Discourse analysis

  http://tbf.me/a/BVoZqB Purpose: This assignment gives you with an opportunity to transcribe and analyze real conversation, using the approaches, the principles and the features of conversation discussed in required or recommended module readings (e.g., Strauss & Feiz, 2014; Holtgraves, 2002; Pridham, 2001; Richards & Schmidt, 1983; Scollon & Scollon, 2003) and in class. Where's the data? Audio-record one conversation among two or more people (though I would discourage you from transcribing a conversation with more than three people…). These could be friends or family, and you don't have to be present during the conversation, but it must be a real conversation (i.e., it cannot be a conversation recorded on TV or on the radio). You should aim to record approximately 15-20 minutes and then select a segment of the recording. Listen to the conversation several times, to identify a segment that is lively and interactionally interesting. Choose a segment that is easy to hear, not ambiguous, and for which you think you have a clear sense of what is going on. You may choose a segment in which some problem or misunderstanding arose, or a segment which went especially smoothly, or a segment in which you noticed some features of conversation which interest you. It would be easier if the section is relatively lively, with frequent exchange of turns. The section should also have a recognizable beginning and ending, though it is okay if there are unrelated actions embedded within the segment. Transcribe that segment using the Jeffersonian CA transcription conventions (references below). You need to transcribe roughly 2-3 minutes of conversation (or less, if conversation is especially fast-paced), obtaining 50-70 lines of transcript, or approximately one-two page of transcript with one or 1.5 line spacing (use Arial Narrow or Times New Roman, font size 12, or Courier New, font size 10). Don't forget to ask for permission to audio-record and obtain informed ethics consent (more on this below), and use pseudonyms for the participants in your transcript! Include your transcript in an appendix. Analysis: In your analysis of the transcript, you should look for the features of conversation discussed in the readings and in class (e.g., turn-taking, topics, overlapping, latching, cooperative principle and Grice's maxims, repair, etc.). Count the features for each participant, with a view to identifying patterns and comparing participants across different features. Although you will be working on a relatively short transcript, this is one way to begin to see patterns. Present as much information as you can in a table. In your paper, you need to identify and explain two aspects of the conversation: (1) patterns and structures that organize the conversation, and (2) cooperation in the conversation, that is the extent to which the participants cooperate and achieve mutual understanding (or not) in the conversation. In your discussion, ensure that you include reference to such features as the following (but feel free to discuss others): speech acts cooperative principle/Grice's maxims politeness strategies indirectness turn-taking adjacency pairs number of turns / length of turns backchannels / continuers latching overlapping pauses repair topics / kind of topics interruptions repetition echoing reduced syntactic form use of questions & answers conversational coherence / thematic cohesion* (*This is not exactly the same as cohesion in the Systemic Functional Linguistics sense!) The paper: Write a paper in which you discuss your findings addressing the two points above. (Include your transcript as an appendix - this will be excluded from the word count). You cannot cover all aspects of the conversation, so identify the features that seem to be playing the most important roles, and focus your discussion on those. Ensure that you do the following: 1. Include a brief introduction that explains the context of the interaction and who the participants are. Assuming that your reader is not familiar with your data, explain, "what is going on in this excerpt?" 2. Include as much information (about the features) as you can in a table and then refer to the table in your discussion of the features. (If really necessary, you can include more than one table, but do not include several small tables…) 3. Use excerpts from the transcript to illustrate and support your analysis. Number the excerpts, and refer to them clearly. 4. Discuss (1) the patterns and structures that organize the conversation, and (2) the way that cooperation and mutual understanding among participants is achieved (or not) in the conversation. I would expect that the analysis preceding the write up should take you much longer than the write up itself. That is, you should expect to spend a significant amount of time transcribing, and then doing line-by-line analysis of the interaction, of the 'actions' in the segment, of the features of the conversation you have included in your transcription, and of how they work together to shape the actions in the segment and to signal co-operation (or lack of it). Remember: This assignment is a conversation analysis, that is an application project which requires you to demonstrate understanding of conversation analysis (and, to some extent, pragmatics) through application of the tools and methods of conversation analysis to original data (as opposed to describing them). This project does not require you to look for additional secondary sources beyond module readings or recommended readings. It also does not require you to do a literature review in your paper, so do not start your paper with a literature review. The Transcript: Your transcript needs to reflect the exact words that were uttered in the conversation (except for words that are unintelligible, of course), and a fairly precise representation of non-verbal and paralinguistic features that are important for conversation analysis. You should follow the Jeffersonian (Jefferson, 2004) transcription system (see Strauss & Faiz, 2014, chpt. 6, pp. 216- 217; and Atkinson & Heritage, 2006, on BlackBoard). At a minimum, you need to indicate the following: 1. pauses ( (.) is fine for a short pause, but estimate seconds for a long pause) 2. overlaps 3. latches 4. very noticeable signs of emphasis (e.g., <very loud>, <bangs fist on the table>) On top of the transcript, include: 1) a brief key to participants (e.g., Katie, 20 years old, student, Mark's sister); 2) specification of minute/second of beginning and end of transcribed segment. Here are some transcription conventions that you should use (but feel free to use more). [ Brackets between lines indicate overlapping speech, i.e. people talking at the same time. (If there is one bracket, then there must be another bracket lined up vertically on the following line.) // The double oblique indicates the point at which a current speaker's talk is overlapped by the talk of another (an alternative system to the brackets between lines; you should use one or the other, but not both). = The equal sign indicates latching, i.e., no interval between the end of a prior and start of a next piece of talk. Underlined Underlining (or underscoring) marks emphatic stress. May involve pitch or volume. CAPS Caps mark very emphatic stress. Can use even for just parts of a word. < > Angle brackets are used for comments on quality of speech and context (e.g. <laughing>, <unintelligible>) (.) Indicates a pause of less than one second - short pause. (1.4) Numbers in parentheses indicate elapsed time in seconds. : [e.g., ta::lk] Colons indicate that the prior syllable is prolonged