Communication Methods of Humans - Essay Example

Conversation analysis is concerned with the analysis and interpretation of everyday, spoken interaction. Discuss how participants in a conversation manage interactions. Pay attention to the notions of ‘turn taking’ and ‘holding the floor’ in addition to other features of casual conversations. Conversation analysis is a complex sociological science which has developed since the 1960s to include the multi-layer communication methods which human employ when conversing with each other. It is a branch of sociolinguistics which takes as its central hypothesis the fact that conversation is an essential part of day-to-day human interaction. Its method revolves around the observation of human dialogue in natural conversational settings and it analyses how the various forms of conversational interaction work together in different settings. It is concerned with the analysis of casual rather than formal conversation and takes into account such factors as ‘turn taking’ and ‘holding the floor’. This essay will discuss how participants in a conversation manage their interaction primarily using these techniques, but it will also explore how other techniques are employed in conjunction with these in order show the complexities of human conversational interaction. Conversational interaction is a highly complex semantic process of exchanging meaning. It is not merely a back and forth discourse, but rather an attempt to make sense of the world around us and communicate these observations and feelings to each other. These exchanges can be highly pragmatic in nature, such as communicating with the fish monger how much cod is required or asking the way to the station, or they can be more general and less specifically focused, taking the form of talking without a highly specific communication goal in mind. As Eggins & Slade (2004: p.6) comment, sometimes ‘we talk merely for the sake of talking itself. An example of this is when we get together with friends…over dinner and just “have a chat”. It is to these informal interactions that the label casual conversation is usually applied.’ It is on these type of semantic exchanges that this essay will therefore focus. General discourse with no specific goal of communication is what is meant by casual communication. A commonly occurring structure in casual conversation is ‘turn taking’. In this sort of conversation each of the participants will speak in turn in order to communicate their reactions and opinions, or to add new information or change the direction of the discussion. Eggins & Slade (2004: 7) regard casual conversation as ‘first and foremost a turn-taking activity’ which therefore implies that turn-taking, in various ways, can promote and sustain conversation. If it is a very commonly present characteristic of casual conversation, it must therefore have a significant role in facilitating interaction. In order to better understand how turn-taking works, it is necessary to analyse how speakers pick up on the fact that a participant is passing the conversation on to another member of the conversation. In order for turn-taking to be effective, it is important for all the people involved in dialogue to be able to recognise it. An extremely direct form of turn-taking can be constructed through questioning. A basic casual conversation involving turn-taking based on questioning would be as follows; A: What did you do at the weekend then? B: Oh, nothing much. Played a bit of football on Sunday. You? A: Actually, I went to Oxford for the day on Saturday. You ever been to Oxford? B: Never, but everyone says it’s really nice. How was it? A: Yeah, great etc. It is clear for each speaker that it is their turn because they are explicitly invited to take over the dialogue from the other speaker. The questions deliberately encourage turn-taking, allowing both member to participate. However, there are also far more subtle ways in which turn-taking is facilitated in conversation. Eggins & Slade (2004: p.26) refer to ‘Turn Construction Units (TCUs)’ which are what provide the signals to members of a casual conversation that another speaker should take a turn. These consist of grammatical units, such as clauses or sentences, which indicate that someone else can speak. However, grammar alone is not enough to create a TCU. Indeed, as Eggins & Slade (2004: p.26) state ‘a range of concurring factors such as falling intonation, grammar structure of a completed sentence, posture and gaze suggest that in this instance the sentence is a TCU’. It is clear then that often grammar is not enough to facilitate turn-taking. In direct questions, grammar alone can encourage a change in speaker. However in the case of more complex TCUs, intonation is also important. A rising intonation at the end of a sentence can lead the listener to believe that the speaker wishes to continue. A falling intonation, on the other hand, signals that the speaker is reaching their conclusion. Beyond actual speech, body language can also indicate that the speaker is ready to let someone else take a turn. Sitting back in their chair, reaching for a glass of water or standing up to leave the room are all non-verbal communicators of the fact that the speaker has finished. Turning-taking so far has been considered in a largely un-structured way. Where more than two people participate, the conclusion of a turn means that any of the other participants could take their turn. However, turn-taking in conversation can also be controlled. As Eggins & Slade (2004: 144) underline, vocatives can be used by the primary speaker to control which of the other speakers is allowed to take their turn. They comment that ‘vocatives…offer speakers a way of attempting to control, manipulate, divide or align the other interactants’. Turn-taking can, therefore, become a powerful tool to direct and manipulate a casual conversation by the primary speaker. Turn-taking is also not always successful in sustaining conversation, since it relies on the successful participation of all speakers. Although TCUs are often used to indicate that another speaker can take their turn, a speaker can accidentally insert a TCU into their