Sinia Bosanac, Damir Latin, Petra Mikoli

Discourse Analysis: Spoken

Language

Subject: Discourse Analysis

Academic year: 2008/2009

Department of English

Faculty of Philosophy

University of Zagreb

Zagreb, 2009

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Contents

1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 4

1.1 The spoken language why is it specific? ..................................................................................... 4 1.2 Language and context ................................................................................................................... 6

2. Methods .............................................................................................................................................. 8

2.1 The conversation ........................................................................................................................... 8

2.2 The recording ................................................................................................................................ 8

2.3. Encoding process: Transcription, Coding and Markup ................................................................. 9

3. Contextual dimensions ...................................................................................................................... 11

3.1 The participants and the Context of Culture ............................................................................... 11

3.2 The context of situation .............................................................................................................. 14

3.3 Knowledge of the world .............................................................................................................. 16

3.4 Co-text ......................................................................................................................................... 17

4. Coding principles ............................................................................................................................... 17

4.1 Division into sections and topics ................................................................................................. 17

4.1.1 Sections ................................................................................................................................ 18

4.1.2 Topics and supertopics ......................................................................................................... 20

4.2 Topic-shift .................................................................................................................................... 21

4.2.1 Topic boundary markers in spoken discourse ...................................................................... 22

4.2.2 Topic navigation ................................................................................................................... 23

4.3 Feedback...................................................................................................................................... 25

5. The analysis ....................................................................................................................................... 28

5.1 Mechanisms of cohesion ............................................................................................................. 28

5.1.1 References ............................................................................................................................ 28

5.1.2 Ellipsis ................................................................................................................................... 34

5.1.3 Paralinguistic signs ............................................................................................................... 34

5.1.4 Addressing (T-V pronouns, nicknames...) ............................................................................. 37

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5.1.5 Speech acts ........................................................................................................................... 39

5.2 Hedges and evidential ................................................................................................................. 42

5.3. Grammatical properties of the discourse .................................................................................. 44

6. Gricean maxims ................................................................................................................................. 49

6.2 The maxim of Quantity ................................................................................................................ 50

6.3 The maxim of Relevance ............................................................................................................. 51

6.4. The maxim of Manner ................................................................................................................ 53

6.5 Be Polite ....................................................................................................................................... 55

7. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 56

8. Literature ........................................................................................................................................... 58

9. Appendix The transcription ............................................................................................................ 59

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1. Introduction

1.1 The spoken language why is it specific?

Language is not only a means of communicating information, but

means of establishing and maintaining relationships with other people. We

use language for our own purposes, to manipulate or influence or define the

situation as we wish, and to convey nuances of meaning and personal

intention. This can be achieved through various means, and conversation

was, is and will probably remain the first and foremost thereof.

It is not hard to conclude that spoken language differs from the

written or that of communicational technologies. But while it requires less

effort to produce it and understand it for the participants of the

conversation, those that were excluded from the whole actualization of

conversation find it far more complex than the written text of any kind.

Spoken text is usually preserved by tape-recording which may preserve far more than a text in its narrowest meaning opening of a bag of sugar, coughing, noise surrounding the speakers. Even though many will argue

that these manifestations do not constitute a part of the text, they are important in analyzing the context of situation, culture and speakers attitude toward one another.

It is also necessary to point out that conversation differs from other

communication technologies according to the channels available while machine-assisted uses only one (or nowadays with video calls two and more

channels), in interpersonal communication all channels are available (audio

channel (speech), visual channel (gestures, emotions, lip-reading etc.),

olfactive, and tactile).

In order to successfully use the language in conversational interaction,

one must learn, along with grammar and vocabulary, paralinguistic signs

and cultural conventions. For example, one must learn ways to achieve

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cohesion in a discourse or speech acts of a particular language and when to

use it.

There are rules for conducting and interpretation of conversation in

general, and they differ from society to society. Conversations have a

structure which is culture dependant. One of the obvious features showing

this structure is the principle of turn-taking, that is, only one person speaks

at a time, while others wait to take their turn. Of course, seldom does it

happen this way. This feature also implies that when a participant takes

their turn, he or she does not only have the right to speak, but also the

obligation to speak. This is the responding turn which can be expressed

linguistically (response) or non-linguistic (feedback). One can say that there

are rules on silence, that is, when is one expected to speak and, also, in

which manner, on which topic etc. Say, a silence of no more than ten

seconds is allowed, or acceptable, even if the two people dont know each other (for example, two people traveling on a train together in the same

compartment). People then feel embarrassed by silence and feel pressured to

say something, and usually start making small-talk, like Nice weather were having today, or Its very hot today (the weather is always a good ice-breaker).

These rules are very culture specific. In some cultures both silence and

interruptions are perfectly acceptable, or even obligatory, and to speak with

someone you do not know would be considered extremely impolite and long

periods of silence are perfectly acceptable.

Of course, there are also rules on when it is alright to interrupt someone and, important being, how this is done. This is usually done by acknowledging ones own transgression, like I am sorry to interrupt, and with similar expressions.

Another feature of conversations is that they consist of structured sequences of different types of utterance (Trudgill, 2000:109). These structured sequences are called adjacency pairs. These pairs describe

the way in which conversations can be segmented into pairs of

exchanges that are connected although they are spoken by different

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speakers. To put it more simply, when uttering an initiate (statement

or question), a response (agreement, disagreement, direct or indirect

answer, query, compliance or providing service (?)) is expected and

required. Adjacency pairs are important for the communication or

conversation because they provide cohesion to the discourse.

Ellipsis is also one of the features of conversation. Even though some

linguistic elements are omitted, participants make an interpretation on the

conversation. There is a proposition known to participants that makes a

connection between question Could you lend me some money? and response I havent been paid yet. What holds conversation together is not only participants knowledge of the language, but also knowledge of the world.

Looking at these features, we can say that conversations, then, are structured, rule-governed, non-random sequences of utterances (2000:111). These rules are something that has to be learned and making good

conversation is a skill one masters with time.

1.2 Language and context

Language can vary according to the social context in which speakers

engage in conversation and not only according to their social characteristics.

Different situations and different purposes require different linguistic

varieties. More than one linguistic variety can be used in a single

conversation. The selection of language (style, register) depends on the topic

of discussion. In our recorded conversation, varieties exchange according to

the topic shifts. When talking about their project, the participants use formal

style and special register, namely that of information sciences; however,

when they talk about temporary or trivial topics and events, they

automatically shift to informal style and register.

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In this research we will analyze conversation according to the theory

explained above, that is, according to mechanisms of cohesion, its

grammatical properties and how are the Gricean maxims of conversation

adhered to or broken.

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2. Methods

2.1 The conversation

The material analyzed for the purpose of this work is a sound

recording of a complete spontaneous conversation between three

participants. This specific conversation was selected because it was

prearranged and it had a predetermined topic to devise a plan and methodology for a joint project for a class at their faculty. The other reason

was that the author and the participants know each other relatively well and

are in good terms so it was very probable that they would agree to participate

in the research.

The spontaneity of the participants was assured by the fact that they

were not aware from the beginning that they were being recorded. One of the

participants, and one of the authors of this paper who recorded the

conversation, was naturally aware that he was being recorded, but that

apparently did not have significant influence on his spontaneity which is

proved by the fact that both the other participants and the analysts did not

notice any difference in his behavior. This can be due to the fact that the

participant/author himself was distracted by actively participating in the

discussion.

The participants in the conversation gave their consent for using the

recording for the purposes of this work explicitly and the consent is available

on the recording.

2.2 The recording

The total length of the recording after trimming off the blanks at the

beginning and the end is 80 minutes and 36 seconds. The recording was

made by an Olympus WS-210S digital sound recorder in stereo high quality

mode at sampling frequency of 44.1 kHz with built-in noise reduction filter

activated. During the process of recording it was placed in the front pocket

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author/participants jacket thus providing adequate microphone coverage of all participants.

Because the conversation took place outdoors and the microphone of

the device is omnidirectional, a lot of background noise, such as birds

singing, traffic, unintelligible speech of other people etc., was also recorded.

Noises not relevant for the conversation, were filtered out and the recording

was cut into sections using sound recording and editing software suite

Adobe Audition 3.0.

