Investigation #9 Analyzing Interaction and Social Identity

In the library, the conversation between a library user and a librarian about use of computer service illustrates some interactional sociolinguistics. Given the sociolinguistic context of Hong Kong, the data is in Chinese, with the English translation. The transcription is organized with a line for each participant. Overlap is shown as double slash [//]; one utterance following immediately on from another is shown as equal sign [=].

讀者: (a) 唔該, 我想問係咪可以o係度借電腦用ga?
圖書館職員: (b) 小姐您係想上網定係淨係用唯讀資料檔案呀?
讀者: (c) = er..上網ge
圖書館職員: (d) 麻煩您出示番身份証同埋做煩登記呀!
讀者: (e) = 哦, 好呀
圖書館職員: (f) 請問您想book幾點呀?
讀者: (g) eh..2:30-4:30呀
圖書館職員: (h) 唔好意思wor, 我地係按整點咁計ga
讀者: (i) 哦, 咁2點至4點喇!
圖書館職員: (j) (在登記紙上寫上資料)
圖書館職員: (k) 係度寫番名就得//ga la
讀者: (l) // 哦好呀好呀, 唔該
圖書館職員: (m) 係咪唔洗用printer ga?
讀者: (n) 哦, 唔洗la
圖書館職員: (o) 哦, 得ga la, 63號機// 呀
讀者: (p) // 好呀, 唔該

User: (a) Excuse me I wanna ask..can I use the computer here?
Librarian: (b) You want to access internet or simply check the library catalog?
User: (c) Eh…Internet.
Librarian: (d) Would you please show me your ID card?
User: (e) Ok…
Librarian: (f) Which time slot do you want to book?
User: (g) Eh…2:30 to 4:30 pm
Librarian: (h) Sorry…We count in hourly unit.
User: (i) Ok…Then 2 to 4pm
Librarian: (j) (fill in your information here.)
Librarian: (k) Fill in your name here.
User: (l) Ok…Thanks
Librarian: (m) Don’t you need printer?
User: (n) Ok..No thanks
Librarian: (o) All right…No.63 please.
User: (p) Ok..Thanks.

As interactional control features ensure smooth interactional organization - the distribution of turns, selection and change of topics, opening and closing of interactions, and so forth. Interactional control is always exercised to some extent collaboratively participants, but there may be asymmetry between participants in the degree of control. It is believed that the interactional control of a conversation can embody specific claims about social and power relations between participants. The investigation of interactional control is therefore a means of negotiation of social relations in social practice.

First, for the use of discourse markers, in terms of focus, clarification, contrast, dismissal of previous discourse and consequence, they are barely found in this conversation, mainly because the setting is rather formal and clear question-response structure is more preferred. Rather, the most predominant marker is the use of changing subjuect such as "ok", and undoubting self's answer such as "eh".

Second, for the use of turn-taking, it is also rarely discovered here. According to Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson 1974 and Schenkein 1978, they suggest that "conversation analysis has produced influential accounts of turn-taking in conversation as a collaborative organizational achievement of participants." Linguists also draw a simple set of ordered rules to indicate who takes the turn first: (i) the current speaker may select the next speaker, by addressing her/him; (ii) if that does not happen, any participant may “select herself” as next speaker. Here, in line (b), we find out that the librarian select the next speaker, by addressing the user as Miss. Then in (j), as the librarian does not say anything, instead he just fills in the record sheet, the current speaker continues the utterance in (k).

Third, for the topic control, the librarian is closely controlling the basic organization of the interaction by opening and closing each cycle and acknowledging the library user’s responses. It is mainly the librarian who introduces new topics through his questions, for example, when he shifts in lines (a) to (m), from whether she wants to access internet or simply check the library catalog, to which time slot the user wants to book, to whether she needs the use of printer or not. The only utterance the user introduced is in line (a) for initially requesting the use of computer service.

Another aspect of the librarian’s control is the nature of the question he asks. They are not open questions, giving the user the floor (as “Which computer service do you prefer?”). Rather, it is more or less closed questions which set relatively tight limits on the content of the user’s answers. Some are “yes/no” questions, which require a “yes/ok” or “no” answer, confirming or disconfirming some proposition (e.g. Don’t you need printer?). Other is so-called “wh-questions” beginning with “which”, which elicits specific details of time slot.

It is also instructive to look closely at the relationship between the librarian’s questions and the patient’s answers. In line (k) to (l), the librarian asks the user to fill in her name and then the user follows his turn immediately without a pause. Similarly in line (o) to (p), the librarian signals the user to use computer no. 63, then the user again followed at once by a confirmation. The librarian perhaps is working through a pre-set agenda or routine, shifting another topic as soon as he has enough information. So he can control the user to have a faster response by simply saying “ok”.

Since the practice of booking computer service might be handled many times a day, the librarian gets used to control the topic, rather than the user to control the topic. Also, the absence of overlapping during the talk can be ascribed to the asymmetrical turn-taking system, in which the participant having more authority to hold the control of topic.