Exchange Structure of Chinese Daily Conversation:Gender and Follow-up Move

Jilin International Studies University,Jilin,China Email:songxiuyan@jisu.edu.cn

[Abstract]Based on 190 recorded conversations,this study aims to analyze the exchange structure of Chinese daily conversations.In particular,it discusses how the production of follow-up moves is affected by the gender of the interlocutors.As results show,women prefer a three-part conversational structure(IRF),while men prefer a two-part exchange(IR).

[Keywords]Exchange structure;Chinese conversation;gender;follow-up move

Introduction

Sinclair and Coulthard(1975/1992)pioneered the study of follow-up moves when they examined the linguistic aspects of teacher/pupil interaction.In their research,the feedback to the pupil’s response from the teacher is identified as feedback or follow-up move.They observed that“a typical exchange in the classroom consists of an initiation(I)by the teacher,followed by a response(R)from the pupil,then followed by feedback(F),to the pupil’s response from the teacher”,with the follow-up move providing an evaluation of the correctness of information supplied in the response(Sinclair&Coulthard,1975/1992,p.3).Since then,numerous studies have been made into classroom discourse and it is mostly unquestioned that the three-part exchange is the default format for classroom interaction(Mehan,1979;McHoul,1978;Lemke,1990;Fan,2011;Wang&Liu,2012).

However,as for the presence of follow-up move in daily,spontaneous conversations,no clear agreement has been reached.Schegloff and Sacks(1973)are in favor of a two-part conversational organization,which is clearly captured by their concept of adjacency pair.They believe that an organizational pattern in a conversation consists of two adjacent utterances by different speakers,such as question-answer,greeting-greeting,offer-acceptance/refusal,etc.Different views in regard to the exchange structure in daily conversations are held by other researchers(Goffman,1976; Heritage,1984; Mishler,1975; Tsui,1994),who argue that a three-part exchange is more powerful as a description of the basic unit of conversational organization than an adjacency pair.

Previous research on the follow-up move is mostly based on the English language and it seems that there is a lack of empirical work in regard to the follow-up move in Chinese daily conversations.Hence,this study aims to investigate the use of follow-up moves in Chinese daily conversations and tries to explore how they may be affected by the interlocutor’s gender.

Data and Method

This research is based on a corpus of 190 natural and casual conversations,which occur spontaneously,not being planned or prompted beforehand.Each conversation involves only two interlocutors aged similarly.The recorded conversations occurred among family members,close friends,and colleagues from work with equivalent ranks in their companies,who are intimate in relation and with little or no hierarchical difference.These conversations may occur at home,in the office,on the bus and the light rail,or in other public places.All the data were recorded naturally,with interlocutors uninformed beforehand.But the participants were afterwards asked for permission to keep and use their conversations.

This study uses the taxonomy of initiating moves proposed by Sinclair and Coulthard(1975/1992),namely,elicitations,directives,and informatives.The 190 conversations are divided into three groups according to the taxonomy,then,64 initiations are found to be elicitations,62 to be informatives,and 64 to be directives.Furthermore,gender of the initiators is taken into consideration during the selection of conversations.Among each group,a balanced number is reached—about 30 cases with male initiators and about 30 cases with female initiators.Table 1 shows the classification in details.

Table 1 Classification of Conversations

Among the many factors like gender,age,power,and distance,which may affect the use of follow-up moves,we choose gender as the only variable in this research.Additionally,quantitative analysis is conducted in this study to examine and analyze the connection between gender and the occurrence of follow-ups in Chinese daily conversations.The tool for statistical analysis is SPSS.Frequency test is used to analyze the presence of follow-up moves and paired-samples T Test to test whether gender,the dependent variable,affects the use of follow-up moves in Chinese daily conversations.

Results and Discussion

Gender and Follow-up Moves

The overall use of F-moves in Chinese daily conversations is clearly shown in Table 2.Among the 98 conversations initiated by females,follow-ups are found in 52 conversations.While in the 92 conversations initiated by males,follow-ups are present only in 17 ones.

Table 2 Frequency of F-move in All Female and Male Initiations

The production of F-move by females(53%)and males(18%)shows a general tendency that,in Chinese daily conversations,females tend to use follow-up moves more often,whereas males do not.Due to the paired-samples T Test,there exists a significant difference(t =7.475(df 91)sig =.000)in the use of follow-ups between women and men.Thus,in Chinese daily conversations,female speakers prefer a three-part exchange structure(IRF pattern),while male speakers prefer a two-part exchange pattern(IR pattern).

Similar findings can be found in the study of Spanish linguist Maíz-Arévalo(2011).When she makes an investigation into Spanish conversations,she finds that females tend to use three-move conversational exchanges(IRF),whereas males prefer to use two-move exchanges(IR).

