Turn-taking, adjacency pairs, dispreferred responses, repairs

Question 1

Sacks, et al. (1974: 700-1) Apparent facts of turn taking.

Answer 1

1. Speaker change occurs
2. Instances of overlap are common but brief
3. Transitions from one turn to a next with no pause and overlap are common and, together with transitions with a slight pause or overlap, they constitute the majority of transitions
4. Turn order or size is not fixed
5. What speakers say cannot be specified in advance

Question 2

Transition-relevance place (TRP)

Answer 2

Where speaker change occurs

Question 3

Turn Constructional Unit (TCU)

Answer 3

Units from which speakers may construct turns

TRP is possible at the completion of a TCU

Question 4

General Features of Turn Taking

Answer 4

Interactional norms are culture-specific

Overlaps

At TRPs, minimal responses (“mmm”, “yeah”, “right”, “uh huh”) signal that hearer is passing a chance for a turn
Elsewhere, minimal responses signal that hearer is receiving the talk: back-channelling

Question 5

opening features

Answer 5

Where transition-relevance is created
Attention-getters (non-verbal or paralinguistic)
Conversational greeting exchanges (usually conventional and part of adjacency pair, e.g. “good morning”)
Topic control through opening

Question 6

Closing Features

Answer 6

How to avoid transition relevance (≠ silence)
Possible pre-closings/discourse markers (“so”, “yeah”, “well then”)
Vowel-lengthening and falling intonation
Conventional “terminal exchanges” (Schegloff & Sacks 1973/2006) as adjacency pairs (e.g. “see you”, “see you”)

Question 7

Adjacency Pairs

Answer 7

Two utterances produced by two speakers, one utterance following the other directly, conventional sequence

Question 8

Pre Sequence

Answer 8

First part of an adjacency pair determining second part of pair, which needs to be relevant.

Question 9

Preferred Responses

Answer 9

E.g Agreement

Question 10

Dispreferred responses

Answer 10

Mitigated, avoided, delayed

Power dynamics – who is able to (more directly) give dispreferred responses?

Question 11

Topic

Answer 11

A macro-level discourse structure

Question 12

Types of topic management

Answer 12

Announcing one’s own topic

Announcing another’s topic

Eliciting ones topic

Eliciting another’s topic

Question 13

Types of Repair

Answer 13

Self introduced and self-completed repair

Self introduced and other completed repair

Other introduced and self completed repair

Other introduced and other completed repair