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NAME MATRIC NO

ADEBAYO MUIBAT AJOKE 140321008

YOUNG JESSICA OLUWATOBILOBA 140321177

SUNMOLA AYOMIDE MONSURAT 140321167

OYEDELE ADEWALE OLADIMEJI 140321151

OSHIFISAN DAMILOLA OLAYEMI 140321146

ADEGOKE ADEOLA AJOKE 140321180

AKINWUNMI JOSEPH OLUWATOBILOBA 140321039

KAYODE JEMESI CELESTINA 140321105

SHABI AYODEJI ADETOLA 140321160

ADU FERANMI ELIZABETH 140123007

BELLO BARAKAT 140123018

AKINDIPE EBUNOLUWA GIFT 140123009

IKEH VIVIAN-MARY 140321094

LAWAL MARIAM ADEOLA 140321112

ADETUNJI ADENIKE FOLAKE 140321022

JOSEPH ADENIKE OLUWASEUN 140321104

COURSE TITLE (CODE):

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS (ENG 403)

GROUP QUESTION:
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DISCUSS THE MAIN THRUST OF CONVERSATION ANALYSIS AND RELATE IT TO

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS.
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CONVERSATION ANALYSIS

Conversation analysis (CA) as an approach which can be employed in analyzing a discourse or discourse
text applies specifically to conversations. Some of its major proponents are Garfinkel, Harvey Sacks,
Emanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson. As reported by Schegloff 1992a, Sacks had been studying a corpus
of telephone calls made to the Log Angeles Suicide Prevention Center. One of the task of the center
agents is to obtain the caller’s name. To do this, the Agent introduces himself, and usually the caller will
reply with his/her name as well. On other occasions, some callers will retain the information, which
leaves the agent to conclude that the caller does not want to give up such information. This was where
Sacks’ puzzling lie, Schegloff says, Sacks had been curious about “where, in the course of the
conversation could you tell that somebody would not give their name’. With this puzzle in mind, Sacks
became interested in the following opening section from one of the calls, in which the caller (B) seemed
to be having trouble with the agent’s name.

A: this is Mr. Smith; may I help you

B: I can’t hear you

A: This is Mr. Smith

B: Smith

From (Sacks, 1992, vol. I: 3)

(You will notice that in A’s second turn, the word ‘Smith’ is underlined. This indicates that the speaker
has emphasized or stressed this word. In conversation analysis, transcripts try to capture not only what
was said, but also the way it was said (Wooffit, 2005).

Conversation analysis according to Hutchby and Wooffit (1998: 14), is the study of recorded, naturally
occurring talk-in-interaction . . . Principally it is to discover how participants understand and respond to
one another in their turns at talk, with a central focus being on how sequences of interaction are
generated. It seeks generalization about context, social conducts and social life, within the progression of
utterance themselves rather than arriving at participants' interpretation and intention through the help
of context like Interactional sociolinguistics would do.

Conversation analysis studies the methods participants orient to when they organize social action
through talk. It investigates rules and practices from an Interactional perspective and studies them by
examining recording of real life. Conversation simply studies talk during social interaction. It represents
an attempts to characterize pattern and structure of interaction. It deals with conversation only.

What are conversations?

Conversation may be taken to be that familiar predominant kind of talk in which two or more
participants freely alternate in speaking, which generally occurs outside specific institutional settings like
religious services, law courts, classrooms and the like (Levinson, 1983, p. 284). Conversations are
unplanned, spontaneous talks between two or more people in an ordinary human interaction or
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settings. It is spontaneous day-to-day talk between participants in social interaction. A conversation is an

impromptu, spontaneous, everyday exchange of talk between two or more people. Therefore, planned
speeches are not the type of verbal acts that conversation analysis deals with. The purpose of
Conversation Analysis is to identify the devices, systems, methods and procedures individual uses to
cultivate a shared understanding with one another. In other words, it discovers how participants
understand and respond to one another in their form of talk, with a central focus on how sequences of
actions are generated. It also by way of transcripts try to capture not only what was said, but also the
way it was said.

As in all research, conversational analysis begins by setting up a researcher’s problem. The data collected
for CA is usually in video or audio format. As said earlier, Conversation analysis is selective the kind of
data it operates upon. If a researcher chooses Conversation analysis as his theoretical framework for a
written literature, he will be short-changing himself, as all the tenants peculiar and distinctive to CA will
not be applicable, and the research will neither take the shape of conversation analysis nor any other
research.

