The analysis of conversation

Abstract

G reetings and leave-takings are aspects of conversation that we may never think about because they are such an integral part of our everyday lives, yet they can be quite complex. In this chapter we will look at some of the complexity inherent in greetings and leave-takings, and examine some cultural variation. Humour and laughter are widely used to establish and maintain rapport, yet these are also aspects of communication which are often not contemplated. Some of the similarities and differences between cultures in the way they incorporate humour and laughter will be discussed in this chapter. We will begin by examining some of the features of turn-taking in conversation, drawing on the field of research known as Conversational Analysis and provide some examples of how turn-taking can be managed by speakers from different cultures. TURN-TAKING IN CONVERSATION Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson (1974), in their seminal work on turn-taking, observed the following three key features in the organisation of turn-taking in conversation: one party talks at a time transitions are finely coordinated for speaker change utterances are constructed in such a way as to show coordination of turn transfer and speakership. Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson identified adjacency pairs as a key feature of conversation. They pointed out that most conversation is composed of pairs of utterances, with the prototypical example being a question–answer sequence. There is a sense in which the question ‘requires’ the answer as the second part of the adjacency pair.