2.3. Encoding process: Transcription, Coding and Markup

Edwards (2003) names three types of encoding in transcripts:

transcription, coding and markup. According to her, the transcription tells

us who said what, to whom, in what manner, and under what circumstances, the coding is even more interpretive and more closely tied to particular theoretical frameworks such as syntax, semantics and pragmatics, and mark-up concerns format-relevant specifications rather than content that are used mainly by computer software for segmentation and cataloging the parts of discourse.

The transcription, coding and markup in the analysis were done

mostly manually with the help of an open-source tool called Transcriber. For

some visualizations another open-source tool called Praat was used. Praat

also has advanced capabilities of an in-depth phonetic analysis, but these

functions were not used because they surpassed the scope of this work.

For the purposes of this work we decided to transcribe the

conversation using the modified orthography in order to preserve some

nuances of pronunciation such as regional accents and idiolects. We did not

use phonetic transcription for depicting the variations in accentuation,

tonality and other more complex features of pronunciation but instead

decided to rely on annotations and comments to describe their quality and

function. A more detailed phonetic analysis is possible in the future because

the original recording is preserved unedited and in its full quality.

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We coded information such as occurrences of mechanisms of cohesion

(references, ellipses), paralinguistic signs and additional information on what

the participants are doing at the given time (e.g. talking on the phone,

looking for a place to sit in the caf). The paralinguistic signs were deciphered from the recording based on cues provided by distinctive noises

(e.g. the shuffling of clothes when changing poses) or based on memory of

the author who participated in the conversation.

Markup data was added by the software we used and it concerns

timestamps, technical properties of the recording and physical properties of

the sound wave. The data files were also manually divided into smaller parts,

which we named sections, in order to meet the technical restrictions

imposed by hardware and software resources and to facilitate easier

transport over the Internet between the authors.

While doing this, special care was taken in order to preserve coherence

of the segments by separating them at points of topic-shifts. Small part of

the previous segment is always included in the next to allow easier analysis

of the shift. Because of this we must differentiate the timestamp of the

fragment and the timestamp of the whole conversation. The timestamps of

the whole conversation are included in the file-names of the segments. In

this paper all timestamps are shown in hh:mm:ss format.

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3. Contextual dimensions

3.1 The participants and the Context of Culture

There were three participants in the conversation. We will refer to them as

M, N and S. As mentioned before, two of them, M and N, were unaware that

the conversation was recorded during the most part of its duration, while S

was aware but did not show any obvious signs that it influenced its

behavior. All of the participants are students of information sciences at

graduate level at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb and at the time of

recording knew each other for almost full four years. They were cooperating

on multiple projects for classes and had moderate contact at informal

occasions.

M is female, 24 years of age, born in Biha, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since three years of age she lives in Zagreb where she finished primary and

secondary school and enrolled faculty.

Her mother tongue is Croatian, tokavian dialect. At primary school level she learned English and German. At secondary school level she

continued to learn English and started to learn Spanish. At higher education

level she started to learn Swedish.

At secondary level she finished a general-program school in Zagreb.

She is currently studying information sciences at graduate level at the

Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb. She works as a lecturer at a firm holding

courses in informatics. She started to deal with informatics at an early age,

still in primary school. She did not have any or hardly any contact with

matters concerning agriculture except that at biology classes. She does not

have any contacts with other dialects of Croatian except at faculty.

N is male, 24 years of age, born and currently living in Zagreb. He

finished primary and general-program secondary school in Zagreb. His

mother tongue is Croatian, tokavian dialect. He was learning English and German at primary and secondary school, and stopped learning French after

primary.

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He studied physics for two years at the Faculty of Science in Zagreb.

He is currently studying information sciences and philosophy at graduate

level at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb. He works as an assistant at a

law firm and is familiar with legal terminology. Ns interests in informatics began at approximately eight years of age when he got his first computer. He

is acquainted with the terminology related to agriculture through interaction

with his friends and had direct contact with it on his visits to his relatives in

the rural areas. He has moderately frequent contacts with native speakers of

ikavian variant of tokavian dialect while visiting Imotski area. S is male, 23 years of age, born in Pakrac, lived in municipality of

Hercegovac in Bjelovar-Bilogora County until 18 years of age when he

enrolled faculty and since then spends most of the year living in Zagreb. His

mother tongue is Croatian, tokavian dialect. He learned German at primary and secondary school, English at secondary school, and currently learns

Russian at the Faculty.

He finished primary school in Hercegovac, and general-program

secondary school in Garenica. He is currently studying English and information sciences at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb. He is a member

of the Students Council and active in several students associations and is acquainted with legal terminology. As he spent the most of his life living in a

rural environment, he is familiar and had plenty of direct contact with the

area of agriculture and its terminology. He is interested in informatics and

deals with it since primary school. He has frequent interaction with

kajkavian dialect as his neighbor is from Zagorje and also with ikavian

variant of tokavian dialect through interaction with his friends from Imotski.

The most important aspect of context of culture is their shared

knowledge of cultural conventions, which is observable from the fact that

they communicate efficiently, with very little misunderstanding. One of the

rare difficulties can be seen in the part where N uses a nickname to refer to

the mayor of Zagreb. The nickname is derived from the suffix of the Brazilian

football player Ronaldihno and M does not recognize it, perhaps not being

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familiar with such practice of nickname formation which is more peculiar to

those who watch football.

E.g. 1

N: Ma io sam jutros napokon obavit ovo kod... Bandinja. M: Koga?

N: Kod Bandia. M: Aha, za stipendiju si io potpisat se.

The common attributes of all three participants are: age, mother

tongue and dialect, the field of study, the same faculty, they speak at least

three foreign languages, they attend the same classes and know the same

professors and live in the same city. All three share the same sociolects

related to profession: sociolect of informatics and that of students at Faculty

of Philosophy.

All three use a significant amount of forms that belong to languages

foreign from their perspective, namely English and Russian, and other

dialects of Croatian than their own, namely kajkavian and akavian. These are used mainly for stylistic purposes and the relatively frequent use reflects

the fact that all three know the other speakers good enough to know they

share the same knowledge and will be understood.

E.g. 2

S: Kak ste kaj kolega!

N: Tovari! S: Zdrao. (shake hands)

E.g. 3

S: Na svakom putovanju.. to mu je sad recurring fora. njemu je, istina,

smjenije...

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One of the more noticeable common features of their discourse is the

frequent use of imitated direct speech when talking about other persons in

longer monologues, suggesting that this type of discourse is common in their

culture.

3.2 The context of situation

The context of situation will be described according to features used by

Brown and Yule (1983:38), borrowed from Hymes (1964): addressor,

addressee, audience, topic, setting, channel, code, message form, event and

purpose.

Addressors and addresses are interchangeably the three participants

described in the previous section of this paper. N and M have arrived at the

meeting which would be the last obligation in their schedule for the day and

the time they could spend there was not limited by other engagements. S

had to meet another friend and after that to pack his bags for a trip abroad

by a bus that was to leave approximately 3 hours after the beginning of the

meeting. S was obviously under a certain amount of pressure to finish the

meeting as early as possible to be able to fulfill other engagements. This is

evident from the following comment by him:

E.g. 1

S: Ovoga, da, mogli bi se mi malo i pourit jer ja M: Kad vi putujete? U dvanajst?

S: U dvanajst, al moram ja jo

Audience has significant influence on what is being said and in what

manner. For example the participants would not shout out loud personal,

embarrassing or confidential information when other guests in the caf could hear them. Instead they would talk in a lower tone when talking about these

types of topics, or use paralinguistic signs to show that the topic is

confidential, e.g. by looking around, using gestures etc.

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More on topics is said in Chapter 4 of this paper.

The setting in which the conversation took place is an open terrace of

a caf full of guests. The conversation started at half past eight in the evening and ended at roughly ten o clock. The weather was cloudy and somewhat chilly which is also mentioned by the participants.

