This document provides an analysis of adjacency pairs found in the short story "The Yellow Handkerchief" by Pete Hamill. It identifies 9 conversations from the story and classifies them into 3 types of adjacency pairs: 7 are question-answer pairs, 1 is an information-acknowledgement pair, and 1 is an information-surprise pair. Question-answer pairs dominate the conversations as the main character tells his story when asked questions. The analysis concludes adjacency pairs consist of two utterances between speakers and this story is an example of their use.

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Analysis of Adjacency Pairs in The Yellow Handkerchief
Story by Pete Hamill
Cross Cultural Understanding

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Content
Content.........................................................................................................................2
I. Introduction................................................................................................................3
1.1 Background of Study .............................................................................................3
1.2 Research Question................................................................................................3
II. Literature Review.......................................................................................................3
2.1 Conversational Analysis.........................................................................................3
2.2 Adjacency Pairs.....................................................................................................4
III. Methodology.............................................................................................................5
3.1 Data Collection .....................................................................................................5
3.2 Data Analysis Procedure........................................................................................5
IV. Findings and Discussions............................................................................................6
V. Conclusion.................................................................................................................8
Reference......................................................................................................................9
Appendix 1 .................................................................................................................. 10

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I. Introduction
1.1 Background of Study
Conversation is one of the basic things in daily life. People talk to each
other to get information, to ask something, to apologize and there are still
many other purposes. The conversation can be done with two or more people.
During the conversation, both the speaker and the hearer have their each turn
to speak (Schegloff and Sacks, 1973). The exchange of utterance produced by
the participant of conversation is defined as adjacency pairs
Conversation can be analyzed through both linguistic and non-linguistic
study. In this case, the author will analyze the conversation using one of non-
linguistic study that has known as Conversational Analysis. There are some
conversation structures that common to be analyzed, those are turn-taking,
adjacency pairs and repair organization.
As the unit of conversation, there are many studies examine the
adjacency pairs in conversation. Most of the previous studies are using
interviews, records or movies to be the source data. In this case, the
researcher uses short story titled “The Yellow Ribbon” by Pete Hamill as the
source data. The data will be taken from the conversation that happened in
the story.
1.2 Research Question
a. What types of adjacency pairs are produce in The Yellow Ribbon
Story by Pete Hamill?
II. Literature Review
2.1 Conversational Analysis
Conversation is the common interaction between people. According to
Paul Grice (1975), a conversation should be being true (quality), being brief
(quantity), being relevant (relation) and being clear (manner). This rule of
conversation has known as Grice’s maxim.

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Conversational analysis is the study of language in terms of society
(Sack, 1992). The aim of conversational analysis is to discover how the speakers
are engaged in the conversations. According to Miller (2003) there are three
main tools to analyze a conversation; those are turn-taking, repair organization
and adjacency pairs.
2.2 Adjacency Pairs
Adjacency pairs is part of the structure in conversations. According to
Sacks and Schegloff (1973), adjacency pairs is one of the basic form of human
speech that functioned to meet the meaningful conversation. The adjacency
pairs have sequence pattern. It works if the participants of the conversation
know what they are talking about (Heritage, 1984). The utterance between the
speaker A and B should be coherence, so that conversation can be considered
as adjacency pairs. Below are characteristics of adjacency pairs;
 An adjacency pairs consists of two utterances that produce by
different speaker. (Schegloff and Sacks, 1973)
 Each participant of conversations will produce different
utterances. (Cambridge University Press, 2006)
 The speaker’s utterance is sequenced; the first utterance will
be immediately followed by the second utterance.
2.1.1 Type of Adjacency Pairs
There are many types of adjacency pairs that can be produce in
conversations. The following list is the common types of adjacency
pairs from the experts;
 question-answer, greeting-greeting, offer-acceptance, and
apology-minimization. (Levinson, 1983)
 thanking- acceptance response and request –acceptance
response. (Yule, 1996)

