语用学Conversation Analysis.ppt
Chapter 6,Conversation Analysis,2,What is this chapter about?,Contextthe environment of conversation;Relevant ideas from speech acts theory;What happens in conversation:How is conversation organized?organization How does conversation mean?form Content-oriented mechanismscontent,3,6.1 Conversation and context,Co-text:immediate contextContext:the entirety of societally relevant circumstances that surround the production of language.,4,6.1 Conversation and context,traditional idea:the ideal(and correct)frame with two persons and two-utterance interchange.CA:open setting,but strict framework of co-text,5,6.2 From SA to conversation,What can we use the theory of Speech Acts for when it comes to conversation?As an“eye-opener”;About speech acts About conversation,6,About Conversation,Conversation is not only a human right;it is a human duty(Ruiz Mayo 1990);Conversation is the prototypical kind of language use(Levinson 1983:284)What is important in conversation is not the ideal of“correctness”(Nerlich and Clarke 2000 in press);Conversations may even have a well-defined aim.,7,6.3 What happens in conversation?,Definition of conversation:a way of using language socially,of doing things with words together with other persons.Two points of view:content&formal aspects,8,6.3.1 How is conversation organized?,The beginnings of CA;Turns and turn-taking;Previewing TRPs,9,6.3.1.1 The beginnings of CA,In late 50s and early 60s:non-linguists,conversation;Ethnomethodology:studies of the rules that conversation was found to obey;people rules:not so much correctness;traffic rules and repair mechanisms,10,Floor:the right to speak,Turn taking:in any situation where control is not fixed inadvance,anyone can attempt to get control.,Turn:having control of the floor,Local management system:a set of conventions for getting turns,keepingthem,or giving them away.,11,6.3.1.2 Turns and turn taking,Turn:a shift in the direction of the speaking flow which is characteristic of normal conversationTRP:Transition Relevance Places certain well-defined junctures in conversation when turns occurTurn taking mechanisms:several rules,12,Turn-taking mechanism-by actual/potential floor-holders,General rules of next-speaker selection:“current speaker selects next speaker”“a next speaker selects himself”natural breaks&unnatural breaks,13,Turn-taking mechanism-by non-floor-holders,Contribute to the traffic management;Back-channeling;Intervene in the conversation directly.,14,Back-channeling(反输),In Discourse Analysis,feedback givenwhile someone is speaking.,15,Transition Relevance PlaceTRP,Any possible change-of-turn point,Within any social group,there will be features of talk(or absence of talk)typically associated with TRP,16,6.3.1.3 Previewing TRPs,Predictability:ones ability to foresee whats going to happen around the next turn.Adjacency relationship:Imply the two parts not to be separated;Require a more or less instantaneous responseTurn signals,17,Conversational closers&starters,In telephone talk:Summarizing devices:pre-closings e.g.“OK”,“Well”Changes in intonation and/or speedIn conventional,standardized environment:e.g.“To sum this all up”In everyday conversations:e.g.“How are you?”(misunderstanding caused by intercultural differences),18,Conversational Style,High involvement Style,High consideratenessStyle,19,High involvement style:1.fast speaking rate;2.with almost no pausing between turns;3.with some overlap or even completion of the others turn,Expecting an active participation in a conversation,20,High considerateness style:1.slower rate;2.expecting longer pauses between turns;3.no overlap;4.avoid interruption or completion of the others turn.,Non-interrupting&Non-imposing,21,High involvement style,High considerateness style,Features of conversational style will often be interpreted as personality traits.,22,6.3.2 How does conversation mean?,The way conversational techniques are used to convey meaning;Including:Pre-sequences;Insertion sequences,smileys and repairs;Preference,23,6.3.2.1 Pre-sequences,precursors:e.g.attention gettersPre-sequences:Pre-announcements;pre-invitations;pre-threats;and numerous othersMost frequent:inquirersHalf-submerged,under the surface of the conversation,24,6.3.2.2 Insertion sequences,smileys and repairs,no gap,no overlap(Sacks,1995)Insertion:remedial exchange,25,Adjacency Pairs,Automatic patterns in the structure of conversation.Consist of a first part and a second part.,26,First Part Second Part,A:Hello.B:Hi.A:How are you?B:Fine.A:再见！B:明天见！