Chinese Telephone Conversation Analysis

The thesis is a tentative study of Chinese telephone conversation based on tape recording and transcripts of 74 business calls and 58 private calls collected in three medium-sized cities in East China. Drawing insights from both ethnomemodological and discourse approaches, the study concentrates on the structures and recurrent patterns employed by the participants in their telephone conversational activities. The structures and patterns are found to occur at each stage of the talk. It is claimed that a small number of closed-class acts is sufficient to describe some most prominent features occurring at some important stages of the talk such as opening, closing and identification between the participants. The conversation analysis methodology of close examination and induction is adopted.The collected calls can be classified into 2 groups, the Extension part of the calls between caller and receiver and the Business part between caller and addressee. These two parts are clearly marked by a pause during which time receiver fetches addressee while caller holds the line.Having its own typical organization and regular features, the E part is an independent and autonomous section in the telephone calls. It is totally instrumental in nature and is indispensable as a necessary first step towards the more important part of the phone call. In E part, a hypothetical pre-sequence with 6 positions is suggested and compared with the actual patterns discovered in the data. Two types of insertion sequences occurred in the E part are discussed. One is hearing checks (loop-reply,verification-acceptance) which is used when either of the 2 sides does not quite catch the other's utterance and asks for a clarification of confirmation. The other type is an elicitation-reply sequence employed to find out caller's identity before receiver goes to fetch addressee. Various endings in accordance with success or failure of the previous sequence are atso described here.The Business part is the major part of a telephone call. It has its distinctive components. According to the different contexts, the B part can be divided into two kinds of calls: the institutional calls (the business calls) and the mundane calls (the private calls). Here, the author tries to reveal the regular patterns and some important sequential structures in the talk between caller and addressee and contrast the two kinds on the opening, topic introduction and closing.The opening section contains two sequences of a universal character: summons-answer, identification/recognition. The typical opening item multi functions not only as an answer to the ring but also as a summons to the caller. The opening in the E part and the reopening and direct opening in the B part are compared with each other and it is fund that no matter what types of the talk are going to be conducted, the opening sections are essentially the same.Recognition and identification work is the most imminent task to be done following answer to summons. Whether self-identification or other-identification is preferred, it depends on the kinds of the calls. In contract with western business calls, two Chinese companies investigated fail to make categorical self-identification upon answering the call, which often results ina confirmatory sequence that resolves identity uncertainty. The business calls opening proceeds like personal calls, in that participants prefer other-recognition or tacit recognition to self-identification regardless of a business or private context.The greeting token does not occur as often as 'hello' or 'hi' in English telephone conversation. But it is gaining popularity as answer to summons 'or . However, it is hardly exchanged between people who are close friends, relatives or family members.The Chinese pairs seem to have the same function as the English how-are-you inquiry. However, the Chinese inquiry is used less often than the how-are-you sequence. Instead, Chinese are more likely to enter more personal inquiries and phatic communion. The exchange of...