An Appraisal of Adjacency Pairs in Selected Conversations from the Gospel According to St. John

Abstract

This paper aims at investigating the use of adjacency pairs in the selected conversations of Jesus with the Samaritan woman and Nicodemus as recorded in the gospel according to Saint John chapters 3 and 4. The paper employs qualitative descriptive research using Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson?s (1974) model of conversation analysis because it presents a systematic methodology for analysing the organization of turn-taking. Such adjacency pairs as: question-answer, offer-accept/reject, agreement/disagreement, apology/acceptance, and farewell/farewell were investigated in order to establish whether they really served as cues for next speaker, and to also validate which among them are prevalent in the conversations examined. At the end of the analysis, it was found that question and answer is the most frequently used type of adjacency pairs in the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman/Nicodemus. The study concluded that adjacency pairs can be used to unravel the nuances of empathy, persuasion and assessment in conversations including religious conversations. This in turn underscores the timeless significance of understanding conversation patterns in fostering meaningful connections and effecting transformations in the realm of communication.