Conversation and representation.

We represent ourselves by not only what we say but the way and formality in which we deliver it, meaning that you can infer characteristics based on this. For example, someone who has long periods of airtime in a conversation can be seen as a “confident” individual.  However, when you look at the amount of hedges, indirect commands and minor sentences such as “um and erm” they produced immediately change the way they are represented and received. Their persona goes from confident to doubtful and uncertain. Pin pointing a particular “way” in which you speak, is difficult because when you are asked this we automatically begin to change our natural speech.  This results in using “demand characteristics”, which is where we change our behaviour and speech to fit in with the way we think we should behave. This gives us a false indication of the way in which someone is represented because it lacks reality.

Schegloff’s conversation model, suggest that “conversations are like an economy, people have rights and privileges” and also that the definition of a successful conversation was latched talk and that the listener was as active as the speaker in the conversation. This means that the conversation flows, there is an equal amount of turns and airtime in the conversation. How ready the next speaker was in the conversation was also very important, because it’s an indication as to how well the listener has received and interpreted the statement or question, their response is important to understand and unlock lots of information even if the information that is given is limited and hard to analyse.

Cooperative and competitive back channelling; these are units that fit into the breaks of a conversation. A co-operative back channel would encourage the current speaker to keep speaking, for example the listener might briefly interrupt while the speaker is taking a break, and reassure them by saying “I agree” or “I understand”. Whilst a competitive back channel would seek to steal the turn of the current speaker, for example while the current speaker is in full flow the current listener, would try to involve them by referring to them or make their input. This could be a phrase such as “I think that” and other language that directs it from on speaker to another.

In the transcript we quantified the amount of air time we each had, to identify who was the most dominant speaker. Sophia was by far the most dominant speaker, as she spoke for over half of the 7 minutes that we recorded.  We also noticed that Sophia was the one person, who encouraged the conversation to carry on the most out of the 3 of us. I and Sophia had many closely followed turns, creating our own conversation within the conversation. We both work in retail so we could relate to one another; this could be an explanation as to why Amy spoke for the least and have to be encouraged the most to contribute to the conversation. However, we all had the same role within our jobs, which meant that we all could talk about and give our experience on. We all give example of occupational jargon when we describe our roles, this shows that we are all significantly involved in our jobs to the point where we are willing to learn and use the terminology outside of the work place.

The conversation was very synthetic and felt awkward, which created long pauses at times. If we were in a different environment to the class room and the conversation hadn’t been assigned to us as a task, the outcome and quantified results of the conversation would be different. If the conversation had naturally accumulated then, there may have been more airtime for Amy who spoke the least. More slang could have been used, as when we are in the class room this tends to soften due to the fact that we are in the presence of a member of the teacher. On the other hand, if the conversation had been held online or over the phone, everything about the conversation would significantly change. This is because the participants no longer have the face value of the group to consider. This would mean that the speaker would have more freedom to speak because they would not be limited by the formality that is expected in a classroom. Not only is there more use of more chance of interruptions but is there more use of positive face or negative face in the conversation face to face in comparison to one that takes place on a mobile phone.