e-ISSN: 2502-6445
p-ISSN: 2502-6437

https://ejurnal.stkip-pessel.ac.id/index.php/kp
DOI: https://doi.org/10.34125/jkps.v8i4.66

INTERPRETATION OF CASUAL CONVERSATION ANALYSIS
Riski Safitri1)*, Efendi Efendi2), Yola Melshandika3), Titik
Hardewi Yani4), Dino Adi Putra5), Veni6), Yanti Nazmai
Ekaputri7)
1,2,3,4,5,6,7
STKIP Pesisir Selatan
*Email: riskistkippessel@gmail.com

Abstract
Casual conversation is a critical site for the social construction of reality. The relaxed nature of
casual conversation leads to a very common perception by those who participate in such talk that it is
trivial and that nothing happens. Conversation Analysis (CA) is one of the approaches in discourse
which has its roots in the field of ethnomethodology, one of the branches in sociology. The purpose of
this research is to analyze the casual conversation between two close friends. The duration of the
conversation is about 10 minutes long. The setting of the conversation is in the area of campus. In this
paper, the casual conversation is analyzed from the form of negotiation, the turn taking, the linguistic
competence and the strategic competence.
Keywords: Casual Conversation, Conversation Analysis, Negotition, Turn Taking,
Linguistic Competence, Strategic Competence.

INTRODUCTION
Conversation is an interaction.
Interaction is a process of mechanical
system and taking turns at constructing
sounds and words. As stated by Duncan and
Fiske (1979), interacting is a semantic
activity, a process of making meanings. In
interaction, people also deliver a very wide
range of tasks which consist of meaningful
utterances to express feeling, to negotiate
meanings as well as to exchange meaning.
As we take turns in any interaction,
we negotiate meanings about what we think
is going on in the world, how we feel about
it, and how we feel about the people we
interact with. As said by Eggins and Slade
(1997), casual conversation is concerned
with the joint construction of social reality.
They (1997:8) also add that “casual
conversation is the kind of talk we engage in
when we are talking just for the sake of
talking. This raises the question of just what
we mean by “casualness”. This is line with
Thornbury (2005) who notes that most day
to day language use is spoken since our
social interaction will be mostly occurred by
spoken many various situations.
Casual conversation is a critical site
for the social construction of reality. The
relaxed nature of casual conversation leads

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to a very common perception by those who
participate in such talk that it is trivial and
that nothing happens. However, the
evidence of analysis suggests that
conversation is anything but trivial. It
suggests that casual conversation, in fact,
constructs social reality. By this reason,
casual conversation is interesting to be
analysed in the way of its unique features.
Casual conversation is a basic people’s
activity which is conducted most of the time
(Thornbury & Slade, 2006). The people are not
able to avoid themselves from conversing with
others. For instance, the teachers are required to
establish a successful conversation with their
students, the sellers in the market are mandatory
to form a clear interactional talk with their
customers, or simply friends make a small
dialog. These conversations have the same
objectives, namely expressing ideas, opinions,
goals, and feelings one another (Gabor, 2001).
However, conversation is not merely about
transferring words and sentences. It essentially
consists of the speakers’ common senses of
acting, relating, feeling, and dwelling together
(Carbaugh, 2005). In the other words, casual
conversation is a semantic activity that
negotiates social identity dimension (Eggins &
Slade, 1997).

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Conversation Analysis (CA) is one of the
approaches in discourse which has its roots in
the field of ethnomethodology, one of the
branches in sociology developed by Harold
Gardinkel (Bhatia et al, 2008). CA was then
explicitly developed to conversation by its
pioneers: Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff,
and Gail Jefferson (Schiffrin, 1994: Sidnell,
2007). According to Arkinson and Heritage
(1984), the main objective of conversation
analysis is the description and explication of
the competences that ordinary speakers use
and rely on in participating in intelligible,
socially organized interaction. CA avoids
positing any categories whose relevance for
participants themselves is not displayed in
what is actually said (Schiffrin, 1994, p. 239).
Hence, CA does not consider any other factors
outside the spoken data. Another characteristic
of CA is terms of its attention to details in the
spoken interaction as well as its concerns to
minutes particles, which are pertinent to
attempting to comprehend how language
works (ten Have, 2007). And CA is based on
the interactions that occur naturally and made
up based on actual data recorded and
transcribed in detail following applicable
conversation rules. Conversation analysis
rejects an unnatural array of data collection
methods conducted by simulating and
preparing specific artificial interactive contexts
in the conversation (Eggins & Slade, 1997).