The communication channel refers to the ways in which the message

travels to the receiver. Sound waves carry spoken words; light waves carry visual messages. Air currents can also serve as an olfactory channel carrying

messages to our noses messages that are subtle but nonetheless significant. (Dominick 1993:8). The participants of this particular conversation use all of the available channels, but as only the data carried

by the audio channel was recorded, that which is carried by other channels

is either lost or must be deciphered from its footprint in the audio channel or explicit linguistic reactions or reference to it by the speakers.

The code refers to language and dialect used. In the analyzed

conversation the language is Croatian and tokavian dialect. Forms that belong to other languages (English, Russian) and dialects (kajkavian,

tokavian) were used primarily for their stylistic function. Some English words are also used because of the economy of language, especially when

talking about information technology and legal terminology; for example

legalese instead of pravni argon or zakuasti pravni izrazi (according to Bujas).

The message forms vary from casual chat, debate, brain-storming

type flow of consciousness, story-telling, theatrical mimicking of other

people, monologues etc., mostly depending on the topic.

The nature of the communicative event can be described as formal

meeting in its purpose, but informal in the major part of its realization. The

explicit formality in the first section of the conversation was meant to be

ironic. The conversation also had its duration limited in advance because

one of the participants, S, had to leave at a specific time because of other

engagements.

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The purpose of the meeting (what the participants intended that

should come about as a result of the communicative event) was to establish

and organize methods for the purpose of a research project they were doing

together at the Faculty.classes. The purpose of the event was successfully

fulfilled. The evidence that a purpose exists is observable at a relatively

longer segment of the conversation during which they talk exclusively about

the project without any topic-shifts or digressions.

3.3 Knowledge of the world

A certain degree of shared knowledge of the world among the

participants is an absolute necessity forany kind of communication process

to be successful. The most basic knowledge in this sense is the one of code

by which the communication is carried out.

One of the basic functions of language is the informational function to convey information in order to create knowledge. We will observe this

function from a rather simplified viewpoint in an excerpt in which S and N

teach M what disc harrows are.

As it is visible from 3.1 S possesses knowledge about disc harrows which he gained from his direct experience, N has a lesser degree of

knowledge about them which he because he learned about them indirectly,

and M does not have any knowledge about the mentioned agricultural

implement. When the harrows are mentioned, M gives direct feedback

requesting an explanation of the term. S and N readily provide information

about it, and at this point S obviously gives too much information on

purpose, partly in order to create a humorous effect, and partly to brag

about his knowledge. At this point M responds with explicit negative

feedback, as obviously the information provided is not relevant to her, and S

and N, from her point of view, are clearly breaking Grices maxim of relevance.

Disc harrows are discussed in the second half of Section 2 of the

recording, available in the appendix.

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3.4 Co-text

In written text, co-text refers to the text surrounding the text that is

analyzed. In spoken discourse it would refer to any previous conversations

on topics discussed in the observed conversation. There are several ways

how this is realized; by referring explicitly to the content of a topic previously

discussed using a kind of exoforic reference, and implicit reference is

realized by simply continuing the topic where it ended in previous

conversations. In written text it is realized by referencing to another part of

the text e.g. See Ch2, and it is recognized by phrases such as aforementioned.

The following example is from the part of the conversation where

participants are talking about disc harrows. S and M had a previous

conversation about it which is shown in the following statement by M:

E.g. 1

M: Ti si to objasnio, al ja i dalje ne kuim ta je to

4. Coding principles

4.1 Division into sections and topics

Because of the considerable length of the recording it was necessary to

divide it into manageable segments to meet the technical restrictions, but

also to make the encoding process easier, and to select particular areas of

interest in the conversation. Our first instinct was to divide the recording so

that its parts correspond with topics. Brown and Yule (1983:68) suggest that

the determining the topic is hard by stating that the formal attempts to identify topics are doomed to failure. During the process of analysis we verified the truthfulness of their claim and gave up on trying to partition the

conversation based on topic-shifts.

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4.1.1 Sections

Instead, we decided to divide the conversation into sections based on

properties such as following of a general topic and the relative level of

activity of the participants, and at the same time taking care that parts

maintain an sufficient degree of completeness. It would seem logical to found

the division into sections purely on topic boundaries, but in order to

precisely determine topics it is necessary to take a bottom-up approach, and

that is feasible only if the discourse is already divided into smaller

fragments. This is the main reason why we took a top-down approach and

divided the discourse into sections relying mostly on intuition, even before

transcribing it.

Sections are represented by separate audio files. They are sequentially

numbered and time stamped indicating the overlaps in sections and the total

duration of the conversation. There are fifteen sections in total, out of which

thirteen are chronologically sequenced parts of spontaneous conversation.

The fourteenth (timestamp 00:50:49 00:52:00) is a fragment where several closely spaced topic-shifts occur, and the fifteenth starts at the point where

the fact that the conversation was being recorded was revealed to the

participants and they gave their consent on using the recording for the

purposes of this paper.

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Section 1 00:00:00 00:03:57

1(S and N greeting) 2(where is M) 3(early arrival) [calling M on cell

phone] 4(punctuality) [walking towards the caf] 5(whats new?) 6(where to sit) 7(smoking ban) [M arrives] 8(punctuality) 9(S, N

greeting M) 10(about formal greetings and anecdote) 11(weather and

sitting location) 12(N tells an anecdote about weather and his friend)1

E.g. 1

Beginning of Section 1, Topic 1:

S: Kak ste kaj kolega?

N: Tovari! S: Zdrao! {shake hands}

E.g. 2

Closing of Topic 12:

N: Smrzavaj se malo! {imitating himself in previous situation, decisive} Daj nemoj srat! {imitating his friend, begging}

M: Zanimljiva situacija.

Opening new topic, end of Section 1, no pause, slightly overlapping with M:

S: Ehm, ste vi bili danas na Tumanu?

1 topics shown in (), actions and events - shown in []

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4.1.2 Topics and supertopics

Topic is traditionally defined as what we talk about. Brown and Yule (1983:70) differentiate sentential and discourse topics and introduce a new

term called the topic framework. Sentential topics are used in descriptions of

sentence structure, and people determine a discourse topic when they report

what a conversation was about . Topic framework is a type of representation of a topic by a contextual framework consisting of activated

features of context within which objects and events talked about are situated

(Brown 1983:75).

Chafe (2003:674) defines topic from the aspect of a force that gives

direction to the flow of thoughts and functions as a coherent aggregate of thoughts introduced by some participant in a conversation, developed either

by that participant or another or by several participants jointly, and then

either explicitly closed or allowed to peter out. For the purpose of discourse analysis, topics are segments of discourse during which one or more of the speakers talk about the same thing , and they are identifiable above all from their content. Hierarchically, there are basic-level topics, which can be included into supertopics (Chafe 2003:674).

As mentioned in 4.1.1, to precisely determine a topic is hard and it is

important to emphasize that the division used in this paper is a very

subjective one. For the purpose of this paper we consider a topic to be a

segment of discourse during which participants talk about the same objects

and events in the same context. A supertopic consists of one or more basic-

level topics. We have determined six supertopics, which can be combined if a

particular topic meaning eludes accurate definition by just one.

Topics within a section are indexed in Arabic numerals. Basic-level

topics are given a descriptive name and supertopics are indicated by letters

as follows: IS immediate surroundings, E a particular event, W the world, general principles, P person, F related to faculty, general principles, A the assignment all three are working on.

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4.2 Topic-shift

Topic-shift is a point in discourse at which the topic is shifted from

one to another. In order to determine the point of a topic-shift, it is

necessary to analyze the material primarily on the semantic level but also to

observe some phonetic features such as pitch, tone and pause.

In our analysis we encountered these types of topic-shifts:

- A shift to a new topic unrelated to the previous following a pause.

E.g. 1

M: To je poprilino jasno. // 1.4 s pause //

to si ti Toliu radio protekla tri tjedna? Topic-shift: 1(disc harrows) 2(activities of N)

- A gradual topic shift during a longer monologue

E.g. 2

S: Ne, strava. I kad sam doo.. sad sam bio ..pre-ko, ta, prvi maj, bio sam doma.

