Professional Documents
Culture Documents
283 Dis
283 Dis
ceived as discrete. The turn-taking signals address, etc., to more emotionally laden discussion of
are used and responded to according to rules. the client's reasons for applying for therapy. At the
same time, there is a strong intrinsic motivation for
Signals, cues, and rules are described in de- the interview, namely, an application for therapy,
tail below. thereby avoiding the more artificial experimental
Turn taking is considered to be one of a situation in which unacquainted subjects are brought
number of communication mechanisms, such together and asked to discuss anything which might
be of mutual interest.
as those discussed by Scheflen (1968), oper- The client was in her early twenties, working as
ating in face-to-face interaction. These mecha- a secretary, and had not completed college. The
nisms serve the function of integrating the therapist-interviewer was a 40-year-old-male, an
performances of the participants in a variety experienced therapist, who had been doing prelimi-
of ways, for example, regulating the pace at nary interviews for many years.
which the communication proceeds, and moni- The second interview was between the therapist
who participated in the first interview, and a second
toring deviations from appropriate conduct. male therapist, also 40 years old. The two therapists
Goffman (19SS) commented on these inte- were good friends and had known each other for
grating mechanisms in general and on turn about 10 years. Their interaction was relaxed and
taking in particular: lively. The topic in this case was another client
whom the first therapist had seen in a preliminary
In any society, whenever the physical possibility interview, and whom the second therapist had at that
of spoken interaction arises, it seems that a system time seen in therapy for two interviews.
of practices, conventions, and procedural rules comes The preliminary interview is designated at Inter-
into play which functions as a means of guiding and view 1, and the second, peer interaction, is desig-
organizing the flow of messages [p. 2261. nated as Interview 2. The client is designated as
Participant A; the preliminary interviewer, B; and
The notion that a set of rules operates to the second therapist, C. Thus, the participants in
integrate the turn-taking behavior of partici- Interview 1 were A and B, and the participants in
pants in a conversation is supported by Jaffe Interview 2 were B and C.
and Feldstein (1970), who also studied tem- Videotaping
poral patterns of speech and silence in dyadic
conversations. Although they limited their To videotape the interactions, the camera was
placed so that both participants in each interaction
data to the information provided by a "pair were fully visible from head to foot on the tape
of voice-actuated relays which treat any sound at all times. No zoom techniques or other special
above threshold as equivalent [p. 113]," focusing effects were used. A single camera was set
their findings suggested to them up in full view of the participants. The camera and
tape were left running prior to the participants' entry
further interactional rules that govern the matching into the room and were not touched again until
of speech rates of the participants, the prohibition after the interview.
of interruption, and the requirement for properly Despite the fact that a wide-angle lens was used,
timed signals that acknowledge understanding and the camera was necessarily at such distance from
confirm the continued attention of the listener [p. 6]. the participants that more subtle details of facial
expressions were not discriminable on the videotape.
SOURCE OF DATA Less subtle expressions, such as broad smiles and
grimaces, were readily discernable. In contrast, very
Interviews small movements of the hands and fingers, for
The results to be reported were based on meticu- example, were clearly evident on the tapes, so that
lous transcriptions of speech and body motion be- fine discriminations of these movements could be
haviors during the first 19 minutes of two dyadic made and were on the transcription. A high-quality
interviews, as recorded on videotape. monophonic, audiotrack was obtained on the video-
The first interview was a preliminary interview tape.
held at the Counseling and Psychotherapy Research
Center at the University of Chicago. This prelimi- Transcription
nary interview is part of the routine intake procedure For this study, the principal requirements for the
at the Counseling and Psychotherapy Research transcription were those of maximum behavioral
Center, and the client was a regular applicant for
therapy. A preliminary interview was chosen for breadth and of continuity (no breaks or interrup-
intensive transcription of communication behaviors tions). Maximum breadth is desirable in analysis
because within a rather compressed period of time because it is not yet known which behavioral cues
a wide variety of types of interaction may be en- are the primary mediators of any given communica-
countered, from simple information giving, such as tion function. Continuity of transcription permits
SOME SIGNALS AND RULES IN CONVERSATIONS 285
the complete analysis of sequences of events: the tic behaviors was actually encountered in the two
basic concern of this study. dyads and included in the transcriptions.
