CMN 457 Final Assignment
In this research report I analyzed the way in which a member of an interaction provides information in order for the second member to proceed according to that information in a professional setting. This action of providing informationachieves overall collaboration and benefits for both members beyond the interaction. Using five recordings from a variety of professional settings, I collected a total of five cases of this action. The five examples all involve some form of information being given as well as a response action by the member receiving the information. The following transcripts of the five examples illustrate this concept.
Examples
Recording 1: 900622994EmilyMasse02
1. Ofc: four ten go head?
2. (1.9)
3. Cty: four ten burglary alarm going off at three thirty four
4. >three three four< North Village road the Faith Community
5. Baptist Church, (0.8) showing motion <at the> exit n hallway.
6. (1.1)
7. Ofc: ten five thank you.
Recording 2: 900622994EmilyMasse03
1. Ofc: >four ten to county?<
2. (2.1)
3. Cty: four ten >ten three?<
4. (1.7)
5. Ofc: can you copy a twenty one twenty two on the <are owe Andrew>
6. please.
7. (9.6)
8. Cty: he’s a valid operator expires four sixteen nineteen.> (2.1) no
9. restrictions no endorsements, (1.4) five six >one seventy two
10. (0.2) gray and brown (0.7) negative >twenty one.<
11. (2.8)
12. Ofc: ten five thank you.
Recording 3: 957173261GenevieveLeard02
1. Emp: >Hi< welcome to Zulay
2. >how are [you,<]
3. Mry: [Hello] (0.3) >um I was just getting um< (0.5) a gel
4. manicure and a pedicure?
5. Emp: Yeah what’s your first name.
6. (0.3)
7. Mry: Mary,
8. Emp: <Can (0.4) you> >pick your colors out< please?
9. Mry: Sure?
10. Emp: Thank you.
Recording 4: 980028896ZacharyHoller02
1. Ldr: <they have uh,> (1.5) we do <music and sports> so either one
2. >whatever you’re< into,
3. (1.2) just <sign right there,> put down your (0.5) your name and
4. email, we’d email some >information about it< we have
5. <training,> and you’d be able to get your own show on there.
6. (2.4)
7. Bre: (hehehe)
8. Tvr: <and uh> (1.0) is it just >like your own hours or whatever? or< 9. what (0.3) how do you choose [that, ]
10. Ldr: [ah (0.4)]we’ll have openings (0.3) 11. and you’ll be able to decide out of the openings,
12. >Branden right here is your gee em< he can.
13. (2.8)
14. Fnd: Trevor (1.9) >lets sign up< (0.4) why not.
15. (2.0)
16. Bre: Doesn’t hurt anything?
Recording 5: 940654006JosephMurphy01
1. Cus: >I just have a question,<(1.5) um (0.5) what kind of sales are
2. you having today?
3. Emp: so it’s an extra fifty percent off <anything alreadyonsale,>
4. Cus: okay?
5. Emp: and then we have a >bunch of random category promotions< for
6. like fifty percent off <sweaters.>
7. Cus: okay.(1.0) >alright< thank you.
8. Emp: yeah absolutely.
Detailed Analysis
In this example, members of the interaction include a police officer who has pulled over a driver and is calling in to county dispatch for further information on the individual before the officer proceeds.
Recording 2: 900622994EmilyMasse03
1. Ofc: >four ten to county?<
2. (2.1)
3. Cty: four ten >ten three?<
4. (1.7)
5. Ofc: can you copy a twenty one twenty two on the <are owe Andrew>
6. please.
7. (9.6)
8. Cty: he’s a valid operator expires four sixteen nineteen.> (2.1) no
9. restrictions no endorsements, (1.4) five six >one seventy two
10. (0.2) gray and brown (0.7) negative >twenty one.<
11. (2.8)
12. Ofc: ten five thank you.
Lines 1-3 sets up the participation framework in which the officer addressed the dispatcher and the dispatcher responded, ratifying both parties to continue. (Goffman 1981) It’s the immediate ratification of both members that is common in professional information actions.The first pair part on line 5 initiates the information action that’s completed by the second pair part in lines 8-10 by county. Within all example recordings, adjacency pairs and turn taking play a role in the productivity of the actions taking place. (Sidnell 2010) Line 5 is posed as an interrogatory utterance when it really isn’t. The SPP in lines 8-10 will provide the officer with the necessary background on the driver despite the FPP’s disguise as interrogatory statement. This is an instance of cooperative principal being used in professional information actions, and it is seen throughout the examples given. (Grice 1975)
Members of a professional interaction use information action in order to accomplish a task or proceed accordingly as a result of the information given. Categories are used within the interactions in assigning tasks and locating oneself within a social category in order to be productive. (Reicher 1982) Categories or groups are also used to make sense of each other in social action. (Day 2013) For example, in recording 5 the first member observes the second member as an employee of the store that is willing to provide information. The employee observes that thefirst member is a customer, and it would benefit both parties to provide this information to the customer as they are about to shop. This collaboration of roles is shown in all examples.
Members revert to professional forms of speech according to the setting and membership categories within the setting. (Kameo 2015) Discursive psychology can be observed in this type of action, because format and content of the information action is dependent on environment. (Edwards 2006) As seen in recording 4, the setting is professional but more casual than some of the other recordings. The members are being productive in the information action as well as charismatic. As seen in recording 1, information action presented through a police scanner is still professional and productive although more abrupt than recording 4, and that is a result of environment and the members involved.
In all examples of information action, the member doing the action puts stress on key parts of the information. Stresses are added so that the action is well-formed and more easily delivered to the second member. (Couper-Kuhlen 2012) Along with slow delivery of certain parts, other parts are sped up within the action to preserve productivity in the setting. Phonetics plays an important part in utterances and is a result of categorization membership as well as setting. (Local 1986) For example, in recording 2, certain parts of lines 8-10 are slowed down or specifically stressed in order for the information action to be received successfully by the officer.
Within the examples we see the same setup of adjacency pairs using addressed, ratified members throughout the interaction. Stress on key parts of the utterance as well as slowing down for emphasis are some of the phonetic aids used in delivering the action. The members utilize categories and setting in order to cooperate with the information provided in a professional setting. This information action by one member of an utterance then allows another member to proceed accordingly.
Bibliography
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth (2012), "Some truths and untruths about final intonation in conversational questions", In Questions: Formal, functional and interactional perspectives (Jan P. de Ruiter, ed.), Cambridge, U.K., Cambridge University Press, pp. 123-145.
Day, Dennis (2013), "Conversation analysis and membership categories", In The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics (Carol A. Chapelle, ed.), Oxford, U.K., Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 1050-1055.
Edwards, D. (2006) Discourse, cognition and social practices: The rich surface of language and social interaction.Discourse Studies, 8(1), 41-49.
Goffman, E. (1981) Footing. Chapter 3 in Forms of talk (pp. 124-157). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. (First appeared in Semiotica, 25[1979]:1-29.)
Grice, H. P. (1975) Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and semantics (Vol. 3, pp. 41-58). New York: Academic Press.
Kameo, Nahoko. Whalen, Jack (2015), “Organizing Documents: Standard Forms, Person Production and Organizational Action”, Qualitative Sociology, vol. 38, pp. 205-229.
Local, John. Kelly, John (1986), "Projection and ‘silences’: Notes on phonetic and conversational structure", Human Studies, vol. 9, no. 2-3, pp. 185-204.
Reicher, S. D. (1982). The determination of collective behaviour. Social identity and intergroup relations, 41-83.
Sidnell, J. (2010) Turn-taking. Chapter 3 inConversation analysis: An introduction(pp 36–58). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.