I onak sam skuio da nisam trenirku izvadio iz torbe etri dana jer, jednostavno, samo sam bio u tome za faks, doem doma, piama (snoring sound)

Ujutro se probudim, opet faks, navee jedanaest doma, ne isplati mi se, ta u ja trenirku sad vadit, normalno u pidamu i odma spavat. Mislim, zbog ovih pizdarija s tom blokadom, ono, ta vijea, pizdarije. Nisam ni brojao koliko je tih sjednica bilo.

Znam da jedno triput sam bio na odsjeku, po..tipa jedno dva tri sata, i

ove.. ove maratonske fakultetskog vijea. I onda jo studentski zbor, onda malo na plenum vidit ta ima.

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ta je jo najbolje, ne sudjelujem u organizaciji blockade. Totalno sam se povuko, glavu dolje, da me nitko nemoe prozvat, al ne uspjevam.

Topic-shift: 1(filthy apartment) 2(protest at the faculty)

- A shift caused by entering of a new participant

- A shift realized by metalingual comment explicit request for topic-shift

E.g. 3

S: A ta emo mi s tim projektom?

- A shift realized by negative feedback it differs from the above mentioned in that the other topic is not introduced while the current is

explicitly terminated.

In the analyzed material there were also smaller deviations from the

topic that were to insignificant to classify as separate topics.

4.2.1 Topic boundary markers in spoken discourse

Brown and Yule (1983:100) refer to structural units of spoken

discourse as paratones as opposed to paragraphs in written texts. For

marking the boundary of topics they firstly rely on the phonetic properties of

speech such as change in pitch and amplitude and lengthy pauses (over one

second). The semantic markers suggested by them are introductory and

summarizing expressions. Along with the content, for the purpose of

recognizing boundaries of topics Chafe (2003:674) suggests the use of

phonetic cues such as: longer-than-normal pause, heightened pitch,

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loudness, acceleration, new voice quality at the outset, and a tapering off in

the same prosodic features at the end of a topic.

There are also occurrences of possible completion points (Brown 1983:

104) that are not used for topic-shift. This is due to the fact that the topic in

progress is not exhausted or the participants try to expand it because they

do not want to shift the topic for some other reason. In that case an

utterance incompletor is used, usually a connector clause.

Paralinguistic signs such as speakers gaze, gesture, facial expression are also used in conjunction with the mentioned boundary markers and

methods of topic-shift. These are in most part not recognizable on the audio

recording, but there is one example which can be reconstructed with the

help of the author/participant.

In the given example it is visible that not all topic-shift attempts are

successful. In this occasion the probable reason for unsuccessful topic-shift

was the preference of the project-related topic that remained unfinished in

order to fulfill the purpose of the meeting as the time available for S is

running out because of other obligations in his schedule.

In more formal settings, where a predetermined agenda is established,

a formalized type of topic-conclusion and topicshifts are used such as formal

summarizing of the topic, formulating of conclusions and possibly offering

them for a vote.

4.2.2 Topic navigation

Topic as a conceptual unit is too large to be accommodated within the limited capacity of fully active consciousness so it is navigated by a more limited focus of active consciousness producing included ideas one after another until the topic is judged to have been adequately covered an closure is judged appropriate. The navigation process is often guided by a schema, some familiar pattern that provides a path for a speaker to follow and also by the less predictable interaction between conversational participants (Chafe 2003:675).

24

In our analysis, we termed topics that share a common element within

their schemas as related topics, and in the representation marked them with

the sign >. In their sequential ordering, related topics follow the natural order by

which the most salient entity will be mentioned first. The topics should also follow the pattern of normal ordering: general - particular, whole - part, set - element, including included, large small, outside inside, possessor possessed (Brown 1983:145).

However, a pattern of going from particular to general was noticed to

appear such as in:

6(where to sit) IS

7(smoking ban) >W

9(S, N greeting M) IS

10(about formal greetings and anecdote) >W

According to the purpose of the communicative event the central topic

of the conversation should be the project. The topic is started and

interrupted six times during the conversation. The longest interval in which

the participants talked about the main topic was 6 minutes. The total time

spent on the topic was approximately 21 minutes.

The project was for the first time mentioned in the third section, at

timestamp 00:10:33 by M.

E.g. 1

N: Moro bi ovih seminara odradit M: E toga, toga ima u ovih etri tjedna..

A ovo za Tumana

The topic about the project was closed by a longer summarizing

sequence at the end of Section 13., approximately at timestamp 01:17:00.

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4.3 Feedback

One of the most important mechanisms of topic-shifting is feedback.

According to Dominick (1993:), feedback refers to those responses of the receiver (of the original message) that shape and alter the subsequent

messages of the source. Feedback is useful to the (original) speaker because it informs him of the quality of his communication, and it is useful to the

listener because it allows him to attempt to change some element in the

communication. There are two basic types of feedback according to

stimulation: positive and negative. Positive feedback encourages the speaker

to continue communicating, and negative feedback is provided when the

listener wants to change the communication or to terminate it.

Feedback can be of various size (duration), form and intensity. It can

be transmitted in a fraction of a second as a paralinguistic sign in a form of

a wink and nod that signal the speaker that what he is saying makes sense.

On the other hand it can last for several minutes and become a separate

topic of the same conversation if for example the listener finds himself

offended by something that was said and feels that he must make the record

straight.

It is difficult to precisely determine what part of conversation is

feedback because in almost all exchanges there are some features that in

some measure inform the speaker of the quality of his contribution and/or

stimulate him to continue, change or terminate the communication.

The most reliable method of determining that some sort of feedback is sent,

received and understood is to rely on the reactions of interlocutors.

Positive feedback is a type of response that encourages the speaker to

continue speaking. It is most often in the form of paralinguistic signs such

as nodding or gaze that shows interest, or aha with a marked pitch. Feedback as a request for change in communication is most often in

the form of request for additional information or clarification.

26

E.g. 1

N: Ma io sam jutros napokon obavit ovo kod... Bandinja. M: Koga?

N: Kod Bandia. M: Aha, za stipendiju si io potpisat se.

Negative judgment of the communication does not have to be

expressed explicitly but it is implied from the request to change the current

topic to a different one.

In our analysis, we recognized negative feedback as one of the

mechanisms of topic-shift.

S: A ta je tek hidromat? M: Nemoj vie! {laughing} Ajde ti pojednostavi! (giving the turn to another speaker)

N: Nije Ma, ne znam

Negative feedback can be also given in the form of paralinguistic signs

and gestures.

E.g. 2

After a longer monologue by M about her Swedish professor, of whom

S and N know nothing about, S and N start to fiddle with their notes and

pens and at one moment S shows N his pen that he got from at a conference

and addresses N looking directly at him:

M: i nikom nita, svi su dobivali il etvorke il petice i onda se na meni prelomi kad sam prevela cijeli lanak s engleskog ono..

27

S: intere.. internenl kon.. ne, konvenn of slavist lajbrerijans.. {pulls out a pen and shows it to N}

N: [laughs]

M: zna ta, on e jednog dana radit u nekoj prodaji ili bit e direktor prodaje jel..

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5. The analysis

5.1 Mechanisms of cohesion

As we are all aware, discourse is not a bunch of unrelated sentences

without mechanisms to hold it in one place and make a coherent whole.

What keeps those utterances and sentences together is cohesion which

manifests itself through various mechanisms or a set of relations. It is

important to mention the fact that the concept of cohesion is a semantic one,

as Halliday and Hasan state it in their Cohesion in English, because it refers to relations of meaning that exist within the text, and that define it as

text(1976:4). Cohesion is best seen when the interpretation or understanding of the meaning of one word, or more precisely one element of

the text, depends on another. Then we presuppose the element substituted

or ellipted.

These mechanisms can be either linguistic, such as references, ellipsis,

substitution, way of addressing (T-V pronouns), speech acts and intonation,

or they can be paralinguistic, such as gestures and facial expressions.

5.1.1 References

References show the way in which a word or a phrase relates to the

rest of the text. Reference is a semantic unit, and, as Lyons (1968:404) said,

it is the relationship which holds between words and things since words refer to things. There are several types of reference exophoric, when it refers to language outside of the text and endophoric, when it refers to something inside of the

text. Endophoric reference is further divided into anaphora, previously

defined, and cataphora, something not yet defined. They are usually in the

form of a single word (eg. a pronoun) which refers to a larger syntagma.

