Adjacency pairs, Cooperative principle

1. Adjacency pairs
• There is a relation between acts , and that conversation contains
frequently occurring patterns .
• The utterance of one speaker makes a certain response of the next
speaker .
• The acts categorized as question-answer , offer-accept , blame-
deny and so on.
• The first part creating an expectation of a particular second part.
• Each first part has a preferred response .
• The pairs are endless .
• Preference structure

2. Examples
The dispreferred responses tend to be refusals and
disagreement ,This are the unusual response,
meaningful or rude
A question has the preferred response of an answer
An offer an acceptance
An invitation an acceptance
An assessment an agreement
A proposal an agreement
A greeting a greeting
A complaint an apology
Dispreferred responses

3. An absence of response
An absence of response can be taken as the hearer not having
heard, not paying attention or simply refuse to cooperate .
Sequence
Speakers are mutually constructing and negotiating their
conversation in time ,certain sequences.
Prepare the ground for further sequence and signal the type of
utterance to follow.
Presequences

4. Example
Presequences
A: You know that French film that’s on in the Odeon ?
B: Yes ?
A: Do you want to go and see it tonight ?
B: Yeah , why not .
Here the speaker prepares the ground for further sequence and
signal the type of utterance to follow.

5. Insertion sequence
In the case of Insertion sequence , the pairs occur &
fixed within other adjacency pairs which act as macro –
sequences, functions as ……
Example
A: You know this French film that’s on in the Odeon ?
B : Yes ?
A: Do you want to go and see it tonight ?
B: What time does it start?
A: Eight thirty-five.
B: Yeah , why not .

6. ‘What time does it start ?’
‘Eight thirty –five ‘
constitute the insertion sequence
Opening , Closing Conventional Structure
Openings tend to contain a greeting , an inquiry after health and
past reference(as in ‘How did it go last night?)
Example
Brenda, a 34-year-old house wife , greets Lee , a 15-year old
student ,with a formulaic health enquiry.

7. Example
Brenda : Hi Lee.
Lee : Hi. Hi , Jean
Jean : Hi. Hi
Brenda : How are you ?
Lee : Not bad I’ll be in , in a minute

8. Limitations of CA
Criticism
• A lack of systematicity in the sense that there is no complete list
of all adjacency pairs . (Eggins and Slade 1997)
• No precise description of how far adjacency pairs.
CA sets out to be a qualitative not a quantitative approach.
• CA does not take into account pragmatic or sociolinguistic aspects
of interaction , the background context of why and how people
say what they say, the components of situation ,the features of the
social world and social identity such as occupation and gender of
participants.
• For CA analysts, context is context

9. CA analysts focus on
* The sequential progression of interaction .
* The way that each utterance is shaped by previous text
and shapes the following text .
* Context is something created in talk, rather than talk
as something created by context.

10. Interactional sociolinguistics
“social groups have their own ways of expressing meaning with their
language . Gumperz (1986)
* Language relates to context through ‘contextualization cues’.
The main goal is not to describe the structure of discourse.
* The main goal is the conversation analysis. The two
approaches are coming together now (Ochs , Schegloff and Thompson 1996).
* Looking at the relationship between grammar and social interaction.

11. TNE COOPERATIVE
PRINCIPLE
Understanding concepts
Observing maxims
Flouting and violating
Relevance theory

12. Observing maxims
1-The maxim of quantity :
• The first maxim of the cooperative principals .
• The speaker should be as formative as informative as is
required.
• They should give neither too little information nor too
much .
• Giving too little information the hearer ability to recognize
what are they talking about, the lose of explicitly .
• Giving too much information make the hearer feel boring

13. Observing maxims
2- The maxim of quality :
• Speakers are expected to be sincere .
• Say authentic things that corresponds to reality.
• Always say the true, not false, with evidence
Example
A : I’ll ring you tomorrow afternoon then .
B: Erm, I shall be there as far as I know ,and in the main
time have a word with Mum and Dad if they’re free. Right,
bye-bye then sweetheart .
A: Bye-bye, bye . BNC:kc8 Gillian,1991

14. Observing maxims
3 - The maxim of relation :
• Speakers are assumed to be saying something relevant to
what has been said before .
• Example 1
• “The baby cried .The Mommy picked it
up”.(Garfinkel 1967)
• We assume that the ‘Mommy’ was his mother
& she picked him up because he was crying .
• Example 2
A : There’s somebody at the door .
B: I’m at the bath.

15. Observing maxims
4 - The maxim of manner :
• Be brief and orderly.
• Avoid obscurity.
• Avoid ambiguity.
Example
Thank you chairman . jus- just to clarify one point .
There is one meaning of the police committee ,there is something not clear
in their budget .
(BNC,J44West Sussex council Highways committee Meeting ,1994 )

16. Flouting the maxims
In many cultures ,it can be socially unacceptable to
always say exactly what is in one’s mind unless one
knows the hearers very well.
Example
We might prefer to not to say to a shop assistant , as we hand
back a dress ,”This looks awful on ; I don’t want it after all ‘, But
rather you say ‘ I’ll go away and think about it and may be come
back later.

17. Flouting the maxims
• Flouting quantity
• Giving too much or too little information .
• A : Well , how do I look ?
• B : Your shoes are nice…….…
• (B) does not say that the rest of (A) clothes does not
look good ,but (A) will understand the implication .
• Why ?
• Because he asks about the whole appearance but got
an answer about part of it

18. Flouting the maxims
• Flouting quality
• Saying something simply does not represent what they think.
• The exaggerating as the hyperbole
• ‘ I could eat a horse’. Or
• A : Yes I’m starving too.
• B : Hurry up girl .
• A : Oh dear stop eating rubbish .You won’t
eat any dinner . (Leobowitz 1985 :368)
• The speaker won’t expect someone to say
• “What ,you could eat a whole horse .
The hearer would expect that the speaker is very hungry .

19. Any questions

21. Samer alhasnawii