3 com & participation

Question 1

Problem: Dealing with interruptions

Answer 1

• Conversation is organised in TURNS

Some things we do simultaneously, (audience booing, laughing, clapping…)
Some things we take turns (chess, board games, conversation)

Question 2

Formal settings: pre-allocation of opportunities to talk (Sacks et al., 1974)

Answer 2

• There may be a host, a lecturer, a judge who allocates turn
  Is this the same in everyday convo though? No…

Question 3

Everyday conversation: problem

Answer 3

• Conversation (includes sign languages): origins of language-based communication
  • No pre-allocation: people work out who goes next ‘on the go’
  • In two-party conversations, speakers take turns: they speak one after the other
  • A coordination problem: how do they know when to take a turn?

Question 4

What is the average gap in between turns?

Answer 4

People aim to avoid gaps longer than 0.2

	○ 0.2 is commonly perceived as a smooth transition with no gap
	
	○ People also aim to avoid overlaps (i.e., they avoid starting too early)
	○ People therefore follow a rule of ‘one at a time’ with
	○ a minimisation of gaps and a minimisation of overlaps

Question 5

2 theories on how people know when it is their turn?

Answer 5

Signal theory

Projection theory

Question 6

Signal theory (Duncan 1972)

Answer 6

• Current speaker talks and then signals that they have finished
  
  • e.g. intonation, gestures, gaze, behaviour…
    Next speaker starts to talk

Question 7

Signal theory criticism

Answer 7

This theory has been proved wrong

	○ B would not have enough time to plan response if they didn't start to plan when A is still talking (Levinson 2018)

0.2 is not enough time for B to have planned a response in return to A’s signal.

Question 8

Projection theory (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974)

Answer 8

• Listeners are able to anticipate the point when the current speaker might end their turn
  • Speakers’ talk projects the point where the current turn might end

Intonation, context

(Aim to speak at the first point of possible completion because they’re anticipating
So doesn’t mean speaker could go on and on for ages without giving an indication that it’s the listeners turn)

Question 9

Solution to the coordination problem: (Heritage 1984)

Answer 9

• In conversation people aim to start a next turn on time, after the previous speaker has reached a point of possible completion
  Potential for an equal distribution of opportunities to talk

Question 10

Multi-party conversations (Sacks et al 1974; Stivers 2009) 3 rules

Answer 10

○ Current speaker selects next

	○ If current speaker does not select someone, someone can self-select

If no-one self-selects, current speaker can continue

Who speaks next is never established in advance; it is negotiated every time = equal opportunity

Question 11

(Auer, 2021) Research on Gaze

Answer 11

• Research on German triadic conversations (Auer, 2021)
  
  • It demonstrates that participants systematically use gaze to allocate next turns
  • This updates the original model of turn taking by showing that participant self-selection is relatively rare

Also, research demonstrates that gaze behaviour and manual gestures are involved in regulating turn transitions (Kendrick et al. 2023)

Question 12

Kendrick et al. (2023). Research on gaze

Answer 12

Gaze aversions associate with turn continuation / inhibits turn transition.

50% transitions with gaze on speaker -> gaze alone does not seem to be a sufficient cue for turn transition

(‘One explanation for this is that addressee-directed gaze is a less reliable cue, since it also has other functions, such as monitoring the addressee’s state of understanding, attention and so forth’)

Question 13

recent research on signed conversation (Iwasaki et al., 2022)

Answer 13

• Research on Australian Sign Language (Auslan) conversation (Iwasaki et al., 2022)
  
  • Tactile Auslan involves adaptations of visual sign languages for perception through touch and sensation by deaf-blind participants
  • They manage participation through posture, hand position, manual signing, and tactile sensation (‘haptics’)
    ○ Language structure is communicated through manual signs
    ○ Intonation through freezing and repeating signs, speed of motions, and intensity of touch

Question 14

Research on bias:

Answer 14

• Study of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing (27/9/2023) investigating the nomination of Brett M. Kavanaugh to serve as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court – for allegations of sexual assault by Christine Blasey Ford (Raymond et al., 2019)
  
  • The debates use a pre-allocation of turn space, with MPs being given five minutes to ask Ford and Kavanaugh questions
    ○ The Chairperson (a Republican - supporting Kavanaugh) exploited his prerogative to speak at junctures between questioning phases to voice partisan views
    This system is biased - chairperson has control over who talks

