Editing Conversation analysis (section)

==Basic structures==
Conversation analysis provides a model that can be used to understand interactions, and offers a number of concepts to describe them. The following section contains important concepts and phenomena identified in the conversation analytical literature, and will refer to articles that are centrally concerned with the phenomenon. A conversation is viewed as a collection of turns of speaking; errors or misunderstandings in speech are addressed with repairs, and turns may be marked by the delay between them or other linguistic features.

===Turn-taking organization===
{{Main|Turn-taking}}

The analysis of turn-taking started with the description in a model in the paper known as the ''Simplest Systematics'',<ref name="Sacks1974">{{cite journal |last1=Sacks |first1=Harvey |last2=Schegloff |first2=Emanuel A. |last3=Jefferson |first3=Gail |title=A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation |journal=Language |date=1974 |volume=50 |issue=4 |pages=696–735 |doi=10.2307/412243|jstor=412243 |hdl=11858/00-001M-0000-002C-4337-3 |url=http://pubman.mpdl.mpg.de/pubman/item/escidoc:2376846/component/escidoc:2376845/Sacks_1974_simplest_systematics.pdf|access-date=24 December 2021}}</ref> which was very programmatic for the field of Conversation analysis and one of the most cited papers published in the journal [[Language (journal)|''Language'']].<ref>{{cite web |title=The Most Cited Language Articles (1925-2012) in the First Half of 2017 |url=https://www.linguisticsociety.org/news/2017/07/11/most-cited-language-articles-1925-2012-first-half-2017 |website=www.linguisticsociety.org |access-date=25 November 2021 |date=11 July 2017}}</ref>

The model is designed to explain that when people talk in conversation, they do not always talk all at the same time, but generally, one person speaks at a time, and then another person can follow.<ref name="Sacks1974"/> Such a contribution to a conversation by one speaker is then a ''turn''. A turn is created through certain forms or units that listeners can recognize and count on, called ''[[turn construction unit]]s'' (TCUs), and speakers and listeners will know that such forms can be a word or a clause, and use that knowledge to predict when a speaker is finished so that others can speak, to avoid or minimize both overlap and silence. A listener will look for the places where they can start speaking - so-called ''transition relevant places'' (TRPs) - based on how the units appear over time. Turn construction units can be created or recognized via four methods, i.e. types of unit design:<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ford |first1=Cecilia E. |last2=Thompson |first2=Sandra A. |chapter=Interactional units in conversation: syntactic, intonational, and pragmatic resources for the management of turns |title=Interaction and Grammar |date=1996 |pages=134–184 |doi=10.1017/CBO9780511620874.003|isbn=9780521552257 }}</ref>
* [[Grammar|Grammatical]] methods, i.e. morphosyntactic structures.
* [[Prosody (linguistics)|Prosodic]] methods, e.g. pitch, speed and changes in pronunciation.
* Pragmatic methods: turns perform actions, and at the point where listeners have heard enough and know enough, a turn can be pragmatically complete.
* Visual methods: Gesture, gaze and body movement is also used to indicate that a turn is over. For example, a person speaking looks at the next speaker when their turn is about to end.

Each time a turn is over, speakers also have to decide who can talk next, and this is called turn allocation. The rules for turn allocation is commonly formulated in the same way as in the original Simplest Systematics paper, with 2 parts where the first consists of 3 elements:

#* a. If the current speaker selects a next one to speak at the end of current TCU (by name, gaze or contextual aspects of what is said), the selected speaker has the right and obligation to speak next. 
#* b. If the current speaker does not select a next speaker, other potential speakers have the right to self-select (the first starter gets the turn)
#* c. If options 1a and 1b have not been implemented, current speaker may continue with another TCU.
# At the end of that TCU, the option system applies again.

Based on the turn-taking system, three types of silence may be distinguished:
* Pause: A period of silence within a speaker's TCU, i.e. during a speaker's turn when a sentence is not finished.
* Gap: A period of silence between turns, for example after a question has been asked and not yet answered
* Lapse: A period of silence when no sequence or other structured activity is in progress: the current speaker stops talking, does not select a next speaker, and no one self selects. Lapses are commonly associated with visual or other forms of disengagement between speakers, even if these periods are brief.

Some types of turns may require extra work before they can successfully take place. Speakers wanting a long turn, for example to tell a story or describe important news, must first establish that others will not intervene during the course of the telling through some form of preface and approval by the listener (a so-called ''go-ahead''). The preface and its associated go-ahead comprise a ''pre-sequence''.<ref name="Schegloff2007">{{cite book |last=Schegloff |first=Emanuel A. |title=Sequence organization in interaction: a primer in conversation analysis |date=2007 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge, UK |isbn=9780511791208|doi=10.1017/CBO9780511791208}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Harvey |first=Sacks|editor1-last=Sherzer |editor1-first=Joel |editor2-last=Bauman |editor2-first=Richard |title=Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking|date=1974|publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge|pages=337–353|chapter=An analysis of the course of a joke's telling in conversation}}</ref> Conversations cannot be appropriately ended by 'just stopping', but require a special closing sequence.<ref name="Schegloff1973" />

