Business and Service Telephone Conversations

An Investigation of British English, German and Italian Encounters

Cecilia Varcasia

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781137286178
• eBook ISBN: 9781137286185
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book considers the sequential deployment of the receiver's response to the caller's request in telephone service encounters between native speakers in the U.K, Germany and Italy analysing the different response formats and their grammatical configuration.

1

Theoretical Framework

The theoretical approach of this book is mainly drawn from conversation analysis (CA) and the more recent explorations of this framework within linguistics, such as the research on grammar in interaction. This chapter reviews the main concepts of this theoretical approach, beginning with the turn-taking system and adjacency pairs. Studies on the grammatical constituency of turns and turn expansions are also reviewed. The description of these concepts is useful to set the conversational features found in the data in their wider context and application to a specific conversational setting, i.e. of service encounters. In this way it will then be possible to describe which features common to all talk-in-interaction and inherent to it also belong to the talk in service encounters, and which are the specific characteristics of these encounters. This chapter examines firstly one of the core concepts in CA, the turn-taking system.

1.1 The turn-taking system in conversation

The turn-taking system is a core concept in the studies on social interaction and naturally occurring speech. Sacks et al. (1974) in their seminal paper proposed a mechanism that gave an account of how talk-in-interaction could take place smoothly without overlaps and long gaps between the turns. Therefore they proposed that the conversation between two or more participants is organised in turns, implying that speakers take turns in speaking in an orderly way. The ongoing conversation is thus established by the sequential exchange of turn-taking between participants, whenever the previous discursive unit is complete. The simplest systematics for the organisation of turn-taking (Sacks et al., 1974) describes the construction of turns of talk into units. Each turn unit has two components: the turn constructional component and the turn-allocation component. The constructional component (TCU) includes syntactic and intonational units: words, phrases, sentences, etc.: ‘Instances of the unit-types so usable allow a projection of the unit-type under way, and what, roughly, it will take for an instance of what unit-type to be completed’ (Sacks et al., 1974, p. 702).

Conversation analysts, however, do not intend to define what a TCU is a priori. Speakers, in fact, manage and negotiate each unit during the course of the conversation (Gavioli, 1999, p. 45). According to the model, when the current speaker reaches the completion of a TCU (possible completion point, PCP, which therefore implies a transition relevance place, TRP) a speaker change is possible. The allocation of the new turn may take place:

•By the current speaker selecting the next speaker;

•By the self-selection of the second speaker;

•Or, by the current speaker continuing to speak.

Near the TRP, pauses or slowdowns may occur if no speaker is selected or self-selected for the allocation of the next turn. Short overlaps between the turns or simultaneous starts can be found when one of the speakers self-selects for taking the next turn. In the last instance the rule followed for the allocation of the turn is the speaking first rule.

TCUs and TRPs seem highly dependent on one another, creating a relationship of dependence of the TCU upon the TRP. In the last few years such dependence of one component upon the other has become unclear to researchers. Selting (2000) has suggested possible clarifications of this notion and a distinction between the two components. The original conceptualisation of TCUs in fact, relying on TRPs for deciding on their completion, did not give a full account of longer turns in conversation that could be accounted for as being a multi-unit since they meet various prosodic contours and syntactic completions. Selting (2000) therefore suggests, in her analysis of 13 episodes of storytelling, that speakers participating in ‘larger projects’ align to the existence of several units that reach their completion (TRP) but do not necessarily imply a speaker change. What changes in the system here is that TRPs occur and mark the end of TCUs, but do not necessarily and always imply turn-ending and speaker change. Rather, the preceding unit may be continued by the addition of more talk, syntactically and prosodically integrated with the preceding turn unit or displaying a new prosodic unit:

If this expansion of the inherently and fundamentally flexible TCU or turn is displayed as prosodically integrated, speakers will present it as the continuation of the prior TCU. If this expansion is displayed as prosodically exposed in a new prosodic unit, the speaker will present it as a new TCU. Every complete turn is by definition also a TCU, but not every TCU is a possible turn. (Selting, 2000, p. 512)

With such a proposal, the system proposed by Sacks et al. (1974) remains the same for turn allocation, relevant at each TRP, and modifies only the turn constructional component. Moreover, Ford and Thompson (1996) have contributed to a better understanding and description of the factors playing in the construction and definition of a TCU, which include:

•Syntactic completion providing projectable units, as the Sacks et al. model already suggested. Ford and Thompson consider as syntactic complete utterances, and therefore possible units, ‘a point in the stream of talk “so far”, a potential terminal boundary for a recoverable “clause-so-far”’ (Ford and Thompson, 1996, p. 143).

•Intonational completion, by which is meant ‘a stretch of speech uttered under a single coherent intonation contour’ (Du Bois et al., 1993).

•And they add to the Sacks et al. (1974) model a point of pragmatic completion. This means that an utterance needs to have a final intonation contour and has to be interpretable as a complete conversational action within its specific conversational context.

A TCU is therefore considered complete when the three factors, i.e. the syntactic, intonational and pragmatic factors, reach a point of completion. These play an important role in the participants’ projection of the upcoming occurrence or non-occurrence of transitional places in advance (Ford and Thompson, 1996, p. 171).

