Spoken features
Openers
Framing and closing
Pragmatics of conversation
Politeness strategies
Expressions which open a conversation.
self-related comment - focused on the first speaker, such as ‘I’ve been so busy today I haven’t had time to think.’
other-related comment - focused on the second speaker, such as ‘So what have you been up to today?’
neutral comment - focused on the surroundings / weather, etc., such as ‘Hasn’t the weather been terrible?’
process of controlling the conversation
Closer: expressions (or discourse markers) which are designed to close a conversation, e.g. ‘see you later’
Framing: controlling the agenda of a conversation (its direction and subject); or making utterances that encourage a child to fill in the blanks.
Topic management: the way topics in a conversation are organised or handed from speaker to speaker
Agenda setting: where a speaker sets up the main topic of conversation
Politeness markers: words or phrases that express concern for others and serve to minimise threats to face.
Face: a speaker’s self-esteem
Positive face: our need to maintain self-esteem. Positive face is threatened when we are criticised in any way.
Negative face: our desire to avoid doing something we don’t want to do, such as giving money to a stranger.
Conversations are not always predictable: we have expectations of how others will respond, and that they will understand the motivation behind what we say, and yet sometimes they don’t.
Locutionary act: saying something
Illocutionary act: implying something in what we say
Perlocutionary act: what happens in response to what is said (ie. what is understood)
Conversational maxims
Violates a maxim: subtle failure of someone to observe a maxim (e.g. going on a bit too long on a topic)
Flouts a maxim: where someone obviously does not obey the conversational maxims
Convergence
Upward convergence: changing your accent or lexical choices to something you perceive as more prestigious
Downward convergence: making your accent or lexical choices more informal
Prestige
Overt prestige: refers to a dialect used by a culturally powerful group
Covert prestige: describes high social status through use of non-standard forms