SPEAKING STRATEGIES IN SUSTAINING A CONVERSATION IN THE NOVEL “THE BLACK ECHO” BY MICHAEL CONNELLY

This study deals with the speaking strategies in sustaining a conversation as
applied by the characters in the novel The Black Echo by Michael Connelly, the
crime story author. There were 12 conversations randomly selected from the talk
by the characters. The main ones were Bosch and Wish the detectives who were
involved in solving the mystery of the murder of Meadows who was dead under a
tunnel at a pipe in California, near Hollywood. The characters should work
together according to their roles and duties. Therefore, there were various
conversations in terms of their length. Some are longer than the others but
basically all the conversations are based on the 3 speaking strategies as simplified
from the theory of conversations by Chamberlain (2014), Apps ( 2014) and Gabor
(1983). It was found out that the 3 strategies were applied in all the 12
conversations with the following percentage: Strategy 1 (5 samples, or41.66%),
Strategy 2 (4 samples, or 33.34%) and Strategy 3 (3 samples or 25%). It is
interesting to note that in order to sustain a conversation, more information should
be contributed to the talk as done by the characters. It is suggested that those who
study a foreign language or want to master English should be familiar with the
speaking strategies as described in this study. A conversation is not as simple as
most people think it is. There can be miscommunication when the two
interlocutors never apply the strategies to produce good communication.