Conversational Structure COM 370--John R. Baldwin

Review  GRICE  Cooperative principle  Maxims  Qualilty  Quantity  Relevance (Relation)  Manner  Implicature (with some examples)

Review  Speech Acts Theory  Three levels or “forces”  Locutionary  Illocutionary  Perlocutionary  Five main classifications  Representatives  Directives  Expressives  Commissives  Declaratives

Brief exercise  At a Job Interview:“Well, you impress me with your education and enthusiasm. Consider yourself now a member of the firm.”  Where’s the beef? Sally: “Have you started the burgers, yet?” Hubby: “Hey, I’ve had a lot to do today, okay? Why don’t you start them yourself!”

 In COM 370: It’s almost noon and Jaemie’s hungry  Jaemie: You guys wanna get some lunch? Sue: I’ve got to study for an exam.  Sam: Is the Pope Catholic?

 Ron:“Jill, I-, I-, I love you” Jill:“No you don’t. You can’t love me. We have only been dating for a month.”  Why are speech acts and Grice important for our everyday communication?  Can you think of a time when “speech act confusion” got in the way in your own communication?

Felicity conditions/constitutive rules  Propositional content  Preparatory conditions (situational rules)  Sincerity conditions  Essential conditions Speech Acts: Kickin’ it up a notch…

Nofsinger Chs 2 & 3 RequestThreatOffer PropositionalFuture PreparatorySp is able Act is not ordinary H can do the act SinceritySp must want H to do the act EssentialSp is attempting to get H to do s.thing

Coordinated Management of Meaning  Constitutive: what makes it what it is?  Regulative: how does one do it? (deontic logic, p. 40) Example: Sarcasm in organizational culture Two types of rules

Hierarchy of Meanings TEXTCONTEXTS ContentSpeech Act Episode Relationship/Contract Self-concept Cultural Patterns

Life script/self-concept Relationship Episode Speech Act Text Ex: “Would you stop that?!”

Interruptions & Overlaps  TRP: Turn-Relevant Place  TCU: Turn-constructional units. Our utterances (“turns”) may be made up of several of these  Interruption: 2 nd speaker comes in in place other than TCU (i.e., where TCU is “not projected.”  Overlap: 2 nd speaker comes in at/near TCU  “Continuer”: Overlap that continues S1’s turn  LRRM: Listener-Response Relevant Moments

Types of Discourse (The Mysterious Ch. 9) AttributesDebateCeremonyMeetingConvers. Number of people Topic Turn order Turn length

Conversation issues  Participants and non-participants  Type of relationship (friends versus acquaintances)  Demographic differences (e.g., gender)  Specific genre of conversation (job interview, therapy, openings, closings)

Global Coherence: Narratives  Narratives: Stories told in interaction with characters, events, time sequence. They can be true or false, but are generally assumed to be true by the speaker.  How long must a narrative be?  Preferential or Obligatory rules?  Narrative must surround a “narratable event”  Repairs can be used to fix problems in referencing, sequencing, or evaluating  Repairs can be initiated by the speaker or hearer  E.g., insertions, retracking

Narrative reportability  Teller’s involvement (if hearer knows the teller)  Culturally significant information  “Inherently and permanently reportable” versus “reportable in context”

Narrative A typical narrative has these components:  Setting  Orientation  Complication  Resolution  Evaluation  Conclusion  [How are van Dijk’s prejudiced narratives different? Why is this important?]

Narrative Rules: who & what? (Metts)  Contexting rule:  Speaker  When/how?  Relevant to the topic  At prior topic close (e.g., the “lull”)  Introduced with relevance accounted for  Off-topic, but with prefatory signal  May be similar in “theme” (e.g., embarassment, failure, joy)

 Alignment rule:  Hearer  Wait for interruption  Can express “minimal responses of attention and appreciation” at Listener Response Relevant Moments (LRRMs)

 Concision rules:  I. Unnecessary Events: Omit “subevents” not necessary for understanding.  II. Audience familiarity: Shorten narratives with which audience is familiar.

 Comprehension rules:  I. Referencing: avoid vague references to people, places, events not understood by hearer  II. Sequencing: narrative should have logical (sequential) order  III. Evaluating: For narrative to be understood, you must “evaluate” the central action, indicate meaning of narrative at that point in the conversation.

 Appropriateness rules:  I. [Formality]: Story should match appropriate level of formality for the situatuation  II. [Altercasting]: Avoid stories that cast your interaction partner (i.e., make a “role bid”) in a role that she or he would not appreciate in the context.  [might there be others?]

 Narrative Receipt Rule:  Responding rule: Assume the narrative fit within the interaction context. “At the first indication of the narrative’s completion, you must offer an implicative turn that indicates your understanding or appreciation of for the evaluative point of the narrative”

Application  CMM: normative and constitutive rules  Schema  Cohesion:  Local (utterance by utterance)  Global  Effectiveness (per Thompson)  Narrative rules

The Funeral  iL8xs iL8xs iL8xs