Turn-taking in conversation

Antony J. Liddicot –
Introduction to conversation analysis

Student: Muntean Ioana-Lavinia

Conversation
speakers change in a person speaks at a
central feature     
most cases time

transition from speaker

turn-taking behavior is
to speaker occurs
a socially constructed
fluidly with few gaps
behavior 
and little overlaps 
  The rules of turn-taking are enacted
interactionally by participants in a conversation
 There are not a set of pre-allocated rules for
speaker change
 people say that they know how to respond when
the previosus speaker pauses – somekind of rule
Models of turn-taking  looking at actual conversation, it becomes clear
that
 pausing is not very useful in determining speaker
change
 Silences in talk are also not simply opportunities for a
next speaker to deliver his line

 There are cases in talk where silences occur but where

speaker change would be inappropriate
 the action of turn-taking is not imposed externally
 run internally by the participants
 ways in which speaker change occurs (Sacks et al.)

 two components are involved

 Turn Constructional Component Turn Allocation Component

 This states that turn-taking in conversation is an orderly,

 rule-governed process
The turn constructional component
Turns at talk are made up of stretches of language

they vary a lot in terms of their structure

Sacks et al. turns are made up of units called

Turn Constructional Units (TCU)

the composition of TCUs is highly context dependent

 Turn constructional units
 A variety of grammatical units may function as
TCUs: words, phrases, clauses and sentences.
 TCUs are context-sensitive
 A decision about what constitutes a TCU can only
be made in context.
 Importantly, it must be acknowledged
 people use a range of different structures to
construct their talk.
The Turn Allocation Component
 There are two basic ways in which a next speaker can come
 to have a turn at talk

the current speaker can select the next

speaker or a next speaker may self-select

 These two possibilities, however, are not equally present at the end of every
TCU and at any TRP only one of these may be the appropriate way for
speaker change to occur.
 Current speaker can select the next speaker

the talk must be designed to achieve this

 Next speaker self-selects

when a participant becomes next speaker, but

nothing in the previous talk has selected this person to be next speaker
 Rules linking turn construction and turn allocation rules for relating turn allocation to turn construction
 (1) At any transition relevance place of an initial turn constructional
 unit:
 (a) if the turn so far uses a 'current speaker selects next' technique,
 then the selected person has the right and obligation
 to take the next turn to speak, no other speaker has such
 rights or obligations;
 (b) if the turn so far is not constructed to select a next speaker,
 then self-selection may, but need not occur. The first participant
 to begin speaking acquires the right to a turn;
 (c) if the turn so far is not constructed to select a next speaker,
 the current speaker may, but need not continue if no other
 speaker self-selects.
 (2) If the current speaker continues after the initial TCU, these rules
 apply again at the next transition relevance place, and at each
 subsequent transition relevance place until speaker change occurs.
Repairing turn-taking errors and violations
 If the turn-taking system is to function, there must be some mechanisms by which the
normal functioning of the system can be
 restored.
 In English, there are a number of explicit devices designed
 specifically for repairing problems of turn-taking. These include devi
 ces
 like Who me? for repairing problems relating to 'current speaker
 selects next' or Excuse me for repairing speaker change at points in the
 talk where such change is accountable