Conversation analysis

The actions that make up conversations are implemented through turns at talk, and turn-taking is therefore a fundamental feature of conversational organization. The analysis of how turn-taking works focuses on two major issues: i) what are the primary units of turns; and ii) how are these units allocated between speakers. The fundamental analysis of turn-taking was described in a paper widely known as the "Simplest Systematics" (Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson 1974).[4]

1) Sacks et al. identify turn constructional units (TCUs) as the fundamental building blocks of turns. TCUs can be sentences, clauses, phrases or single words that can be recognized as units in their own right depending on context. A crucial feature of TCUs is that they are projectable: that is, a hearer can recognize what it will take for a unit to be complete. It is this projectability that enables the split-second timing that is characteristic of ordinary human turn-taking. The completion point of a current TCU is a turn-transition place (or TRP).

2) In the Sacks et al model, the allocation of units between speakers is implemented through a hierarchically organized set of rules. At any given TRP:

i) If the current speaker selects a next one to speak at the end of current TCU (by name, gaze or contextual aspects of what is said), the selected speaker has the right and obligation to speak next. ii) If the current speaker does not select a next speaker, other potential speakers have the right to self-select (the first starter gets the turn), and iii) if options i and ii have not been implemented, current speaker may continue with another TCU. At the end of that TCU, the option system applies again.

The turn-taking model sketched here is designed to accommodate a wide range of turn-taking possibilities, varying numbers of conversational participants, and circumstances in which the length of turns, and of conversations, and of their topics is not in any way pre-specified in advance. The system is implemented by the parties to the conversation without external regulation (party administered), and on a local unit-by-unit basis. Designed to account for the fact that much conversation takes place without much silence or 'dead time' but also without significant amounts of overlapping talk, the described system has multiple consequences.

1) It defines silences:

• Pause: A period of silence within a speaker's TCU.
• Gap: A period of silence between turns.

• Lapse: A period of silence when no sequence is in progress: the current speaker stops talking, does not select a next speaker, and no one self selects. Lapses are commonly associated with visual or other forms of disengagement between speakers, even if these periods are brief.

2) It provides that speakers wanting a long turn, for example to tell a story or describe important news, must use some form of preface to get a go-ahead that provides that others will refrain from intervening during the course of the telling (the preface and its associated go-ahead comprise a "pre-sequence" (Sacks 1974; Schegloff 2007)).

3) It provides that conversations cannot be appropriately terminated by 'just stopping', but require a special closing sequence (Schegloff and Sacks 1973).

4) It provides that certain types of gaps (following the 'current selects next' option) are accountable.

5) It provides that special resources be deployed in the case of overlapping talk (Schegloff 2000; Jefferson 2004b).

The model also leaves puzzles to be solved, for example concerning how TCU boundaries are identified and projected, and the role played by gaze and body orientation in the management of turn-taking. It also establishes the relevance of problems for other disciplines: for example, the split second timing of turn-transition sets up a cognitive 'bottle neck' problem in which potential speakers must attend to incoming speech while also preparing their own contribution - something which imposes a heavy load of human processing capacity, and which may impact the structure of languages [Refs].

The turn-taking model described by Sacks et al was a landmark in the language sciences, and indeed it is the most cited paper ever published in the journal Language (Joseph 2003). However it is designed to model turn-taking only in ordinary conversation, and not interaction in more specialized, institutional environments such as meetings, courts, news interviews, mediation hearings. All the these latter, and many more, have distinctive turn-taking organizations that depart in various ways from the Sacks et al model. Nonetheless it is fundamental that we cannot perform social actions of any kind without getting a turn at talk, and hence that turn-taking provides an omnipresent background that shapes the performance of action regardless of the particular turn-taking system in play.

Sequence Organization

Talk tends to occur in responsive pairs; however, the pairs may be split over a sequence of turns. Adjacency pairs divide utterance types into 'first pair parts' and 'second pair parts' to form a 'pair type'. There are lots of examples of adjacency pairs including Questions-Answers, Offer-Acceptance/Refusal and Compliment-Response. (Schegloff & Sacks:1973) [5]

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.
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.[6] 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)

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:

• Pause: A period of silence within a speaker's turn.
• Gap: A period of silence between turns.
• Lapse: A period of silence when no sequence is in progress: the current speaker stops talking, does not select a next speaker, and no one self selects. Lapses are commonly associated with visual or other forms of disengagement between speakers, even if these periods are brief.

CA may reveal structural (i.e. practice-underwritten) preferences in conversation for some types of actions (within sequences of action) over others. 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). The former is termed an unmarked turn shape, meaning the turn is not preceded by silence nor is it produced with delays, mitigation and accounts. The latter is termed marked turn shape, which describes a turn with opposite characteristics. 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).

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).

This focuses on the description of the practices by which turns at talk are composed and positioned so as to realize one or another actions.