The model also leaves puzzles to be solved, for example concerning how turn boundaries are identified and projected, and the role played by gaze and body orientation in the management of turn-taking. It also establishes some questions for other disciplines: for example, the split second timing of turn-transition sets up a cognitive 'bottle neck' in which potential speakers must attend to incoming speech while also preparing their own contribution - something which imposes a heavy load of human processing capacity, and which may impact the structure of languages.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Christiansen |first1=Morten H. |last2=Chater |first2=Nick |title=The Now-or-Never bottleneck: A fundamental constraint on language |journal=Behavioral and Brain Sciences |date=2016 |volume=39 |pages=e62 |doi=10.1017/S0140525X1500031X|pmid=25869618 |s2cid=54524760 }}</ref>

However, the original formulation in Sacks et al.1974 is designed to model turn-taking only in ordinary and informal conversation, and not interaction in more specialized, institutional environments such as meetings, courts, news interviews, mediation hearings, which have distinctive turn-taking organizations that depart in various ways from ordinary conversation. Later studies have looked at institutional interaction and turn-taking in institutional contexts.  Interruptions have also been examined and analyzed.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Beattie |first=Geoffrey |title=Talk: An Analysis of Speech and Non-Verbal Behaviour in Conversation |publisher=Open University Press |year=1983 |isbn=0-335-10414-2 |location=Milton Keynes |pages=110ff |language=en}}</ref>

===Recipient Design===
In his lectures, [[Harvey Sacks]] posited that speakers try to judge what referents their recipients will understand, and design their speech with that in mind, so they will be understood.  He called this 'recipient design.'  The psychologist [[Herbert H. Clark]] called the same concept 'audience design,' while psychologist [[Howard Giles]] wrote of 'accommodation.'

===Sequence organization===

==== Adjacency pairs ====
{{main|Adjacency pairs}}
Talk tends to occur in responsive pairs; however, the pairs may be split over a sequence of turns. Adjacency pairs divide utterance types into ''first pair parts'' and ''second pair parts'' to form a ''pair type''. There are many examples of adjacency pairs including Questions-Answers, Offer-Acceptance/Refusal and Compliment-Response.<ref name="Schegloff1973">{{cite journal |last1=Schegloff |first1=Emanuel A. |last2=Sacks |first2=Harvey |title=Opening up Closings |journal=Semiotica |date=1973 |volume=8 |issue=4 |doi=10.1515/semi.1973.8.4.289|s2cid=144411011 |url=https://web.stanford.edu/~eckert/PDF/schegloffOpeningUpClosings.pdf|access-date=24 December 2021}}</ref>

==== Sequence expansion ====
Sequence expansion allows talk which is made up of more than a single adjacency pair to be constructed and understood as performing the same basic action and the various additional elements are as doing interactional work related to the basic action underway.<br/>Sequence expansion is constructed in relation to a base sequence of a ''first pair part'' (FPP) and a ''second pair part'' (SPP) in which the core action underway is achieved. It can occur prior to the base FPP, between the base FPP and SPP, and following the base SPP.
* '''Pre-expansion''': an adjacency pair that may be understood as preliminary to the main course of action. A generic pre-expansion is a summon-answer adjacency pair, as in "Mary?"/ "Yes?". It is generic in the sense that it does not contribute to any particular types of base adjacency pair, such as request or suggestion. There are other types of pre-sequence that work to prepare the interlocutors for the subsequent speech action. For example, "Guess what!"/"What?" as preliminary to an announcement of some sort, or "What are you doing?"/"Nothing" as preliminary to an invitation or a request.<ref>{{cite book | last=Terasaki | first=Alene Kiku | title=Conversation Analysis | chapter=Pre-announcement sequences in conversation | publisher=John Benjamins Publishing Company | publication-place=Amsterdam | year=2004 | issn=0922-842X | doi=10.1075/pbns.125.11ter | pages=171–223}}</ref>
* '''Insert expansion''': an adjacency pair that comes between the FPP and SPP of the base adjacency pair. Insert expansions interrupt the activity under way, but are still relevant to that action.<ref>{{cite book|last=Jefferson|first=Gail|editor-last=Sudnow|editor-first=David|title=Studies in social interaction|date=1972|publisher=The Free Press|location=New York|isbn=9780029323601|pages=294–338|chapter=Side sequences}}</ref> Insert expansion allows a possibility for a second speaker, the speaker who must produce the SPP, to do interactional work relevant to the projected SPP. An example of this would be a typical conversation between a customer and a shopkeeper:
::Customer: I would like a turkey sandwich, please. (FPP base)
::Server: White or wholegrain? (Insert FPP)
::Customer: Wholegrain. (Insert SPP)
::Server: Okay. (SPP base)
* '''Post-expansion''': a turn or an adjacency pair that comes after, but is still tied to, the base adjacency pair. There are two types: minimal and non-minimal. Minimal expansion is also termed ''sequence closing thirds'', because it is a single turn after the base SPP (hence ''third'') that does not project any further talk beyond their turn (hence ''closing''). Examples of sequence closing thirds include "oh", "I see", "[[OK|okay]]", etc.

