Jennie: You are listening to Dialogically Minded. Dialogical Discourse for Second Language Learners. In this program we explore the language used in public, civil, and academic discussion for the purpose of achieving various communication goals.
Good afternoon David.
David: Hi Jennie. How are you today?
Jennie: I’m guess I’m okay.
David: You guess? You don’t sound so sure.
Jennie: Well, I’m fairly certain that I’m okay. How’s that?
David: Better, but it’s not as good as I’m absolutely convinced that I’m fine.
Jennie: No, it’s definitely not that good. If our listeners are wondering what this smalltalk is all about, the topic of this episode is Levels of Conviction.
[1:11]
David: Convictions are beliefs that are important to us. Not just everyday beliefs like your belief that the sun will come up tomorrow, or that Wednesday comes between Tuesday and Thursday, but things that are important that you. Beliefs about politics, religion, morality and so on.
Jennie: Or just belief about situations that are important at the moment, like Did I or did I not remember to turn the gas off on the stove before I left the house this morning? or Did I or did I not lock the door when I left for work?
David: When we are really not sure about something we are said to have weak convictions. Phrases like I suppose, and I guess, are often used to express weak convictions
Jennie: When we have medium strength convictions, we use phrases like:
I think
I suspect
I’m pretty sure that
I’m fairly certain that
I’d say
It looks like
David: And strong opinions are expressed with phrases like:
In my opinion,
I’m absolutely sure
I personally believe that
I firmly believe
I feel that
From my point of view,
Not everyone will agree with me, but
Jennie: These kind of phrases tell the person how strongly you feel and how good of a reason you think you have for your viewpoint.
David: Okay, let’s listen to a dialogue and try to catch what language is used to signpost levels of conviction.
[3:11]
- Choosing Her University
[A man is trying to decide which university to send his daughter to.]
[Speaker 1]: I am having a hard time deciding which university my daughter should attend. There’s the university in my home town, but she’s not really interested in the classes there. The tuition is cheap and she has some friends who are going to study there. ______ that would be fine. In fact, we had a long talk about it last night and–
[Speaker 2]: Excuse me for interrupting, but have you really considered what your daughter wants? ______ if you send her to a university that she’s not interested in attending, she’ll soon lose all interest in her classes.
Jennie: Alright, this dialogue is very simple. The first speaker talks about the difficulty of choosing his daughter’s university and the woman interrupts with the phrase, Pardon me. So the question here is what level of conviction–that means how strong is her belief, weak, medium or strong?
David: As always, before hearing our answers, we suggest that you listeners should play the dialogue back and try to catch the phrases on your own.
Jennie: And in this case the woman used the phrase, I’m fairly certain. And that is usually considered to be . . . a medium level of certainty.
David: Right, it’s greater than, say, a 50% level, maybe more like around 70%.
Jennie: What levels of conviction will we find in the next dialogue?
[4:53]
- House Burglar Part 1
[Some police detectives are discussing a recent home burglary.]
[Speaker 1]: _______ we have good evidence that the thief came in through the bathroom window.
[Speaker 2]: _______?
[Speaker 1]: Because of the footprint on the window sill. _______ this is how the thief entered the home.
[Speaker 2]: _______. Look at the size of the fingerprints. They seem to be the hand of a small child.
[Speaker 1]: So, the thief was a child, and came in through the window.
[Speaker 2]: But there is no evidence to indicate that the window was unlocked. And the family says, the window was always locked. Besides, can’t you see that no child could have carried the safe box outside. It’s too heavy. To add to the counter-arguement, the thief left in a car. A child with hands this small certainly couldn’t drive a car.
[Speaker 1]: _______.
[Speaker 3]: I’d like to say something here. A child might have entered the house, unlocked the door from inside, and then let in a stronger adult, who could carry the safebox and drive a car.
[Speaker 2]: You seem to be forgetting that the window was never opened. That means these fingerprints are most likely unrelated to this crime. I suggest we consider other possibilities.
Jennie: The first words we hear are I’d say when the first speaker says there is good evidence. When we mention ourselves in a conclusion like saying, It’s my belief, or In my opinion, or I’d say, that is connecting the belief with you personally. This usually signals a . . . strong conviction. And even stronger still is I’m absolutely certain.
[6:43]
David: So the words that come before the word certain like fairly as in fairly certain or absolutely as in absolutely certain can be used to do some fine tuning on the level of conviction.
Jennie: After this the second speaker voices a doubt using the phrase, I’m not sure . . . By itself, this phrase usually signal weak belief levels. But here, what he is really saying is that he doubts what the first speaker says is true, and the word certainly in certainly couldn’t drive a car, used soon after this, shows strong conviction.
David: It’s not part of today’s topic but we ought to also look at the way the second speaker signposts his reasons, using besides for the second reason, and to add to the counter-argument for the third.
Jennie: Also we should point out how the third speaker cut in. In the earlier dialogue, the woman said Pardon me for interrupting and here the speaker says, I’d like to say something. These are both phrases used to join an ongoing conversation.
David: Of course what he wants to say is pointless, as the second speaker points out using the phrase, You seem to be forgetting. He does this earlier too, when he says Can’t you see that? We call this creating focus in the conversation and that will be the topic of a later episode.
Jennie: And we’ll also be covering interruptions in a later episode too.
David: But for now, I think that should do it for today. So listeners, until next time, think critically,
Jennie: And speak dialogically.