Conversation analysis

For my paper I’ve chosen a fragment of a dialog between two sisters, in reality, two apartment
colleagues and I’ve translated it into English and transcribed it. The dialog contains many
pauses, may moments of silence, caused by the fact that the two persons are not in the same
room from the beginning of the conversation. I have first written some theoretical aspects about
Conversation Analysis in general and its use in fields like sociology, anthropology, linguistics,
speech-communication and psychology, and then I have analyzed each word as a part of the turn-
takings, the transcribing rules I’ve used and the reasons for which I have done so.
Claire ((off camera)) Sis?
Dora .pt h↑ello
(2 sec)
Dora I'm here
(.8)
Claire (ah)-
(1.0)
Dora ((sighs))
(3.0)
Claire hello
(.5)
Dora hi::
Claire where's my new dress
(1.5)
Dora in the bathroom,
(5.0)
Claire th' washing machine’s on.
Dora >yes<
(1.8)
Claire w'(h) you’re not supervisin’ it?
Dora no:,
(.5)
Dora [heh heh ºheh hehº=
Claire [hh what ye' DOINg then
Dora =hahh hahh
Claire wh't's the ↑point:h
Claire ↑oh ↑my (.) look what ↑I'm wearing

Conversation Analysis (CA), a research tradition that grew out of ethnomethodology, has some
unique methodological features. It studies the social organization of 'conversation', or 'talk-in-
interaction', by a detailed inspection of tape recordings and transcriptions made from such
recordings. Today it is an established method used in sociology, anthropology, linguistics,
speech-communication and psychology. It is particularly influential in interactional
sociolinguistics, discourse analysis and discursive psychology, as well as being a coherent
discipline in its own right. Recently CA techniques of sequential analysis have been employed
for instance by phoneticians to explore the fine phonetic detail of speech.
Like in all research a CA research is started by setting up a research problem. The data collected
for CA is video or audio recorded conversations. The data is collected without researchers'
involvement, often simply by adding a video camera to the room where the conversation takes
place (e.g. medical doctors consultation with a patient). Out of the audio or video recording the
researchers makes a detailed transcription (ideally no detail undermined). After the transcription
the researches do inductive data-driven analysis aiming to find recruiting patterns of interaction.
Based on the analysis the researcher develops a rule or model to explain the occurrence of the
patterns.
Most practitioners of CA tend to refrain, in their research reports, from extensive theoretical and
methodological discussion. CA papers tend to be exclusively devoted to an empirically based
discussion of specific analytic issues. This may contribute to the confusion of readers who are
not familiar with this particular research style. They will use their habitual expectations, derived
from established social-scientific practice, as a frame of reference in understanding this unusual
species of scientific work. The reader is confronted with a detailed discussion of transcriptions of
recordings of (mostly verbal) interaction in terms of the 'devices' used by its participants.
The central goal of conversation analytic research is the description and explication of the
competences that ordinary speakers use and rely on in participating in intelligible, socially
organized interaction. At its most basic, this objective is one of describing the procedures by
which conversationalists produce their own behavior and understand and deal with the behavior
of others.
Basic structures:
 Turn-taking Organization- the set of practices by which a conversation is done in and
through turns.
Turn Allocation Component- describes how turns are allocated among participants in a
conversation
Sequence Organization- concerns how actions are ordered in conversation

Adjacency pairs- talk tends to occur in responsive pairs; however, the pairs may be split over a
sequence of turns.

Pre-sequences- a pair of turns understood as a preliminary to the main course of action

Repair- describes how parties in conversation deal with problems in speaking, hearing, or
understanding.

In the conversation between the two sisters, one can notice the numerous pauses the two
participants make because of the spacial context, namely each one is in a different
room. The first person is at the beginning in a different place as the second, idea
expressed by the use of the double brackets before the word uttered by her, namely the
calling, a short form of the term ‘sister’. The question mark indicates here a rising
intonation of the word, an intonation which resembles the form of a question as well.
The speaker uses this higher intonation not to officially ask a question, but in exchange,
she waits for the answer of a question.

Dora’s answer comes quickly afterwards, with no pause, or moment of silence, as she had waited
for her sister’s appearance and intervention. The sign ’↑’ marks a sharper rise of the
tone of voice. It is introduced after the first letter of the word in order to show that the
higher level of intonation happened there, at the beginning of her answer. After this,
comes a moment of silence between the two, as Dora sees her sister entering the room
and waits for her turn to speak. But as she does not express her wish, she continues
uttering something useless as content, because Claire could see her in front of her eyes.
But through this, Dora encourages her sister to speak. A even longer pause is made, 4
seconds in which Claire calms her surprise of seeing her sister and the only thing she
utters is an interjection ‘ah’, expressing her contentment that Dora was there.

Next, another description of the sounds is made by the transcriber using again double brackets.
Dora sighs, because she might have been expecting somebody else to appear and is
disappointed that it was her sister, and all this despite the fact that she knew it was her,
coming. At last, Claire decides to say something, and greets her sister. Dora instead
seems suddenly happier and answer her sister in a more intimate way using the word
‘hi’. The colons ‘::’ indicate the prolongation or the stretching of the sound of the
 spelling. Her doing this reflects the intimacy of the family relations as well. Claire asks
a question, but her intonation is not the one of a question, so no question mark was
added after the clause. The answer she receives has almost the same fade tone, no
intonation whatsoever. Afterwards a longer pause is made- about 5 whole seconds.
Claire’s observation about the washing machine being on is trying to inform her sister
that it is on, but to make her pay attention to it, and take care of it. The definite article
‘the’ was shortened using an apostrophe and marking the fact that the speaker did not
utter the whole of it. The full stop does not indicate the ending of a clause, but it is used
to express the intonation. It indicates a falling intonation contour.

Dora’s turn taking, her acknowledgement of this fact, the adverbial ‘yes’ is compressed, and
short and shows the fact that Dora was a bit bothered of her sister’s reminding her of the
washing machine. As she does not react with a full answer, Claire continues asking her
if she was not going to do something about it. ‘w(h)’ is an interjection shortened from
the word ‘why’, which has not the function of the term itself, but shows Claire’s
irritation. The interjection was transcribes so, be cause ‘W’ and ‘h’ are the only letters
that can be heard. The verb ‘supervise’ was also shortened by the speaker and the
question mark at the end shows both the form of a question and a rising intonation.
Dora’s answer is simple negation ‘no’ followed by a colon which indicates the
prolongation of the letter ‘o’ but this stretching is shorter than in the former case where
we had double colons. The full stop indicates a final intonation contour.

Dora’s laugh is expressed by the repetition of the interjections ‘heh’ and’ hh’, the latter being
more the marking of a hearable aspiration. The square bracket used before the
interjection indicates a point of overlap onset and the degree sign indicates that the talk
following, namely the laughing was markedly quiet or soft. The use of the equal sign
‘=’ indicates that the utterances come in pairs. The verb in the present continuous tense
‘doing’ is spelled with some capital letters and indicates a louder talking. The personal
pronoun ‘you’ was also shortened and the abbreviation ‘ye’ was used to indicate it. The
word ‘point’ in Claire’s utterance has a sharper lever of intonation, and the rising is
shown by the use of ’↑’ at the beginning of the word and of the single colon inside the
word. The last utterance belongs to Claire again. Her wonder, her surprise is marked by
 the higher tone ‘↑oh ↑my’, followed by a micro pause, a silence hearable, but not
measurable and an acknowledgement of her looking in that very moment.

References:Paul ten Have-University of Amsterdam