Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics
Turn-taking is a basic characteristic in interactions, but its realizations are culturally bound, change with age (e.g. Philips 1976; Garvey and Berninger 1981) and vary from discourse type to discourse type. Turn-taking is discussed in various models (for an overview see Wiemann and Knapp 1975; Wilson et al 1984): (a) a turn-taking system as a stochastic model, a simulation of statistically frequent patterns; physical properties of acoustic signals are analyzed in sequence and during simultaneous speaking and patterns of silence. Turn transition is treated as a probabilistic process (e.g. Jaffe and Feldstein 1979); (b) turn-taking based on a set of discrete, conventional verbal and non-verbal signals to be defined independently (e.g. Duncan and Fiske 1977); (c) turn-taking as an interactive mechanism that guarantees a no-gap procedure since it is managed locally by the participants, i.e. who is talking to whom about what for how long is determined by the speaker and the listener at each place where transfer is possible (‘transition relevance place’) potentially, after a syntagm. In such a place, either the speaker designated by the prior speaker (via verbal or non-verbal means, e.g. adjacency pair) or the speaker who is first to start takes a turn, or the current speaker continues. Thus, this system of turn-taking is considered to provide an intrinsic motivation for the participants to listen (sequential organization, turn).
References
Duncan, S. and D.W.Fiske. 1977. Face-to-face interaction: research, methods and theory. Hillsdale, NJ.
Garvey, C. and G.Berninger. 1981. Timing and turn-taking in children’s conversations. DPr 4.27–57.
Goodwin, C.
1981. Conversational organization: interaction between speakers and hearers. New York.
Jaffe, J. and S.Feldstein. 1970. Rhythms of dialogue. New York.
Philips, S.U. 1976. Some sources of cultural variability in the regulation of talk. LSoc 5.81–95.
Sacks, H., E.Schegloff, and G.Jefferson. 1974. A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Lg 50.696–735.
Wiemann, J.M. and M.L.Knapp. 1975. Turn-taking in conversations. JC 25.75–92.
Wilson, T., J.M.Wiemann, and D.H.Zimmerman. 1984. Models of turn-taking. JLSP 3.159–83.
conversation analysis
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