Ill-sequence Conversation Definition of Terms

11 based on the participants ‟ knowledge about the conversation topics by relying on their communicative competence. It distinguishes conversation from other kind of speech as mentioned earlier. Cutting 2002 and Levinson 1984 present some characteristics of a common conversation. First, Cutting 2002 states that “cooperation in conversation is managed by all the participants through turn-taking ” p.29. This characteristic is recognized in most culture as a condition in which one participant speaks at a time. Every participant plays the role as speaker and listener in turns. The following common feature of a conversation is adjacency pair. Cutting 2002 explains that “adjacency pair is a pattern likely to happen in a pair of utterance p. 30”. Levinson 1984 adds, “adjacency pairs are profoundly inter- related to the turn-taking structure as a notice indicates the next speaker contribution ” p.303. Question-answer, offer-acceptrefuse, blame-deny, request- acceptrefuse, and so-on, are some pattern used in a conversation. One distinct pair is question-answer. By observing the utterances syntactical form, a question generally is in interrogative form while answer in a declarative one. Based on this case, conversation‟s sequences are frequently determined as a successful one based on sentences type order. However, Levinson 1984 objects it by stating the “precise specification of the underlying expectation upon which the regularities are based is not so easy ” p. 303. This research understands that to some extent the notion failed to explain its occurrence in conversation. 12 The last feature is sequencing, which is defined by Cutting 2002 as “the negotiation of the participants‟ utterance on which a mutual conversation is occurring ” p. 31. Cutting categorizes sequence into three namely pre-sequences, insertion sequences, and opening and closing. Pre-sequences prepare the ground for a further utterance and signal the type of utterance to follow Cutting: 2002, p. 30. Three types of pre-sequence are pre-invitation Will you come if I get you another tickets?, pre-request Do you have some time?, and pre-announcement You‟ll never know. Insertion is a pair embedded within other adjacency pairs which act as macro-sequences Cutting: 2002, p. 30. The invitation “Let‟s go to the movies tonight. ” might result to a question “What time will the movie start?” from the second participant before the answer to the first participant is given. It is common to have a question which was responded with another question as the speakers try to know the detailed information. According to Cutting 2002, opening-closing sequence shows the speaker‟s attempt to start a new conversation or end it. Greeting is most likely used to open the conversation and the leave taking is used to close the conversation. Those common characteristics indicate the participants‟ contribution in the attempt to generate a relevant and coherent conversation. According to Levinson 1984, relevance in conversation comes from the topic related between the preceding and the following utterances p.31. On the other hand, coherence means “the overall sense of a discourse that results from relationships a within a sequence of utterances and b between those utterances and thei r context p.31”.