An Application Of Conversation Analysis To The Communication Between Salespeople And Prospects

Following three basic findings(turn-taking model,adjacency pairs and overall organization) proposed by Sacks,Schegloff and Jefferson(1974) through the analysis of daily conversation,and taking the sales process and communication pattern between salesperson and prospect into full account,the study has explored turn-control strategies,adjacency pair manipulations and overall organization manipulations employed by salespeople in door-to-door selling.Through the analysis of talks taking place in the documentary film Salesman and the first season of an American reality show The Apprentice,the thesis focuses on how conversation analytic strategies integrate into the selling-and-buying talks and selling techniques.The turn-taking system comprises three basic strategies:taking the turn,holding the turn and yielding the turn.The study reveals starting up,taking over and interrupting are general devices used by the salesperson to take the turn.Holding the tuna dominates the sales presentation step.In order to introduce his/her product or service fluently and fully,the salesperson uses various strategies to maintain his/her turn.Popular turn-holding strategies consist of filled pause,utterance incompletor, repetition and pre-structuring.Conversation is two-way interaction,so the salesperson needs to yield the turn and listen to the prospect as well.Adjacency pairs,nominating and addressing and tag-questions are turn-yielding strategies used by salesperson. Price is a unique turn-yielding device found in sales talk.Adjacency pair manipulations concentrate on the application of pre-sequences.The research shows how salespeople use pre-sequences to effectively prevent the prospect's dispreferred seconds.The overall organization manipulations study the opening and closing section of sales process.Apart from greeting-greeting/farewell-farewell pairs and polite formulae, the salesperson adopts different methods when approaching the prospect,and produces some closing implicative topics before closing the sale.At the end of the paper,the study also points out the limitations of the study and offers some suggestions to the further studies.Considering the data come from the film and TV,it is feasible to record and make a more comprehensive study of selling-and-buying talk in daily life.And research focus may shift to the prospect, analysing how they use the conversation strategies.