Topic 11 - Conversational structure and character (Session A) > Conversational structure and power > Task C > Our answer

Conversational structure and power

Task C - Our answer

Sometimes exceptions occur because of clashes between two different kinds of power. A good example would be the very confident student (personal power) who talks at great length in class and perhaps even interrupts the tutor (who has the institutional power). Sometimes other factors get in the way. Hence a teacher may allocate a turn to a particular student ('What do you think, Julie and Mark?'), but the students may be too shy (or too terrified, or not have an thing to say) to take up the turn allocated.

There are also what we might call 'institutionalised exceptions'. In an interview, for example, the interviewee is the weakest participant but will probably have the longest turns. This is because it is in the interests of the more powerful participants, the interviewers, to have the interviewee talk at length in order to find out more about him or her.

Sometimes the personality or particular wishes of the most powerful participant might make a difference. For example, if a friend goes for an interview and comes back saying 'it was more like an informal chat than an interview really' this is presumably because the interviewer had a fairly 'laid back' personality or had decided that creating a less formal interview situation, with less strongly demarcated conversational power lines, would be useful for some reason.

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