==== Preference organization ====
CA may reveal structural (i.e. practice-underwritten) preferences in conversation for some types of actions (within sequences of action) over others, as responses in certain sequential environments.<ref name=Pomerantz1978>{{cite book |last=Pomerantz |first=Anita|editor1-last=Schenkein|editor1-first=Jim|chapter=Compliment Responses: Notes on the co-operation of multiple constraints|title=Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction |date=1978 |pages=79–112 |doi=10.1016/B978-0-12-623550-0.50010-0 |isbn=9780126235500 |s2cid=146783679 |chapter-url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780126235500500100}}</ref> For example, responsive actions which agree with, or accept, positions taken by a first action tend to be performed more straightforwardly and faster than actions that disagree with, or decline, those positions.<ref name="Pomerantz1984">{{cite book |last=Pomerantz |first=Anita|editor1-last=Atkinson |editor1-first=J. Maxwell |editor2-last=Heritage |editor2-first=John |title=Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis |date=1984 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=9780511939037 |pages=57–101|chapter=Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: Some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shapes|url=https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=cas_communication_scholar|access-date=24 December 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Davidson |first1=Judy A. |editor1-last=Atkinson |editor1-first=J. Maxwell |editor2-last=Heritage |editor2-first=John |title=Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis |date=1984 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=9780511939037 |pages=102–128 |chapter=Subsequent versions of invitations, offers, requests, and proposals dealing with potential or actual rejection}}</ref> The former is termed a preferred turn shape, meaning the turn is not preceded by silence nor is it produced with delays, mitigation and accounts. The latter is termed a dispreferred turn shape, which describes a turn with opposite characteristics. One consequence of this is that agreement and acceptance are promoted over their alternatives, and are more likely to be the outcome of the sequence. Pre-sequences are also a component of preference organization and contribute to this outcome.<ref name="Schegloff2007" />

=== Repair ===
Repair organization describes how parties in conversation deal with problems in speaking, hearing, or understanding, and there are various mechanisms through which certain "troubles" in interaction are dealt with. Repair segments are classified by who initiates repair (self or other), by who resolves the problem (self or other), and by how it unfolds within a turn or a sequence of turns. The organization of repair is also a self-righting mechanism in social interaction.<ref name="Schegloff1977">{{cite journal |last1=Schegloff |first1=Emanuel A. |last2=Jefferson |first2=Gail |last3=Sacks |first3=Harvey |title=The Preference for Self-Correction in the Organization of Repair in Conversation |journal=Language |date=June 1977 |volume=53 |issue=2 |pages=361–382 |doi=10.2307/413107|jstor=413107 }}</ref> Participants in conversation seek to correct the trouble source by initiating and preferring self repair, the speaker of the trouble source, over other repair.<ref name="Schegloff1977" /> Self repair initiations can be placed in three locations in relation to the trouble source, in a first turn, a transition space or in a third turn.<ref name="Schegloff1977" />

===Action formation===
Turns in interaction implement actions, and a specific turn may perform one (or more) specific actions.<ref name="levinson2013">{{cite book|last1=Levinson |first1=Stephen C.|editor1-last=Stivers |editor1-first=Tanya |editor2-last=Sidnell |editor2-first=Jack|chapter=Action Formation and Ascription |title=The Handbook of Conversation Analysis |date=2013 |pages=101–130 |doi=10.1002/9781118325001.ch6|hdl=11858/00-001M-0000-0012-C846-B |isbn=9781118325001|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell}}</ref> The study of action focuses on the description of how turns at talk are composed and positioned so as to realize one or more actions. This could include questions, assessments, storytelling, and complaints.<ref>Peräkylä, Anssi (2016) ''Conversation Analysis.'' The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology Online. doi:10.1002/9781405165518.wbeosc133.pub2</ref> Focus is both on how those actions are formed through linguistic or other activity (the ''formation'' of action) and how they are understood (the ''ascription'' of action to turns). The study of action also concerns the ways in which the participants’ knowledge, relations, and stances towards the ongoing interactional projects are created, maintained, and negotiated, and thus the [[intersubjectivity]] of how people interact. The concept of ''action'' within CA resembles, but is different from the concept of [[speech act]] in other fields of pragmatics.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Deppermann |first1=Arnulf|editor-last1=Haugh|editor-first1=Michael|editor-last2=Kádár|editor-first2=Dániel Z.|editor-last3=Terkourafi|editor-first3=Marina |chapter=Social Actions |title=The Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics |date=2021 |pages=69–94 |doi=10.1017/9781108954105.006|isbn=9781108954105 |s2cid=241741173 }}</ref>