CONVERSATIONAL ANALYSIS

Question 1

ISSUES IN COLLECTING DATA

Answer 1

ethical (permission, confidentiality, ethical approval);

practical (observer’s paradox, recording quality, type of recording, transcription convention)

Question 2

CONVERSATIONAL FEATURES

Answer 2

sequencing and turn-taking; topic management; non-verbal, prosodic and paralinguistic cues

Question 3

SEQUENCING AND TURN TAKING

Answer 3

openings: how to create a transition relevance place, attention getter, conventional greeting exchanges to be followed up on topic control through opening;
closings: how to avoid a transition relevance place, pre-closing discourse markers with falling intonation+vowel lengthening, terminal exchanges as adjacency pairs;
adjacency pairs: two utterances produced by two speakers, one utterance following the other directly, conventional sequence (question-answer);
overlaps: occur mostly at transition relevance places
interruptions: occur outside transition relevance places and signal participants’ disaffiliation and competing trajectories
latching: one turn follows immediately from the other

Question 4

TOPIC MANAGEMENT

Answer 4

announcement/elicitation: introducing topics through announcement or elicitation, for both one’s own or other’s topics
repair: replacing, confirming or adding on to a unit of information earlier in the conversation to guarantee comprehension

Question 5

NON-VERBAL, PROSODIC AND PARALINGUISTIC CUES

Answer 5

additional signs for openings/closings, turn taking/disagreement
gesture
pitch, stress, volume
coughing, laughing