Gender-based Use of F-moves in Different Initiations

1)Elicitations

As shown in Table 3,there is a sharp contrast between female and male speakers in the production of follow-up moves in elicitations.The valid percentage of follow-up moves produced by female speakers is 64%; however,the percentage for male speakers is only 13%.The data in this research shows that female and male initiators do react differently to the addressees’responses,and we may conclude that gender does render the presence or absence of Fmoves in elicitations(t=6.036(df 30)sig=.000),that is,female initiators tend to produce follow-up moves,whereas male initiators do not.

Table 3 Frequency of F-move in Elicitations

Elicitation,often referred to as“questions”,has been defined by Sinclair and Coulthard(1975/1992)as utterances whose discourse function is to elicit an obligatory verbal response or its non-verbal surrogate.Tsui(1994)has further identified subclasses of elicitations according to the different responses prospected,namely,to elicit information,confirmation,commitment,repetition and clarification.In the corpus of this study,only information-seeking and confirmation-seeking elicitations are found,while others are not.The following are examples of information-seeking cases produced by female and male initiators.

Example 1 Gender:A-female(Age:32),B-female(Age:28)Relationship:colleagues

Example 2 Gender:A-male(Age:35),B-female(Age:35)Relationship:husband and wife

In Example 1,speaker A is asking for a piece of missing information from B and invites B to provide the information.Hence,the initiating utterance has realized the discourse function of eliciting information.In Example 2,a question is used by speaker A to invite B to confirm that A’s assumption is true because speaker B has better knowledge than A.Thus,the initiation in Example 2 has realized the function as seeking confirmation from the addressee,i.e.,to elicit confirmation.However,no follow-up move is produced by the male initiator in Example 2.

2)Informatives

The frequency of follow-up moves produced by females and males in informatives is clearly shown in Table 4.In the cases with female initiators,follow-up move is present in 66%of the cases;as for male initiators,the percentage is only 20%.Thus,it can be argued that gender is the determining factor for the presence of follow-up moves in cases of informatives(t=5.385(df 29)sig=.000).

Table 4 Frequency of F-move in Informatives

Sinclair and Coulthard(1975/1992)categorized informatives as a kind of discourse,whose function is to provide information and prospect an acknowledgement of attention and understanding.Tsui(1994)divided informatives into three subclasses,namely,reports,assessments,and expressives.Among all the cases of informatives produced by females and males,reports and assessments are found,while expressives are not.The following discusses and analyzes cases with reports as the initiations.

Example 3 Gender:A-female(Age:35),B-female(Age:32)Relationship:colleagues

The initiation in Example 3 gives an account of a certain event by reporting some information known to A and B,and it is presupposed to be bad and undesirable,hence a negative remark is made by B.Then a follow-up move is produced by A,showing her agreement and sympathy to B’s response.

Example 4 Gender:A-male(Age:35),B-female(Age:35)Relationship:husband and wife

Example 4 is a case initiated by a male speaker and the initiation is subcategorized as report,too.However,no follow-up move is produced in this case.

3)Directives

As is shown in Table 5,among the 31 conversations of directives initiated by male speakers,follow-up moves are found only in 23% of the cases,and this result is consistent with the findings about male initiators in elicitations(13%,Table 3)and informatives(20%,Table 4).However,as for cases of directives with female initiators,where follow-ups are present in 30%of the conversations,the result is quite different from those in elicitations(64%,Table 3)and informatives(66%,Table 4).

Table 5 Frequency of F-move in Directives

Directives are utterances which solicit non-verbal actions.In regard to the various purposes of initiations,the 33 cases of directives with female initiators are divided into three categories(Tusi,1994):providing a request for action(27 cases),providing suggestion or advice(4 cases),and offering an invitation(2 cases).In the following part,a detailed investigation is made into directive cases produced by females.

Example 5 Gender:A-female(Age:35),B-male(Age:35)Relation:husband and wife

In Example 5,speaker A is providing a request for action,and then it is responded with a non-verbal action performed by B.When a request for action is complied with,it is often followed by the requester’s thanking or appreciation for the requestee’s complying(serving as a follow-up move to B’s response).However,as we see in Example 5,there is no thanking or appreciation made by speaker A.This is much the same for 63%(17 out of 27)of the cases with request-for-action initiations made by females.

The above analysis reveals that follow-up moves are less found in directives with female initiators and the twopart exchange structure—IR pattern,is more prevalent among these cases.The paired-samples T test also proves that no significant difference(t=1.793(df 29)sig=.083)is found in the production follow-up moves by females and by males.Thus,gender is not the factor that influences the presence or absence of follow-up moves in directives.

Conclusion

Through the examination of 190 Chinese daily conversations,we see that female speakers have a stronger tendency to use follow-up moves than males,thus the three-part exchange(IRF)is a more powerful unit of description for female conversational structure,while the two-part exchange structure(IR)is usually adopted by males.In view of different initiations,both in elicitations and informatives,female speakers tend to produce follow-up moves more often than male speakers; however,no significant difference is found in directive cases in that both female and male speakers tend to use IR pattern.