A:How are things?B:The usual.A:Thanks.B:You are welcome.,A:Could you mail this letter for me?B:Does it have a stamp on it?A:Yeah.B:Okay.,Q1,Q2,A2,A1,Insertion sequence（插入序列）,Insertion sequence（插入序列）,An insertion sequence is one adjacency pair within another.,28,Delay1.one type of indication that not all first parts necessarily receive the kind of second parts the speaker might anticipate;2.in response symbolically marks potential unavailability of the immediate expected answer;3.represents distance between what is expected and what is provided;4.is always interpreted as meaningful.,29,What happens in a insertion sequence?,The normal flow of conversation is not stopped;Part of the course is shunted off in order to remove the obstacles;After that,the conversation continues as before.,30,Smileyvisual mitigating device:-),When lack of body communication:telephone conversations,email,other fast-developing types of electronic communicationSmileys:combinations of regular ASCII symbols and alphanumerical characters,standardized to express a certain feeling or attitude,31,Repair a motivation of insertion,Various damages to repair:misunderstanding,failure to observe normal sequencing,etc.Self-initiated repairs&Other-initiated repairsApplication of repairs:as strategic devices e.g.correcting oneself,etc,32,6.3.2.3 Preference,What is preference?The ranking of complexities of different second parts in an adjacency relationshipmarkednessA format of utterances,not a psychological state of the uttering individual,33,Hedge(模棱语),Weakeners,downtoners,detensifiers,understatementsIn speech and writing,linguistic devices that writers use either to indicate the writers lack of commitment to the truth of a statement or a desire not to express that commitment categorically,34,Preference Basically,a first part that contains arequest or an offer is typically made in the expectation that the second part will be an acceptance.An acceptance is structurally more likely than a refusal.The structural likelihood is called preference.,An observed pattern in talk and not a personal wish.,Preference structure,Preferred social acts,Dispreferred social acts,36,The characteristics of markedness:,A marked sequence is structurally richer and more complex than an unmarked one;Marked behaviors have to be announced,preferably before they happen;Marked behaviors are dispreferred.,How to do a dispreferred Examples delay/hesitate pause;er;em;arpreface well;ohexpress doubt Im not sure;I dont know token Yes thats great;Id love toapologyIm sorry;what a pity,38,f.mention obligationI must do X;Im expected in Yg.Appeal for understanding you see;you knowh.Make it non-personal everybody else;out therei.Give an account too much work;no time leftj.Use mitigators really;mostly;sort of;kindak.Hedge the negativeI guess not;not possible,39,Illustration of correlation by Levinson(1983),40,First Part Second Part,41,6.3.3 From form to content,Content-oriented mechanisms of conversation;Cohesion and coherence;Adjacency pairs and content;Types and coherence;Conversation and speech acts,42,6.3.3.1 Cohesion and coherence,Local cohesionEstablishes local relations between syntactic items;Help detect and manage textual coherence as well as guarantee;Limited in obeying the Coherence Rule by Tsui,43,Coherencewith rules of sequencing,Place unexpected answers in their proper sequence:in physical reality The rules are at best reconstructions of what actually happens in an environment of users building up the conversation.,44,6.3.3.2 Adjacency pairs and content,Characteristic of conversation:its adjacency in pair-wise structuresDefinition of adjacency pairs:two subsequent utterances constituting a conversational exchange,or turn,are characterized as to function and content by their type,45,Type&Pairs,first pair part and second pair parttype is useful when it comes to predicting what the answer could be,and how it is managedThe absence of a second pair part has certain conversational effects.,46,6.3.3.3 Types and Coherence,Ways to solve the problem of“unexpected second pair parts”:invoking the distinction between sequences and pre-sequences.Coherence Principle(by Tsui):“in order for an utterance to form a coherent sequence with the preceding utterance,it must either fulfill the illocutionary intention of the latter,or address its pragmatic presuppositions”(P154),47,6.3.3.4 Conversation&SA,How to determine the type of exchange pair:Establish the illocutionary intentionKnow the script for the particular interaction assess the contextual value,48,Context&Types,Which speech act one actually is looking at depends very much,if not exclusively,on context.During classifying conversational adjacency pairs in terms of illocutionary intention,what counts is how a speech act functions.pragmatic actPragmatic act:the units in question seem to be functionally defined by the actions they can be seen to perform in context(Levinson,1983),49,Thank you!,