METHOD
This study used conversation
Analysis (CA). CA is one of the approaches
in discourse which has its roots in the field
of ethnomethodology, one of the branches
in sociology developed by Harold Gardinkel
(Bhatia et al, 2008). CA was then explicitly
developed to conversation by its pioneers:
Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff, and Gail
Jefferson (Schiffrin, 1994: Sidnell, 2007).
The conversation analyzed here is the casual
conversation between two close friends. The
duration of the conversation is about 10
minutes long. The setting of the
conversation is in the area of campus. In this
paper, the casual conversation is analyzed
from the form of negotiation, the turn
taking, the linguistic competence and the
strategic competence.
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RESULT
1.

Turn/Move
Speaker
Turn
Agnes
16
Susi
15
30

Move
43
40
83

Clauses
92
107
199

That table is quantification of the
discourse structure choices in all conversation
by the two speakers: Agnes and Susi. They
have almost the same total of turn, those are
16 and 15. There are 31 turns. Both of them
are dominant participants in the conversation.
They result equal participation during the
conversation. As the conversation is done by
the two speakers only, there is no marginalized
speaker who does not have shared background
and plays passive role of the talk. Each of the
speakers shared the same information about
discussion topic. Both of them are not
competing for turns since they have the right
to equal turns to talk. Moreover, both of the
speakers are classmates, so they have known
each other. There is no need of being superior
to other during the conversation. The
discussion topics are various, but those are
about their activities related to the lecturing on
campus.
The number of move which is
produced by the participants has a slight
difference. Agnes gives more moves but does
not dominate the conversation since the
difference of total move is marginal only.
Although Susi gets less moves, both of them
realize the equality of friends so there is no
beating of others. This also indicates that
Agnes emerges as speech functionally

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Type of
Agnes
Susi
Total
Negotiation
Interpersonal
22
19
41
Logico-semantic
61
73
134
dominant as she gets more moves into her
turns and gets more value out of her turns
since she produces more moves though she has
the same turn as Susi. In other hand Susi gives
less contribution and interpersonal attention to
the conversation compared to Agnes.
The number of clauses is also almost
the same with the number of move. There is a
gradual difference between the two speakers.
Agnes produces more clauses than Susi for her
number of turns/moves. Despite this confirms
that Agnes get more airspace to talk, more
value as speaker and also more substantial
congruence between moves and clauses in
casual conversation context, Susi is not
categorized as incidental participant because
their relationship as friend and he speaks
purposively.
1.

Negotiation
Type of Negotiation

Total

Initiation

25

Interpersonal

41

Logico-semantic

134

The dominant type of negotiation is
logico-semantic. It shows that the conversation
is done logically connected. Both of them
speak and discuss the ‘moods’ which flow
during the conversation happens. They discuss
some topics which deliberately come to their
conversation. Then it is followed by
interpersonal function which means that beside
connect the utterances logically, it also has
strong interpersonal function in order to
establish and maintain solidarity between the
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two speakers. The interpersonal functions are
shown by laughter or fillers from speaker A
(Agnes) when speaker B (Susi) speaks and
vice versa. Those do not mean that the speaker
A wants to disturb or treat the speaker B, but
they are used to show interpersonal intention
of the speaker A to speaker B.
There are also some initiations happen
during the conversation, those happen 25
times. These reflect that there some topic
discussed during the conversation. Each topic
is marked by an initiation of the speaker who
produces the new topic without any treat to
other speaker. The topic change runs smoothly
as they have the same background of each
discussion topic. Agnes and Susi produce
almost the same total of the initiation. This
shows that both of the speakers are not
dependent on the other. Both of them talk the
same topics, not only react to the contribution
of others.