The data analysed in this book display the production of both simple and more complex TCUs that are often expanded or momentarily interrupted by the occurrence of insertion sequences clarifying previous talk. The allocation of turns is made by using all the possible ways of turn allocation. Speakers select one another when they initiate sequences such as requests that leave the floor to the other speaker to respond, as in the example below (lines 03 and 04):

Example I: Florist, Cologne

	01 C:	((telephone rings))
	02 R:	blumen meier guten tag?	R: meier flowers good morning?
	03 C:	guten tag julia schnibben (.) ehm ich wollte fragen? ob sie mir- ehm etwas über die pflege von bonsaibäumen sagen können.	C: good morning julia schnibben (.) ehm i wanted to ask (you)? if you could tell me- ehm something about the care of bonsai trees
	04 R:	bonsai führen wir gar nicht. da gibt’s in der innenstadt? sind sie von kö-öln?	R: actually we don’t sell bonsai. there is (one) in the city centre? are you from kö-öln?
	05 C:	ja	C: yes
	06 R:	am stadtmarkt ist ein geschäft […]	R: there is a shop in the city market […]

(CVD 4 *K22F *K Blumen2)

The allocation of the turns also takes place by a self-selection of the next speaker, as done in the next example (II) by C in line 07 in order to let the conversation continue: after R has responded to the first of her questions about prices, she then retakes the floor to assess the just delivered news, and then proceeds to ask for further information:

Example II: London, Beauty Centre

01 C: ((telephone rings))

02 R: (an absolute look) how may i help?

03 C: .hh hello i was wondering could you tell me how much it costs fo:r a manicure please

(0.3)

04 R: a manicure?

05 C: mh[m

06 R: [fifteen pounds

07 C: okay >and do< i have to make an appointment

08 R: (we wont make an appointment) but if you come in when i’m busy (then i will fit you in)

(SNGB 04 *IR24F1 *LO BEAUTY CENTRE)

Finally, one speaker can decide to continue talking, as R in example I does in her response turn, line 04, where, after imparting the information in response to the request for information, she does not deal with what is requested; she produces this chunk of talk as interactionally complete from a syntactic, prosodic and pragmatic point of view, and continues talking, by suggesting a place where C could go.

1.1.1 Adjacency pairs and sequence organisation

Participants in the conversation also perform actions in the turn-taking exchange, which are usually mutually accomplished and occur in pairs of turns. For instance, if one speaker produces a question, with such an action s/he presupposes and constrains the other speaker’s answer to it. Only when the question has been answered can the action be considered complete. Such actions that are complementary to one another are called adjacency pairs: ‘Adjacency pairs are really minimum joint projects. What A is doing in asking B a question is projecting a task for the two of them to complete – the exchange of information specified in her question’ (Clark, 1994, p. 992).

There are various activities that are paired in a conversation. Schegloff (1968, 1972) has distinguished some of the possible pairs: summons/answer; question/answer; closings; invitation/acceptance–decline; offer/acceptance–decline; complaint–apology/justification. Adjacency pairs have similar formal characteristics, some of which are listed below (cf. Schegloff and Sacks, 1973, pp. 295–6, and Psathas, 1995, p. 18):

1.They are (at least) two utterances in length.

2.They have (at least) two parts.

3.The first-pair part is produced by one speaker.

4.The second-pair part is produced by another speaker.

5.The component utterances are produced in adjacent position, i.e. they are in immediate next turns.

6.The two parts are relatively ordered in that the first belongs to the class of first-pair parts and precedes the second-pair part, which belongs to the class of second-pair parts respectively.

7.The two are discriminatively related in that the pair type of which the first is a member is relevant to the selection among second-pair parts.

8.The two parts are in a relation of conditional relevance in such a way that the first sets up what may occur as a second-pair part, and the second depends on what has occurred as a first.

Adjacency pairs link one pair part to the other through different degrees of projection. ‘The strongest projection in interaction pre-structures a conversational slot uniquely by making one specific next utterance conditionally relevant’ (Auer, 2005, p. 16). The strength of the projection varies according to different types of actions made relevant by the first-pair part. This means that the projection will be stronger when the first-pair part makes relevant just one type of second-pair part. The adjacency pair opened up by an invitation projects at least two options, acceptance or declination, and it is therefore stronger with respect to the second pair in response to compliments, as they allow different types of next actions, such as rejection, acceptance, acknowledgement, counter-compliments, etc. (Auer, 2005). The request–response sequence observed in the following chapters displays the same strength of projection and conditional relevance between the parts of invitation sequences; they project two types of second-pair part, satisfaction or non-satisfaction of the request.

The relation of conditional relevance that binds the two parts of the pair refers not only to the fact that given the first (part), the second is expectable, and ‘upon its occurrence it can be seen to be a second item to the first’, but also that ‘upon its non-occurrence it can be seen to be officially absent, all this provided by the occurrence of the first item’ (Schegloff, 1968, p. 364). The absence of the second-pair part needs to be justified and is often the result of a misunderstanding or disagreement. It denies the s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Transcription Convention System
• Introduction
• 1 Theoretical Framework
• 2 Data and Methodology
• 3 Simple Response Format to the Request
• 4 Response plus Extension
• 5 Insertion Sequence Followed by the Response
• 6 The Caller Leads the Conversation
• 7 The Different Response Formats at One Glance
• 8 Service Encounters and Call Centre Training Implications
• 9 Conclusions and Implications
• Appendix
• References
• Subject Index
• Author Index