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 greeting-greeting, question- answer, complain-excuse; apology;
or denial, request/command- acceptance or rejection,
compliment-acknowledgement, and farewell – farewell.
(Chaika, 1982)
 question-answer, greeting and greeting, information-
acknowledgement. (Cook, 1989).
III. Methodology
3.1 Data Collection
The researcher chose “The Yellow Ribbon” to be analyzed because the
researchers have read the story before. Since the researcher didn’t have the
copy of the text anymore, the researcher tried to find the story on the
internet. The story was retrieved from
https://www.townsendpress.com/sites/default/files/tinymce/Library%20Excer
pts/tenreal.pdf on July 24th 2018. The conversation as the main data was taken
from the conversations that happened between the two main characters in the
story.
3.2 Data Analysis Procedure
First, the research read the whole story of The Yellow Ribbon. After
that, the researcher makes a table to identify the findings. The table consists of
the conversations and the type of adjacency pairs. Next, the researcher has to
find the data and put it in the “Conversations” column. Next, the researcher
will classify the type of adjacency of each data and put in the “Types of
Adjacency Pairs” column. The last, the researcher have to conclude what are
adjacency pairs that mostly happened in The Yellow Ribbon story by Pete
Hamill.

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IV. Findings and Discussions
Findings:
No Conversations Types of Adjacency Pairs
1 The girl: “We’re going to Florida,” “You going that far?”
Vingo: “I don’t know”
Question/Answer
2 The girl: “I’ve never been there,” she said.
“I hear it’s beautiful.”
Vingo: “It is,” he said quietly
Inform/Acknowledge
3 The girl: “You live there?”
Vingo: “I did some time there in the Navy. Jacksonville.”
Question/Answer
4 The girl: “Want some wine?” she said.
Vingo: (He thanked her and retreated again into his
silence.)
Question/Answer
5 The girl: “Four years! What did you do?”
Vingo: “It doesn’t matter. I did it and I went to jail. If you
can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. That’s what they
say and they’re right.”
Question/Answer
6 The girl: “Are you married?”
Vingo: “I don’t know.”
Question/Answer
7 The girl: “You don’t know?” she said.
Vingo: “Well, when I was in the can I wrote to my wife,”
“I told her, I said, Martha, I understand if you can’t stay
married to me. I told her that…….”
Question/Answer
8 The girl: “And you’re going home now, not knowing?”
Vingo: “Yeah,” he said shyly.
Question/Answer
9 Vingo: “Well, last week, when I was sure the parole was
coming through, I wrote her. I told her that if she had a
new guy, I understood. But if she didn’t, if she would take
me back she should let me know. We used to live in this
town, Brunswick, just before Jacksonville, and there’s a
big oak tree just as you come into town, a very famous
tree, huge. I told her that if she’d take me back, she
should put a yellow handkerchief on the tree and I’d get
off and come home. If she didn’t want me, forget it — no
handkerchief and I’d go through.”
The girl: “Wow,” the girl said. “Wow.”
Inform/Surprise

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Discussion:
 The 1st conversation is identified as Question/Answer pairs and functioned to
start the conversation. The girl’s utterance is the question and Vingo utterance
as the answer.
 The 2nd conversation is identified as Inform/Acknowledge and functioned to
build longer sequence. The girl tells Vingo that she has never been visit Florida
before and claims that Florida is a beautiful place based on people’s opinion.
The girl’s utterance is information, so it identified as Inform. Since Vingo says,
“It is” it shows that Vingo have visited Florida before and acknowledge the
girl’s utterance.
 The 3rd conversation is identified as Question/Answer pairs.
 The 4th conversation is identified as Offer/Acceptance pairs. The girl’s
utterance can clearly identify as offer because she asked whether Vingo want
to drink wine or not. Since Vingo smiles and give thanks to her, his utterance is
an acceptance. As stated above, an adjacency pairs consist of two utterances
but in this conversation the author represents the answer in a sentence.
 The 5th conversation is identified as Question/Answer. The girl’s asked about
what happened to Vingo in the past and Vingo answer the girl’s question.
 The 6th conversation is identified as Question/Answer. The girl’s asked about
what happened to Vingo in the past and Vingo answer the girl’s question.
 The 7th conversation is identified as Question/Answer. The girl’s asked about
what happened to Vingo in the past and Vingo answer the girl’s question.
 The 8th conversation is identified as Question/Answer. The girl’s asked about
what happened to Vingo in the past and Vingo answer the girl’s question. The
5th – 8th conversations are in the Question/Answer pairs but the aims of
questioning itself is to confirming Vingo’s answer.
 The 9th conversation is identified as Inform/Surprise. If we focus to the
definition of adjacency pairs, this conversation can be considered as an
adjacency pairs. But there is no expert that mention the inform/compliment

