The Structure of Conversation

Natural conversation has a definite structure that the participants within the conversation follow, usually without realising it. Firstly, conversation follows 2 general functions as defined by Brown and Yule (1983) Interactional function - used when speakers are socialising Transactional function - used when the participants are exchanging services, buying, going to the doctor etc. There are 3 main features of conversation structure that are to be looked at: Openings of conversation Closings of conversation Turn-taking within a conversation Openings of conversation Adjacency pairs - these can come in different forms, such as greetings: 'hello, how are you?' 'I'm fine thanks, how are you?' or questions and answer sequences: 'have you got the time?' 'yes it's 10 O'clock' They set up the expectations of the conversation. Closings - William Downes (1988) said that for a conversation to end naturally, all of the participants must be in agreeance that the conversation has ended and there must be build up to it, such as the finishing of telling a story. Turn-taking - Sacks, Schlegoff & Jefferson (1979) said turn-taking is determined within the conversation by transition relevance points; i.e. points in the conversation where the current speaker is willing to give up the turn. These transition relevance points are found by looking at:

change in pitch change in intonation a momentary silence the end of a syntactic unit of language paralinguistic features
They also said there are 3 techniques for turn determination: 1. 'current speaker selects next' - 1st part of the adjacency pair that is directed at another speaker 2. 'self-select' - any participant looks for the transition relevance points then starts speaking at the next available one
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3. 'speaker continuation' - the current speaker decides to carry on with their turn

Politeness within Conversation One feature of natural, unscripted language is the desire to be seen as being polite. One of the politeness conventions is face theory. Politeness is important because it shows that the participants have respect for the person they're talking to, whether it is in a formal or informal setting. As face theory proved, there is an inherent desire within a conversational setting to be seen as being polite.

Brown and Levinson (1987) describe a phenomenon called positive and negative politeness in conversation.

Positive politeness is where you claim common ground with other speakers and convey your assumption that all participants wish to be cooperative. Some strategies are:

pay attention to the other speaker(s), show interest, sympathy, approval etc.)

seek agreement (choose safe topics) avoid disagreement (pretend to agree, use white lies, hedge your own
opinions)

presuppose or assert common ground make jokes assume or assert agreement between each other
Negative Politeness means you are indirect, don't presume or assume anything, don't force your point or impinge on the other person. Some strategies for this are:

be indirect question and hedge be pessimistic give deference be apologetic go on record as being indebted etc.

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Grice's 'Co-operative Principle The linguist and philosopher H. P Grice (1975) saw co-operation between the participants of a conversation, as the fundamental principle underlying conversation. He said that conversations proceed on the assumption that those taking part have common goals and agreed ways of achieving those goals. This is what he called the co-operative principle He proposed 4 maxims (rules or principles) which he says people typically follow for a successful conversation: 1) The maxim of quantity - when you make a contribution to a conversation, say neither more nor less than you actually need to. For example, if you ask a stranger for directions to the nearest post-office and they say 'it's not far', they're not telling you enough. However, if they tell you the name of every shop you will pass on the way, they are telling you too much. 2) The maxim of relevance - what you say needs to be relevant to the current topic and context of the on-going conversation. If a participant keeps returning to a topic that has been finished with, for example, this will disrupt the conversation. 3) The maxim of manner - this is where pragmatics can come into the equation. The maxim of manner states you should avoid ambiguity and obscurity; you also need to be clear and coherent 4) The maxim of quality - this states you should be truthful, have enough evidence to back up what you are saying, and not say anything that you suspect to be false. When these maxims are not followed in conversation, we say they are flouted. This can lead to conversational difficulties and breakdown, but it can be done deliberately. If the listener(s) understand that this is being done, they will use their pragmatic knowledge to interpret why, by looking for a way to match an utterance which appears to break the maxims to the cooperative principle.. For example, if go back to the analogy of the post office and the stranger. If the stranger who was asked the way to the post office replied 'It's Sunday today', this may seem on the face of it not to be very co-operative (it seems to break the maxim of relevance). However, if the hearer believes that the speaker is
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trying to be cooperative they can derive a meaning that goes beyond the actual meaning of the words, that is an implicature. In this case it is likely to imply that because it is Sunday the post office will be shut, so that it would be uncooperative to give the directions asked for. Labov's Narrative Structure theory A famous linguist called William Labov (1972) developed his theory of narrative structure during a study of oral story telling in New York in the 1970s. He focused on the structure of story-telling and decided there were 6, necessary functions to it:

ABSTRACT ORIENTATION COMPLICATING ACTION RESOLUTION CODA EVALUATION

What is the story about? What? Who took part? Where and when did it happen? Then what happened? What was the final outcome? The story is over and I'm returning to the present. What is the point of the story? Why have you been telling me this? This feature can occur throughout the narrative, not only at the end.

Labov also asserts that oral narratives are usually told in the same order in which the events happened (chronologically) so it is probable that speakers will use a high proportion of co-ordinating conjunctions, such as 'and', 'then', 'so', etc. Other characteristics of oral narrative include:

Tense

Storytellers are most likely to use the simple past tense. However, there is a tendency to move into the present tense at the most crucial part of the story to create a sense of immediacy and involvement with the story e.g. 'so he drove all the way to see her and then she says story-tellers tend to use singular and plural forms that denote nearness rather than remoteness from themselves as grammatical determiners e.g. 'there was this woman' (not 'there was that woman')

Demonstratives

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'so these monkeys' (not 'so those monkeys')

Hyperbole

hyperbole, or exaggeration for effect is common in natural speech e.g. 'it was so awful'; 'horrifying story' etc. The Problem-Solution Pattern

A linguist called Michael Hoey developed the 'problem-solution pattern' which works along the same lines as Labov's narrative structure theory. This, however, is more general and can be applied to both spoken and written language. Hoey identified 4 aspects of narrative:

SITUATION PROBLEM SOLUTION EVALUATION

What was the situation of the event? (i.e. where did it take place and why?) What was the problem faced by the participants? What was the solution or the response? How successful was the solution?

You can apply this theory to magazine stories for example, as they follow a strict structure, especially for articles such as 'five-minute fiction' in 'More!', or the 'true-life' stories in magazines such as 'Cosmopolitan'.

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Lakoff's Politeness Theory

Robin Lakoff in 1973 said that the majority of conversation is governed by what she called the politeness principle. Similar to Grice (but before him) she claimed there are 3 maxims or rules that speakers follow in conversation to maintain politeness:

Don't impose - this is similar to the theory of negative politeness - trying not to impose on people or disrupting them in any way. It can be seen through such expressions as: I'm sorry to bother you Could you possibly? I know it's asking a lot

Give options - quite typical of female interaction, it's avoiding forcing the other participant into a corner with the use of such expressions as: It's up to you I won't be offended if you don't want to Do you want to go first? I don't mind if you don't want to

Make the receiver feel good - We say things that flatter the other participant and make them feel good, rather in the same way we pander to positive face. This an be seen through the use of such expressions as: What would I have done without you? I'd really appreciate your advice on this I owe you one for this.

As you can see, this theory is similar to all of the other theories that we have previously looked at (face, positive & negative politeness, Grice's maxims). This is a recurrent aspect of language studies; linguists take an initial idea and develop in their own way. You must be aware that there are similarities and differences between them and know who argued for which theory. Question With reference to the appropriate theories, and examples, explain some of the ways in which the participants of a conversation show politeness.
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