Question 15

Research done at Loughborough University (Pino & Land, 2022)

Answer 15

• Puzzling finding: sometimes, companions speak of patients’ behalf (e.g., they answer questions addressed to them)
  
  • Our findings show that they had interactional reasons to intervene
  • For example, the patient or professional selected them through gaze
    (Pino & Land, 2022)

Question 16

Heckling in parliamentary interactions: Study of Jordanian parliamentary debates (Alqatawna, 2022)

Answer 16

• Parliamentary debates involve practices of turn pre-allocation (there will be a chair to allocate timings)
  
  • This creates a participation framework where only one participant at a time is a ratified speaker (Goffman, 1981)
  • Hecklers violate the rules of this participation framework
  • They use specific strategies to interject the proceedings and introduce particular agendas

Question 17

Overlapping talk

Answer 17

• They seem to violate the ‘one at a time’ rule (specifically, the minimisation of overlaps)
  • Many think of them as interruptions

Most overlaps are not interruptions or other forms of problematic action

Question 18

on-time onset (overlapped)

Answer 18

sometimes speaker A talks past a point of possible completion

when B aims for this transition space, which is the first possible point of completion

natural & unintentional

Question 19

Early onset (overlapped)

Answer 19

when B begins before A is finished, when A begins to project being done

Question 20

Late onset (overlapped)

Answer 20

B may start a delayed response if thinking, so A may continue a bit but then B gives an answer

Question 21

Silences (Hoey 2020)

Answer 21

the meaning of a silence depends on its context

intra-turn (inside a sentence)

non-response (2nd speaker silence)

Question 22

Gaps

Answer 22

• Silences following the possible completion of a turn to violate the ‘no gap’ rule

They are meaningful: speakers produce them (and recipients understand them) as COMMUNICATIVE ACTIONS

Question 23

Summary

Answer 23

• One a time rule for conversation – speakers aim to start speaking on time, at the point of no gap and no overlap
  
  • Signal theory and projection theory
  • How projection works
  • Overlaps and silences
    Dealing with ’interruptions’

Question 24

what is communicative marking?

Answer 24

guiding a recipient to interpret a gesture in a novel way

e.g. pointing to a chair and figure out the meaning by context, like if someone looking lost has just walked in, this may be to help them out

Inviting the recipient to interpret the meaning in a new way, that would not be interpreted like that usually, depending on the context

Question 25

Competitive overlap (Jefferson)

Answer 25

A competitive overlap can be called ‘interjacent’ (Jefferson, 1986)

people can complain about it, display annoyance or ignore the incoming turn (Bilmes 1997)

female politicians are more often sanctioned for linguistic behaviours than male politicians (Baffy 2000)

Question 26

Reading: How long does it take for someone to think of what they’re going to say and articulate it? (Levelt)

Answer 26

0.6 seconds

(therefore signal theory would not leave enough time for this)

Question 27

Reading: Prosody

Answer 27

frequency/pitch, duration, amplitude/loudness

Duncan suggests drop in pitch or loudness is a projection of ending a turn (any pitch contour other than sustained mid level - which is a characteristic of continued speech)

* Study when muffling the content of what people were saying, but kept in the prosodic features like loudness, pitch and lengthening - listeners performed slower at predicting when the ends of turns were
* This result shows that the pitch of a turn was not a necessary or sufficient signal by itself. But it seems likely that no single signal is, all by itself, reliable for turn ending

Question 28

reading: Sacks et al. study on grammar and turn ceding

Answer 28

one of the most important cues suggested for use in predicting when somebody’s turn was going to end was the grammatical structure of the turn

* In the short questions, the word “student” was almost always pronounced at a pitch above 360 hertz, while in the long questions, the same word was almost always pronounced at a pitch below that point. Second was a difference in the length of time it took to pronounce the last syllable of “student.” When the word “student” occurred at the end of the turn, as in the short questions, it was lengthened, while in the long questions it was short.

Question 29

reading: cultural differences in split-second timing

Answer 29

The average Danish response is later than the average English response by less than a quarter of a second. This tells us more about people’s hypersensitivity to small delays

a half-second delay responding in English is enough to make a respondent sound distinctly hesitant