29

When it comes to spoken language references are the rule rather than

the exception, because they require less effort and less time to utter and,

since they are usually just one very short word, they prevent the

conversation from becoming tedious by constant repetition of full syntagmas.

5.1.1.1 Anaphora

Anaphora is a way of referring to something that was already

mentioned, that is, one word refers back to, or is anaphoric to, a previous

word. Anaphora is probably the most widespread type of reference;

practically all pronouns function in this way. Here are a few of many

examples from the conversation:

E.g. 1

S: Pa to je on isto dao datum do prvog estog tak da se mi useremo da to napravimo na brzinu jer se njemu neda to preko ljeta, al to e najesen bit gotovo fino. A mislim, nije, nije sad da ja to prieljkujem, ja bi isto s tim htio bit gotov, al sam, ono, malo realist.

The first and second to are anaphora which refers to the statement from the beginning of the episode when one of the speakers asks what they shall do

with the project they are having for one of their subjects. But the third to refers to the sentence before, that is, the one that states that the project will

be done in autumn. The other two, not underlined to are exophora on which we will elaborate later on in the paper.

E.g. 2

S: Pa da, ono, ako uspijemo.. to, al ne znam da to onda podjelimo u te dvije

faze, lako je to onda spojit.

30

Here once again they talk about their project. The first to refers to one of the speakers proposition on how to organize and what type of analysis to use for their project. This speaker is simply stating that they might not have time to

do such an analysis. The second to goes back to the project itself, while the third one refers to these two parts of the project mentioned.

E.g. 3

N: I imali su gadnih problema s time tu, jer je to kod nas neustavno.

Speaker here refers to the story he told about Western Union and their

contracts. Our knowledge of the situation helps us to interpret these units.

In that way we know that tu refers to Croatia. Besides that knowledge, there are markers that show us what is meant even if we did not know whether

the speaker refers to state, town, actual place where they are sitting or

something else. The phrase kod nas indicates that tu refers to the speakers surrounding and the word neustavno inticates that he is talking about the state as whole.

The simplest case of anaphora can be seen in the next example:

E.g. 4

S: Gdje je Mateika? Nema je.

The personal pronoun je clearly refers to the girl whose surname is Matei as mentioned in the sentence before.

Anaphora is used extensively, clearly to save time and space to say

other things. However, for speakers there is evidently no need to repeat

themselves since they are all engaged in the conversation and know what

each anaphora refers to even though the referred element might have been

mentioned at the beginning of the conversation.

5.1.1.2 Cataphora

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As mentioned above, cataphora is a way of referring to something not

yet been mentioned but will be defined later on in the statement or text.

According to our recorded conversation, cataphora is not nearly as frequent

as anaphora, but it does occur once in a while, especially when speakers

start their statement insecure or have not yet well processed what they

wanted to say.

E.g. 1

M: Zna to sam ti ja htjela predloit? Da uzme, mislim ako te to zanima, one alate za vizualizaciju.

Here cataphora is used in an embedded sentence which functions here as

hedge, that is, the speaker is not certain whether her proposition will be

accepted or not hence it appears as cataphora. It might also have been used

in order to pause, as a function of filler, or to create suspense.

E.g. 2

S: Ne, strava. I kad sam doo...sad sam bio...pre-ko, ta, prvi maj, bio sam doma.

This would be an example of not clearing ones thoughts before speaking or a simple rush to say what he wanted to say. Another example of this would be:

E.g. 3

S: Ne, tak je bilo sranje negdje, u San Francisku il negdje.

Another example of function of the cataphora is when we can not remember

a certain word, phrase or name:

E.g. 4

N: Ja sam vidio, recimo, ta ima ovaj...Western Union.

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5.1.1.3 Exophora

Exophora refers to a language, context or situation outside of the

conversation. It occurs quite often since the speakers share some common

knowledge of events and topics. This common knowledge arrives from

common historical background, events and the situation that surrounds the

speakers at that moment, or has been mentioned some time before.

An example of events or situation surrounding the speakers is the beginning

of our recorded conversation where speakers joke about the proper greeting:

E.g. 1

M: Meni su to one bapske fore, zna ono (impersonates)daaaaj.

Here the speaker uses exophora to refer to something that was at the given

moment AKTUALNO and arrived from the situation. She gives her personal

opinion and mimics the manner of greeting. The word one is exophora because we do not know to what specifically she is referring to. Her

participants did not know either until she gesticulated what she meant by

that, as well as with ono which refers to a particular action she mimics later on.

Another exophora refers to common background, either historical or

momentary:

E.g. 2

M: Ne, sorry, ali argumenti, to (anaphora to plenum) je, to je djeji vrti. Oni ulaze u to jako naivno i daju argumente koji su djeji vrti. Tak nemre igrat se, mislim, to su gluposti, nakon tri...ta je ovo, etvrti tjedan.

The speaker here refers to the situation at the faculty. For someone who is

not familiar with that situation, it might be unclear who and what is doing

what. The first exophora, to, probably refers to the blockade of the faculty, while tak refers to the way this blockade functions, and the last one, to, to the whole idea of the blockade which was in its fourth week.

33

Speakers quite often comment current situation with no need to

explicitly say what they refer to. Instead, they prefer exophoric reference

which does not hinder their participation in conversation.

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5.1.2 Ellipsis

Ellipsis is another mechanism of cohesion. Although some elements

are ellipted, that is, not uttered, cohesion remains. At the same time, there

are other mechanisms, such as context, that make it possible for us to

correctly interpret the missing element.

E.g. 1

S: Ah tu, tu se moe puit, tu se ne moe... (puit)

This is an example of a more simple ellipsis since the presupposed element

has been uttered in the first part of the sentence, right before it was ellipted in the second part.

In the next example, ellipsis relies more on the context and topic they are

discussing:

E.g. 2

M: to radi (za projekt/seminar)? Koja ti je tema? N: Nemam pojma.

M: Nisi odabrao? (temu)

To conclude, ellipsis is often used in spoken language. It is possible to do so

because it heavily relies on the context. Speakers also use it because it is

highly economical, saves the time and energy yet efficient.

5.1.3 Paralinguistic signs

In interpersonal communication when we want to say something we

use so much more than just the linguistic properties of language

(vocabulary, grammar). There are even ways of saying something without

actually saying anything. Say, someone is talking and you roll your eyes;

35

this would be your way of saying to them youre talking nonsense, without uttering a single word. This is the domain of paralinguistic.

A speaker has a whole range of ways of producing utterances, such as

vocal effects, facial expressions, posture and gestures. With these means

speakers may provide a specific effect to the words they utter. One and the

same sentence may be produced differently depending on what the speaker

really wants to say. One of the best examples of paralinguistic cues is irony

where the speaker does not say directly what he means but indirectly

through his attitude and vocal quality.

Other paralinguistic signs may be intonation, pausing, pitch of the

voice, facial expression and gestures.

E.g. 1

N: Mislim, iako nije da je neko vrijeme za bit vani, al...

Even though at the end of the sentence the speaker said but, which would probably be something as but okay if he had finished the clause, the speakers intonation clearly shows that he is not satisfied with the idea. He also shows that he is not willing to start a discussion over it.

Another example of paralinguistic sign is gesture. In our recorded

conversations speakers often used gestures to mimic what they wanted to

say rather than uttering:

E.g. 2

S: Ne, ne, ne, ne, prvo se mi ustanemo, onda ti sjedne, onda nas dvojica sjednemo...

N: Da.

M: E sad su to ve komplikacije. N: Moemo jednostavno ko Mesi, ovaj... (gesture, mimicing Mesi)

E.g. 3

N: Ali, gle, i dalje ljudi ne kue da ih... (mimicing)

36

M: Da, ba tako (laughter) N: Tih pet ljudi ta radi u firmi ih sve ovak dri...(showing) da ne kaem za ta, jel.