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pair. Vingo’s utterance considered as Inform because he tells about an
agreement that he made with his wife in the future to the girl. The girl’s
utterance is a surprise. The utterance “Wow” shows her spontaneous feeling
to what Vingo has said.
From the findings above, we can clearly see that adjacency pairs consist of two
utterances from two speakers. In The Yellow Ribbon story consists of nine types of
adjacency pairs. Seven conversations are identified as Question/Answer pairs, one
conversation is identified as Inform/Acknowledge pairs and the other one is identified
as Inform/Surprise pairs.
V. Conclusion
Adjacency pairs consists of two utterances and produced by different speaker.
There are many types of adjacency that can be produce during the conversation. But
in this study of The Yellow Ribbon story the researcher only find 3 types of adjacency
pairs, those are question/answer pairs, inform/acknowledge pairs and inform/surprise
pairs.
From the three types of adjacency pairs, the question/answer pair is
dominating the conversations. There are 7 question/answer pairs and 1 type for two
other pairs. The dominance of question/answer pairs can be influenced by the setting
of this story. In this case, the girl just met Vingo on the bus when they are going to
Florida. As stated in the story, with great hesitation Vingo tells his story to the girl and
the girl is very excited to hear Vingo’s story. Her desire to know Vingo’s life story
makes the conversations stated in The Yellow Ribbon story is dominated by
question/answer pairs.
The author has done the best ability to finish this paper, but the author
acknowledged that she still lacks of abilities and sources in doing this research. It may
need further research to complete the flaws from this research.

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Reference
Boyer, K. E., Philips, R., Ha, E. Y., Wallis, M. D., Vouk, M. A., & Lester, J. C. (2009). The
Intelli Media Group. Retrieved from https://www.intellimedia.ncsu.edu/wp-
content/uploads/naaclhlt2009-boyer-etal.pdf
Bruti, P. S. (2009). Retrieved from A TASK:
http://www.gloriacappelli.it/wpcontent/uploads/2009/03/bruti2.pdf
Crystal, David. 1987.The Cambridge encyclopedia of language. Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University.
Hamill, P. (n.d.). Townsend Press. Retrieved July 25, 2018, from
https://www.townsendpress.com/sites/default/files/tinymce/Library%20Excerpts/t
enreal.pdf
Levinson, Stephen C. 1983.Pragmatics. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University.
Murti, I. K. (2014). Jurnal UNY. Retrieved July 25, 2018, from
http://eprints.uny.ac.id/17617/1/Irma%20Krisna%20Murti%2010211144028.pdf
Norquist, R. (2018, July 12). ThoughCo. Retrieved July 25, 2018, from Adjacency Pairs
(Conversational Analysis): https://www.thoughtco.com/adjacency-pair-
conversation-analysis-1688970
Research Gate. (2018, March 27). Retrieved July 25, 2018, from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324034934_ADJACENCY_PAIRS_AS_UTT
ERED_IN_THE_CONVERSATIONS_OF_SOFIA_COPPOLA'S_LOST_IN_TRANSLATION_
MOVIE_SCRIPT
SIL. (n.d.). Retrieved July 25, 2018, from Glossary of Linguistic Term:
https://glossary.sil.org/term/adjacency-pair

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Appendix 1
They were going to Fort Lauderdale, the girl remembered later. There were six of
them, three boys and three girls, and they picked up the bus at the old terminal on
34th Street, carrying sandwiches and wine in paper bags, dreaming of golden beaches
and the tides of the sea as the gray cold spring of New York vanished behind them.
Vingo was on board from the beginning.
As the bus passed through Jersey and into Philly, they began to notice that Vingo
never moved. He sat in front of the young people, his dusty face masking his age,
dressed in a plain brown ill-fitting suit. His fingers were stained from cigarettes and he
chewed the inside of his lip a lot, frozen into some personal cocoon of silence.
Somewhere outside of Washington, deep into the night, the bus pulled into a Howard
Johnson’s, and everybody got off except Vingo. He sat rooted in his seat, and the
young people began to wonder about him, trying to imagine his life: Perhaps he was a
sea captain, maybe he had run away from his wife, he could be an old soldier going
home. When they went back to the bus, the girl sat beside him and introduced herself.
“We’re going to Florida,” the girl said brightly. “You going that far?”
“I don’t know,” Vingo said. “I’ve never been there,” she said. “I hear it’s
beautiful.”
“It is,” he said quietly, as if remembering something he had tried to forget.
“You live there?”
“I did some time there in the Navy. Jacksonville.”
“Want some wine?” she said. He smiled and took the bottle of Chianti and took
a swig. He thanked her and retreated again into his silence. After a while, she went
back to the others, as Vingo nodded in sleep.
In the morning they awoke outside another Howard Johnson’s, and this time
Vingo went in. The girl insisted that he join them. He seemed very shy and ordered
black coffee and smoked nervously, as the young people chattered about sleeping on
the beaches. When they went back on the bus, the girl sat with Vingo again, and after
a while, slowly and painfully and with great hesitation, he began to tell his story. He
had been in jail in New York for the last four years, and now he was going home.
“Four years!” the girl said. “What did you do?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said with quiet bluntness. “I did it and I went to jail. If
you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. That’s what they say and they’re right.”
“Are you married?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” she said.

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“Well, when I was in the can I wrote to my wife,” he said. “I told her, I said,
Martha, I understand if you can’t stay married to me. I told her that. I said I was gonna
be away a long time, and that if she couldn’t stand it, if the kids kept askin’ questions,
if it hurt her too much, well, she could just forget me. Get a new guy— she’s a
wonderful woman, really something— and forget about me. I told her she didn’t have
to write me or nothing. And she didn’t. Not for three and a half years.”
“And you’re going home now, not knowing?”
“Yeah,” he said shyly. “Well, last week, when I was sure the parole was coming
through I wrote her. I told her that if she had a new guy, I understood. But if she
didn’t, if she would take me back, she should let me know. We used to live in this
town, Brunswick, just before Jacksonville, and there’s a great big oak tree just as you
come into town, a very famous tree, huge. I told her if she would take me back, she
should put a yellow handkerchief on the tree, and I would get off and come home. If
she didn’t want me, forget it, no handkerchief, and I’d keep going on through.”
“Wow,” the girl said. “Wow.”
She told the others, and soon all of them were in it, caught up in the approach
of Brunswick, looking at the pictures Vingo showed them of his wife and three
children, the woman handsome in a plain way, the children still unformed in a cracked,
much-handled snapshot. Now they were twenty miles from Brunswick and the young
people took over window seats on the right side, waiting for the approach of the great
oak tree. Vingo stopped looking, tightening his face into the ex-con’s mask, as if
fortifying himself against still another disappointment. Then it was ten miles, and then
five and the bus acquired a dark hushed mood, full of silence, of absence, of lost years,
of the woman’s plain face, of the sudden letter on the breakfast table, of the wonder
of children, of the iron bars of solitude.
Then suddenly all of the young people were up out of their seats, screaming
and shouting and crying, doing small dances, shaking clenched fists in triumph and
exaltation. All except Vingo.
Vingo sat there stunned, looking at the oak tree. It was covered with yellow
handkerchiefs, twenty of them, thirty of them, maybe hundreds, a tree that stood like
a banner of welcome blowing and billowing in the wind, turned into a gorgeous yellow
blur by the passing bus. As the young people shouted, the old con slowly rose from his
seat, holding himself tightly, and made his way to the front of the bus to go home.