Conversation structure

     When we talk, we possess a thing calls floor, which is the right to speak. Having control of floor is called a turn. Everyone wants to have a control of turn, which is turn-taking. After one person talk, it is the turn for the second person to talk. During transition, long silence and overlap are possible. If the second person doesn’t talk, it is attributed to the second person, which is an attributable silence. At the same time, some people hold the floor for a long time to prevent other people from talking. Yet, the speaker still expect their partners are listening which can be indicated by doing backchannel signals or backchannels. The person who is active in a conversation is called high involvement style while the person who doesn’t talk a lot is engaging in  a high considerateness style.

        In daily conversation, adjacency pairs occur frequently. The utterance of a first part immediately creates an expectation of the utterance of a second part. If the first part is a request, invitation, or an offer, the preferred social act which is shown in the second part is accept. If a person refuse or decline, it is considered dispreferred social act.