Laughter is also one of the paralinguistic signs and according to our taped

conversation, it is often accompanied by approvement:

Da, ba tako! + (laughter)

Through their vocal quality, speakers may express anger, approval and

disapproval, mood or even their personal opinion on the matter, as in the

next example:

E.g.4

M: Ne, sorry, ali argumenti, to je, to je djeji vrti (higher pitch)! (aggressive)

Here the speaker states her opinion on the situation that was going on at

their faculty at that time through her vocal qualities and intonation. She

pronounces a particular phrase, djeji vrti, with a higher pitch to stress that she believes that the situation is absurd and ridiculous. Her aggressive

tone shows us that it is a delicate matter for her.

E.g. 5

S: ta je jo najbolje, ne sudjelujem u organizaciji blokade, totalno sam se povukao, glavu dolje, da me nitko nemoe prozvat, al ne uspjevam. N: Ima ti zato kapovia da on to radi, jel.. S: Ma... (facial expression + gesture)

N: Je da, sve jasno. Tako je! (laughter)

It is important to mention that paralinguistic cues can play a role in marking

a sentence. They are also indicators that show us how to interpret particular

statements, and other speakers opinions.

37

In some cases they are even more important than the linguistic component

of utterance, because it is by reading the paralinguistic dimension we

decipher the real meaning behind the linguistic one. We dont just listen to people, we read people.

5.1.4 Addressing (T-V pronouns, nicknames...)

Another important feature is the way we address other participants of

the conversation. It is also a feature of social context which can have effect

on the formality of the language used. It is the context of the person spoken to which shows the role relationships and statuses of the participants. For

instance, if we were to record a conversation between individuals of unequal

rank (e.g. a professor and a student) this conversation is likely to be less

relaxed and more formal than it would be between the equals, as were our

examinees. These formal situations require different forms of address that

are produced according to degrees of status difference or level of intimacy.

Speakers also tend to use different degrees of politeness.

In our taped conversation, conversation is more or less relaxed and informal

where speakers address each other according to their nicknames which

show some level of intimacy.

E.g. 1

N: Sinki, jel ti gajba slobodna ovaj vikend?

E.g. 2

S: Kak ste kaj, kolega?

The speakers would also jest about the forms of addressing:

E.g. 3

N: Gospodine Bosanac...

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E.g. 4

S: Gospodine...

E.g. 5

N: Kolegice

M: Kolega, Vas nismo dugo vidli. Oemo se kao rukovat, onak slubeno. kao, potovanje.

S: emo se i mi rukovat onda kad...potovanje, kolegice

Often they address each other according to their last names:

E.g. 6

N: E, Bosanac...

It is important to note that each form of addressing has its rules for its

usage, as well as the frequency of its usage which are quite complex.

These rules often vary depending on class, age-group and place.

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5.1.5 Speech acts

John L. Austin, philosopher of language, introduced the original theory

of speech acts, theory of illocutionary act of performative and constative utterances. In his book How to do Things with Words (1962), Austin also

mentions that there are other types of acts which distinguish from

illocutionary act. Illocutionary act is an act performed in saying something,

locutionary act of saying something and prelocutionary by saying something.

The concept of illocutionary act is often defined as identical to speech acts.

Generally speaking, speech acts are acts of communication. To

communicate is to express attitude, opinion, request, desire, an apology or a

greeting. It can be said that it is an utterance that serves a function in

communication. They include real-life interactions and require not only

knowledge of the language, but also knowledge of culture, that is, using that

same language within a given culture in an appropriate way. There are many

types of speech acts organized in four major categories: constatives,

directives, commissives and acknowledgement.

By constatives we refer to, according to Bach and Harnish (1979), affirming, alleging, announcing, answering, attributing, claiming, classifying,

concurring, confirming, conjecturing, denying, disagreeing, disclosing,

disputing, identifying, informing, insisting, predicting, ranking, reporting,

stating, stipulating utterances. Directives comprise advising, admonishing, asking, begging, dismissing, excusing, forbidding, instructing, ordering, permitting, requesting, requiring,

suggesting, urging, warning utterances, commissives refer to agreeing, guaranteeing, inviting, offering, promising, swearing, volunteering and acknowledgements to apologizing, condoling, congratulating, greeting, thanking, accepting (acknowledging) utterances.

Our taped conversation, as presumed, starts with a speech act, that is,

greeting:

40

E.g. 1

S: Zdravo!

N: Zdravo!

When two people meet it is expected to use speech act of acknowledgement

that is, greeting. The first act was initiating, while the second was a

responding one.

The rest of the text if full of speech acts of various sorts:

E.g. 2

S: Gdje je Mateika? Nema je. asking speech act, announcing speech act

N: Daj vidi ta emo. ordering, requesting speech act S: emo ju zvrcnut? proposing, suggesting speech act Mmm, aaa da. announcing speech act

Da vidimo. announcing speech act

Dobro, uranio sam dvije minute. announcing speech act

N: Mmm. agreeing speech act

S: Inae kasnim po dvadeset. reporting speech act N: Ma, dobro. dismissing speech act

This section only is full of various speech acts so that the only conclusion

can be that most of the communication consists of speech acts.

Speech acts can be also classified as direct, indirect nonliteral speech acts.

As Austin observed, the content of what is said can not always be

determined what is meant by the sentence being uttered. People tend to use

ambiguous words or phrases which a listener must disambiguate. We can

perform speech act directly or indirectly by performing another speech act,

literally or nonliterally, which depends on how we use our words, and

41

explicitly or inexplicitly, which depends on whether we fully utter what we

mean.

Here is an example for indirect speech act:

E.g.1

S: Trebali smo se mi ustat, ovjee! N: Da, pa ja sam se ustao.

M: Pa on se je ustao.

S: A ja sam sjebo. emo ponovit? suggesting speech act M: Ajmo!

Here the speaker uses suggesting speech act functioning as requiring. The

speaker actually requires something to be done but in an indirect way which

his companions had recognized.

The next example can be classified as both indirect and nonliteral speech

act:

E.g. 2

N: Ima pljugu? asking speech act S: Da, imam. (he gives him the cigarette)

Although the second speaker could have interpreted the question not as a

request, he did not do so because of the context of culture which conditions

the mutual understanding regardless of what is uttered on the surface. In

speakers context of culture, this type of asking speech act functions as requesting.

Inexplicit speech acts refers to utterances not fully realized:

E.g. 3

42

M: Recimo ovo metodoloki (not completed), nama ovo ne klapa, moramo to malo bolje jer ovo ne, ne, nije, nije dobro. Ja sam se trudila svim, sve

mogue gledala, ta, kako, zbog ega, a-a. Uvijek je ista paterna metoda koja se korsti, tako da... (not completed)

Here the speaker uses a lot of ellipsis and uncompleted thoughts.

Uncompleted thoughts are used to a large extent in a spoken language. An

example of unfinished thoughts from the example above is tako da. This phrase may have also been used in order to shorten what the speaker has to

say.

It is clear, considering the examples above, that speech acts constitute

a great deal of out language, that each utterance has its function and that

each utterance reflects speakers intentions.

5.2 Hedges and evidential

The way of showing the knowledge is the use of hedges and

evidentials. Evidentials are used when we have proof that something if true,

that is, we utter in that way. Hedges refer to borderline cases of reliability,

that is, when speakers are not certain if that which they utter is correct or

when.

E.g. 1

M: Ja mislim (hedge) da nam trebaju neki okvirni rezultati koje mi njemu

trebamo predoiti, jer on, ti si reko, ja se drim toga, rekao je (evidential) da imamo vremena da mi to jel uobliimo u lanak.

Here the speaker uses both hedges and evidentials in one sentence. The

speaker used the evidential when she provides other participants of the

conversation with the information she believes to be correct. In order for

43

others to believe her, she uses evidential rekao je. But when she was not certain if the information was correct, she used a hedge in order to distance

herself from consequences that may arise if her statement was wrong.

The speakers also used full sentences as an evidential to confirm a

statement (example in bold):

E.g. 2

M: Mislim (hedge) da emo mi biti jedini koji emo kao neto prezentirat, jer ja sam se konzultirala s ostalima (evidential)

N: Kaj, nisu ni poeli, a? M: Jesu! Aaaa, jesu jesu.

S: Ja sam vidio (evidential) Tomiku danas kod Tumana, su ga zahaltali na stepenicama i onda su ga ne oko ovoga.

