The Topic Transition Sequence and the Management of Topic Change in Mundane Arabic Conversation

This study investigates topic change in mundane Arabic conversation.. Following a conversation analytic approach, we examine data collected from naturally occurring talk in Arabic mundane conversation recorded from telephone calls to look at how speakers end talk on one topic and initiate another. Therefore, we look at the topic transition sequence in which participants disengage from an on-going sequence prior to the proffering of a new topic. Here, we study the participants' initiation of religious' expressions that are understood as prompting a:specific action in the conversation. We also look at how a specific discourse marker may propose, or endorse a prior proposal, to end talk on one topic. The participants' entry into non serious talk is also examined in detail, with specific attention to turns that expand such sequences prior to the topic change. We distinguish the turns we study in this sequence from those that close the talk at the end of the conversation. Our analysis also examines the topic proffering turns that open talk on a new matter in the conversation. We focus here on the inquiry as a first pair part of an adjacency pair sequence, which makes relevant next a response that endorses talk on the topic ,. proffered by that inquiry. Here, we study a range of responses that display the recipient's collaboration or declination to talk on the new topic. Another type of topic proffering turns we investigate is announcements that initiate a news delivery sequence. In such sequences, new topics can be initiated as disjunctive from, or as a continuation of, the prior talk in the prior sequence, as exhibited in the composition of the announcement that initiates the new topic. This study aims to initiate conversation analytic studies in Arabic by examining normative aspects of the language in mundane· conversation, which are recognisable by the participants as accomplishing specific actions, as displayed in their collaborative efforts to end an on-going sequence upon the initiation of a new topic.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo