CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

FINAL TEST

BY

AUHA AMALINA

I2J022004

POSTGRADUATE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF TEACHING AND TRAINING

UNIVERSITY OF MATARAM

2022
Watch the YouTube video on effective meeting https://youtu.be/i8KnCFq4Sw0 and

analyze:

Casts:
Rita, Jason, Lucy, Sue, Julian, Frank.

1. How people take turns in the conversation:

a. How people open and close conversations.

b. How people launch new topics, close old ones, and shift topics.

Answer:

a. How people open and close conversations:

Language can be defined and researched in at least two different ways. The first step is to

understand how each person uses language and variation as a shared code

(Fairclough:1989). In the conversation from the video, the opening of conversation is

started with Rita (Managing director) stating:

Rita: Thanks for coming to today’s monthly meeting. Uh.. let’s start with apologies for
absence/ oh and before i forget uh frank lyons is running a bit late he texted me this morning
and gary cope and carl madden emailed apologies anyone else..
Lucy: Joey Ballen Weasley can't make it she's struggling with some personal issues
i think she's got some sort of foot thing that she's got
Rita: Oh okay thank you.
When opening the conversation, the managing director at first greeting the

participants of the meeting. As what asserts in Asmus (2009), the methods of starting a

meeting include openly suggesting it begin, extending greetings and welcome to

everyone present, and making a statement about attendance (people who is coming and

who is not). The first and second line of conversation are how basically the opening of

meeting, and asking who is coming and who is not. Presenting the reason or purpose for

the gathering is therefore the major resource for getting to the talk's business. Before the

staff ends up speaking, Rita rather stops Lucy by raising her hand to show how she
 understands the reason why others are not coming. This is in line with Aisyah (2021), a

good conversation happens when the conversation runs smoothly and the massage is

understood by the listener. Each participant's state regarding the speaking turn is

indicated by each of the variables for the turn-taking mechanism. Rules specify the

acceptable reactions by the other participant based on the display or absence of a certain

turn-taking signal by one participant (Duncan:1972). Basically, how the opening of this

conversation starts with a boss opening a meeting with her staff, and begins with a warm

greeting.

When closing the conversation of a meeting, the people involved in the

conversation agree to close the conversation and Rita draws conclusions from the points

of the meeting that has been held, then reminds them that there will be the next meeting

as a closing conversation. According to Asmus (2009), more explicit preclosing

sequences are common in more formal meetings, particularly when the chair offers the

chance to reopen the conversation by bringing up new subjects (e.g., "Anybody else?"

"Got anything else?"). If such an invitation is not accepted, thanks, greeting, or more

formally "adjourning" can be used to start the close.

Rita: Okay, we’ve got a general cleanliness problem and as far as those issues are
concerned you must make sure they’re scheduled for the next meeting. All right,
everyone happy?

b. How people launch new topics, close old ones, and shift topics.

Answer:

It can be seen people at the meeting launched new topics starting with how Rita launched

new topics and asking about the condition of who is not coming. And followed by

introducing themselves to one another.

Rita: I’m delighted to announce we have a new team member with us and a specialist
minute taker so for the benefit of the new addition to the team shall we all introduce
ourselves and what we get up to yeah okay I’ll start hello I’m Rita managing director
as you know.
Jason: hi I’m Jason Somerville i'm the new project and program manager for
marketing I just transferred over from the US office and I just want to say how excited
I am about this new role especially with some of our new products coming on board
and I also wanted to say how sorry I am to hear about the loss of our HR manager
sarah bryant i think that's going to be incredible loss to the team
Lucy: Oh yeah, I’m Lucy Pot Rita
Sue: I’m Sue Carpenter with a d and I’m the sales director
Julian: and I’m Julian Gillis the new HR manager
Rita: okay on to the next item are there any matters arising from the previous
minutes?..
/people in the meeting shook their head indicating no/

How they close the topic of introduction is how Rita states “next” to close the old topic

and shift it to another topic. In shifting to another topic, Rita stated:

Rita: well next item on the agenda I’d like Lucy to talk us through her thought on this.
Lucy: yeah well there's been an actual problem with car parking you know ever since orchard
and shipment moved into the new offices at the back um and we knew this was going to happen
eventually but um you know our staff have got used to the extra spaces and what's happened
there's been a few arguments there was a really bad one where one of our lot can play to one of
their lot um which is really bad because we’re trying to like we just started just with a bad
reputation so what we need to do is let one you know our lot know that the spaces belong to
them actually.
Rita: I’m sorry are you saying there is a problem with car parking Lucy? I didn’t quite catch
all of what you said
Lucy: Yeah.

while they were talking about work, without warning another meeting participant,

"Frank", suddenly came into the room in a hurry and immediately shifted the

conversation which was originally about work-on-task talk, to -work-related-talk- that is,

not on-task - talk (Holmes and Stubbe: 2015). Continuing they are talking about they also

riding the bike which is shifting their work conversation to social talk inside work talk.

Frank: sorry I, I got held up in a previous meeting

Rita: okay it's okay we're just discussing car parking issues
Frank: Right, I ride a bike
Rita: Yes, I do too
Jason: you ride a bike, does it have a bell on it..
 Basically, it can be very easy to find how to open a new topic, close a topic, and

change a topic. how they give each other new ideas in each conversation. where when the

conversation became fierce and fickle, not focusing on one topic, Julian tried to bring

back the main topic by interrupting their conversation by saying. Julian: yeah can we

please get back to the agenda items, I do have another meeting to go to. The function of

interruptions as manifestations of power in meetings (Holmes:2015). The interrupting

words commonly used in the meeting are “sorry” “mm, I don’t mean to pick on you” “what

do you mean!” and many others. The shifting topic in this meeting starting from the topic

of parking issues, low staff morale, the new appraisal system, IT issues, training issues,

financial reports and cleanliness issues. The shifting words in the meeting are “okay, on

the next item” “moving on to the next item” “what about…”.

