Conversational Analysis, Its Aims, Methodology, and Data in the BMW Center - Case Study Example

Conversational analysis Introduction Conversation analysis aims at describing, analyzing and understanding talk as a basic and important aspect of human life. People communicate in various dimensions, using face to face communication, use of symbols and signs, through facial expressions, over the telephones and many other venues that people use to communicate what they are feeling to other people (Have, 2007). In this conversation, it involves a customer, a conversation that can be termed as institutional conversation since it involves a customer of a BMW car and the BMW centre agents. The customer is complaining about the vehicle he bought and he seems to be so irritated by the way it is behaving or giving him services. He informs the agent that his new car which is an n automatic car doesn’t wok a night when it is in the (N) mood, which he interprets as night. The agent seems not to understand the customer’s complaint at the onset but as the conversations goes on, it is clear that the customer does not understand how the car symbols are used or should be interpreted. He therefore interprets the car manual differently. This illustrates the fact that clear communication language should be used or simplified to other people since people understand language in different dimensions (Candace & Garcia, 1998). It makes understanding a bit confusing more so in our conversation as some symbols are universally known to mean something different. IN the conversation it is evident that the customer understands symbol D to mean day and N to mean night. This is not the use of the symbol in the vehicle industry. In the industry D stands for driving and N stands for night. There is a constant change of tones in the conversations and expressions are bought out clearly by the way they converse to each other. The main aim of this project is to clearly understand the use of tone; the situational interpretations of some conversations and the way communication can be interpreted using the Convention analysis principles such as turn design, turn sequences, pauses, and repair and adjacency pairs to clearly understand how people communicate in the day in day out interactions (Heritage, 2002). Methodology and data The method used to aid in analyzing the data is a telephone conversation through that was obtained through you tube. It involves a conversation between a customer and an agent of the BMW car sellers. All the aspects of conversational analysis are covered in the data and it is easy to explain and critically analyze to bring out the principles that conversational analysis brings out. The conversation were transcribed using standard CA symbols and the data was analyzed basing in the principles as ear.ier mentioned; opening turns, closing turns and invitation sequences (Hutchby, 2006). The entire conversation was conducted in English. There were three people involved whose age didn’t really differ that much but the difference was in the gender perspective. The entire conversation was conducted over the phone and then downloaded via you tube as earlier indicated, this ensured that the entire conversation was obtained which will result to proper analysis of the principles (Kollock, Blumstein, & Schwartz, 1985). Results and discussions The opening sequence should be discussed and it involves the ringing of the phone which is answered by the agent, a woman in the BMW centre. Telephone openings mostly follow four sequences which are; summons –answer, identification-recognition, greetings and finally a “how are you sequence (Liddicoat, 2011). In the conversation between the agents and the complainant the first stage was adhered to whereby a phone rung and it was received by the agent “Thank you for calling, may I ...” where she probably informed the complainant about her status. The second stage was also followed where the complainant identified himself and the next stage was clearly identified where the agent identified that the caller was inquiring about the car, so there was no need for recognition of the complainant anymore. Then the complainant went straight to state his problem and the reason for calling. The number of turns can accumulate to twenty one turns between the complaint and the agent. Most of the time the agent was bursting into laughter and kept on saying that the caller was funny from what he was trying to explain to the agent. In most times the caller never waited for a turn since he was wondering why the recipient was busy laughing at what he was saying. Invitation sequences also varied as the agent was very keen to not annoy the complaint since he was a customer to their business. The agent also makes one pre-invitation when she heard that the complainant was confusing between the symbols used. She informed the complainant that she will arrange and take a drive with him one day so that she can experience too what he was experiencing (Psathas, 1995). The complainant though dint take the invitation serious as he continues narrating all the events that are happening to him. This is brought about by the differences in lack of understanding of the basic terms of the motor industry. For example he interprets all the symbols wrongly as early indicated. D, R and N are wrongly interpreted as Day, Racing and Night respectively by the complainant who makes him not to easily accept the invitation in most of the turns where he is being requested to be visited by the agents. There is no proper ending of conversation which is classified under the closing sequences, in fact after the second agent took the phone call from the first lady, there were no more turns as the agent was laughing all the way. It is evident that there was no conclusion that was arrived at because of lack of closing turns at the closing sequence and lack of invitation acceptance from the initiator (Schegloff, 2007). There may be two reasons that may make the complainant to behave in that manner; first it is possible that there was a shift in the attitude of the caller since he realizes the agents are not getting his point and he decides to hang up or there was a problem with his connectivity that made him hung up. The opening and the closing turn sequences never followed the conventional method as dictated by the Conversation Analysis studies. The whole conversation