The data is collected with or without the subjects’ involvement, often simply by adding a video camera
or an audio recording device to the room where the conversation takes place (e.g. medical doctors
consultation with a patient, an interview, telephone conversation or simple informal conversation among
friends). From the audio or video recording the researchers construct a detailed transcription (ideally
with no details left out). After transcription, the researchers perform inductive data-driven analysis
aiming to find recurring patterns of interaction. Based on the analysis, the researchers develop a rule or
model to explain the occurrence of the patterns.

Conversation analysis like other theories and approaches has concepts that distinguishes it from all other
theories and approaches. Elements are researcher should be on the looked out for in analyzing a
discourse text with CA. Some of the most important elements are discussed below.

TURN TAKING

This implies that the participants take turns to speak. A turn can be a single word, a phrase, a clause or a
full sentence. In fact, it could be lesser than a word. The recognizable acts of a turn are called "Transition
Relevance Place". This refers to the methods individual within a conversation develops to make turning.
The end of syntactic structure, intonation pattern, context, gaze direction, momentary silence, a change
in the pitch or volume of the voice, or some sets of body motion enables one to know his/her turn.

At a Transition Relevance Place (TRP) which is a place in the conversation where the current speaker
shifts, a set of rules apply in quick succession so that turns are allocated instantly:

1. Current speaker selects next speaker: This can be done by the use of addressing terms (e.g. names),
initiating action with eye contact, initiating action that limits the potential eligible respondents and the
availability of environmental cues (e.g. requesting the passing of salt in a situation where only a
particular person is sitting close to the salt).
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2. Next speaker self-selects: When there is no apparent addressee and potential respondents, one might
self-select to continue the conversation. This can be done by overlapping, using turn-entry devices such
as "well" or "you know"; and recycled turn beginning, which is a practice that involves repeating the part
of a turn beginning that gets absorbed in an overlap.

3. Current speaker continues: If no one takes up the conversation, the original speaker may again speak
to provide further information to aid the continuation of the conversation. This can be done by adding
an increment, which is a grammatically fitted continuation of an already completed turn construction
unit (TCU). Alternatively, the speaker can choose to start a new TCU, usually to offer clarification or to
start a new topic.

The turn constructional component describes basic units out of which turns are fashioned. These basic
units are known as Turn construction unit or TCUs. Unit types include:

Lexical: E.g. “Yes”, “No”

Phrasal: E.g. “at the bank”

Clausal: E.g. “I’ll be back”

Sentential E.g. “I’m still struggling with my proposal”

ADJACENCY PAIRS

This refers to two turns which are usually consecutive and uttered by different speakers. A question
followed by answer is an example of adjacency pairs. E.g

SPEAKER A: What is your name?

SPEAKER B: Kaniel, Kaniel Outis.

These pairs correspond to specific order. For example, a question is intended to initiate a corresponding
answer. The first pair part of an adjacency pairs can be used by a current speaker to select the next
speaker. They are always in the other of first part and second part in a way that the first automatically
requires a second part that is conditionally relevant to the first. Adjacency pairs could be sometimes
being suspended or delayed by repair as illustrated below

Wale: Would you like to join my band?

Ayo: What do you do?
Wale: we create and perform mash-ups
Ayo: No, thanks.

In this conversation, the first pair part also begins with a question but it was not immediately followed by
an answer to the question. Instead, Ayo asks for clarification (in technical terms request for clarification).
Wale then had to give further information, it is not until Ayo gives an answer to the initial question asked
by Wale in the first pair part that we can say we have an adjacency pair.
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REPAIR

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 organization 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 and preferring 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).

SEQUENCE EXPANSION

Sequence expansion allows talk which is made up of more than a single adjacency pair to be constructed
and understood as performing the same basic action and the various additional elements are as doing
interactional work related to the basic action underway. Sequence expansion is constructed in relation to
a base sequence of a first pair part (FPP) and a second pair part (SPP) in which the core action underway
is achieved. It can occur prior to the base FPP, between the base FPP and SPP, and following the base
SPP.

It is made up of the Pre-expansion, Insert expansion, Post-expansion, silence (which could be a lapse,
gap or pause).

1. Pre-expansion: An adjacency pair that may be understood as preliminary to the main course of action.
A generic pre-expansion is a summon- answer adjacency pair, as in "Mary?"/ "Yes?”. It is generic in the
sense that it does not contribute to any particular types of base adjacency pair, such as request or
suggestion. There are other types of pre-sequence that work to prepare the interlocutors for the
subsequent speech 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.

