Conversational Conventions and Strategies

Question 1

Features of spoken discourse (IDOONA)

Answer 1

• Interrogative tags
• Discourse particles
• Openings and closings
• Overlapping speech
• Non-fluency features (pauses, filled pauses/voiced hesitations, false starts, repetitions, repairs)
• Adjacency pairs

Question 2

Strategies in spoken discourse (TTFM)

Answer 2

• Topic management
• Turn-taking (taking/holding/passing the floor)
• Minimal responses/backchannelling

Question 3

Taking the floor
(VOVVDIS)

Answer 3

• Volume is increased
• Stress
• Intake of breath (H)/Inhalation
• Discourse particles
• Vocatives
• Vocal effects
• Overlap

Question 4

Holding the floor

Answer 4

• Fillers, voiced hesitations
• Prosodics: elongation of sound, slower/faster pace, rising intonation, volume
• Linking elements: parataxis

Question 5

Non-fluency features (spontaneity)

Answer 5

• Pauses
• Repetition
• Apologies and discourse breakdown
• False start - beginning of an utterance
• (Running) repair - middle of an utterance
• Fillers

Question 6

Silence and Accommodation

Answer 6

Silence:
- Culturally conditional (unfavourable in Australia)
- Can be comfortable/companionable with a close tenor
- Used for a range of purposes
Accommodation:
- Involves empathetic participation, where one speaker attempts to match various stylistic features of another speaker

Question 7

Openings/Closings

Answer 7

• Ritualistic and expected
• Protocols/scripted
• Must be socially accepted