MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY THAI THI NGUYEN TRANG A STUDY ON ADJACENCY PAIRS IN POLITICAL INTERVIEWS WITH THE U.S PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 Supervisor: BUI THI DAO, Ph.D BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN THÁI THỊ NGUYÊN TRANG NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ CẶP KẾ CẬN TRONG CÁC CUỘC PHỎNG VẤN CHÍNH TRỊ VỚI TỔNG THỐNG HOA KỲ JOE BIDEN Ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh Mã số: 8220201 Người hướng dẫn: TS. BÙI THỊ ĐÀO i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I totally assure that thesis ―A Study on Adjacency Pairs in Political Interviews with the U.S President Joe Biden‖ is my own work for the purpose of graduating the MA course of English Linguistics. The content of this thesis has not been published or written by any other authors except for some references which are used in this thesis. Thesis has not been submitted for any degree or diploma in any university.
Binh Dinh, November, 2023 Thái Thị Nguyên Trang ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The total completion of this scientific research project is the result of not only my efforts but also the precious assistance of those to whom I would like to express my sincere gratitude. First of all, I would like to express the most special appreciation and the deepest thanks to my supervisor, Dr. Bui Thi Dao, for her useful advice, aspiring guidance, invaluably constructive criticisms, and especially for her endless patience and warm encouragement during my whole study. Secondly, my deep indebtedness comes to Quy Nhon University, the Department of Foreign Languages and the Post-Graduate Training Office for permitting me to conduct this research.
Thirdly, I am extremely thankful to all lecturers of the Master Course of English Linguistics K24B who were dedicated to teaching me useful knowledge about linguistics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, etc. as well as instructing me on how to write well a scientific research or an academic writing in order that I can have a source of inspiration to proudly complete my research project. Last but not least, I owe an unpaid debt to all the generous support, love, and care from my beloved families and friends, which has given me more strength, belief, and motivation to overcome all troubles in the whole process of this research. v ABSTRACT This is a study of adjacency pairs in conversations extracted from political interviews between international journalists and the U.S President Joe Biden during the period of 2020-2023.
The study aims to examine the types and frequencies of adjacency pairs and to explore preferred and dispreferred responses in the second pair parts of adjacency pairs, sequence types and verbal strategies for doing dispreferred responses in the investigated data. Descriptive method is conducted as the main method in the combination of both qualitative and quantitative approaches in this study. Based on the analysis of the data, the results of the research show types of adjacency pairs in which the highest type is Question – Answer, while the lowest occurrence belongs to Threat – Counter Threat type. The research further indicates preferred responses and dispreferred responses in the second parts of adjacency pairs.
Moreover, sequences types including insertion sequences and post-sequences are also found to be embedded in the second part of adjacency pairs. Lastly, all verbal strategies for doing dispreferred second parts are found in the examined data of dispreferred adjacency pairs. Those are delaying, using preface, expressing doubt, using token Yes, apologizing, mentioning obligation, appealing for understanding, making it non-personal, giving an account, using mitigators and hedging the negative. The study results are also expected to help English language learners and other scholarship researchers understand clearly about adjacency pairs to communicate and interact speaking effectively.
Keywords: adjacency pairs, preferred responses, dispreferred responses, sequence types, verbal strategies. vi TABLE OF CONTENT STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP. v TABLE OF CONTENT. viii LIST OF TABLES.
ix LIST OF FIGURES. Aim and objectives. Scope of the study. Significance of the study.
Organization of the study .1 Definitions of Adjacency Pairs. Types of Adjacency Pairs. Ways of recognizing Adjacency Pairs through responses in the second pair parts. Previous Related Studies.
Biography of the U.S President Joe Biden and political interviews with him. Validity and Reliability. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Types and frequencies of adjacency pairs in the investigated data.
Characteristics of recognizing adjacency pairs in the investigated data57 4. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS. Conclusions of the study. Implications of the study.
Limitations of the study. Suggestions for future studies. 79 APPENDICES viii ABBREVIATIONS AP Adjacency Pairs The A.P The Associated Press of America CA Conversation Analysis [A-A] Assessment - Agreement [A-Ac] Announcement - Acknowledgement [B-D] Blame - Denial [C-A] Compliment - Acceptance [Co-R] Complaint - Response [G-G] Greeting - Greeting [L-L] Leave taking – Leave taking response [Q-A] Question - Answer [R-A] Request - Agreement [S-A] Summons - Answer [T-Ct] Threat – Counter Threat [W-Ac] Warning - Acknowledgement U.S The United States of America ix LIST OF TABLES Table 2. Types of Adjacency pairs proposed by Paltridge (2000: 91-99).
Common Adjacency Pairs and typical preferred and dispreferred second pair parts (Levinson, 1983). Types and Frequencies of Adjacency Pairs in political interviews with the U.S President Joe Biden. Distribution of preference organization in the second pair parts. Type of sequences embedded within the adjacency pairs.
Verbal strategies for doing a dispreferred second part in conversations. 63 x LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2. Preference organization in adjacency pairs by Yule (1997). The dominant types of Adjacency Pairs.
