This document discusses key concepts in conversational analysis including: 1) Turn allocation and how speakers know when it is their turn to speak through turn constructional units and transition relevance places. 2) Adjacency pairs which are sequences of related utterances like greetings and responses that make certain replies relevant. 3) Features of adjacency pairs including preferred versus dispreferred second responses and insertion sequences that can delay the second part of a pair.

1. INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS – 501
MA CLASS
THE ANALYSIS OF TALK IN INTERACTION (CONVERSATIONAL ANALYSIS)
Analyse and describe the sequential patterns of interaction in
 Institutional settings (School, doctor’s surgery, courts or elsewhere)
 Casual conversation
SUMMARY:
 Turn allocation
 Transcription conventions
 TURN ALLOCATION
Speakers surprisingly know most of the time when they can take the floor or when it is
their turn to speak.
CA focuses on 2 components in turn-taking:
 The turn constructional component = Turn constructional units (TCUs)
 The turn allocational component
TCUs = Turn Constructional Unites = The Turn Constructional Component
 Carrying out a social action within a given context
 May be composed of different elements:
- Linguistic
- Non-linguistic (Whole sentences, words, shoulder shrugs)
TACs = Turn Allocational Components
 Describe how turns are allocated among participants:
- Speaker selects next speaker
- Current speaker selects self
- Next speaker selects self
TRPs = Transition Relevance Place
 Transition relevance places are junctures at which the turn at talk could
legitimately pass from one speaker to another.
These TCUs are known as ADJACENCY PAIRS (The utterance of one speaker makes a
particular kind of response likely. There are several types of ADJACENCY PAIRS:
 Greeting – greeting
 Question – answer
 Apology – acceptance / rejection

2. INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS – 501
MA CLASS
 Compliment – acknowledgement / rejection
 Offer – acceptance / rejection
 Request – acceptance / refusal
 Opinion – agreement / disagreement
 Invitation – acceptance / rejection
 Comment – acknowledgement
ADJACENCY PAIRS typically consist of:
 First- pair part
 Second-pair part can be:
 Preferred (brieft, unmitigated and straightforward because they are expected)
 Dispreferred (delayed, qualified, making recourse in order to express token
agreement, apology, etc)
There are other TCUs which can put off the second-pair part
 Insertion sequeces
 Side sequences (The social action is different from the talk in which it is
embedded (note that overlap in talk is indicated through the use of square
brackets))
 Gist (clearing up any possible misunderstanding in terms of the semantic
meaning of the language used in order for the social action to continue unfolding)
 Upshot (clarification of the pragmatic meaning behind the language used)
 Presequences (avoid face-threatening acts
 Repair (interlocutors work towards solving problems in understanding in
conversation