The document discusses the dynamics of conversation, focusing on turn-taking, pauses, overlaps, and backchannels within interaction. It outlines concepts such as transition relevance places (TRP) and the signaling mechanisms that indicate when speakers are listening or attempting to take their turn. Additionally, it highlights various conversational styles and the significance of adjacency pairs and insertion sequences in structuring dialogue.

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CONVERSATION,
PREFERENCE STRUCTURE
DISCOURSE AND
CULTURE.
LINGUISTICS.
TEACHER: VALERIA GRAZIANO.
GROUP MEMBERS:
Nadya Tolaba.
Agustina Giacinty.
Adela Pérez del Viso.

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Interaction and Conversation
Interaction and Conversation.
Metaphors: a dance; traffic
crossing an interaction.
Best Metaphor: MARKET
ECONOMY.
A SCARCE COMMODITY: the
FLOOR. The right to speak.

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Turn, Turn-taking, TRP
Turn: to have control of the right
to speak. To hold the floor.
When control is not fixed in
advance: anyone can try to get
control: TURN-TAKING.
Turn-taking depends on every local
management system (convention)
TRP: Transition Relevance Place:
possible-change-of-turn point.

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How Conversation is viewed
Speakers are viewed as taking
turns at holding the floor.
They accomplish change of turn
smoothly: aware of the local
management system for taking turns.
Speakers may cooperate and share
the floor equally.
Speakers could be in competition,
fighting to keep the floor.
Patterns: according to social groups.

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VIDEO.
Jurgen Handke 2012.
“The Virtual Linguistic Campus”
www.linguisticsonline.com
Turn Taking in Conversation.

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VIDEO. JURGEN HANDKE.

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PAUSES and OVERLAPS
• Pauses: silence between turns.
• Pauses can be: simple hesitations or
Silences.
• Overlaps: both speakers trying to
speak at the same time.
• With pauses and Overlaps: NO
FLOW, no SMOOTH RHYTHM to
their transitions, SENSE of
DISTANCE, ABSENCE OF
FAMILIARITY or ease.

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PAUSES, OVERLAPS,
BACKCHANNELS
• Pauses: silence between turns.
• Pauses can be: simple hesitations or
Silences.
• Overlaps: both speakers trying to
speak at the same time.
• With pauses and Overlaps: NO FLOW,
no SMOOTH RHYTHM to their
transitions, SENSE of DISTANCE,
ABSENCE OF FAMILIARITY or ease.

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Silences
• One “silence” could be NOT
attributable to one speaker (Ex. P.73).
• If the silence is attributed to the
second speaker and becomes
significant: ATTRIBUTABLE SILENCE.
In that case Speaker A turns over the
floor to Speaker B and S.B. does not
talk. That silence is communicating
something.

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OVERLAP
• The normal expectation: one speaker
at a time.
• Overlap: a problem for the local
management system.
• Typically: when both speakers attempt
to initiate talk.
• May be due to: a) unfamiliar
conversation b) expression of
solidarity or closeness.
• It solves: 1 speaker draws attention to
be allowed to finish.

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TRP
• Transition Relevance Place.
• Normally Speaker B will wait for a
possible TRP before jumping in.
• Dominant people will avoid providing
TRPs.
• Avoid TRPs: avoid an open pause at
the end of a syntactic unit. The
speaker PROTECTS HIS TURN.
• Extended turn: S A. indicates at first
there is a larger structure to your turn.
(Ex. P.75). Discussions/ Storytelling.

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BACKCHANNELS
• Ways of indicating we are listening.
• Head nods, smiles, other facial
expressions, gestures.
• Backchannels: one way of signalling
we are listening. (uh,uh; mm)
• They indicate the listener is following
and not objecting to what the speaker
says.
• Normal expectation: backchannel. No
backchannel is significant.

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• Even within a community of speakers:
sufficient variation to cause potential
misunderstanding.
• The expectation to lead a conversation
very active and at a speed rate (or
not): CONVERSATIONAL STYLE.
• High involvement style.
• High considerateness style. (non
interrupting, not impossing style)
CONVERSATIONAL
STYLE.

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• AUTOMATIC PATTERNS in the
structure of conversations.
• They consist of a FIRST PART and a
SECOND PART. (by different
speakers)
• S. A creates the expectation of the
2nd utterance in S.B.(of the same pair)
• Greetings and Goodbyes/
Question/answer sequences/ Ex: P.77
ADJACENCY PAIRS

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• Insertion sequence: one adjacency
pair within another. (Ex p.78).
• The delay in answering or accepting:
the S.B is not uttering the expected
response: represents distance
between what is expected. Delay is
MEANINGFUL.
ADJACENCY PAIRS

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• Yule, G, Pragmatics, Oxford U.P. Hong
Kong, 1996. Units 8 to 10.
• www.linguisticsonline.com The
Virtual Linguistics Classroom.
SOURCES.