Talking etiquette

Conversation analysis is an interesting study.  It is usually lumped into the general category of discourse analysis, but its behavior is so very different from written discourse or prepared discourse if a person reads from a prepared, written statement that it deserves to be a field in its own right.

There are different ways to study conversation.  One way is to chart the topics covered.  Another way is to trace participant participation.  Even a third way is to notice differences in same sex/cross sex exchanges.  Other ways exist, but these three were the initial entrances into the field and, thus, the most explored.

One of my favorite ways for analyzing conversation is to notice the rules or etiquette regarding turn-taking in conversation.  This approach has a number of studies written about it, but there are different combinations of ways to study this behavior, so the studies don't address all the possibilities.  First, a person needs to know that conversation is built to communicate information.  The person can either give it or ask for it, but information is exchanged.  If the information is of interest to both parties, a topic or line of reasoning is followed to exchange the information both parties want to have.  If the topic is not of interest to both, the imbalance causes a distortion to the ideas of turn-taking.

It's a little like the body.  Its different parts work in harmony, but when one part doesn't function according to the rules of balance, disease breaks out and discomfort or pain are generally caused.  Some people know when a topic is of interest or not to others and observe a jumping technique, that is, they jump to another topic that might interest both parties.  Some people, on the other hand, don't seem to know or at least find a reason to ignore the signs of disinterest shown by the listener.

Yesterday, was one of those occasions that I try to avoid - a person who couldn't discern my limited interest in a topic of great interest to him.  The minutes engaged in that conversation were miserable.  At the first available opportunity, I extracted myself from the conversation.

It seems that on some occasions, the age and maturity of the person in the conversation determines the ability to judge the interest of the other person, but sometimes that is not the case at all.  I would love to look at the conversations of about 100,000 people in various groupings and publish the study.  But, that violates a point of etiquette when conducting conversations.  Conversations are expected to be fully spontaneous and etiquette is negotiated by the parties enjoined.  In research, an observer makes the conversation less spontaneous making the participants wary of just what rules the observer might be "judging" their conversation by.  The participants would change their conversational topics, line of reasoning, or words used in the presence of a third party.

An extremely adverse reaction happened about two months ago when Facebook admitted to letting researchers evaluate the written conversations of some of its customers.  The move violated the privacy of people.  Although spoken conversation behavior is somewhat different from written "conversation" on Facebook, the principle of spontaneity being judged or evaluated by a third party was violated.  The backlash from Facebook customers complaining loudly shows the influence if knowledge of a third party is in the mix of a conversation.  This is known as the Observer's Paradox, and it is very difficult to avoid.

In the meantime, I'll stick with what the existing literature reveals about the idea of conversational etiquette.  This means I'll avoid the people who have a talkative record.  And, I'll keep observing the trademarks and indicators of why  people don't always know when turn-taking has ceased and one-sided monologs have kicked in.