sentence which hands the conversation on to another speaker before they are actually ready to lose their turn. In the following example, speaker B constantly hands over their turn without necessarily meaning to due to their inability to successfully participate in the conversation: A: Any ideas? I fancy going to the park, what about you? B: I, Um…well, we could…um… C: How about the swimming pool. It’s two for one this afternoon. A: Great idea. What do you think? B: Um, it’s ok, but…um.. C: I’ll ring my Mum and check it’s ok. A: Ok, that’s decided then. Speaker B never gets to opportunity to pass his turn on because he is unable to successfully conclude his sentence and is therefore dominated by more confident speakers. Were there only A and B in this dialogue, the conversation would not necessarily be sustained. While turn-taking requires the alternation between speakers in a conversation, the opposite is ‘holding the floor’. In this sort of casual conversation, one speaker dominates the conversation and the usual flow of turn-taking is disrupted. Seigmen & Feldstein (1985: 78) define holding the floor as ‘the duration of time that a person is in the speaker rather than the auditor state’. A very common instance when other speakers are willing to let on speaker hold the floor is during a narration. Story-telling requires a longer period of time than simple discourse and so other speakers will commonly defer to the narrator. As Cameron (2001: p.37) notes, ‘if one speaker begins to tell a story, typically others will allow them to hold the floor for longer than normal periods. Their talk is still interactive in the sense that listeners are present and their presence matters: they may interject minimal remarks and short responses, for instance’. In this version of holding the floor, therefore, there is very little turn-taking, if any. An alternative to narration is speech making. Cameron has explored how speakers hold the floor in the House of Commons, where they are expected to present findings and ideas. Although this is not a common form of casual conversation, it is an extreme example of what actually takes place in more routine conversations. Although the speaker is automatically given the floor, he must defend his position on it from interjections and interruptions from other MPs. The speaker may deliberately concede his ‘floor’ to another MP in order to strategically extend his overall length of ‘holding the floor’. Sometimes, objections can be welcomed in order to be rebuffed. If a speaker allows no floor holding concession, he may well be driven out of holding the floor permanently if enough other MPs object to his idea. In a more normal conversation, interruptions of this sort are quite common place. Although some may be considered as mistakenly reading the signals for turn-taking, many are deliberate attempts to take the floor away from another speaker. If a person holds the floor for too long, other participants in the conversation may interject in order to shift the floor to another speaker. Conversely, someone who has held the floor from a period of time and then loses it may attempt to maintain control of it through interjection. By constantly inserting himself into another participant’s speech, the interjector may win back the floor or indeed never really concede it in the first place. This seizing of the responding role is designed to reinsert the speaker into a dominant position in the conversation. There are a number of techniques which a person may use to hold the floor. The first is what Eggins & Slade (2004: p.83) call ‘Holding Adjuncts’. Holding Adjuncts consist of filling words such as ‘um’ and ‘ah’ which a speaker uses to give himself time to think about his next statement without reverting to silence. If a sustained silence is forthcoming, other participants in the conversation may take this as a TCU and take the floor. The holding adjuncts prevent this from happen and allow the speaker to retain control of the conversation. There also physical signals, like with turn taking, that a person can use to hold the floor. Raising the tone of voice is often enough to see off other people who are attempting to interject and take the floor. This, combined with leaning forward, can assert a position of dominance over the conversation which allows the speaker to continue holding the floor. Gesturing can also give a psychological impression of increasing in size which can allow a speaker to hold the floor. A serious of body language such as this can discourage others from talking and retain the floor for the speaker. If some speakers can be penalised in turn-taking, the situation is much more serious when it comes to holding the floor. A speaker’s particular style can make it easier of harder for him to successfully speak for an extended period without losing the floor to another speaker. Eggins & Slade (2004: 36) underline the fact that ‘speakers who style is low in conversationally assertive strategies are less likely to get floor time, less likely to be heard seriously, and less likely to control the topic’. These difficulties can be related to class, race or gender groupings and so a speaker in conversation with others outside of his usual class, race and gender set may be at a disadvantage due to the particular conversational strategies of his home group. ‘Holding the floor’ and ‘turn taking’ are therefore closely related processes in dialogue which are in a constant struggle with each other in casual conversation. The two can be switched between quite easily in a smooth flowing conversation but both can also be put to use in an attempt to control, manipulate and direct conversation. There are verbal indicators for both ‘holding the floor’ and ‘turn taking’ but body language plays just as big a role as semantics in determining when the floor is held and when turns are taking in casual conversation. References Cameron, D (2001) Working with Spoken Discourse. London: Sage Eggins, S, & Slade, D (2004) Analysing Casual Conversation 2nd Edition. London: Cassel Siegmen, A. & Feldstein, S. (1985) Multichannel Integrations of Nonverbal Behaviour. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Read More