Conversation Skills

So far, you have learned to start a conversation and elicit topics to exchange varying levels of information ranging from clichés, facts, feelings, and personal values. For this final Module, you will learn how to end conversations gracefully.

There may be times when your partner may want to continue, but you will want to end the conversation. In this Module, you will learn about interactional challenges to exiting conversations. You will then learn about two types of conversational endings that will help you overcome those challenges, and specific pre-closing sequences that you can use to “tip” the ending of the conversation. Lastly, you will learn about how bids to ending conversation can be rejected, which can help you prepare for those situations accordingly.

Interactional Challenges

Just as the beginning of a conversation serves as a ritual, ending a conversation has a ritual procedure to it. Imagine a conversation that went like this:

A: Hi B!

B: Hi A!

A: So what’s your favorite food?

B: I really like Mac and cheese.

A: Bye!

Reading the conversation above, you would think that B perhaps made a mistake in the answer or that A was rude in some way. Why did A suddenly just say “bye” without any warning or prompting? To end a conversation requires more than just saying “bye” at a given moment, there is a pre-closing sequence that generally precedes the “bye” (the terminal exchange). We will discuss these pre-closing sequences in-depth in a later section in this Module.

There are many reasons why you would end a conversation. Perhaps you have to go to your next class, you need to get started on a paper that you have been procrastinating, or you just reached your limit on conversation that day. In any case, there are three general challenges that face you when ending a conversation.

The first is relational vulnerability. Ending a conversation in a way that is unsatisfying to your partner can hurt the relationship. For example, if your partner is sharing a very deep thought with you in a phone conversation and you decide to abruptly hang up the phone, then your partner might perceive that as hurtful. When ending a conversation, we want to show that we still care about our partners’ feelings and needs, while still attending to our reason for ending it. The methods by which we end the conversation speak to relational vulnerability.

The second challenge is ensuring finality of the conversation. Did your partner have the opportunity to mention the important topics that they hoped to discuss in this situation? Perhaps your partner called you and began talking about their day, you might wonder whether that was the purpose of the phone call or if there was some other “business” that they hoped to eventually discuss. Before you end a conversation, you want to make sure that your partner’s needs were addressed before leaving them.

The third challenge is disengaging from the turn-taking system properly. When you need to leave, you may not want to abruptly interrupt your partner mid-sentence to announce your departure, unless it was truly some immediate emergency. Instead, you must wait for your turn to speak and then begin the process of bidding to end the conversation. However, if you have a partner who likes to take extended turns, this can be a challenge.

Now that you have learned three challenges to ending a conversation, you will learn how to end a conversation in a way that can satisfy each of them.

Pre-Closing Sequences

Let’s say that you want to end a conversation with a partner. First, you will need to bid to end the conversation, and that is called a pre-closing sequence. A pre-closing sequence mutually establishes that the conversation should come to an end. A pre-closing sequence precedes a terminal exchange, which is the actual exchange of “goodbyes” or closings. We will discuss terminal exchanges in the next section. For now, there are a few pre-closing sequences that you can use as bids to end a conversation: warrants, arrangements, summaries, appreciations, solicitudes, and topic elicitors (Sidnell, 2010).

Warrants are pre-closing sequences where a partner announces a next activity that they must attend to that necessitates ending the conversation. Sample warrants can be, “I need to go study,” “I need to get ready for work,” and so forth. An example of a warrant in use would be A:

A: Well I gotta go to a meeting.

B: Ok then.

Warrants can be very broad (“I got to go”) or very specific (“I need to pick up my kids from school in 10 minutes). In any case, they will indicate that the speaker is losing their ability to give any attention to the partner in conversation.

Arrangements offer to set up a future interaction to continue the conversation at a later time, since the speaker wants to end the conversation for now. Arrangements can be phrased like, “This is a very interesting topic. How about we continue this conversation tomorrow after work?” Just like warrants, arrangements can be very vague (“we should hang out sometime”) or concrete (“how about we meet for coffee tomorrow at 5:00 at Starbuck’s?). Arrangements can be paired with warrants or other pre-closing sequences.

