Flouting Conversational Maxims Review of Related Theories

students, an employer interviewing an applicant, two people who are debating about an issue, and other kinds of social encounters in which there is interpersonal exchange of talk. The type of talk is based on the contexts of interaction. It is different from one context to another. However, the structure of the talk, which is the basic pattern of „I speak – you speak – I speak – you speak‟, will become the fundamental structure in an interaction. That structure is called the structure of conversation Yule, 1996: 71. Most of the time, conversation consists of two, or more, participants. As explained by Yule 1996: 72, the participants have the right to speak in a conversation which is usually called the floor. At the moment the participants have the floor, they are able to control it. Having control of the floor at certain time is called a turn. Speakers take turns. Only one person talks at a time; when someone is talking, the other is listening. The participants are able to manage the cooperation in a conversation through turn-taking. Turn-taking works in accordance with local management system. It is a set of principles for getting turns, keeping turns, or giving them away to the other interlocutors. This system is needed at the points where there is a possible change in who has the turn. The possibility of a change-of-turn point in a conversation is called a Transition Relevance Place or TRP. The participants accomplish change of turn smoothly when they are aware to take turns at an appropriate TRP. When speakers do not want to wait until the right TRP to take turn in a conversation, it is commonly called an interruption. Due to the fact that only one participant is allowed to speak at any time, the transition of turn-taking from one speaker to the other needs to be smooth. At the moment of speaking, when there is a short pause done by a speaker, it means simply hesitation. However, when a longer pause happens, that situation becomes silence. In the silence situation, when a speaker turns over the floor to another and the other does not take turn to speak, the silence is attributed to the second speaker. It is called an attributable silence. The following example is a situation when Dave does not take turn to speak when Jan turns over the floor to him. Thus, the silence is attributed to him. Example 13: Jan : Dave I‟m going to the store. 2 seconds Jan : Dave? 2 seconds Jan : Dave – is something wrong? Dave : What? What‟s wrong? Jan : Never mind. Yule, 1996: 73 In a conversation, overlap is possible to happen in transition with a long silence between turns. It is a situation when the participants are trying to speak at the same time when they predict that the others‟ turn is about to complete when it turns out that it is not yet complete. A speaker is expected to wait until the present speaker has reached a TRP in order to take turn. The markers of a TRP are commonly at the end of a structural unit, such as phrase, or clause, and pause. However, for some reasons, the current speakers who are holding the floor will avoid to provide TRP in order to get an extended turn. To hold the floor, they will avoid providing an open pause at the moment of speaking. Within an extended turn, speakers still expect the hearers to show that they are listening. There are many ways of doing this, such as, by giving facial expressions and gestures, but the most common is vocal indications which are usually called backchannel signals or backchannels. The types of backchannels can be „uh-uh‟, „yeah‟, or „mmm‟. Those are the signals from the hearers that they are paying attention and receiving the message. When the hearers do not give backchannels as the feedback, it can be interpreted as the action to withhold agreement or disagreement. In a community of speakers, there is often variation which can cause misunderstanding. Speakers may have different idea and expectation about how a conversation should be like. The conversational style differs from one‟s expectation to others. There are some people who expect that in a conversation, the participation among the interlocutors will be active, the speaking rate will be fast, with some overlap, and with almost no pausing between turns. That type of conversation is called a high involvement style. On the other hand, there are people who expect longer pauses between turns, with lower rate of speaking, with no overlap, and avoid interruption or completion of the other‟s turn. That “non- interrupting, non- imposing style” is called a considerateness style Yule, 1996: 76. Featur es of conversational style are often interpreted as someone‟s personality. Speakers who usually use the first style of conversation are often viewed as noisy, domineering, selfish, or tiresome, whenever they are engaged with people who usually use the second style. Meanwhile, speakers who prefer the