
A PRAGMATIC STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF CONVERSATIONS FOR MAKING APPOINTMENTS Danalee Goldthwaite M. A., University of British Columbia, 1972 THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in the Department of Psychology 0 Danalee Goldthwai te 1988 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY June, 1988 All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without permission of the author. if. APPROVAL Name : Dana1ee Go1 dthwai te Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Title of Thesis: A Pragmatic Structural Analysis of Conversations for Making Appointments Exami ning Commi ttee : Chai rman: Barry Beyerstein, Ph.D. William Turnbull, Ph.D. Senior Supervisor . Raymond Kodak, Ph.D. * Vito Modigliani, 4fi.F. I Internal /dxderna~/~x&iner ita Wdtson, Ph.D. xternal Exami ner ssistant Professor Department of Educational Psychology & Special Education University of British Co1 umbi a / Date Approved: - d 6, /Gf PARTIAL COPYRIGHT LICENSE I hereby grant to Simon Fraser Unlverslty the right to lend my 'thesis, project or extended essay (the title of which is shown below) to users of the ~imonFraser University Library, and to make part ial or single copies only for such users or In response to a request from the library of any other university, or other educational Institution, on its own behalf or for one of Its users. I further agree that perm ission for multiple copying of this work for scholarly purposes may be granted by me or the Dean of Graduate Studies. It is understood that copying or publication of this work for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Title of Thesi s/Project/Extended Essay A Pragmatic Structural Analysis of Conversations for Making Appointments Author: --I- ..-.... - .,--- (signature) Danalee Goldthwai te July 27, 1988 (date) iii ABSTRACT Six studies examine conversational structure by applying a pragmatic analysis to two-party conversations. In Study IA, a subgoal achievement label was applied to each talking turn of 93 automatically tape recorded telephone conversations between native English-speaking beauty salon receptionists and one confederate female caller trained to play a standardized, non-leading role in getting an appointment for a haircut. Chi square tests showed that these conversations have a subgoal structure and that some structures are more prevalent than others. Regularities were attributed to social and organizational problems that appo intment-mak ing presents. Study IB obtained acceptable inter-rater reliability values of the Study IA structural assignments using a trained independent male observer whose agreement/with the researcher was assessed. .. Study IIA failed to provide evidence for knowledge of conversational subgoal structure among 83 female native English speakers who attempted to resequence two transcribed and scrambled Study I conversations. In Study IIB, fifty-three native English-speaking females rated three versions of both Study IIA conversations for naturalness. Chi square tests confirmed that the subjects could reliably select the naturally occurring ones. The results are attributed to successful engagement of knowledge about conversational subgoal structure. i v In a test of the methodological and theoretical generalizability of Study IA, Study IIIA applied the subgoal structural analysis developed in Study IA to a set of 59 recorded telephone appointment-making conversations between acquaintances collected from one beauty salon. Chi square tests demonstrated that subgoal structure exists within this set and that some structures occur more frequently than others. These results confirmed predictions from Study IA data. Those predictions were based on the idea that conversational regularities are due to the operation of social and organizational factors that influence conversational goal pursuit. Study IIIB generated inter-rater re1 iabil ity values for the Study IIIA structural assignments using the same trained independent observer from Study IB. High levels of agreement were obtained. / * Overall, the research supported the conclusion that it is meaningful and useful to view conversations and the knowledge conversationalists have of them from a pragmatic perspective. A variety of extensions of this research are discussed. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the members of my supervisory committee for the time and assistance they devoted in support of my endeavours. As well, I am grateful to Ross McMillan for serving as Observer 2 in Studies IB and IIIB, and to Raymond Corteen for participating as the "third independent party' in Study IA. # TABLE OF CONTENTS PRELIMINARY PAGES ii ...........Approval Page iii ...........Abstract v. ...........Acknowledgements xi .......... .List of Tables CHAPTER / PAGE 1. INTRODUCTION. ....................1 RESFARCHDOMAINS. ................ .1 Arguments Against Adopting the Syntactic or Semantic Domains. ..............4 Syntax .....................5 Semantics. ..................6 Pragmatics, Non-natural Meaning and the Co-operative Principle. .........11 PSYCHOLINGUISTICS AND THE THIRD DOMAIN ......27 vii Selecting Spoken Conversations as the Object of Research ..............38 RESEARCH COMMITMENTS ..............43 Subgoal Analysis .................45 Subgoal Structure and Knowledge of It .......51 Subgoal Structure and Social Activities ......61 AN OVERVIEW OF THE RB6EARCH. i i ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;63 2 . STUDY I PART A: CONVERSATIONAL STRUCTURE...... 69 INTRODUCTION ...................69 METHOD ...................... 70 A . Generating the Conversations ........70 B . Screening Conversations and Making Transcriptions ...............72 . C . Structural Categories in the Conversations ................75 D . Illustrations of Structural Categories in the Conversat ions ............85 E . Assumptions Underlying Structural Analysis ..................86 RESULTS ......................93 A . Obtained Sequences and Possible Sequences .................93 B . Conversational Structure ..........97 C . Conversational Preference .........97 DISCUSSION ....................98 viii 3 . STUDY I PART B: INTEROBSERVER RELIABILITY SCORES FOR STUDY IA ....................104 INTRODUCTION ..................104 A . Observer Training and Data Collection ..........104 B . Scoring Agreement .............106 RESULTS .....................109 DISCUSSION ................... 109 4 . STUDY I1 PARTS A AND B: RESTRUCTURING TASKS AND NATURALNESS RATINGS .................111 5 . STUDY I1 PART A: RESTRUCTURING TASKS .........112 INTRODUCTION.................. 112 METHOD ..................../ 113 RESULTS .................... 6119 DISCUSSION ...................123 6. STUDY I1 PART B: NATURALNESS RATINGS ........ 131 INTRODUCTION .................. 131 METHOD ..................... 131 RESULTS .....................133 DISCUSSION ...................138 7 . OVERALL DISCUSSION OF STUDIES IIA AND IIB . 139 8 . STUDY 111 PART A: SUBGOAL STRUCTURE IN NATURALLY OCCURRING CONVERSATIONS ..........144 1NTRODUCTI.ON. ................. 144 METHOD ..................... 145 A . Collecting and Transcribing the Conversations ...............145 B . Screening Conversations ..........146 C . Participant Characteristics ........148 RESULTS ....................149 DISCUSSION ................... 160 9 . STUDY I11 PART B: INTEROBSERVER RELIABILITY SCORES FORSTUDY IIIA ................. 167 INTRODUCTION ...................167 METHOD ...................../ -167 A . Observer Training and Data Collection ................167 B . Scoring Agreement ............170 RESULTS ..................... 170 DISCUSSION ....................172 10 . FINAL DISCUSSION .................174 Relating the Data to Pragmatic Principles ....176 Generalizability .................190 Future Research Directions ..........207 X 11. APPENDIX A: INTEROBSERVER RELIABILITY TRAINING INSTRUCTIONS. ..............217 12. APPENDIX B: MODIFIED INTEROBSERVER TRAINING INSTRUCTIONS. ...................232 13. APPENDIX C: BASIC AND NON-BASIC ELEMENTS: STUDY IA .....................240 14. APPENDIX D: STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF CONVERSATIONAL STRUCTURE IN STUDY IA ANDSTUDY IIIA. ..................243 15. APPENDIX E: CONVERSATIONAL PREFERENCE: STUDY IA .................../ .253 16. FOOTNOTES. ....................256 17. REFERENCES. ...................257 Paae Table 1 Obtained and Possible Category Sequences for 93 Conversations. .......94 Table 2 Frequencies of Obtained Card Sequences for the "Oak' Conversation. ............... ,120 Table 3 Frequencies of Obtained Card Sequences for the "Irene" Conversation. ...121 Table 4 Frequencies of Obtained Ratings for / Three Forms of a Conversation. .......134 Table 5 Frequencies of Obtained Form Orderings. ...I36 Table 6 Numbers of Conversations Held by Each of Four Callees. ..............148 Table 7 Numbers of Conversations Held by Callers of Both Sexes. ...............149 Table 8 Obtained and Possible Category Sequences for 59 Conversations. .......I55 xii Table 9 Numbers of Conversations Having One or More Element. 159 The overall motivating interest that guides the direction of this dissertation is a desire to contribute to an understanding of the mental processes and structures that are explanatory of language comprehension. One general approach within this area involves searching for regularities in the products of the utilization of those mental structures. The characteristics of such regularities are taken to be indicative of the nature of the internal processes and structures that gave rise to them. However,
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