In terms of size, two 19-minute transcriptions of
interaction are simultaneously very small and very Body Motion
large, depending upon one's perspective. From the In contrast to paralanguage, there was no available
point of view of the wealth of communication en- transcription system for body motion which could
gaged in each day by an individual, the transcrip- be readily applied to our videotapes. This situation
tions are quite brief. On the other hand, these tran- led to a transcribing method based on the behaviors
scriptions are believed to be unique in their breadth actually found in each interview. The transcription
and duration. As described below, there was a de- system for the first interview was created by first
tailed transcription of English segmental and supra- making an inventory of the movements used by the
segmental phonemes, paralanguage, and body motion two participants and then assigning either arbitrary
of both participants in the two interviews. The time or descriptive labels to these movements. This sys-
involved in making the two transcriptions was tem was then applied to the second interview, after
great, involving the better part of 2 academic years.
expanding it to include new movements observed
in the second interview.
Phonemes
While there is no pretense that the resulting
Segmental phonemes. Transcription of segmental transcription system is able to encompass all move-
phonemes, which describe the way syllables are ments occurring in this culture, every attempt was
pronounced within the framework of the English made to include all movements observed in the dyads
sound system, followed the scheme developed by under study. The transcription was in this sense
Trager and Smith (19S7). The segmental phonemes comprehensive. Included were (a) head gestures and
were the least important components of the study. movements (nodding, turning, pointing, shaking, etc.)
Suprasegmental phonemes. The suprasegmental and direction of head orientation; (b) shoulder
phonemes are commonly referred to as intonation. movements (e.g., shrugs); (c) facial expressions,
They include the phenomena of stress, pitch, and such as could be clearly seen; (d) hand gestures
juncture. and movements of all sorts (each hand transcribed
The Trager-Smith scheme for transcribing supra- independently) ; (e) foot movements (each foot
segmental phonemes was used, with minor modifica- independently); (/) leg movements; (g) postures
tions identical to those described in previous studies and posture shifts; and (h) use of artifacts, such as
by the present author (Duncan, Rosenberg, & pipe, kleenex, papers, and clipboard.
Finkelstein, 1969; Duncan & Rosenthal, 1968).
Three terminal junctures—rising, falling, and Coordination of Body Motion and Speech
sustained—were transcribed in accordance with the Transcriptions
Trager-Smith system. These junctures are composed
of contours of pitch, intensity, and duration occurring Speech syllables were used to locate all tran-
on the final syllable of phonemic clauses. scribed events. Thus, the movements of both partici-
pants in an interview were located with respect to
The point of departure for all subsequent analysis
in this study was the phonemic clause (Trager & the syllables emitted by the participant who hap-
Smith, 1957). A phonemic clause is a phonological pened to be speaking at the time, or to the pause
between two syllables.
unit, defined by Trager and Smith as containing one
and only one primary stress and one terminal
juncture. Transcribing primary stresses and terminal THE TURN-TAKING MECHANISM
junctures automatically identifies the phonemic The variables for the turn-taking mecha-
clauses in a corpus.
nism were formulated as signals by which
Paralanguage each participant indicated his state with re-
Paralanguage refers to the wide variety of vocal gard to the speaking turn. Given the display
behaviors that occur in speech but that are not part or absence of a given turn-taking signal by-
of the sound system of language, as traditionally one participant, rules delimit the appropriate
conceived. Comprehensive catalogs of paralinguistic responses by the other participant.
behaviors have been compiled by Trager (1958),
Crystal and Quirk (1964), and Crystal (1969). Any The rules and signals, considered together,
one speaker will probably use only a small fraction establish empirical expectations with respect
of the total behaviors available. The following list, to turn-taking activities at any given moment
which uses Trager's (1958) terminology, includes
only those behaviors that play a part in the turn- in a conversation, assuming that the partici-
taking signals: (a) intensity (overloud-oversoft); pants in the conversations under analysis are
(6) pitch height (overhigh-overlow); and (c) ex- rule abiding for the most part. Data relevant
tent (drawl-clipping of individual syllables). The
terms in parentheses define the anchor point for each
to evaluating the turn-taking mechanisms are
behavioral continuum. A wide variety of paralinguis- presented in the Results section.
286 STAEKEY DUNCAN, JR.
TABLE 1
AUDITOR TURN-TAKING ATTEMPTS AND RESULTING SIMULTANEOUS TURNS AS A
FUNCTION OF NUMISER OF TURN-YIELDING CUES DISPLAYED AND
THE DISPLAY OF THE ATTEMPT-SUPPRESSING SIGNAL
Speaker yielding cue display Auditor turn-taking attempt Simultaneous turns resulting
from auditor attempt
0
column D/column B.
