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.