English Language 2

TURNS.

In Italian culture to interrupt someone who is speaking is considered to be very

rude and it’s not accepted, while in other places it’s not so impolite as here.

Also talking over someone else (over-lapping) is considered annoying and

impolite because it doesn’t permit to someone to finish what he was saying.

This difference is not related only to culture: about age we can say that a child

who interrupts adults it’s considered more impolite than other situationsò. In

relation to gender it’s possible to notice that usually the fact that men interrupt

a discussion is considered less rude than a the case in which women do it. Turn-

taking mechanism is “connected to the right to speak”;

The right to speak is called the floor. Speakers can hold the floor when they

speak:

 Take the floor → when they start speaking

 Yield the floor → when you allow someone else to speak

To open the floor is an invitation to speak, to give the possibility to someone to

take the floor.

How do participants to a conversation manage turns? → Turn – taking

mechanisms 41

Point where a switch is possible → Transition Relevance Place (TRP).

These are moments in conversation in which is possible to speakers to switch.

Rules of next speaker selection

“Current speaker selects next speaker”:

 The speaker gives the right to speak to another participant directly →

Now, we’d like to hear Jim’s view on this. In these

 Or more indirectly, by leaving the floor open → who wants to cases we

speak can take the floor. Any other opinions or further comments can

on this matter? decided to

 Or by signalling their turn is over. take the

floor and

End of contribution can be signalled saying it directly or in other talk.

different way:

 Falling Intonation and pause, vocal signals such as ‘mmm’ or ‘anyway’

 Eye contact, body language, voice pitch (extra-linguistic signals)

These are the ways in which the speaker decides to end its contribution to the

discussion; but also other participants can ask the floor by interrupting the

speaker, which could be considered rude, or waiting for his Transition

Relevance Place.

“A next speaker selects himself” → when someone decides they are going to

start talking. Relevance of TRPs → TRPs:

 Natural breaks (pauses for breathing, end of contribution, completion of

syntactic unit); in these occasions people can find a moment to take the

floor.

Speakers can ignore a TRP not to allow the floor to other participants by using

some ways to avoid other person to interrupt → Creation of an ‘unnatural

break’ > mid-sentence

Masking of TRP:

 Turn-threatening noises (e.g. Ahhhm and other fillers) → warn speakers of

continuing speech and threaten participants to not take the floor.

 Turn-completion unit → a speaker announces that he has a story to tell

and other speakers have to wait until the turn is complete.

 Other TRPs may be ignored.

What do other participants do when they are not speaking? Back-channels →

verbal or no-verbal way to react to what speaker is saying but without

taking the floor. Taking the floor taboos about not interrupting in many

cultures Silence

There may be short pauses between turns, for example breaths or pauses to

think about what to say. There is an acceptable length to a pause between two

42

turns: when a pause is longer, it may convey a specific meaning. In

transcriptions transcribers mark the length of the pause (.= short; number of

seconds if it’s longer because it could have a meaning)

Attributable silence → pause with a meaning → in this case thanks to the

pause John can already foresee her answer because Brenda feels guilty and

ashamed because she has forgotten the promise.

In the second example the lecturer asks

John: Did you feed the dog? directly to one of a student a question; to

show the over lapping speech the [] are

Brenda: [long pause] No. used. The lecturer ignores the first

student even though she gives the right

John: I’d told you to do that before I answer because it was not polite to

left. answer without having the floor and to

overlap the other boy. So, he ignores her

Brenda: I know, I’m sorry. I forgot. to say her that it’s not her turn to speak.

Pre - Sequences

Conversations are organised in pre-sequences. Certain utterances that are

considered precursors to something else; they give us a clue about what will

happen later.

Attention getters → Hey / You know something? / Excuse me.

The expected answer could be “Yes, What?” According to the different kind of

conversation or the relationship we have with the other person the attention

getters used will be different. After the initial exchange conversation can

continue. They occupy a role between the “formal and content aspect of

conversation”

Pre - Sequences Attention getters

Guess what?

You’ll never guess!

Pre - Announcements We are telling the other person that after this pre-

sequence an announce is coming.

Are you doing anything tonight?

I’ve got two tickets for the rugby match

Pre - Invitations It’s not directly a question or an invitation, it’s a

way to test the other person and it the answer is

positive then the speaker can make the invitation.

Watch it

Pre - Threats If the other person will keep doing that action, a

threat will come.

Inquirers → before a They are often used in contexts as in shops:

43  I wonder if you have X?



request Do you by any chance have X?