Summaries recapitulate all business discussed in a conversation to indicate its ending. Suppose you call a friend who just had surgery. The first question you ask your friend is how the surgery went. After some conversation, you decide that you want to end the conversation. So you give a summary statement: “sounds like you’re doing well then.” Once your friend gives a reply that does not introduce any new topics, you can then bid to end the conversation.

Appreciations express some kind of appreciation or reward for your partner taking the time to converse with you. Suppose you are the person who just had surgery and you receive a phone call from a friend. Once you want to end the conversation, you might express an appreciation: “I appreciate you calling and checking in on me.” If your partner does not topicalize that statement, then you can proceed to end the conversation with a terminal exchange sequence.

Sequence-closing sequences are bids to end the conversation based on the business proffered at the beginning of it. Suppose an employee comes to your office and says that they want to ask you a question. Once they have asked the question and you have answered, there might be some post-question conversation that will occur. A way to bid to end the conversation might be the employee saying, “Ok, well that was my question.” Even utterances like “okay then” can work in a telephone conversation to end the original purpose of the call (Wright, 2010), or the word “well” in some cases (Heritage, 2015).

Solicitudes generally are well-wishes that you offer to someone as they embark on a next action. Common solicitudes are “have a nice day,” “have a safe trip,” or “I hope you enjoy your breakfast.” You can use a solicitude to encourage your partner to move on to their next activity, without issuing a direct command. Suppose your partner mentions in the conversation that they are getting up early in the morning to go on a road trip. Later in the conversation you can initiate its ending by saying “Well, I hope you have a great trip tomorrow.”

Lastly, you can use a topic elicitor as a method of closing. As you recall from eliciting conversation, you can just ask a general topic eliciting question, like “anything else new?”. If your partner does not introduce any new topics, then you can use response as a reason to then terminate the conversation.

An important note about pre-closing sequences is that they depend on your partner accepting the pre-closing sequence by not introducing new topics. The particular closing sequence that you choose may also depend on the medium you are communicating in (Pojanapunya & Jaroenkitboworn, 2011). In the next section, you will learn how closing sequences can be rejected by the partner.

Two Types of Conversational Endings

There are two types of conversational endings: terminal exchanges and closing implicative situations. In this section, you will learn about both and why their differences matter.

Terminal exchanges occur after a pre-closing sequence where the speaker bids to end the conversation and the conversation partner either accepts the bid or rejects it (Sidnell, 2010). Terminal exchanges involve the partners cooperatively ending the conversation using phrases like “goodbye,” “see you later,” or “talk to you tomorrow.” Conversational closure happens in these cases when both partners pass up on the opportunity to mention new topics. Terminal exchanges are your most typical way of imagining how a conversation ends; two partners work jointly to terminate the conversing. Here is how a terminal exchange works generally:

Pre-Closing Sequence

A: Bids to end conversation

B: Accepts bid to end conversation

Terminal Exchange

A: Offers terminal exchange

B: Accepts terminal exchange

Closing implicative situations occur when a feature of the environment or outside circumstances make ending the conversation a relevant next activity for the conversation partners. These situations do not require that the conversation ends, but it creates an option to do so. A common example would be when you are talking to your classmate right before class starts, and then the professor begins the lecture. When the lecture starts, ending your conversation right then is possible since both of you would want to pay attention to the lecture. In those cases, you do not need to do a pre-closing sequence or terminal exchange. You can just cease talking and then avert your attention to the lecture. One other example might be when you are being driven by a taxi and you arrive at your destination (Haddington, 2019), when you and your partner are walking and reach a destination (Broth & Mondada, 2013) or perhaps when you and your partner both finish your drinks at a café (Laurier, 2008). Closing implicative situations make both pre-closing sequences and terminal exchanges optional.

Overall, terminal exchanges occur when two partners cooperatively bid to end a conversation using typical terminal exchange phrases like “goodbye” or “later.” Closing implicative situations may lead to the end of a conversation with the environment suggesting the bid to close, and the partners optionally bidding to say goodbye or not.

