Abstract:
The aim of this study was to analyze the conversational structure of the Thai Sign Language between teachers and the students in the class for the Deaf Studies in Ratchasuda College of Mahidol University. Data were collected from first and fourth-year students' undertaking classes from three courses, totaling 102 hours. This study was based on the framework of Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson. The findings revealed that the conversation structure and turn-taking system of the Thai Sign Language between the teachers and the students were similar to those of other languages. There were three components of the conversation, which may differ in details from Levinson's work. In the turn-taking system, which was the core of conversation, the teacher controlled turn allocation, by selecting the student to speak, answer, or give a comment. There were other aspects which did not follow the A-B-A-B pattern of turn - taking in which only one spoke at a time. Repair was employed the first aspect when the student's answer was incorrect, unclear, or when the task was misunderstands. The repair processes were most commonly found in the classroom were other-initiated and self-repair, the second aspect was overlapping, which occurred in teacher-students and student-student conversation. If it appeared in the teacher-students conversation, it would be solved automatically. But the in the student - student conversation was different. The last aspect was the backchannel, besides the nod, the most frequently used backchannel response was the short verbalization, where the repetition of previous utterances by an interlocutor was a part of backchanneling which presents the inner speech of students.