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writer will use to analyze the conversation in comic strip The Born Loser, they are turn-taking, adjacency pairs, and sequences. Second, the theory of Preference
Structure, they are preferred and dispreferred.
1. Conversation Analysis
Cutting in Pragmatics and Discourse: A resource book for students 2003: 27, 28 stated that Conversation Analysis takes a „bottom-up‟ approach: it begins
with the conversation itself, and then leads to the structure of the conversation. Conversation Analysis looks the conversation as a process. It looks at the flow of
the event little by little and what it implies from the conversation between speakers. Conversation itself is a discourse that formed by different speakers at a
time that is unplanned and usually informal 2003: 28. In conversation analysis there are 3 parts, they are turn-taking, adjacency
pairs, and sequences. Those three parts may help to find the structure of the conversation. Below are the explanations of those parts.
a. Turn-taking
In most countries and cultures there is only one person speak at the time. It naturally happened when someone is speaking, the other is listening. The people
take turns; when the first speaker finishes talking, another speaker begins to talk. “All cultures have their own preferences as to how long a speaker should
hold the floor, how they indicate that they finished and another speaker should hold the floor, how they indicate that they have finished and
another speaker can take the floor, when a new speaker can start, whether the new speaker can overlap and interrupt, when speaker can pause and for
how long.” Cutting, 2003: 29
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When the speaker finish talking the next speaker begins to talk, the moment of changing between the speakers is called a transition relevance place or
TRP. In the conversation, the next speaker do not know exactly when the first speaker
‟s turn is complete, but they will end their turn by saying a word or sentence that indicates that their turn already complete. When the next speaker
begins to talk while the first one is still taking, this called an interruption. The following is the example of the interruption. The interruption is indicated with a
, this sign is adapted from Gumperz Cutting, 2003:29. B: well, I guess the meeting is over for today.
A: umm. Um, can I speak first.
The next speaker can predict when the turn is complete. The moment when they predict the turn of the current speaker almost finishes but they begin to
talk is called overlap. The following the example of the overlap. The overlap begins indicated with a =. This sign is adapted from Schriffin Cutting, 2003:29
A: No, she is in the hospital. Well = B:
= What happened to her? It seems there is an unwritten agreement in each culture about the
acceptable length of a pause between two turns. The pause is called an attributable silence Cutting, 2003: 29. The following is the example of the attributable
silence.
