Turn Taking in Conversation

This research is analyzing the turn taking strategies by adult. Conversation Analysis will be used to conduct this research. We will look how the adult manage they turn taking when they get conversation each other. This phenomenon is quite interesting to be analyzed since the adults have the ability to have standard conversation. That is why will analyze how they take part in conversation and what happened in the process of it.

Patterns of interruption across different group gender composition conditions in academic settings have been  subject  to  extensive  research  in  the western  context  over  the  last  three  decades  or  so.  To  the  contrary,  little  attention  has  been  paid  to  the  Arab  context,  in  general,  and  the  Tunisian  one,  in  particular.  This  study,  therefore,  embarks  on  an  investigation  of  the  frequency,  type (supportive,  negative,  or  neutral),  and  differential  success  of  interruption attempts  in  three  groups  (male-only, female-only, and evenly-mixed groups) of Tunisian undergraduates ranging in age from 19 to 23. The groups were made up of four participants each. They were assigned a problem-solving task, with the aim to discuss it (using English) and try to reach a mutually satisfactory solution within twenty minutes.  The findings reveal that the gender composition of the groups yields much influence on the frequency and type of interruptions used. The female undergraduates made more interruptions (which were mostly of negative character) in the same-gender group than their male counterparts. Their interruptions were  even more  frequent  in  the  presence  of  the  opposite  gender  (i.e. males). Although fewer in number, males’ negative interruptions had more chance to succeed in taking the floor (from both genders) than those issued by females. To the contrary, when faced with a supportive interruption from the opposite gender, male and female undergraduates yielded the floor almost equally. Taken together, the results show that both genders were more likely to interrupt and dominate the discussion when coming together than when arranged in same-gender groups—although females’ overall interruptions were significantly more frequent in both types of groups.

Participants in an intercultural situation of communication, trying to understand the intentions of their co-Iocutors from their own cultural perspective, can frequently commit misinterpretations that lead to misunderstandings of intention and meaning. Intercultural communication studies, for the majority, focus on unveiling and discovering differences that they believe to be at the core of such misunderstandings. Such studies have probed the varying cultural values, to mention a few, on the levels of individualism versus collectivism, of low-context versus high-context, of varying concepts of time or of silence (e.g. Hofstede 1980, Hofstede 1991, Hall 1959, Hall & Hall 1990).

The present study suggests that the perspective of one's primary socialisation culture should be studied on a more specific level if one is aiming to discover possible cultural differences. The level that is proposed to be studied is the production and interpretations of patterns of talk-in-interaction such as pauses, overlaps, speaker changes, simultaneous talk, prosody and intonation patterns, and so on. It is the stance of the present inquiry that these above-mentioned turntaking patterns play a key role in the processes through which the participants interpret each other's meanings and intentions, although the processes themselves remain mostly entirely subconscious. The present study was inspired by a case study that was conducted comparing the turn-taking behaviour between Americans and French conversing in French (Wieland 1991).

Wieland conducted recordings of ordinary dinner table conversations, and later interviewed the participants in order to elicit insights into their interpretations of the interaction. However, little work has been done to further compare the culturally varying interaction patterns and the participants' reactions to them. The majority ofstudies into intercultural communication remain on more abstract levels of cultural values rather than addressing the actual arena of talk-in-interaction, although some have broken this unploughed ground, e.g. Moerman (1988) in his combination of conversation analysis and ethnography.

The stance of the present study is that it is this very level of talk-in-interaction that holds the key to understanding what exactly happens in possible misunderstandings in situations of intercultural communication. Studies on talk-in-interaction focus on conversational turn-taking (Psathas 1995, Ten Have & Psathas 1995, Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson 1974, Schegloff 2000). They therefore bring to light behavioural patterns - and their respective interpretations - that most of the time remain subconscious in the minds of the interactants, as those patterns are learned and internalised early on in the primary socialisation process (Berger & Luckmann 1966). Sample analyses on the conversational overlaps of French speakers carried out previously by the researcher (Kohonen 2000) served as a basis for the hypothesis development.

These earlier analyses made evident the importance of gaining access to participants' perceptions on the interaction, as well as the access into parameters that allow a comparative approach. The present research is an exploratory, qualitative case study that allowed comparisons to be made between the overlap patterns of the native French and the native British English participants conversing in native and mixed groups, furthermore gaining access to participants' perceptions of the interaction. The present study is not intended to be taken as a strictly conversation analytical research, as the Literature Review will show.

The aim of the present study is on the contrary to explore the possible theoretical and methodological triangulations available in the field of social sciences, and to discover how the triangulation of theories and methods could enhance the study of talk-in-interaction, in both native and intercultural settings.