The rate of preferred and dispreferred responses in the second parts of adjacency pairs. 59 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION This chapter aims to set the context for this study. The chapter is organized into six sections. It begins with presenting the reason for conducting a study on adjacency pairs in political interviews with the President U.
The research aim, objectives and the research questions are followed. Finally, it outlines the structure of this thesis. Rationale Language has been considered a medium to communicate with each other in social life and the most important means of communication in social interaction. Related to that, language has the most important role in all aspects of life.
People use language to communicate with each other through meanings produced by both speakers in conversations (Tarigan, 2016). It can be said that communication activities might involve good coordination between speakers and listeners in order for the conversation to go well. It means that the speaker should convey the message clearly so that the listener can understand what the speaker means, and then when the message has been transferred and can be understood by the two speakers, For this reason, there is a correlation in the conversation (Sacks and Schegloff, 2000). In a discussion, the speaker's and the hearer's tasks are both obviously autonomous, meaning that each of them is aware of what to say and how to react depending on the previous utterance of the speaker.
The practice of allowing each speaker and listener to speak and listen in turn during a conversation is known as turn-taking (Garcia, 1991). However, both the speakers and the listeners find dialogue challenging. The reason for this is that communication is a challenging process in which the speakers and the hearers share roles. As both the speaker and the hearer suggest comparable or 2 dissimilar speech acts during conversation, each role might be mutually opposed.
For instance, if a speaker asks a question, the hearer should then respond. However, if the hearer asks the speaker a different question, the expected response may be different. As a result, it has become common knowledge that each speaker has a response in mind that the first speaker either expects or does not expect. According to Sacks and Schegloff (2000), the fundamental structural factor in conversation analysis is called the adjacency pair.
Adjacency pair has been considered one of the most important studies in language communication because it is a basic way to organize conversations. As Partridge (2006:107) described, ―conversation is the main way in which people come together, exchange information, negotiate, and maintain social relations.‖ According to Partridge, conversational interaction is an activity of people‘s senses where two or more people talk to transfer an idea or information from a speaker to a listener to build social interaction. Adjacency Pairs are also defined by Coulthard (1985:70) as constructive exchanges in a conversation that aid in identifying the first speaker, whose responsibility it is to initiate a discussion, and the second speaker, who acts as the hearer and responds to the first speaker's initiated act. Adjacency Pairs also assist in maintaining the speakers‘ and learners‘ roles and prevent them from abusing their turn as the discourse progresses.
Adjacency Pairs are systematically formed in two utterances by the speakers and the hearers, according to Yule (1996:77), who supports this. Thus, this research has been done in order to find out more information about conversation analysis through adjacency pairs, in which an utterance made by one speaker is responded to by another utterance from another speaker. As Sacks and Schegloff (2000) stated, an adjacency pair, which is the most important part of conversational structure, is composed of two 3 utterances by two speakers, one after the other (as cited in Coulthard, 1985). The speaking of the first utterance (the first pair part) conveys a responding utterance (the second pair part).
Adjacency pairs exist in every language and vary in context and content based on the cultural values held by speakers. Sacks and Schegloff (2000) further explain that in conversational communication, adjacency pairs also explore the politeness and willingness of one speaker to deal with the feelings of the second speaker, as exhibited in conventional greetings, invitations, and requests. Jack and Schmidt (1983) also note that since the goal of language teaching is to enable learners to use language in ways that are communicatively effective and appropriate; the research of communicative language has taken on an increasingly important role in recent years. However, a common interest emerges in how language reflects the utterance it performs, as well as the processes involved in using adjacency pairs for communication.
The adjacency pair is considered one of the most effective forms of communication and plays a key role in social interaction. Sacks and Schegloff (2000). Vietnamese linguists identify adjacency pairs as ―cặp kế cận‖ (Diệp Quang Ban, Đỗ Hữu Châu) or ―cặp thoại‖ (Nguyễn Đức Dân, Nguyễn Thiện Giáp) based on different points of understanding to create the diversity in theoretical scope of conversational analysis research. Đỗ Hữu Châu (2001) clarifies that discourse is the result of speech acts in which all speech acts need a response compatible with an introduction act, forming pairs such as asking/answering, greeting/greeting, thanking/responding, or requesting/replying to be called adjacency pairs.
Similarly, Diệp Quang Ban (2009) defines an adjacency pair as a sequence of utterances made by different speakers. It is considered one of the central concepts of conversational analysis research, which shows the integration of 4 the mechanism of turn-taking and the choice of the next person creating the next turn in a sequence of actions. In his different theoretical approach, Nguyễn Đức Dân (1998) states that the two turns of a speech are intimately connected and stand next to each other to create an adjacency pair. Nguyễn Thiện Giáp (2000) also agrees that adjacency pairs are two utterances that are directly related to each other.
Despite certain variations, an adjacency pair is a key unit of the discourse structure. It is the smallest unit that reflects the speaker's and listener's interactions. For all the above reasons, this study is thus focused on adjacency pairs in political interviews, in order not only to help English learners improve their English communication skills but also to help other people who are interested in the political aspects understand the meanings of the political dialogues or strategies of national leaders.