2. How identities are enacted.

Answer:

The identity within discourse is the role of interaction in the creation of personal and

social worlds and the contribution of language to socio-cultural processes. It links the

level of the individual with the social and thus allows us to capture the processes by

which individuals affiliate with or distance themselves from particular communities, what

kind of information they aim to convey about themselves and how this information in

turn resonates with the ideas others hold about them (Zotzmann:2016).

The identities of each cast in the meetings can be seen in how powerful Rita is when she

is the one who told Sue and Jason to close their phone, indicating both of them show

impoliteness in the workplace, it shows the social background of them is lower than Rita.

Rita: oh please would you both put your phones aw ay it's very distracting okay.
 Furthermore, when opens and closing the meeting. Rita is the one who can shift the topic

to another, for instance where her identity as Rita is higher than Jullian’s.

Rita: please can we get back

Jullian: okay i mentioned priority parking so we need to make a decision on this i witnessed a
fight last week between two members of staff

Moreover, when Julian trying to interrupt, nobody listens to him,

Julian: yeah can we please get back to the agenda item i do have another meeting to go to

Rita: the car park is not an issue for me as i travel by bicycle as does frank look i suggest sue
and jason are allocated the two spaces

Sue: i don't mean to be petty but but jason really does take up two spaces

Frank: excuse me

3. How power is exercised.

Answer:

Strength can be seen in how Rita here has the highest power in the meeting. Rita

is the most senior person at the meeting and her uncompromising, explicit, and repeated

directive to no screen dumps reflects her status in the organizational hierarchy. It can be

seen how powerful Rita was in the meeting that she is the one who told Sue and Jason to

stop playing with their phone while she is talking.

Rita: oh please would you both put your phones away it's very distracting okay.

Next, when Julian tried to interrupt her to return to the initial topic of

conversation but Rita insisted that she still wanted to discuss topics that came out of the

initial conversation. At that time everyone preferred to obey Rita's words, and Julian just

silently accepted it. Power is treated as a relative concept that includes both the ability to

control others and the ability to accomplish one’s goals. This is manifest in the degree to
 which one person or group can impose their plans and evaluations at the expense of

others (Holmes:2015).

Julian: yeah can we please get back to the agenda item i do have another meeting to go to
Rita: the car park is not an issue for me as i travel by bicycle as does frank look i suggest sue
and jason are allocated the two spaces
Sue: i don't mean to be petty but but jason really does take up two spaces
Frank: excuse me

Moreover, the power is can be seen in how Sue asked Jason the facts when Jason

often interrupted people’s conversations in the meeting. At that time Jason said

confidently that he quickly did appraisals, but Sue asked when, there is a two seconds

break where Jason keep silent that he cannot answer, indicating he rarely does appraisals

staff this is how Sue showed her power when defeating Jason’s argument and She

continued the topic she described.

Jason: I do appraisals
Sue: well when was the last time you conducted a staff appraisal
Jason: …
Sue: anyway the point is that we need to be working a little harder…

4. How solidarity is constructed.

Answer:

The process of solidarity can be in the form of Jocular abuse. Holmes (2015) assert that;

jocular abuse was frequent and the boundaries between power and solidarity were very

fluid, with humor an interesting indication of this. It can be seen from the conversation

where Frank was explaining something about IT issues, but no one could understand it,

so Rita used humor. Humor here functions as solidarity among co-workers. Humour may

license a challenge which subverts overt control, or serve as a ‘polite’ strategy for

undermining authority. So, while humour appears superficially friendly and positive, it
 also has a dark side or sarcastic (Holmes:2015). Furthermore, doing collegiality’,

developing a humorous sequence for mutual amusement.

Rita: frank just try explaining that back to us as a five-year-old would you?

Another example of humor and jocular abuse is when Frank is not fluent in defining
something.

Jason: and maybe we should have sent frank got an effective communication skills course
yeah agreed yeah HAHAHA

Moreover, Frank shows his solidarity through his ability in working where he dedicated
his life to this job.

Frank: I've done my best it's a big department I would like to say that the basic instruction
handout was given out and everyone was shown step-by-step easy steps about how this should
be done…

The conversations in the meeting also show how they act of solidarity during one talking

and they listen to them and how they respond the topic that being described in the

meeting.

References
Aisyah, S. (2021). Conversation Analysis Of Turn Taking Mechanism In Ever After Movie.
Language Horizon: Journal of Language Studies, 9.

Asmus , B., & Svennevig, J. (2009). Meeting Talk: An Introduction. Journal of Business
Communication, 46. doi:10.1177/0021943608326761

Duncan, S. (1972). Some Signals and Rules for Taking Speaking Turns in Conversations.
Journal of Personally and Social Psychology, 23.

Holmes, J., & Stubbe, M. (2015). Power and Politeness in the Work Place A Sociolinguistic
Analysis of Talk at Work. New York: Routledge.

Zotzmann, K., & O'regan, J. (2016). Critical Discourse Analysis and Identity.