features of conversation - discourse features

features of conversation - discourse features

1. adjacency pairs

   • two utterances where the first utterance gets an expected response (eg greeting/greeting, question/answer). you expect a certain response

2. back channeling

   • non-verbal utterance to show attention or agreement eg: mmm. yeah, ok

3. deictic expressions

   • pointers that refer the listener backwards, forwards, or outside a text. pointing words in a perceptual, temporal or spatial dimension. eg words like 'this' 'that' 'here' 'there'

4. discourse markers

   • signal shift in conversation and topic areas. can also introduce a counter agrument eg ok, right, so, but

5. discourse pragmatic markers

   • phrases which support interaction but do not generally add any specific semantic meaning to the message. eg: you know, i mean, you see, well, yeah, like, innit

6. ellipsis

   • omission of words for economical purposes, as appropriate to informal contexts or to avoid awkward repitition eg: just seen jack (elipsis: i've); tonight 8pm (ellipsis: i'll meet you at...)

7. false starts/repairs

   • a speaker will start to speak, pause then recommence (it began er arsenal kicked off the second half (false start -it began). a repair returns to correct a previously stated phrase or sentence (eg he, sorry she broke the vase (repair she from he)

8. fillers

   • non-verbal sounds, can act like pauses either naturally or to give a speaker thinking time. may also signal speaker uncertainty

9. hedging

   • a strategy used to avoid being direct: eg kind of, sort of, maybe, perhaps, possibly and modal verbs such as will, could, might

10. non-fluency features

    • non-verbal occurrences, eg micro pauses, hesitations and repetitions that occur in spontaneous speech

11. prosodics

    • features such as tone of voice, volume, pitch etc which affect how a message is received

12. skip connectors

    • return to a previous topic of conversation, essentially a type of discourse marker eg anyway, coming back to our original discussion

13. tag questions

    • a question converted from a statement by an appended interrogative formula. eg: you did really well, didnt you? it was tomorrow, wasnt it?

14. vague expressions

    • similar to hedging, deliberately non-committal expression in informal contexts eg, anything, something, thing