In one hand, both of them reflect less
different number of interpersonal functions.
Each of them responds to other utterances by
laughing or chuckling. It happens because of
their relationship as friend. They try to give
chance each other to finish each utterance.
These strategies used by both of the speakers
to avoid overlap and to express their affective
responses or appreciations to each other. On
the other hand, Agnes gives more logico-

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semantic utterances than Susi. This describes
that she is more willing to express fact and her
personal opinion than Susi, though there is
only a gradual difference between them. Susi
also expresses many personal opinions during
the conversation; it is several moves that
function as logico-semantic.
There is no domination of the opening
of the conversation, both of them play equal
role on different types of speech function.
Agnes dominates on the types of question –
opinion. This reflects that she starts the
conversation by asking opinion question to
Susi. She demands opinion information from
other speaker (Susi). She uses WHinterrogative and modality/appraisal. Besides
that, Agnes also produces statement – opinion
to give the new topic. She tends to give
attitudinal or evaluative information by using
full declarative, modality and/or appraising
lexis. While Susi dominates on stating opinion
to start conversation, in addition she also
produces fact statement. In uttering fact
statement, Susi does not risk presenting her
own opinion for debate. She gives factual
information of the situation or condition by
full declarative without any modality or
appraisal.
Agnes and Susi favor statements of
their opinions, suggest a role of stirrer to each
other, but without any indication to be certain
egocentricity because they give the same role
as opener. There is no domination on topics
they talk about. Both of them do not force to
discuss a new topic before the previous
discussion topic finishes, so that the topic
movement changes smoothly. There is no
objection from first speaker when second
speaker produces utterances to initiate talk
around proposition indicating a claim to a
degree of control over the interaction.
2. Speech Function

Type of speech
function
Register
Elaborate
Extend
clarify
Answer
Acknowledge
Agree
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Total
30
38
26
19
10
28
2

Enhance
Confirm
Affirm
Comply
give opinion
Counter
Attend
open conversation
Contradict
Decline
Accept

9
4
5
14
2
3
3
2
-

Those show that the conversation
plenty of expression. The most used
utterances which belong to continue
function are elaborate that shows
clarification,
exemplification,
or
restatement from previous move.. The
second most used utterances are of most
used utterances are register that
indicates speaker’s attention to other
speaker during the conversation. The
third is acknowledgement. Those offer
additional or contrasting information on
previous move either it is after
intervention by another speaker or not.
Those three speech functions have
slightly different on the number.
There are 5 speech functions which
are only produced less of each by the

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Vol. 8, No. 4, DESEMBER 2023

speakers. Those are agreement, attend, open
conversation, contradict, and decline. Those
mean that the speakers do not focus on
expression of attention seeking, demand
opinion
information,
negate
prior
information, contradict import of a
challenge, and accept proffered goods and
services. The speakers do not seek attention
of others since they believe that their
equality of friends make them confident to
talk and be sure of getting attention. Each of
them does not need to demand opinion
information since they always give
information needed during the conversation.
Due to the same knowledge background,
they also do not have to negate prior
information. Contradiction happens only
three times because there is no topic which
is arguable. It is only about their activities
on campus. From the data above also clearly
shows that both of the speakers do not use
any kinds of utterances of comply, counter
and accept.
3. Situation
The situation of the conversation is in
the area of campus. The second speaker (Susi)
sat down on the stairs while waiting for the
next class. Then, the first speaker, (Agnes)
came toward the second speaker. Actually,
they are in the same previous class and will be
in the next same class. It makes the discussion
topics vary and there are some initiations
during the conversation. Because of their
friendship’s equality, it flows smoothly. There
is no speaker who controls the conversation or
be the superior.
There is a little grammatical error
during the conversation. Such kinds of minor
clauses happen (without any mood) though it
is logico-semantic. At least, it is still
understandable to both of the speakers.
A. Linguistic competence analysis
1. Linguistic Competence: Syntax
There are several linguistic evidences
which show the speakers competence
in linguistics in side of its syntax.
 Constituent/phrase structure
There are 7 phrase structures.
Those are on c.8 iv, c.20 v, c.23
v, c.29 i, c.30 vi, c.30 x, c.30 xvi –
in light blue.
Example: -no problem sis
 Sentence types used in this
casual conversation are:
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- present continuous tense
(example: what are you
doing?)
- simple past (example: I got it
sis)
- simple present (example: it
seems that….)
- past continuous (example: I
was fixing my work)
- present perfect (example: I
have submitted to Prof)
- simple future (example: it
will be better)
 Sentence types:
- statements: 91 clauses (in
purple)
- questions: 21 clauses (in
yellow)
- imperatives: 1 clause (in
orange)
- exclamations: 13 clauses (in
green)
 Special constructions
- existensials (-)
- question tags
There is no question tag
in this casual conversation. The
speaker used “right?” instead
of question tag.
 Modifiers/intensifiers
quantifiers, comparing and
equating
e.g. Maybe my childhood
wasn't as beautiful as you were
mbak and manage it better.
 Coordination (and, or, etc) and
correlation
 Subordination (e.g., adverbial
clauses, conditionals (1))
 Embedding (-)
noun clauses , relative clauses
(11), reported speech (-)
2. Strategic Competence
 STALLING
or
TIMEGAINING STRATEGIES
-Fillers: example: ha...?, hmm
-Hesitation devices, e.g. Eeeee
-Gambits, e.g. The decision is
still up in the air.. ; It's hard for me to
digest this life lesson..
-Self
and
other-repetition.
Example: Even now, my mother...
she is not
with me.
 SELF-MONITORING
STRATEGIES

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-Self-initiated repair, (e.g., I
mean)
-Self-rephrasing (over
elaboration) , e.g.
(T13) Bu Helena teaches us in
sophisticated way, that it forces us
to read
a lot. She's great I
think. I think so..
(T30) I guess...,, may be,,... I don't
know for sure...I never ask my
father
about his feeling.. He
must be so sad..
-Self-rephrasing (over-elaboration)
e.g. Bu Wuli is very nice lecturer,
right? U know, the way she guide
us in class...wow...so nice..
She is very wise. Hmmm...
 INTERACTIONAL
STRATEGIES
-Appeals for help
- direct (all in direct)
- indirect (e.g., -)
-Meaning negotiation strategies
Indicators of non/mis
understanding
-Requests
- repetition requests (e.g.,-)
- clarification requests
(e.g., (iii) which will take for
about 9 days?
(iv) Was that this one?
- confirmation requests (e.g.,)

REFERENCES

Carbaugh, D. (2005). Cultures in
Conversation. London: Lawrence
Erlbaum.
Duncan, S., & Fiske, D. (1979). Dynamic
patterning
in
conversation.
American Scientist, 67.

Eggins, S. and D. Slade. 1997. Analysing
Casual Conversation. London
Gabor, D. (2001). How to Start a
Conversation and Make friends.
New York: Simon & Schuster
Slade, D., & Eggins, S. (1997). Analyzing
Casual Conversation. Wellington
House. Cassel: London.
Thornbury, S. (2005). Beyond the
sentence: Introducing discourse
analysis. Macmillan Education.
Thornbury, S., & Slade, D. (2006).
Conversation: From Description to
Pedagogy. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

CONCLUSION
In short, the casual conversation
between two speakers, although it shared
balance turns, it is mostly dominated by the
first speaker, as she produced more clauses in
her turns. Most of the negotiations in the
conversation are logico-semantic. There are
only several grammatical errors in whole
conversation. The turns are not many, because
one turn consists of many clauses and each
speaker seemed to wait each other.

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Vol. 8, No. 4, DESEMBER 2023