Dialogic Texts: Structure, Characteristics and the Cooperative Principle

TX 36: Dialogic Texts. Structure and Characteristics

1. Introduction

2. Dialogic Texts

2.1 Definition and General Features

Dialogue or conversation is ever present in our ordinary lives. Since the beginning of the 20th century, in the line of Saussure's distinction between langue and parole, oral language was recognised as having a central role in linguistic communication, as opposed to monologue. Monologue is an internal, mental activity, even though we may utter these monologues in intimacy. Dialogue, on the other hand, is a synonym of communication and contact with other people. Conversation is the most extended form of social interaction and it requires cooperation from both sides.

2.2 Main Elements

There are common features to the notions of language and communication which must be applied to the analysis of dialogic texts, such as the participants and their purposes. With respect to both codes of discourse (oral and written), we have productive and receptive participants. Regarding written communication, we refer to writer and reader when they are involved in the productive skill of writing and the receptive skill of reading. Similarly, we refer to speaker and listener when they are involved in the productive skill of speaking and the receptive skill of listening.

Searle summarised speech acts into five main categories: representatives, directives, commissives, expressives and declarations.

3. Structure of Dialogic Texts

3.1 Basic Structure

The structure of dialogic texts is defined as a sequence of ordered verbal interactions, where the minimum structure is based on a binary exchange of addresser and addressee on a specific topic. However, both structure and content are spontaneous and not previously planned. Traditionally, the logical development of a dialogic text is presented in three different phases: opening, body and ending.

• Opening: states the main topic of the encounter between two or more participants, for instance saying hello or asking a question.
• Body: deals with the development of the conversation between the participants. This is a continuous process which consists of a series of turn-taking mechanisms carried out by the speakers.
• Ending: is drawn from the feeling of both participants that they have successfully fulfilled their initial purpose, although sometimes we find an unsuccessful ending. Here we are dealing with negotiation strategies, which are developed in four phases: the ending offer, the ending acceptance, farewell and the end of a conversation.

3.2 Turn-Taking

In dialogue, participants take turns to speak. They are involved in ongoing evaluation of each other's utterances, to judge appropriate places to take up the turn to talk. Rules for turn-taking differ according to the type of speech event (for instance, in debates, the chairperson allots turns). Also, these rules may differ from culture to culture and may cause problems for the non-native speaker attempting to engage in conversation.

3.3 Adjacency Pairs

The term adjacency pair is a formalisation of our intuitive understanding that conversations proceed by participants taking up what the last person has said in a regular way. In other words, an adjacency pair is a sequence of two related utterances by two different speakers. Some examples are: question-answer, compliment-acceptance. According to Schegloff and Sacks, the basic rule of adjacency pair operation is that when a speaker produces a recognisable first pair part, that speaker should stop talking and the conversational partner should produce a recognisable second pair part.

4. Characteristics of Dialogic Texts

4.1 Characteristics of the Form of Dialogic Texts

The characteristics of the form of dialogic texts are similar to the features of spoken English. Some of them are first person narration, preference for the active voice over the passive, contractions, slurring (that is, using wanna instead of want to), discourse fillers (like um, you know), false starts, reformulation, lower lexical density and use of ellipsis, among others.

4.2 Cohesion and Coherence

In written language, conversation is highly standardised: different voices are introduced by hyphens or quotes, which mark the alternation of speaking turns. Commas, colons, semicolons and full stops indicate pauses, ends of contributions, etc.

In oral speech, there is also a great deal of conventions. One of them is tone variation, by which the hearer understands that our turn is about to finish. Similarly, if we have a rising pitch, the hearer knows that we are asking about something and that we are waiting for the answer. A different component is that of paralanguage, including facial and body language, which provides a lot of information on the mood or feelings of the speaker.

4.3 Characteristics of Meaning in Dialogic Texts: The Cooperative Principle

When people take part in a conversation, they share common principles that lead them to interpret each other's utterances as contributing to the conversation. The philosopher Grice described four Maxims of Cooperative Behaviour which operate in conversation:

• Maxim of Quantity: make your contribution as informative as required.
• Maxim of Quality: make your contribution one that is true.
• Maxim of Relation: make your contribution relevant.
• Maxim of Manner: avoid ambiguity; be brief and orderly.

Moreover, Clark and Clark discuss similar examples of how rules of conversational implicature (we infer more than is actually said) can be used to express sarcasm or irony. For instance, consider the following exchange between two university lecturers:

A: How did you find Sam's thesis?
B: It was well typed.

By choosing not to be as informative as required, B is suggesting that it was a bad thesis. While conversation in any language is dependent upon these conversational maxims, they may vary across cultures. For instance, there may be differences across cultures in the degree to which members of a society are expected to conform to the Maxim of Quantity.

References

• Brown, G. & Yule, G. (1983). Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Carter, R. & McCarthy, M. (1997). Exploring Spoken English.
• Polking, K. (1990). Writing A to Z. Writer's Digest Books.
• Werlich, E. (1976). A Text Grammar of English. Heidelberg: Quelle und Meyer.