According to our taped conversation, the most often hedge is mislim while phrases as uo sam od, vidio sam are most often used evidentials:

E.g. 3

N: Ja sam vidio, recimo, ta ima ovaj...Western Union.

E.g. 4

M: To bi ve bilo lake nai, al mislim da nam kocitatna analiza fest (buka) ako emo radit s time.

To conclude, it is clear that the speakers used hedges when they

wanted to limit their normal responsibility for the truth of assertions.

Evidentials, on the other hand, are used to make a speaker more reliable

and truthful.

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5.3. Grammatical properties of the discourse

As it has already been stated in the introduction, spoken language,

especially spontaneous one, is very different from the written language. The

differences arrive from various properties of spoken language. Speech is

produced at the given moment with no chance for editing and with many

pauses for thought (fillers). Spoken language, by default, involves intonation,

rhythm, voice quality and pitch. It is usually accompanied by facial

expressions, gestures and mimicry.

The syntax of spoken language is typically much less structured than that of

written language:

E.g. 1

M: Nije, utio je on dugo. Mene je udilo da onda se nijei da je bio tako kul i jer...ja znam njegovog sina koji je lajav, lajav, lajav, lajav, taj bi

najradije na guzicu neto...(laughter) fakat. I onda me udilo da je ovjek tak suzdran, grozno suzdran.

Our recorded conversation contains, as it is the case with spoken language

in general, many incomplete sentences, often simply sequences of phrases.

E.g. 1

S: Ne, ne, ne, ne, ma to smo... (the speaker was interrupted)

E.g. 2

S: Ak to hoemo kak treba napravit M: A ti misli u potpunosti... S: Da, da, cijeli lanak.

E.g. 3

M: (...) uvijek je ista paterna metoda koja se korsti, tako da...

45

(the speaker has finished her sentence)

What is interesting here is the last phrase, 'tako da...', which is, according to

our taped conversation, often used to wind up the sentence.

Spoken language typically also contains rather little subordination:

E.g. 1

S: Pa da, ono, ako uspijemoto, al ne znam, da to onda podjelimo u te dvije faze, lako je to onda spojit. Prva faza, kljune rijei i naslov, i druga faza onda, citate i to

In this example, the speaker used mostly coordination with the conjunction

i.

In contrast to written language, simple metalingual markers are used (al, i,

ako) and speakers are less explicit than writers are:

E.g. 1

S: A ne, al da mi uzmemo tu kocitatnu analizu, al da nejdemo...samo taj

dio koji uzima kljune rijei, da nejdemo u tekst jer ipak ono, nije nama tu sad cilj to tono...

Our speakers used simple noun phrases with no complicated

premodification:

E.g. 1

S: ta emo mi s tim jebenim projekto-M? (stress on the letter m)

E.g. 2

M: Ja mislim da nam trebaju neki okvirni rezultati koje mi njemu trebamo

predoiti.

46

Often did the speakers correct themselves or refine their utterances:

E.g. 1

M: A ti ugovori za poslove, to zna bit tako mutavo..mutavo, mutavo. Si ti

morao potpisivat za ovaj svoj neki..isto.. poseban... (question)

N: Ma ne..mislim, trebao sam, ali nisam nikad na kraju pa ono.. mislim,

stadardni, ono..

The speakers have also used a more generalized vocabulary, with exception

when they started talking about their project:

E.g. 1

M: I to su te bibliometrijske metode koje sam *izlagala proli put. Ili emo kocitatnu analizu ili analizu citata ba kao takvih, tak da, ono...Mislim to moe bit ba guba rad, ali moramo metodologiju malo...Ma mislim, neuronske mree se ak koriste..

The speakers tended to use a large number of fillers (kao, kakti, ono, kui, ). One of the most often used fillers is mislim by which speaker either corrects himself or to take the lead in the conversation:

E.g. 1

N: Mislim, iako nije da je neko vrijeme za bit vani, al...

This is an example of taking the lead in the conversation. The next example

is with filler mislim used to correct oneself:

S: ekaj, al u vezi kljunih rijei nema nita? Mislim, nek neki rad kljunih rijei...

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The next filler, also quite often used is ovoga mainly used to start the conversation on particular topic or to simply take a second or two to clear

ones thoughts:

E.g. 2

S: Ovogaaa, s im se ti bavi za vrijeme revolucije?

The filler ono is also used to pause for a second or two:

E.g. 3

N: Da. jedino to sam se, ono, ulijenio sam se, spavam malo due ujutro

In the next example the filler znai is not used to correct oneself but rather to start the sentence and confirm the previous statement:

E.g. 4

M: Ja sam mislila da e biti hladno. Ja sam obukla, ono, dolevitu, majcu... N: A, ono...

S: Znai, mi smo ak razmiljali da bi unutra ili, al eto

The first ono is used as a filler to pause, while the phrase A, ono would not be filler but rather a speech act of complaining.

The next two fillers (kao, jel) is often used and can easily be replaced with the filler ono:

E.g. 5

M: Kolega, Vas nismo dugo vidli. oemo se kao rukovat, onak slubeno. kao, potovanje

E.g. 6

M: Rekao je da imamo vremena da mi to, jel, uobliimo u lanak.

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This filler is used to wind up the sentence, to shorten it, probably in order

not to become boring for other speakers:

E.g. 7

M: (...) ili emo kocitatna analizu ili analizu citata ba kao takvih, tak da, ono...

This filler is used to take the lead in the conversation:

E.g. 8

S: E, al ovoga..

Finally, it is important to mention that rhetorical organizers, such as

prije svega, meutim etc. are missing in our recorded conversation. It is also one of the features of spoken language. Another feature of spoken

language in general is variable S-P form of sentences. However, it is not very

common in Croatian since the verb carries the information on subject also.

To conclude, spoken language relies more on paralinguistic mechanisms as

we have already mentioned. Speakers often use gestures, intonation and

mimicry to communicate and much of the conversation is based on those

signs.

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6. Gricean maxims

Gricean maxims are a part of his theory of implicature. Grice did not

develop these maxims as rules to which a conversation must adhere to. The

maxims are envisioned more as guidelines for efficient and effective use of language in conversation, that is, they suggest that if you want to make good conversation, you have to speak the truth, be clear, be relevant and

give enough information, and, if possible, be polite. Like we said in the

introduction, Grice based this theory, these maxims, on the co-operative

principle. According to this principle there is a shared belief among the

participants of a conversation that all persons conversing want to contribute

to the conversation, their knowledge and information. This would imply that

for every exchange of utterances between two persons they each assume that

the others response is relevant in some way to their initiate, even though on the surface the response is an apparent failure of co-operation. This phenomenon is what Grice calls conversational implicature; it implies

understanding of propositions which havent been adequately expressed.

6.1 The Maxim of Quality

According to this maxim, one should speak the truth the whole truth

and nothing but the truth. Well, you wont go to jail if you dont adhere to this maxim, but it does suggest that you should try to make your contribution one that is true, that is, do not say what you believe to be false and do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. Adhering to this maxim is usually realized by stating the source which

proves what we say, like I heard on the radio, Grice says, and so on. These statements are called evidentials, since they in a way provide evidence

to what we are saying.

In the next example there are actually two evidentials, one embedded into

another, onrekao je and ti si reko.

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E.g. 1

M: Ja mislim da nam trebaju neki okvirni rezultati koje mi njemu trebamo

predoiti, jer on, ti si reko, ja se drim toga, rekao je da imamo vremena da mi to, jel, uobliimo u lanak.

When we dont want to break the maxim, that is, we dont know if what we are about to say is entirely thruthful, and we dont want to say anything false, we use expressions like as far as I know... or I think.... These statements are called hedges, since they function like a hedge with which we

distance ourselves from any liability. In the example above there is a hedge

Ja mislim.

6.2 The maxim of Quantity

First of all, this maxim suggests that you should make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes of the

exchange, which means, please do share what you know about the subject and do not keep information to yourself, because nobody likes quiet people.

However, the second part of the maxim says that you do not make your contribution more informative than is required, which means that nobody likes a blabbermouth, and warns us not to turn a conversation into a

monologue. To cut a long story short, this maxim suggests just that, cut a

long story short.