2. Insert expansion: An adjacency pair that comes between the FPP and SPP of the base adjacency pair.
Insert expansions interrupt the activity under way, but are still relevant to that action. Insert expansion
allows a possibility for a second speaker, the speaker who must produce the SPP, to do interactional work
relevant to the projected SPP. An example of this would be a typical conversation between a customer
and a shopkeeper:

Customer: I would like a turkey sandwich, please. (FPP base)

Server: White or wholegrain? (Insert FPP)

Customer: Wholegrain. (Insert SPP)

Server: Okay. (SPP base)

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3. Post-expansion: A turn or an adjacency pair that comes after, but is still tied to, the base adjacency
pair. There are two types: minimal and non-minimal. Minimal expansion is also termed Sequence Closing
Thirds, because it is a single turn after the base SPP (hence third) that does not project any further talk
beyond their turn (hence closing). Examples of SCT include "oh", "I see", "okay", etc.

4. Silence: Silence can occur throughout the entire speech act but in what context it is happening
depends what the silence means. Three different assets can be implied through silence:

 Gap: when the speaker stops talking without selecting the next speaker so there is a silence until
a new participant self selects

 Lapse: when the current speaker stops talking, does not select a next speaker, and no one self-
selects creating the conversation to end even if for just a moment.

 Pause: the speaker selects the next person, but that person is silent creating a pause or silence
that "belongs" to them.

CALL- RESPONSE FEEDBACK

It is a form of interaction between a speaker and the listeners in which every utterance receives verbal or
non-verbal response. A call and response feedback is identified by a statement followed by a quick
response from the audience or listener(s). Research in CA, then, focuses on detailed description and
analysis of structured interactional practices unencumbered by any formal account of the identity of the
participants, speculation about their intentions or goals, or a characterization of the context of the
interaction (Robin Wooffitt 2005).

AREAS OF CONVERGENCE BETWEEN CONVERSATION ANALYSIS AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Conversation analysis and discourse analysis are truly radical developments, because they examine
discourse as a topic in its own right, and not as a reflection of wider structural conditions. So, for
example, Sacks et al did not examine the turn-taking system for ordinary interaction to allow them to
draw conclusions about wider social inequalities and neither did Gilbert and Mulkay analyze scientists’
accounts to make broader claims about the relative differences in research culture between laboratories
in the UK and the US. Their prime concern was with language in use: the systematic ways it was being
used, and what it was being used to do.7 According to Antaki (2009) we can say that Conversation
analysis abides by the four generic Discourse analysis criteria of looking for natural data, setting it in its
co-text, watching for its non-literal meaning, and identifying the social actions performed.

In keeping with their explicit focus on language, conversation and discourse analysis are attentive to the
properties of how language is actually used. Research questions derive from observations on features
plainly exhibited by the data. For example, Sacks and his colleagues’ careful transcription of talk-in
interaction revealed that there were few gaps between turns; moreover, they noted that although
periods of overlapping speech were common, these were relatively short-lived. These simple
observations informed their empirical research. They argued that any adequate analysis of the methods
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for turn-taking had to be able to account for these properties of talk-in-interaction. Similarly, Gilbert and
Mulkay realized that in their interview data, scientists were producing variable accounts. Instead of
trying to expunge this variability from their data in order to produce a single, coherent sociological
narrative, they began to examine the organization of these varied accounting practices to identify the
functions they performed. In both cases empirical research questions were thus generated from an
open-minded assessment of the data. In this sense, neither Sacks and his colleagues nor Gilbert and
Mulkay approached their data with pre-established research questions in mind. Indeed, it has become a
distinctive (and controversial) feature of conversation analysis (and, to a lesser degree, discourse
analysis) that premature theorizing is actively resisted.8

REFERENCE

Akhimien, P.E. & Farotimi, Y.(2018) "A Study of the Conversational features and Discourse
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strategies in select Sermons of Pastor E. A. Adeboye" in American journal of linguistics. Vol-6(1)

Scientific & Academic publishing 1-8.

Antaki, C. (2009). Discourse and Rhetoric Group In: Pertti Alasuutari, Len Bickman, & Julia
Brannen (eds) Handbook of Social l Research Methods. London: Sage (2009).

Hutchby, I. & Wooffitt, R. (1988). Conversation Analysis. Polity Press.

Mazeland, H. (2006). Conversation Analysis. Groningen: University of Groningen.

Schegloff, E.A. et al. (1977). The Preference for Self-Correction in the Organization of Repair in

Conversation.

Wooffitt, R. (2005). Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis: A Comparative and Critical
Introduction.
London: SAGE Publications Ltd