516 842 1 PB

Pragmatics 16:2/3.329-360

(2006)

International Pragmatics Association

SPONTANEOUS AND NON-SPONTANEOUS TURN-TAKING
Maite Taboada

Abstract
Turn-taking is usually considered to follow a simple set of rules, enacted through a perhaps more complicated system of signals. The most significant aspect of the turn-taking process is that, in most cases, it proceeds in a very smooth fashion. Speakers signal to each other that they wish to either yield or take the turn through syntactic, pragmatic, and prosodic means. In this paper, I explore how the turn-taking process develops in two different sets of Spanish conversations. In the first group of conversations, speakers take turns spontaneously, presumably as they would do in everyday situations. In the second group, turns were mechanically controlled, and communication was one-way. A comparison of the two types of conversation provides insights into the signals used in spontaneous turn-taking.

Keywords: Conversation, Turn-taking, Task-oriented conversation, Spanish.

1. Taking turns when talking

Goodwin (1981: 24), reporting on a comparison by Jaffe and Feldstein (1970), proposes that everyday conversation is similar to short-wave radio as to how the turn-taking is performed. The speaker provides an end-of-message signal, after which the hearer holds the channel, bringing about a change in the speaker/hearer roles. In one-way short-wave radio communication, this end-of-message signal is verbalized in a pre-established word, in English usually “over”. The difference between the two types of interaction is that, in a normal conversation, speakers avail themselves of other means or mechanisms to provide that end-of-message signal. My purpose in this paper is to explore which exactly are those mechanisms that speakers use in order to signal turn-taking, with a focus on Spanish.
This study is an analysis of a corpus that contains conversations between dyads of native speakers of Spanish. The conversations are task-oriented -

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