~ -\w
/
TABLE 2 TABLE 3
SMOOTH EXCHANGES OF TURNS AND SIMULTANEOUS PERCENTAGE or AUDITOR TURN-TAKING ATTEMPTS
TURNS RESULTING FROM AUDITOR'S TURN-TAKING IN RESPONSE TO NUMBER or YIELDING CUES
ATTEMPTS IN RESPONSE TO THE SPEAKER'S DISPLAYED: ANALYSIS or VARIANCE
DISPLAY OF ZERO YIELDING CUES AND FOR THE REGRESSION
OF >1 YIELDING CUES
Source of variation df .S.S MS F
No. yielding cues Smooth exchange Simultaneous
displayed of turns turns Attributable to regression 1 .09367 .09367 50.53
Deviation from regression 4 .00741 .00185
0 0 12 Total 5 .10109
>1 81 7
Note.—N = 100.
cues were conjointly displayed, the prob-
playing an attempt-suppressing signal along ability of a turn-taking attempt by the audi-
with his yielding cues. Data on auditor at- tor increased in a strictly linear fashion.
tempts in the presence of a suppressing sig- On the other hand, the display of an
nal are presented in the lower half of Table 1 attempt-suppressing signal essentially elimi-
and in the right half of Figure 1. With the nated the auditor's tendency to take his turn,
exception of the display of zero yielding regardless of the number of yielding cues con-
cues, the auditor attempt curve was virtually comitantly displayed. Because the auditor's
flat at 0%, with no increase of turn-taking attempts were so thoroughly suppressed by
attempts as the number of yielding cues the signal, it was not possible to infer from
increases. the data the likelihood of simultaneous turns
resulting from turn-taking responses to the
DISCUSSION suppressing signal.
The results reflect strong regularities in It should be noted that the display of any
interview behaviors with respect to turn number of yielding cues by the speaker, in
taking. It should be borne in mind that the the absence of a suppressing signal, did not
data presented here were generated through automatically result in an attempt by the
the coordinated action of two individuals. auditor. At best, the probability of an audi-
As an integrating mechanism, turn taking ap- tor attempt appears to be about .50. Thus,
pears capable of being remarkably successful the auditor retains considerable discretion
in dyadic conversations. over his responses.
The chance of simultaneous turns was Either the speaker or the auditor may dis-
sharply decreased when the auditor attempted regard the turn-taking mechanism, so that a
to take his turn after the display of a yield- state of simultaneous turns is produced. In the
ing signal by the speaker. As more yielding present data the occurrence of auditor turn-
(89)
•
^ < 30
S, <"
S-J
§^2° .(146)
£' (52 i (56)
10"/»(123)
v(109) (
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 1 2 3
Number of Yielding Cues Conjointly Displayed by the Speaker
taking attempts when zero yielding cues were The findings on the turn-yielding signal
being displayed may be straightforwardly in- provide an example of the usefulness of be-
terpreted as an interruption of the speaker. haviorally comprehensive research. The cues
On those six occasions on which simultaneous comprising this signal were found in every
turns were associated with the display of communication modality examined: content,
yielding cues by the speaker, the blame may syntax, intonation, paralanguage, and body
be laid to him for not properly yielding when motion.
he had so signaled. The behavioral breadth in the yielding sig-
This study was based on two behaviorally nal provides it with the desirable property of
inclusive transcriptions of dyadic face-to-face flexibility. No single communication modality
interaction. The emphasis on inclusiveness is required in order to display a signal. The
required joint consideration of the linguistic, yielding signal may also be said to possess
paralinguistic, and body motion components the property of generality, in that the cues
of face-to-face interaction, as opposed to for the signal are formulated in terms of
focusing exclusively on any one or two of general properties of behaviors, rather than
these modalities. As mentioned above, this specific acts. For example, it is not a specific
behavioral inclusiveness is desirable at this intonation pattern that served as a cue, but
stage of our understanding of face-to-face simply any deviation from the 2 2 pattern;
interaction because it is not known a priori not a specific gesticulation, but cessation of
which behaviors in the stream of communica- the gesture, or relaxation of a tensed hand
tion are the important cues for any given position; not a specific paralinguistic pat-
communication function. tern, but a drop from the preceding pattern
A primary obstacle to research of this type in pitch and/or loudness, and so on.
is the laboriousness of making fine-grained Further research is underway on various
transcriptions of multiple interaction be- aspects of the turn-taking mechanism using
haviors. Despite the difficulty of the task, our transcriptions. The distribution and func-
these detailed comprehensive transcriptions tions of the impressively large and complex
are valuable for their potential contribution class of back-channel signals are being in-
to the discovery and documentation of vari- vestigated. The notion of floor-requesting
ous communication functions. It is important signals by the auditor, suggested by Yngve
at this stage of research to be able to specify, (1970), is being explored, including the pos-
quite accurately, what happens where in inter- sibility that there may in some sense be an
actions. Considering the wealth of transcribed ongoing negotiation for the floor by speaker
data on languages throughout the world, the and auditor.