Participants in an intercultural situation of communication, trying to understand the intentions of their co-Iocutors from their own cultural perspective, can frequently commit misinterpretations that lead to misunderstandings of intention and meaning. Intercultural communication studies, for the majority, focus on unveiling and discovering differences that they believe to be at the core of such misunderstandings. Such studies have probed the varying cultural values, to mention a few, on the levels of individualism versus collectivism, of low-context versus high-context, of varying concepts of time or of silence (e.g. Hofstede 1980, Hofstede 1991, Hall 1959, Hall & Hall 1990). The present study suggests that the perspective of one's primary socialisation culture should be studied on a more specific level if one is aiming to discover possible cultural differences. The level that is proposed to be studied is the production and interpretations of patterns of talk-in-interaction such as pauses, overlaps, speaker changes, simultaneous talk, prosody and intonation patterns, and so on. It is the stance of the present inquiry that these above-mentioned turntaking patterns play a key role in the processes through which the participants interpret each other's meanings and intentions, although the processes themselves remain mostly entirely subconscious. The present study was inspired by a case study that was conducted comparing the turn-taking behaviour between Americans and French conversing in French (Wieland 1991). Wieland conducted recordings of ordinary dinner table conversations, and later interviewed the participants in order to elicit insights into their interpretations of the interaction. However, little work has been done to further compare the culturally varying interaction patterns and the participants' reactions to them. The majority ofstudies into intercultural communication remain on more abstract levels of cultural values rather than addressing the actual arena of talk-in-interaction, although some have broken this unploughed ground, e.g. Moerman (1988) in his combination of conversation analysis and ethnography. The stance of the present study is that it is this very level of talk-in-interaction that holds the key to understanding what exactly happens in possible misunderstandings in situations of intercultural communication. Studies on talk-in-interaction focus on conversational turn-taking (Psathas 1995, Ten Have & Psathas 1995, Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson 1974, Schegloff 2000). They therefore bring to light behavioural patterns - and their respective interpretations - that most of the time remain subconscious in the minds of the interactants, as those patterns are learned and internalised early on in the primary socialisation process (Berger & Luckmann 1966). Sample analyses on the conversational overlaps of French speakers carried out previously by the researcher (Kohonen 2000) served as a basis for the hypothesis development. These earlier analyses made evident the importance of gaining access to participants' perceptions on the interaction, as well as the access into parameters that allow a comparative approach. The present research is an exploratory, qualitative case study that allowed comparisons to be made between the overlap patterns of the native French and the native British English participants conversing in native and mixed groups, furthermore gaining access to participants' perceptions of the interaction. The present study is not intended to be taken as a strictly conversation analytical research, as the Literature Review will show. The aim of the present study is on the contrary to explore the possible theoretical and methodological triangulations available in the field of social sciences, and to discover how the triangulation of theories and methods could enhance the study of talk-in-interaction, in both native and intercultural settings.

Our prior research posits that the prelinguistic vocalizations of infants may elicit caregiver speech which is simplified in its linguistic structure. Caregivers' speech clearly contributes to infants' development; infants' communicative and cognitive development are predicted by their ambient language environment. There are at least two sources of variation in infants' language environment: the number and the diversity of words infants hear. We compare the change in total number of words (tokens) to the diversity of words against one another. Distributions of words of differing sizes are difficult to compare to one another because the size of the distribution largely determines the word diversity of the distribution. A novel approach to minimizing the challenges of comparing distributions of words is applied to data which were previously reported. We also conducted a new simulation study to estimate the probability that these results are expected by chance. We found that the linguistic structure of caregivers' responses to infants' prelinguistic vocalizations has fewer word types as compared to infant-directed but non-contingent speech. Our new method shows that contingent word distributions remain simplified as the number of total words sampled increases. By vocalizing, infants elicit caregiver speech which is simpler in structure and may be easier to learn.

