farewells. However, there is a pre-closing signal that comes before an actual farewell happens.
c. Conversation Rules and Structures
Conversation rules and structures are about how a conversation is organized and how to maintain the conversation. D
ṏrnyei and Thurrell 1992: 3 state that conversation is high organized activity that shows patterns and regularities. Here
are the issues in conversation rules and structures:
1 Opening
Opening a conversation is not random. There are some ways to initial a conversation. In the opening, the participants decide whether the conversation
belongs to formal or informal. 2
Turn-taking The turn-taking mechanisms determine who talks, when, and how long, to
avoid the conversation into a breakdown. 3
Interrupting Interrupting in a conversation is tolerated in certain amount of times. Too
much interrupting is not good as it is considered rude in English. To interrupt, participants have to use polite and natural expressions.
4 Adjacency pairs
Adjacency pairs are the immediate responses or reactions from one participant’s questions, invitations, requests, apologies, and compliments. But
the reaction has two sides of opposite. The first possible reaction is polite
reaction expected as accepting the invitations, requests, and apologies, whereas the second reaction will be the opposite, less common reaction
unexpected such as refusing the invitations, requests, and apologies. 5
Conversational routines Conversational routine is a feature of natural conversation where there is a
wide use of fixed expressions. These conversational routines are used to break down the conversation in natural way and smoothly, to attract others listeners’
interests, to change subjects, to react to what others say, and to end the conversation well.
6 Topic shift
Topic shift usually occurs when the participants change the topic because of two reasons, having enough talk with the topics or introducing a new topic.
When the topic shift happens in short time, it means that the conversation belongs to informal conversation.
7 Closings
Participants of conversation cannot merely end the conversation. There is a rule to put the conversation into ending. There are pre-closing and closing to
prepare the conversation ending. Wardhaugh 2006: 297-298 states that adjacency pair is an important
principle in conversation. Adjacency pair provides the speakers the possibilities of continuity and exchange to say something to make the conversation works. For
example, a greetings leads to a return of the greeting. Further, Wardhaugh adds
that a turn-taking is a complex activity. The turn-taking avoids the speakers from overlapping other utterances and provides gaps between the speakers
’ utterances. Richards 2008: 23 sets some skills that are used in conversations. Those skills
include opening and closing conversations, choosing topics, making small-talk, joking, recounting personal incidents and experiences, turn-taking, using
adjacency pairs, interrupting, reacting to others, using appropriate style of speaking.
From the theories above, it can be concluded that speakers need the skills in conversation such as opening and closing the conversation, turn-taking,
interrupting, and using adjacency pairs.
d. Social and Cultural Contexts
Social and cultural contexts focus on how someone’s status and
personality affect the way conversation will go on. D ṏrnyei and Thurrell 1992:
112 say that every conversation has a time, a place, a social context within a culture. Here are some factors that determine how the conversation will go on.
1 Time and location
2 The social situation
3 Workplace and status
4 The social norms of appropriate language use – style and politeness
5 Cross-cultural differences
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