Turn-taking

Turn-taking refers to a system operated by speakership changes over the course of interaction. In particular, it is closely interwoven with how the transition of turns between speakers display the ways in which a current speaker understood the previous utterance and action. In this process, speakers unwittingly wait for other persons to stop talking before initiating next turns (Ford, 2013). In other words, there is an established norm in ordinary conversation that one and only person speaking at a time, whilst pauses and overlaps are minimalised (Ten Have, 2007; Ford, 2013). Most interestingly, minimal pauses and overlaps recurred by the transition of speakership do not happen by chance. Instead, they are systematic and interactionally meaningful due to a mechanism behind them, which is called as turn constructional unit (TCU) and transition relevance place (TRP).

Sacks et al. (1974) propose that a turn is composed of recognisable interaction units, TCU. Moreover, ‘grammar is one key organisational resources in building and recognising TCU’, as it is usually one of amongst lexical items, phrases, clauses and sentences (Schegloff, 2007a: 3). In this vein, TCU themselves are not ‘structurally defined units’, typically associated with grammatical

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2011: 84). Rather, it is changeable and flexible moment-by-moment as

constituting as TCU can only be achieved through context in situ. That is, TCU is a highly context sensitive element in the turn-taking system. Along with the grammatical resources mentioned above, ‘the phonetic realisation of the talk such as intonational packaging’ as well as ‘recognisable action in context’ are

important organisational resources in TCU (Schegloff, 2007a: 4; Ford & Thompson, 1996). In a nutshell, TCU can be defined as ‘a single social action performed in a turn or sequence’ (Seedhouse, 2004: 30).

Schegloff (1996) claims that TCUs are able to ‘constitute possibly complete turns; on their possible completion, transition to a next speaker becomes relevant

(although not necessarily accomplished)’ (ibid: 55). Put more simply, once

speakers begin to talk in a turn, they have the right and obligation to make at least one TCU encompassing one or more actions. Simultaneously, the speakers are able to predict a turn’s trajectory and possible juncture of completion over the development of the turn, rather than waiting for an actual ending point (Ford, 2013). This potential juncture is inextricably linked with the notion of TRP. In other words, the point at which a speaker possibly completes a turn, is the possible moment of the speaker change, which means TRP. TRPs are the locus in talk-in- interaction in which the speakership change can be legitimate and accountable, rather than being treated as inappropriate or interruptive (Liddicoat, 2011). Much like TCUs, TRPs are not solely determined by grammatical or phonetic sources in a turn. Instead, action trajectories are the salient building blocks of the turn projection (Ford, 2013).

Grounded on the two basic concepts discussed above, turn allocation can be explicated. Turn allocation is operated by a set of rules describing when speaker- change occurs and how next speakers are selected. There are two ways in which a turn is allocated: 1) a current speaker select a next speaker; 2) a next speaker self- select; 3) a current speaker did not select a next speaker, and no one self-selects as in the second turn, then the current speaker may (or may not) occupy a next turn (Liddicoat, 2011; Seedhouse, 2004). The first case is activated by recognisable courses of action, specifically, a particular person is selected by reference to specific knowledge/question(s) of a topic in a TRP (Ford, 2013). The second case

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occurs when the same speaker becomes the next speaker, as there was nothing in the previous turn has selected the interlocutor to be the next speaker (Liddicoat, 2011). The third case occurs when no speaker begins to talk, then the current speaker may continue whilst producing an extended turn composed of multi-unit turn.

Sacks et al. (1974) observe key features of turn-taking in conversation and they are summarised as follows:

1) Speaker-change recurs or at least occurs; 2) Overwhelmingly, one party talks at a time;

3) Occurrence of more than one speaker at a time are common, but brief; 4) Transition (from one turn to next) with no gap and no overlap are common. Together with transitions characterised by slight gap or slight overlap, they make up the vast majority of transitions;

5) Turn order and size are not rigid and fixed, rather they vary; 6) Length of conversation as well as a talk uttered by a speaker is not specified in advance;

7) Relative distribution of turns are not specified in advance; 8) Talk can be both continuous and discontinuous;

9) Turn-allocation techniques stated above (a current speaker may select a next speaker; a next speaker self-select) are obviously employed; 10) Various “turn-constructional units” are employed, namely turns can be a single word or a sentence in length;

11) Repair mechanism plays a role for coping with turn-taking errors and violation; the repair mechanism will be covered in the section 3.3.4.3. (Sacks et al., 1974: p.700-701)

The characteristics of the turn-taking system observed by Sacks et al. (1974) are also relevant to my interview data. Traditionally, interview data is regarded as institutional talk, as it is envisaged to have a relatively fixed nature of sequence (e.g. structured interview is a good example of this, as it is administered by pre- formulated questions. In addition, interviewees are expected to provide an answer only what they are asked by the interviewer). Nevertheless, opened-ended

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questions and answers. Namely, due to the quasi-conversational nature embedded in my interviews, my data will also show the aforementioned features of the turn- taking system.

In terms of the turn allocation, the case of a current speaker selects a next speaker occurs more than the case of self-selection due to the default setting of interview sequence, Q-A adjacency pair (adjacency pair will be thoroughly illustrated in the next section, 3.2.4.2). However, this does not mean that the interviewer always selects the interviewee as a next speaker, as vice versa also happens in my data. A modification of the usual turn-taking system also made relevant to my analysis. Firstly, although the majority of turns in my data are latched onto, or minimally overlaps with next turns at a TRP, there are several cases either the interviewer or the interviewees explicitly overlaps with ongoing utterances. The interactional context of explicit overlapping talk not at a TRP, will be explained in the analysis chapter 5 and 6. Secondly, if a story-telling sequence is embarked on, ‘the

suspension of turn by turn talk’ becomes salient (Mandelbaum, 1989: 116). This is due to the fact that stories entail extended, multi-unit turns (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2006). As such, a single TCU or a turn are not able to complete the forthcoming story, and most importantly, constant speaker change would be a problem to create an interactional space where multi-unit turns can be delivered (Liddicoart, 2011). The minimisation of utterance exchanges through the modification of the ordinary turn-taking system will be discussed in my analysis chapter 7, which specifically examines story-telling sequences.

In this section, I have explored key concepts of the turn-taking system all relevant to the following analysis chapters. Next, sequence organisation, which denotes a systematic way of assembling turns, will be delineated.