Rejection of Closing Sequences

There are two ways that your partner can reject a pre-closing sequence. First, they can topicalize the pre-closing sequence itself. Let’s say that you try to end the conversation using a warrant. Here is what might happen:

A: I need to go pick up my kids from daycare.

B: Oh, what daycare do you go to? I’ve been looking for a new one for my toddler…

You can see that the pre-closing sequence was topicalized once A mentioned “daycare.” Now A will face a delay in leaving, since B will take a turn.

The other way a closing sequence can be rejected is by topicalizing the terminal exchange, after “goodbyes” have been stated. For example:

A: It was great talking to you.

B: You too.

A: See you at the meeting tomorrow!

B: What meeting?

The final terminal statement of “meeting” was topicalized, which then creates a delay in ending the conversation.

Overall, rejection of closing sequences happens when something in pre-closing sequence or in the terminal exchanges gets topicalized. Acceptance of the closing sequence happens when a partner “passes up” the opportunity to introduce new topics. If you have a partner who is aware of your tone and body language, they should be able to infer that you need to go when you say so. However, not all partners are capable or willing to do this, so just reinitiate the closing sequence when this happens.

Conclusion

In this entire Unit, you learned the basic principles of conversation and how it works. You learned how to open a conversation with an unacquainted person. You then learned how to elicit topics at varying layers of intimacy to build rapport. Lastly, you learned how to close a conversation in a way that does not threaten the relationship and ensures finality.

Conversation is the lifeblood of relationships. It is the method by which we build rapport, chemistry, and all other feelings of psychological intimacy with others. Conversation is also a skill, which implies that some people perform better than others at it. Nevertheless, as a skill, every person has room for improvement and can always use additional practice. So practice your conversation skills every day with people you know, and also with people you do not know as well.

Activity 1. Class Mingle

Have the students get out of their chairs and mingle with each other for 30 seconds. When 30 seconds are up, let them know that they need to end their conversations. Then have them switch partners after 60 seconds. Ask your students what types of closing sequences that they used.

Activity 2. Reflection

Ask your students to think of a time when they were “stuck” in a conversation. What kind of closing sequence did they use to get out of it?

Broth, M., & Mondada, L. (2013). Walking away: The embodied achievement of activity closings in mobile interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 47(1), 41–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2012.11.016

Haddington, P. (2019). Leave-taking as multiactivity: Coordinating conversational closings with driving in cars. Language & Communication, 65, 58–78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2018.04.003

Heritage, J. (2015). Well-prefaced turns in English conversation: A conversation analytic perspective. Journal of Pragmatics, 88, 88–104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2015.08.008

Laurier, E. (2008). Drinking up endings: Conversational resources of the café. Language & Communication, 28(2), 165–181. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2008.01.011

Pojanapunya, P., & Jaroenkitboworn, K. (2011). How to say “Good-bye” in Second Life. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(14), 3591–3602. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2011.08.010

Sidnell, J. (2010). Conversation analysis: An introduction. Wiley-Blackwell.

Wright, M. (2011). The phonetics–interaction interface in the initiation of closings in everyday English telephone calls. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(4), 1080–1099. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.09.004

Closing implicative situation: When a feature of the environment or outside circumstances make ending the conversation a relevant next activity for the conversation partners.

Pre-Closing Sequence: A sequence that mutually establishes that the conversation should start to come to an end. It precedes a terminal exchange sequence.

Terminal exchanges: The process by which two partners end a conversation by offering and accepting each other’s final bids to close the conversation; the actual exchange of final “goodbyes” before the parties depart each other.

1. Seinfeld – Stuck in Conversation: Watch this clip from the show Seinfeld where Jerry and Elaine develop a “signal” to get each other out of bad conversations. Only watch it up until 2:00, the last two minutes are unnecessary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCFy9hUWOPA

2. Stuck between two conversations: Watch this clip about being stuck between a bad and a good conversation. What can the person do in this situation to maintain the relationship with the person she is stuck with? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEa2hbBDHYo