 Does your shop carry X?

If the answer is positive the conversation can continue and become a buy-

selling sequence.

 A: Are you doing anything tonight? -> pre-invitation

 B: Why are you asking?

 A: I thought we might maybe catch a movie.

 B: Well, no, nothing in particular. What do you want to see?

Initial pre-sequence → Are you doing anything tonight?

The sequence is interrupted by another question: Why are you asking?

This phenomenon of overlapping is common insertion sequences

Insertion Sequences

Do not damage conversational coherence. Conversation is not stopped. The

“’turns’ in the talk are operating at different levels”. The flow of the

conversation is not interrupted.

Self-initiated repairs / Other-initiated repairs → usually corrections.

Sometimes they are used as ‘remedial exchanges’ → repairs:

 Misunderstandings

 Speaking out of turn

Strategic devices → used to gain time for thinking or preventing someone to take the floor.

Barrister → the twins Michael and

allan (.) live with the wife (1.0). Barrister → ALLAN. Ye:s.

Micheal is employed as an

apprentice butcher.

Client → oh not MIChael, ALLan. Solicitor → alrigh.

Barrister → (0.1) ALLAN is

employed as an apprentice

but[cher].

Other – Initiated repair → Client: because (1.0) he’s got a girlfriend – oh (0.5)

a woman and ah (0.5).

Self – Repair → even if there is no apparent error.

Recognize the Insertion Conversation without insertion

sequence sequence

A: You know that new film that’s on A: You know that new film that’s on in

in the Odeon? the Odeon?

B: Yes? B: Yes?

A: Do you want to go and see it A: Do you want to go and see it

tonight? tonight?

B: what time does it start? B: Yeah, why not?

A: Eight thirty-five.

B: Yeah, why not? 44

Difference between telephone calls and face-to-face conversation.

Face – to – face → non verbal communicative methods to regulate the

interchange.

 eye contact (establishing turns) Difference with

 body posture computer-mediated-

 getting up from chair -> pre-sequence for taking communication as well.

leave Preference

Preference indicates the default opening / response to a given speech act.

Markedness → a marked sequence is more complex → they are dispreferred

because more effort is required; dispreferred behaviors are less effective.

Generally, some openings and responses are always preferred, others are

always dispreferred.

In a conversation on the phone: DEFAULT, preferred response

A: Could you help me lift this box, please?

Dispreferred: B: OK [goes over and helps a lift box]

Who is the

party I’m Marked, dispreferred response (denial)

speaking to A: Could you help me move tomorrow morning?

there? B: Well, er, let me see, I have to take Cindy to nursery school

and take my mother-in-law who just has brokn her arm to the

Preferred: doctor and Fred my handy-man is coming over to fix the attic

Hello. window, so…couldn’t we make it some other day, perhaps, or

does it have to be tomorrow?

Adjacency Pairs

Patterns in conversations One utterance triggers a certain

Pairs of utterances response → The first part of adjacency

Collaboration obeys certain pair creates an expectation of a

rules particular second part.

Adjacency pairs are “two subsequent Question-answer

utterances constituting a Offer-accept

conversational exchange, or ‘turn’” Blame-deny, Etc

Preference Question > answer

structure Offer > acceptance

Invitation >

acceptance

Assessment >

agreement

Proposal >

agreement

Greeting > greeting

Complaint > apology 45 BM: You do language planning don’t

you?

DM: Yeah, I’ve stopped doing that

Blame > denial though. I did stop doing that last

week. SLA?

BM: I’m not doing that.

DM: Ah. We haven’t got many things

in common then.

BM: Wow. We’ve parted ways.

DM: That’s right. That’s right. Yes (2)

The Cooperative Principle BM: We’ll have to go out sometime

DM: Yeah.

“People talk with the intention to BM: Before we forget each other’s

communicate something to somebody” → faces // (heh heh) It’s true.

condition for all human pragmatic

activity. “No matter how one may try, one cannot not communicate”.

This principle is at the basis of communication and it says that every

participant in a communicative event assume that the other person is

cooperating with them; contrarily the risk are issues in communication and

miscommunication.

Users do not always Speakers often “mean more than they

communicate: say” Leech:

What they want to operates in a concrete context

What they think they do relies on the Cooperative Principle

It’s like people are always communicating between them because

communication it’s not just verbal language but can be done also through non-

linguistic elements as silence or gesture. People can tell what they say or they

do but they cannot