raw transcribed data available on face-to-face By positing three types of signals and as
interaction in its broader aspect are deplor- many rules, a turn-taking mechanism can be
ably scant. described which accounts for extensive por-
Once important signals are identified for tions of the turn-taking behavior in the two
any given communication function, further interviews under examination. The overall
research on that function can proceed at a strength of the results underscores the po-
much more rapid pace. In Scheflen's (1966) tential of further research on the rule-
words, the signals become "recognizable at a governed aspects of behavior.
glance and recordable with a stroke [p. 277, The rules for turn taking were designed to
original italics]." Accordingly, work is pres- be applicable across a wide range of individual
ently underway to transcribe the turn-taking styles and communication contexts. There is
signals (and a few other potentially signifi- room for appreciable variation in their use.
cant behaviors) for brief sections of addi- For example, variation may be found in the
tional interviews. In this manner it is pos- use of (a) the attempt-suppressing signal,
sible to capitalize on existing knowledge of (b) back-channel communications in lieu of
turn taking, both to extend our understanding turn-taking attempts, (c) the number of si-
of it and to validate further our original multaneous turns created either by the
findings. speaker or by the auditor, and (d) the num-
292 STAEKEY DUNCAN, JR.
her of turn-yielding signals composed of large JAFFE, J., & FELDSTEIN, S. Rhythms of dialogue.
numbers of cues. If such variations actually New York: Academic Press, 1970.
KENDON, A. Some functions of gaze-direction in
exist, they may be related to other variables social interaction. Ada Psychologica, 1967, 26,
of interest. These variations in the use of 22-63.
basic structural elements of conversations may LEIOHTON, L. A., STOLLAK, G. E., & FERGUSON, L. R.
be the source of many of the subtle effects Patterns of communication in normal and clinic
families. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psy-
which, while difficult to specify explicitly,
chology, 1971, 36, 252-256.
often have telling consequences on impres- MELTZER, L., MORRIS, W. N., & HAYES, D. P. In-
sion formation and on the developmental terruption outcomes and vocal amplitude: Ex-
course of interactions. plorations in social psychophysics. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 1971, 18, 392-
REFERENCES 402.
MILLER, G. A. Review of J. H. Greenberg (Ed.),
BERNSTEIN, B. Social class, linguistic codes, and Universals of language. Contemporary Psychology,
grammatical elements. Language and Speech, 1962, 1963, 8, 417-418.
S, 221-240. ROSENFELD, H. M. Instrumental affiliative functions
CRYSTAL, D. Prosodic systems and intonation in of facial and gestural expressions. Journal of
English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Personality and Social Psychology, 1966, 4, 65-72.
1969. SCHEFLEN, A. E. Natural history method in psy-
CRYSTAL, D., & QUIRK, R. Systems of prosodic and chotherapy: Communicational research. In L. A.
paralinguistic features in English. The Hague: Gottschalk & A. H. Auerbach (Eds.), Methods of
Mouton, 1964. research in psychotherapy. New York: Appleton-
DITTMANN, A. T., & LLEWELLYN, L. G. Relation- Century-Crofts, 1966.
ship between vocalizations and head nods as SCHEFLEN, A. E. Human communication: Behavioral
listener responses. Journal of Personality and Social programs and their integration in interaction.
Psychology, 1968, 9, 79-84. Behavioral Science, 1968, 13, 44-55.
DUNCAN, S. D., Jr., ROSENBERG, M. J., & FINKEL- SCHEGLOI-F, E. A. Sequencing in conversational open-
STEIN, J. The paralanguage of experimenter bias. ings. American Anthropologist, 1968, 70, 1075-
Sociometry, 1969, 32, 207-219 1095.
DUNCAN, S. D., Jr., & ROSENTHAL, R. Vocal em- SULLIVAN, H. S. Conceptions of modern psychiatry.
phasis in experimenters' instruction reading as New York: Norton, 1947.
unintended determinant of subjects' responses. TRACER, G. L. Paralanguage: A first approximation.
Language and Speech, 1968, 11, 20-26. Studies in Linguistics, 1958, 13, 1-12.
EKMAN, P., & FRIESEN, W. V. The repertoire of non- TRACER, G. L., & SMITH, H. L., JR. An outline of
verbal behavior: Categories, origins, usage, and of English structure. Washington, D.C.: American
coding. Semiotica, 1969, 1, 49-98. Council of Learned Societies, 1957.
GOFFMAN, E. On face work: An analysis of ritual YNGVE, V. H. On getting a word in edgewise. Papers
elements in social interaction. Psychiatry, 1955, from the sixth regional meeting of the Chicago
18,213-231. Linguistic Society. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic
GOFFMAN, E. Behavior in public places: Notes on the Society, 1970.
social organization of gatherings. New York: Free
Press of Glencoe, 1963. (Received for early publication October 5, 1971)