Participants in an intercultural situation of communication, trying to understand the intentions of their co-Iocutors from their own cultural perspective, can frequently commit misinterpretations that lead to misunderstandings of intention and meaning. Intercultural communication studies, for the majority, focus on unveiling and discovering differences that they believe to be at the core of such misunderstandings. Such studies have probed the varying cultural values, to mention a few, on the levels of individualism versus collectivism, of low-context versus high-context, of varying concepts of time or of silence (e.g. Hofstede 1980, Hofstede 1991, Hall 1959, Hall & Hall 1990). The present study suggests that the perspective of one's primary socialisation culture should be studied on a more specific level if one is aiming to discover possible cultural differences. The level that is proposed to be studied is the production and interpretations of patterns of talk-in-interaction such as pauses, overlaps, speaker changes, simultaneous talk, prosody and intonation patterns, and so on. It is the stance of the present inquiry that these above-mentioned turntaking patterns play a key role in the processes through which the participants interpret each other's meanings and intentions, although the processes themselves remain mostly entirely subconscious. The present study was inspired by a case study that was conducted comparing the turn-taking behaviour between Americans and French conversing in French (Wieland 1991). Wieland conducted recordings of ordinary dinner table conversations, and later interviewed the participants in order to elicit insights into their interpretations of the interaction. However, little work has been done to further compare the culturally varying interaction patterns and the participants' reactions to them. The majority ofstudies into intercultural communication remain on more abstract levels of cultural values rather than addressing the actual arena of talk-in-interaction, although some have broken this unploughed ground, e.g. Moerman (1988) in his combination of conversation analysis and ethnography. The stance of the present study is that it is this very level of talk-in-interaction that holds the key to understanding what exactly happens in possible misunderstandings in situations of intercultural communication. Studies on talk-in-interaction focus on conversational turn-taking (Psathas 1995, Ten Have & Psathas 1995, Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson 1974, Schegloff 2000). They therefore bring to light behavioural patterns - and their respective interpretations - that most of the time remain subconscious in the minds of the interactants, as those patterns are learned and internalised early on in the primary socialisation process (Berger & Luckmann 1966). Sample analyses on the conversational overlaps of French speakers carried out previously by the researcher (Kohonen 2000) served as a basis for the hypothesis development. These earlier analyses made evident the importance of gaining access to participants' perceptions on the interaction, as well as the access into parameters that allow a comparative approach. The present research is an exploratory, qualitative case study that allowed comparisons to be made between the overlap patterns of the native French and the native British English participants conversing in native and mixed groups, furthermore gaining access to participants' perceptions of the interaction. The present study is not intended to be taken as a strictly conversation analytical research, as the Literature Review will show. The aim of the present study is on the contrary to explore the possible theoretical and methodological triangulations available in the field of social sciences, and to discover how the triangulation of theories and methods could enhance the study of talk-in-interaction, in both native and intercultural settings.

In TLT Volume 42 (3), Davey Young presents contrasting models of turn-taking in Japanese and English and argues that this cross-cultural difference is primarily due to linguistic differences across English and Japanese. While rightly noting that proficiency in turn-taking is crucial for overall interactional competence and should be a focus of pedagogical intervention, Young’s rationale for the difference in his models neglects the important factor of pragmatics, particularly the notion of politeness. In this response to Young’s original article, Japanese-English differences in turn-taking behaviours are considered from a pragmatic viewpoint and analysed as part of a larger discursive leadership (Fairhurst, 2007) framework. The implications for teaching turn-taking are also discussed.

I attempt here to account for the/an origin of sociality (proto-turn taking) in human infants through analysis of biological reactions in interaction with caregivers without invoking innate cognitive `phenomena` language of thought (Fodor), interaction engine (Levinson/Grice), innate grammar (Chomsky), and so on).
    Instead I posit: a (proto)sociality as proto-turn-taking engendered by infants` biological reactions’ (crying, grabbing, reaching,etc)
along with caregivers’ normative responses to the infants' biological reactions as comprising the nexus of the social and the biological.

The linguistic mechanisms organizing turn-taking in conversation are still not fully understood. Especially disputed is the relevance of various linguistic features to signal the disposition to yield the floor. The present study adds to this discussion by examining the role of prosody for turn-taking in two different languages, German and Swedish. F0 movement is measured at
three points—offset (P1), 200ms (P2) and 500ms (P3)—before the turn end, and normalized. Sentence type (declarative, question), type of speaker change (change, keep, backchannel) and transition (gap, no-gap-no-overlap, overlap) were also annotated, among other features. Preliminary results show that German uses a much wider span of F0 values compared to Swedish. Since F0 has a lexical-phonological function (i.e. pitch accent) in Swedish, the potential prosodic structure is restricted. On the other hand, the flexibility of German manifests itself in extreme F0 movements and an accommodation of F0 between interlocutors. Although there is evidence for accommodation of F0 in German, this is not as strongly demonstrated in the Swedish data. As our F0 normalization should exclude a physiological explanation, we argue for an explanation based on entrainment.

Much of human learning emerges as a result of interaction with others. Yet, this interpersonal process has been poorly characterized from a neurophysiological perspective. This study investigated (i) whether Interpersonal Brain Synchronization (IBS) can reliably mark social interactive learning, and specifically (ii) during what kind of interactive behavior. We recorded brain activity from learner-instructor dyads using functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) during the acquisition of a music song. We made four fundamental observations. First, during the interactive learning task, brain activity recorded from the bilateral Inferior Frontal Cortex (IFC) synchronized across the learner and the instructor. Second, such IBS was observed in particular when the learner was observing the instructor's vocal behavior and when the learning experience entailed a turn-taking and more active mode of interaction. Third, this specific enhancement of IBS predicted learner's behavioral performance. Fourth, Granger causality analyses further disclosed that the signal recorded from the instructor's brain better predicted that recorded from the learner's brain than vice versa. Together, these results indicate that social interactive learning can be neurophysiologically characterized in terms of IBS. Furthermore, they suggest that the learner's involvement in the learning experience, alongside the instructor's modeling, are key factors driving the alignment of neural processes across learner and instructor. Such alignment impacts upon the real-time acquisition of new information and eventually upon the learning (behavioral) performance. Hence, besides providing a biological characterization of social interactive learning, our results hold relevance for clinical and pedagogical practices.