Here are two examples showing how this is done:

E.g. 1

S: (...) ta emo, kak emo, budemo fino napisali izjavu i bumo potpisali, ono, ig faksa tra la la i to im faksiramo i dobro.

E.g. 2

S: Ono, zvat emo ekipu iz Maarske, Srbije, Slovenije, bla bla bla okolo, i ...

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Of course, we advise you to use these expressions only in very informal

conversation with your friends, as is the case with our example, because if

you use it in a business meeting, you could get fired.

The next example shows how one speaker violated the maxim of quantity by

talking too much, and how the other speaker reacted to the violation.

E.g. 3

M: Meni se jednom na vedskom (after a long minute)

i onda se na meni prelomi kad sam prevela cijeli lanak s engleskog... S: International Convention of Slavist Librarians

In order to show that he was bored and to show the speaker M that s/he was not interesting, S took a pen from the table and read the label using a Russian accent and looking at the third participant, N, who knew the story behind the pen, and thus S changed the topic. This wasnt very polite of them, but so is usurping the conversation.

This was the only instance of violating the second part of the maxim of

quantity in our conversation, namely that one concerning the dont be too informative rule. Concerning the first part of the maxim, the one that says do make your contribution, we noticed that the speaker N was rather quiet, and didnt participate in the conversation as much as the other two participants.

6.3 The maxim of Relevance

Like the name says, this maxim suggests that you make your contribution relevant, which basically means, stay on topic (if were talking

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about apples, talk about apples; and if were talking about oranges, talk about oranges).

The nature of interpersonal communication is such that topics change

very often, especially if it is a very informal conversation. It probably has to

do with the way human brain works. We hear a certain word or a story and

it triggers a memory which then, we could say, diverts our stream of

thoughts onto another topic. This happens almost unconsciously, and the

new topic is sometimes related with the previous, and sometimes completely

different.

E.g. 1

N: Nita, sve e ih maknut sa liste. Nek mi netko neto prigovori, al pipu zatvaram.. nema carneta vie.. nema niega

S: Ne, tak je bilo sranje negdje, u San Francisku il negdje. Nekog

administratora su ili sterat iz, valjda, gradske uprave.

(two turn-takes)

N: Mislim, imaju..pokuavaju..s onim legaliz vrajima. A ono, to te obveu tim kojekakvim ugovorima, glupostima.

In this example we see that the story of the faculty administrator speaker N is talking about, triggered a memory in S, about what he read on some administrator in San Francisco; which then, after two turn-takes, starts

them talking about work contracts.

One speaker can during his monologue change several topics,

depending where his thoughts are taking him. Here is an example from our

conversation:

S: Ne, strava. I kad sam doo.. sad sam bio ..pre-ko, ta, prvi maj, bio sam doma. I onak sam skuio da nisam trenirku izvadio iz torbe etri dana

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jer, jednostavno, samo sam bio u tome za faks, doem doma, piama (hrkanje), ujutro se probudim, opet faks, navee jedanaest doma, ne isplati mi se, ta u ja trenirku sad vadit, normalno u pidamu i odma spavat. Mislim, zbog ovih pizdarija s tom blokadom, ono, ta vijea, pizdarije. nisam ni brojao koliko je tih sjednica bilo. znam da jedno

triput sam bio na odsjeku, po..tipa jedno dva tri sata, i ove, ove

maratonske fakultetskog vijea. I onda jo studentski zbor, onda malo na plenum vidit ta ima. ta je jo najbolje, ne sudjelujem u organizaciji blokade, totalno sam se povukao, glavu dolje, da me nitko nemoe prozvat, al ne uspjevam.

We see how the speaker changed several topics the way his stream of

thoughts took him; his apartment - his home - his track suit - his daily

routine - the situation in the faculty - his meetings at the faculty, and so on.

When we see the entire process, we understand the switches; while the topic

he started with and the one he finished with, on their own, seem to have no

connection.

There are situations when we deliberately break the maxim in order

not to offend someone. Say someone asks us Does my hair look all right?, and we answer Man! Look at the time!. Clearly, we are in major violation of the maxim, because we went off topic. This has to do with face management,

which is a common reason for violating the maxim of relevance; we dont want to offend the other person by saying to their face that we dont like their hair.

The E.g. 3 from the previous topic could be also used here; the speaker S didnt want to tell M in the face, that is, directly, that s/he was boring, so he did it indirectly.

6.4. The maxim of Manner

The maxim of manner suggests us to be perspicuous, that is, to be brief and be orderly, to avoid obscurity and ambiguity. This basically means,

talk in a way that everyone can understand you.

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Whether we realize it or not, people are often very indirect when they speak,

namely, we use metonymy, metaphors, idioms and other different figures of

speech, and are often ironic or sarcastic.

According to George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1980), metaphors are

something we live by. They suggest that metaphors do not only make our thoughts more vivid and interesting, but they actually structure our

perceptions and understanding.

When we use metaphor or irony the maxim is broken, or rather, it is

flouted. This means that we let listeners know that we are aware of the co-

operative principle and of the maxims, and that communication is not

broken, but rather that we have chosen an indirect way of achieving it. There

is also a possibility that something in the context of situation prevents us

from being direct; something like politeness, which we already mentioned in

the analysis of previous two maxims. Rhetorical questions are also breakers

of the maxim of manner.

Let us examine this example:

E.g. 1

S: (on the cell phone) Ej bok, ej, mi emo ti bit tu vani u onom bircu gdje smo prije bili s Bojanom. Jel pae?

N: Baracuda!!

The speaker S is giving directions about the meeting place to his colleague. Instead of being direct and just giving the name of the place like speaker N, he is being descriptive. He is in major violation of the maxim of manner; he

is neither brief, nor orderly, and he certainly isnt trying to avoid ambiguity. On the other hand, if the person S is giving directions to doesnt know where the place is just by name, than S is correct to give descriptive directions, and N is breaking the maxim of quantity by not being as informative as required. Giving both the name and description would

probably be the best solution.

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We can see that, in conversation, adhering to one maxim might cause the

violation of other maxims (as seen in the example above). Also, maxims are

so inter-dependent that if one is broken, so is another, which was shown on

the example of politeness. This brings us to the fifth maxim, namely, one

that says be polite.

6.5 Be Polite

This maxim is not one of Grices, but it is often considered as the fifth maxim, and as its very name states, it suggests that we are polite when

making conversation.

This maybe has to do with the old saying a kind word goes a long way. If we treat people with respect, they will treat us the same, and it might also influence them to do something we ask of them. But, as we have seen,

this maxim is also very controversial because it often causes the violation of

other maxims.

When we take a look at our conversation, we see that the vocabulary is often

not very polite. One of the most frequent words, or lexeme, is probably jebiga, jebote and other versions of the Croatian f-word.

Since this is a very informal conversation between three friends, this does not

mean that our participants are rude to each other. In modern times, this kind of

language is perfectly normal, among younger generations, for keeping good

relations.

We shall not give examples of the usage in order not to violate the

maxim and be polite.

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7. Conclusion

The data used for the purpose of this work is inadequate for us to

draw any confident conclusions not only about the spoken language in

general but also about the speakers themselves and their language use. The

reason for this is, obviously, the small sample of just one conversation. For a

more serious analysis it would be necessary to record conversations in

different situations with the same participants or to record different

participants in the same situation.

One of the strongest points of this work is the fact that it was done

using data which consists of a relatively high-quality recording of an

authentic spontaneous conversation. The authors had available for analysis

only the audio channel of the whole communication and had to decipher

what was happening in other channels. This, combined with the

participants extensive relying on background knowledge and usage of ellipsis, stresses the importance of physical presence of the analyst during

the conversation to fully grasp the meaning that is conveyed.

The main goals we tried to achieve in our work was to compare the

results of our analysis with contemporary linguistic literature on spoken

language, to note peculiarities in the analyzed conversation, and to provide a

material for comparison of results with other works done at the course in

Discourse Analysis which dealt with properties of language in types of

communication other than face-to-face.

The multiple communication channels available in face-to-face

communication can be used to transfer information not only explicitly and

concerning the active topic but also a significant amount of meta-

information which is necessa