Conversation Analysis

Language is embodiment of mind that is revealed by utterance or body language. Like Joy (2003: 2) says about language, language is more abstract and multimodal; it can be manifested through signs, symbols, finger spelling, written words, and Braille. Getting interaction to others is a necessary life, therefore communication cannot be separated from human’s life activity and language always has important role in communication.

          The function of language will appear in a communication between one and another. Like what Joy states (ibid.: 3), communicativity refers to the function of language. In this case, language has sign that is shown through writing, listening, reading, or use other sign to express one’s feeling and idea as its embodiment to influence other humans.

Interaction always happens in society rely on communication. There is an impact in getting communication by what is said during conversation. Therefore language context is needed so that the conversation will not breakdown just because of misinterpretation between speech participants. Conversation structure is the basic pattern of the structure of the talk in a kind of fundamental interaction very needed as a crucial aspect of pragmatics.

People use style when they speak depend on the situation they are involved, that is figure of speech, such as metaphore. People consider (Yule, 1996: 71) conversation is like a dance while the others consider it like traffic crossing in interaction without any crashes. When conversation is coordinated smoothly without interruption, the words will flow is like water without stop or silence. It will be different when people speak with traffic signal as a control from the other, called interruption. That makes people keep silent, no flow anymore. Having control like that in speaking or in conversation is called a turn. In social interaction, where the control is common in any situation is called turn-taking. In turn-taking, it is also a rule that people must obey it in accordance with a local management system. As Yule (1996: 72) says that the local management system is essentially a set of conventions for getting turns, keeping them, or giving them away. There is a changeable in turning point of words called a Transition Relevance Place (TRP).

Turning-taking in conversation always happen among two or more participants in the discussion or debating or conversation at any time. Sometimes overlap (i.e. both speakers trying to speak at the same time), then become pauses and silence. S/he who is in silence is called attributable silence. It means s/he does not response from the other. The example below (Yule, 1996: 73) is the interaction between the student and his friend’s father during their first meeting.

Mr. Strait   : What’s your major Dave?

Dave            : English –well I haven’t really decided yet.

                     (3 seconds)

Mr. Strait   : So –you want to be a teacher?

Dave            : No –not really –well not if I can help it.

                     (2.5 seconds)

Mr. Strait   : Wha-// Where do you-                go ahead

Dave            :              I mean it’s a –oh sorry              // I em—

          The pauses which are shown in the dialogue (marked by a dash) are simply hesitations then become longer pauses.

Turn-taking can be indicated by gesture to response partner’s speaking by nodding, smiles, or vocal indication called backchannel signals or simply backchannels. The example below (Yule, 1996: 75) is presented by Mary’s contribution.

Caller : if you use your long distance service a lot then you’ll

Mary  :                                                         uh-uh

Caller : be interested in the discount I’m talking about because

Mary  :                                                         yeah

Caller : it can only save you money to switch to a cheaper service

Mary  :                                                         mmm

These types of signals (‘uh-uh’, ‘yeah’, ‘mmm’) provide feedback to the current speaker that the message is being received. In this case, silence is normally accepted as a significant thing in conversation and will be interpreted as meaningful.

When someone speaks, s/he has a power beyond his or her utterance. Cutting (2002: 121) says, “power is…hidden in face–to-face discourse”. What s/he says has an invisible meaning that can be request, statement, and so forth that has something implicit behind it. Cutting (ibid) says it direct request and indirect request. Direct marks an explicit meaning otherwise indirect marks an implicit meaning. For example, when one says direct expression usually expressed grammatically in imperative sentence: type this letter for me 5 o’clock. While in indirect request, one can say in questions: can you type this letter for me by 5 o’clock? There is also other ways of indirectly requesting, one of it is through hints, for instance: I would like to have the letter in the 5 0’clock post.  Those requests are addressed at secretary by a boss in a business executive.

Communication related to the rule as the basic Grice’s theory of conversation, namely ‘cooperative principle’ and ‘maxims of conversation’. By using cooperative principle, conversational implicature can be gotten. Conversational implicature is the basic assumption in conversation is that, unless otherwise indicated, the participants are adhering to the cooperative principle and the maxims (Yule, 1996: 40). According to Grice (Mey, 1993: 65; Levinson, 1983: 101; Yule, 1996: 37), there are four basic maxims of conversation or general principles underlying the efficient cooperative use of language.

The Cooperative Principle: Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.

There are four maxims in the cooperative principle, namely, the maxim of quality, the maxim of quantity, the maxim of relation, and the maxim of manner.

The Maxim of quality

Try to make your contribution one that is true

1. Do not say what you believe to be false
2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

Speakers are expected what they say is to be true in reality.

The maxim of quantity

1. Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange)

2. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

          Speakers are expected to give neither too little information nor too much. Speakers should know how much the information that the hearer requires without bothering the point of the purpose is. Cutting says:

People who give too little information risk their hearer not being able to identify what they are talking about because they are not explicit enough; those who give more information than the hearer needs risk boring them. (2002: 34-35)

The maxim of relation

          Be relevant

The speakers are assumed to be saying something that is relevant to what has been said before (Cutting, 2002: 35).

The maxim of manner

Be perspicuous

1. Avoid obscurity of expression
2. Avoid ambiguity
3. Be brief
4. Be orderly

In conversation, speakers should avoid obscurity of expression and ambiguity, and be brief and orderly.

          The pragmatic phenomena are rather limited in the four rules of Grice’s maxims.

Finally, conversation analysis is described to the analysis of contextualization phenomena that underlie the situated judgments conversationalists. Furthermore, it is expected no miscommunication in the conversation between participants.  

References:

Cutting, Joan. 2002. PRAGMATICS AND DISCOURSE. London: Routledge.

Levinson, Stephen C. 1983. PRAGMATICS. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Yule, George. 1996. Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Mey, Jacob L. 1993. PRAGMATICS. UK: Blackwell.