brings out the proper understanding of how lack of mutual understanding such as misinterpretation of symbols can lead to communication breakdown. This makes it difficult for communication between two people to understand each other because of the differences that emerged as from the conversation (Schegloff, 1968). There are various repairs in the telephone conversation in the study. Repairs indicate to how both parties tend to deal with problems that arise out of a conversation which involve speaking, hearing or understanding. In the conversation, there are many repairs that are experienced and which are mostly done initiated by the agents. For example, when they use words such as NEUTRAL that are in capital letters are used to emphasize that the word does not mean what the caller mentioned but rather it means neutral not night (Schiffrin, 1985). This is a clear illustration of emphasis on the understanding of the terms that the complaint was asking about. In the 1st, 2nd an even 3rd turn there are some hearing problems and it is also witnessed in the turns that follow. These are followed by repetitions to enable the conversation to go on as observed from turns such as “yes (.) I can try and help ↑you” where the word yes is emphasized by the agent and there is a marking rise in the intonation of the agent to be able to get the complainant clear. This pattern is repeated throughout the conversation which clearly indicates presence of hearing in conversations. There are a number of pauses also used to ensure that the conversation has been completed effectively. The two most common types of pauses that are evidenced are the (.), (0.5), which is a small untimed pause mostly less than a second and a pause in tenths of seconds respectively. The pauses or the gap intervals can be attributed to many factors when being considered to be involved in a conversation. Most of the pauses often occur due to the speaker’s and the correspondent’s variations, in other words the pause gives the correspondent time to answer the relevant questions that have been paused to him or her. The pauses too are as a result of the unclear words or alterations that are made by the people in a conversation. This gives the party that has not understood time to digest and better understand what the other individual is talking about. Use of pauses has been attributed to result to better and improved content understanding (Schegloff, 1968). It is evident that at the end of the conversation there was no clear conclusion that was arrived at. This is due to most communication barriers that render other people not clear in what they are trying to say or communicate to other people. People are always in dire need for a clear and sensible conversation but differences are brought out by clearly understanding the Conversational Analysis that makes it easier to understand the principles that make conversations not fruitful. Use of conversation analysis in understanding everyday communication Conversation analysis being a study of conversation patterns has over the years proved to be effective in the way communication takes place either in the institutional perspective or a casual perspective. Most people have solved issues concerning communication barriers using this method and great strides have been made in developing the way conversations are tackled or conducted. The conversation between the agent and the complainant brings forth the qualities of a good listener and how effective he or she should behave in solving conflicts in any given situation or institution for that matter (Schegloff, 2007). It is vital to note that the complainant who is the customer is not satisfied with the product he purchased from the BMW offices. This is not taken seriously by the agents, who are the face of the organization in question. After the initiator of the call hang up, there are many actions that he may take into consideration; he may sue the company or he may return the car to the company and he will not advice any other customer to come for a car from the same place. He is annoyed from the tone that he uses but the agents are laughing loud without acknowledging and advising the complaint accordingly (Have, 2007). In improving the day to day conversations among individuals, many people should know the appropriate conversation that they should make. Differentiating between a friendly conversation and official or formal conversations will give or guide an individual in the day to day activities that they may be involved in. Change of tone, use of pauses and proper invitation sequences enable conversations to be smooth and smooth and satisfying to the intended person. Conversations too face a lot of barriers as far as the technologies used are concerned but what matters is the way the communication starts and end (Liddicoat, 2011). The first turn and the last turn will make a major difference on the quality of a conversation. The type of tone determines where the conversation concludes, many people tend to assume that their use of tones and expressions doesn’t serve any purpose in a conversation. As it has been witnessed, every principle of CA is vital in any conversation that is meant to be fruitful. Conclusion Conversations should be judged and analyzed using the principles of CA such as turn design, turn sequences, pauses, repair and other relevant principles to be effectively understood. Most of the CA analysis is used when dealing with criminal activities, where conversations between the investigators and the criminals are recorded and the right transcriptions are obtained used the conventional methods. The data is then analyzed using the above principles and the doer of the crime is determined from the way they communicate. Communication has been enhanced after people understood the use of these principles in determining their conversations. Many psychologists also apply these principles to get to the bottom of their patient’s problems. Bibliography Candace, W., & Garcia, A. (1998). Conversational Shift Work: A Study of Topical Transitions between Women and Men. Social Problems , 551-575. Have, P. t. (2007). Doing Conversation Analysis. New York: SAGE, . Heritage, J. (2002). The Limits of Questioning: Negative Interrogatives and Hostile Question Content. Journal of Pragmatics , 1427-1446. Hutchby, I. (2006). 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