast with
boosting and intensifier.
Booster (boosting): An adverbial construction used to support a claim or express a viewpoint more
assertively and convincingly.
Feedback: the response of an audience to a message or activity. Feedback can be conveyed both
verbally and nonverbally.
Adjacency pairs: Talk tends to occur in responsive pairs; however, the pairs may be split over a
sequence of turns.
Summons--answer
Can I get some help here?
On my way.
Offer--refusal
Sales clerk: May I help you find something?
Customer: No thank you, I'm just looking.
Compliment--acceptance
Your hair looks very lovely today.
Thank you. I just had it cut.
(William O'Grady, et al. Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction. Bedford, 2001)
Pre-sequences. A pair of turns may be understood as preliminary to the main course of action. For
example, "Guess what!"/"What?" as preliminary to an announcement of some sort, or "What are you
doing?"/"Nothing" as preliminary to an invitation or a request.
Preference organization. CA may reveal structural (i.e. practice-underwritten) preferences in
conversation for some types of actions (within sequences of action) over other actions. For example,
responsive actions which agree with, or accept, positions taken by a first action tend to be performed
more straightforwardly and faster than actions that disagree with, or decline, those positions (Pomerantz
1984; Davidson 1984). One consequence of this is that agreement and acceptance are promoted over
their alternatives, and are more likely to be the outcome of the sequence. Pre-sequences are also a
component of preference organization and contribute to this outcome (Schegloff 2007).
Glossary of terms related to conversation
Repair. The process by which a speaker recognizes a speech error and repeats what has been said with
some sort of correction. A linguistic repair may be marked by a hesitation and an editing term (such as, "I
mean") and is generally considered a type of dysfluency. Repair organization describes how parties in
conversation deal with problems in speaking, hearing, or understanding. Repair segments are classified
by who initiates repair (self or other), by who resolves the problem (self or other), and by how it unfolds
within a turn or a sequence of turns. The organisation of repair is also a self-righting mechanism in social
interaction (Schegloff, Jefferson, and Sacks 1977). Participants in conversation seek to correct the trouble
source by initiating self repair and a preference for self repair, the speaker of the trouble source, over
other repair (Schegloff, Jefferson, and Sacks 1977). Self repair initiations can be placed in three locations
in relation to the trouble source, in a first turn, a transition space or in a third turn (Schegloff, Jefferson,
and Sacks 1977). Self initiators of repair in the same turn use different non-lexical speech perturbations,
including: cut-offs, sound stretches and "uh's" (Schegloff, Jefferson, and Sacks 1977). "[T]here are four
varieties of repair sequences:
Self-initiated self-repair: Repair is both initiated and carried out by the speaker of the trouble
source.
Other-initiated self-repair: Repair is carried out by speaker of the trouble source but initiated by the
recipient.
Self-initiated other-repair: The speaker of a trouble source may try and get the recipient to repair
the trouble--for instance if a name is proving troublesome to remember.
Other-initiated other-repair: The recipient of a trouble source turn both initiates and carries out the
repair. This is closes to what is conventionally called 'correction.'"
(Ian Hutchby and Robin Wooffitt, Conversation Analysis. Polity, 2008)
Noise: anything that interferes in the communication process between a speaker and an audience. Noise
can be external or internal, and it can disrupt the communication process at any point. There are four
kinds of noise. Physiological noise is distraction caused by hunger, fatigue, headaches, medication, and
other factors that affect how we feel and think. Physical noise is interference in our environments, such as
noises made by others, overly dim or bright lights, spam and pop-up ads, extreme temperatures, and
crowded conditions. Psychological noise refers to qualities in us that affect how we communicate and
interpret others. For instance, if you are preoccupied with a problem, you may be inattentive at a team
meeting. Likewise, prejudice and defensive feelings can interfere with communication. . . . Finally,
semantic noise exists when words themselves are not mutually understood. Authors sometimes create
semantic noise by using jargon or unnecessarily technical language."
(Julia T. Wood, Interpersonal Communication: Everyday Encounters, 6th ed. Wadsworth 2010)
Glossary of terms related to conversation