Language in Interaction: Conversation Analysis

Language in Interaction: conversation analysis
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Language in Interaction: conversation analysis
Conversation refers to the informal exchange of information, ideas, and data between two or more individuals. It is a uniquely human endeavor and permeates into all facets of humanity from business to social gatherings. Thus considering the importance of conversation in human life, a study of the same is necessary. An evaluation into what drives discourse, how discourse can be efficiently structured what are the different types of conversation etc.CITATION Geo83 \p 27 \l 1033 (Yule & Brown, 1983, p. 27). The need for answers to these questions and more necessitates conversation analysis (CA). Conversation analysis is a branch of knowledge that deals with how humans interact in social contexts with regard to informal conversationsCITATION Geo83 \p 35 \l 1033 (Yule & Brown, 1983, p. 35). Conversation analysis differs from discourse analysis mainly due to the scope of the content covered. While conversation analysis limits itself to an examination of verbal and non-verbal conversation, discourse analysis concerns itself with all communicationCITATION Woo05 \p 57 \l 1033 (Wooffitt, 2005, p. 57).
Conversation analysis attempts to drive understanding towards the discourse that take place in a variety of human interactions e.g. patient-doctor conversation. CA conducts an inductive analysis into the conversation to understand the structures of the conversation with an aim to explain the inherent rules and patterns within the conversation. The study evaluates how turn-taking is conducted within a conversation i.e. bi-party and multi-party. CA then determines why certain models are followed in a conversation and provides potential solutions to creating better conversations. Conversation analysis investigates and determines the interactional underpinnings that shape conversation such as culture, context, environment, etcCITATION Rob08 \p 14 \l 1033 (Wooffitt & Hutchby, 2008, p. 14).
The two-party model, in turn, taking is relatively simple. Participants in the conversation restrain themselves to speaking in turns to maximize the efficiency of the conversation. In a typical conversation, a pause or completing a sentence is enough to indicate to another party that the other party can respond. The two-party model is referred to as an adjacency pair. Each utterance from either participant necessitates a response for the conversation to continueCITATION Geo83 \p 20 \l 1033 (Yule & Brown, 1983, p. 20). Failure to provide an answer that is relevant to the conversation at hand or simply desisting from participating violates conversational maxims. Conversational maxims are principles that are based on the cooperative principles as described by Paul Grice; conversation should be of the expected quality, quantity, relevant to the topic at hand and in the acceptable mannerCITATION Gri89 \p 374 \l 1033 (Grice, 1989, p. 374).
Multi-party conversation is complex due to the higher number of people involved. Thus, turn-taking takes on a difficulty that is unanticipated. There are a number of ways through which turn taking can be conducted. The simplest where the speaker or the recognized dr...