Trang 5 ABSTRACT This is a study of adjacency pairs in conversations extracted from political interviews between international journalists and the U.S President Joe Biden during the peri
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY THAI THI NGUYEN TRANG A STUDY ON ADJACENCY PAIRS IN POLITICAL INTERVIEWS WITH THE U.S PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 Supervisor: BUI THI DAO, Ph.D BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN THÁI THỊ NGUYÊN TRANG NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ CẶP KẾ CẬN TRONG CÁC CUỘC PHỎNG VẤN CHÍNH TRỊ VỚI TỔNG THỐNG HOA KỲ JOE BIDEN Ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh Mã số: 8220201 Người hướng dẫn: TS BÙI THỊ ĐÀO i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I totally assure that thesis ―A Study on Adjacency Pairs in Political Interviews with the U.S President Joe Biden‖ is my own work for the purpose of graduating the MA course of English Linguistics The content of this thesis has not been published or written by any other authors except for some references which are used in this thesis Thesis has not been submitted for any degree or diploma in any university Binh Dinh, November, 2023 Thái Thị Nguyên Trang ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The total completion of this scientific research project is the result of not only my efforts but also the precious assistance of those to whom I would like to express my sincere gratitude First of all, I would like to express the most special appreciation and the deepest thanks to my supervisor, Dr Bui Thi Dao, for her useful advice, aspiring guidance, invaluably constructive criticisms, and especially for her endless patience and warm encouragement during my whole study Secondly, my deep indebtedness comes to Quy Nhon University, the Department of Foreign Languages and the Post-Graduate Training Office for permitting me to conduct this research Thirdly, I am extremely thankful to all lecturers of the Master Course of English Linguistics K24B who were dedicated to teaching me useful knowledge about linguistics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, etc as well as instructing me on how to write well a scientific research or an academic writing in order that I can have a source of inspiration to proudly complete my research project Last but not least, I owe an unpaid debt to all the generous support, love, and care from my beloved families and friends, which has given me more strength, belief, and motivation to overcome all troubles in the whole process of this research v ABSTRACT This is a study of adjacency pairs in conversations extracted from political interviews between international journalists and the U.S President Joe Biden during the period of 2020-2023 The study aims to examine the types and frequencies of adjacency pairs and to explore preferred and dispreferred responses in the second pair parts of adjacency pairs, sequence types and verbal strategies for doing dispreferred responses in the investigated data Descriptive method is conducted as the main method in the combination of both qualitative and quantitative approaches in this study Based on the analysis of the data, the results of the research show types of adjacency pairs in which the highest type is Question – Answer, while the lowest occurrence belongs to Threat – Counter Threat type The research further indicates preferred responses and dispreferred responses in the second parts of adjacency pairs Moreover, sequences types including insertion sequences and post-sequences are also found to be embedded in the second part of adjacency pairs Lastly, all verbal strategies for doing dispreferred second parts are found in the examined data of dispreferred adjacency pairs Those are delaying, using preface, expressing doubt, using token Yes, apologizing, mentioning obligation, appealing for understanding, making it non-personal, giving an account, using mitigators and hedging the negative The study results are also expected to help English language learners and other scholarship researchers understand clearly about adjacency pairs to communicate and interact speaking effectively Keywords: adjacency pairs, preferred responses, dispreferred responses, sequence types, verbal strategies vi TABLE OF CONTENT STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT v TABLE OF CONTENT vi ABBREVIATIONS viii LIST OF TABLES ix LIST OF FIGURES x CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Rationale 1 1.2 Aim and objectives 4 1.2.1 Aim 4 1.2.2 Objectives 4 1.3 Research questions 5 1.4 Scope of the study 5 1.5 Significance of the study 6 1.6 Organization of the study 7 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 8 2.1 Conversation 8 2.2 Conversation Analysis 9 2.3 Political Interview 10 2.4 Adjacency Pairs 11 2.4.1 Definitions of Adjacency Pairs 11 2.4.2 Types of Adjacency Pairs 13 2.4.3 Ways of recognizing Adjacency Pairs through responses in the second pair parts 17 2.5 Previous Related Studies 27 2.6 Biography of the U.S President Joe Biden and political interviews with him 31 2.7 Summary 32 vii CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 34 3.1 Research design 34 3.2 Research methods 34 3.3 Data Collection 36 3.4 Research Procedures 36 3.5 Validity and Reliability 37 CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 39 4.1 Types and frequencies of adjacency pairs in the investigated data 39 4.2 Characteristics of recognizing adjacency pairs in the investigated data57 4.3 Discussions 70 4.4 Summary 72 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS 75 5.1 Conclusions of the study 75 5.2 Implications of the study 77 5.3 Limitations of the study 77 5.4 Suggestions for future studies 78 REFERENCE 79 APPENDICES AP viii The A.P CA ABBREVIATIONS [A-A] [A-Ac] Adjacency Pairs [B-D] The Associated Press of America [C-A] Conversation Analysis [Co-R] Assessment - Agreement [G-G] Announcement - Acknowledgement [L-L] Blame - Denial [Q-A] Compliment - Acceptance [R-A] Complaint - Response [S-A] Greeting - Greeting [T-Ct] Leave taking – Leave taking response [W-Ac] Question - Answer U.S Request - Agreement Summons - Answer Threat – Counter Threat Warning - Acknowledgement The United States of America ix LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 Types of Adjacency pairs proposed by Paltridge (2000: 91-99) 17 Table 2.2 Common Adjacency Pairs and typical preferred and dispreferred second pair parts (Levinson, 1983) 19 Table 4.1 Types and Frequencies of Adjacency Pairs in political interviews with the U.S President Joe Biden 40 Table 4.2 Distribution of preference organization in the second pair parts 57 Table 4.3 Type of sequences embedded within the adjacency pairs 61 Table 4.4 Verbal strategies for doing a dispreferred second part in conversations 63 x LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 Preference organization in adjacency pairs by Yule (1997) 18 Figure 4.1 The dominant types of Adjacency Pairs 41 Figure 4.2 The rate of preferred and dispreferred responses in the second parts of adjacency pairs 59