DA Module 08 The Architecture of Conversation
DA Module 10 From Sound to Evidence
Discourse Analysis Module 09: Relationship Talk and Task Talk
⚡️ Interactional and transactional talk, conversational breakdown, and pragmatic failure
People talk for different reasons. Sometimes the main goal is interactional: building rapport, showing interest, maintaining relationships, or managing affiliation. At other times, talk is primarily transactional: exchanging information, solving a problem, requesting a service, or completing a task.
These are not two completely separate kinds of conversation. Speakers frequently move between them. A service encounter may begin with small talk, shift to a practical request, and end with thanks or a friendly closing.
This module also examines what happens when interaction does not proceed as expected. By connecting speech acts from Module 7 with adjacency pairs, turn-taking, and repair from Module 8, we can identify where conversational trouble occurs and determine whether it develops into pragmatic failure.
Essential Understandings
- Interactional and transactional talk are communicative orientations, not rigid categories.
- Conversational breakdowns become visible through participants’ responses, misunderstandings, and repair.
- Pragmatic failure involves a mismatch between intended or interpreted social action and contextual expectations.
- Successful communication depends on both speakers and listeners collaboratively constructing meaning.
Guiding Questions
- What features distinguish interactional from transactional talk?
- How can a conversation shift between the two orientations?
- How do speech acts help explain what speakers are trying to accomplish?
- How do adjacency pairs and uptake reveal whether an action was understood?
- What causes conversational breakdown?
- When does conversational trouble become pragmatic failure?
- How can repair restore shared understanding?
Learning Outcomes
Learners will be able to:
- distinguish interactional and transactional orientations using discourse evidence;
- identify shifts between relationship-building and task-focused talk;
- connect speech acts from Module 7 with conversational sequence from Module 8;
- identify and explain conversational breakdowns;
- distinguish breakdown from pragmatic failure;
- analyze how uptake and repair affect communicative success;
- propose alternative responses or repair strategies.
Key Concepts
| Term | Working definition |
|---|---|
| Interactional talk | Talk primarily oriented toward establishing or maintaining social relationships. |
| Transactional talk | Talk primarily oriented toward exchanging information or accomplishing a practical task. |
| Pragmatic competence | The ability to interpret and perform contextually appropriate social actions through language. |
| Pragmatic failure | A mismatch in interpreting or performing social action that produces misunderstanding or unintended effects. |
| Uptake | The recipient’s displayed interpretation of what an utterance is doing. |
| Repair | Practices used to resolve problems in speaking, hearing, understanding, or action interpretation. |
| Rapport | Social affiliation or connection constructed through interaction. |
| Mitigation | Resources that reduce the force or interpersonal risk of an action. |
Reading
-
Celce-Murcia & Olshtain (2000)
- Ch. 1, Types of Discourse, p. 6
- Ch. 2, What Does Pragmatics Entail?, pp. 20–22
- Ch. 2, Cooperation and Implicature, pp. 22–24
-
Paltridge (2022), Ch. 3: Discourse and Pragmatics
- §3.1 What is pragmatics?, p. 44
- §3.2 Language, context and discourse, pp. 44–45
- §3.4 The cooperative principle and discourse, pp. 49–52
- §3.12 Politeness and cross-cultural pragmatic failure, pp. 61–62
Core Analytical Principle
Do not diagnose pragmatic failure from one sentence alone.
Use evidence from:
context + speech action + sequence + uptake + repair
Mini Analysis
Analyze the following exchange:
A: Your music is pretty loud.
B: Yeah, this speaker is amazing.
A: I meant that I’m trying to study.
B: Oh! Sorry. I’ll turn it down.
Identify:
- the dominant orientation;
- the speech act in Turn 1;
- B’s initial uptake;
- the source of the breakdown;
- the repair;
- whether the interaction ultimately succeeds.
Retrieval from Modules 7 & 8
- What is the difference between locution, illocution, and perlocution?
- What does uptake reveal?
- What makes two turns an adjacency pair?
- What is conversational repair?
- Why should a turn be interpreted in relation to the turns around it?
Module 9 Exit Questions
- What distinguishes interactional from transactional talk?
- Why are they better treated as orientations than categories?
- What is the difference between conversational breakdown and pragmatic failure?
- How can uptake reveal misunderstanding?
- How can repair restore successful interaction?
- How do Modules 7, 8, and 9 work together?
Module 9 Diagnostic Question
Are participants primarily managing a relationship, accomplishing a task, or both—and what evidence shows whether they understand one another successfully?
Complete Discourse Analysis LIPFUE Quiz – Fill out form in class (open from 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM).
What expectations are the participants using, and what happens when those expectations differ?
The Cooperative Principle proposes that participants generally behave as though they are working toward a shared communicative purpose. This does not mean that speakers must agree with one another, be friendly, or always communicate perfectly. Rather, participants normally assume that each contribution is somehow connected to the conversation and worth interpreting.
Review Cooperative Principle.
Review
Conference…
Review Types of Talk and **H. P. Grice’s Cooperative Principle**.