Turn-taking

cial interaction is organized. Unequal conversational patterns are therefore reective of larger power disparities
between men and women. One study by Zimmerman and
West found that in same-sex pair conversations, overlap
and interruption tend to be equally distributed between
the two interlocutors, and interruptions are clustered
that is, only a couple of the pairs did all of the interrupting. For opposite sex pairs, male interlocutors interrupt
much more, and interruptions are much more widely distributed that is, most men did it.[3] Gender dierences
in turn-taking are not invariable, however, and are related
to the conditions and context of the speech.[3] Gendered
aspects of speech and turn-taking must be recognized
Individuals involved in a conversation take turns speaking.
as being reective of the cultures in which they exist.[5]
Questions have been raised about the correlation between
Turn-taking refers to the process by which people in a interruption and dominance, and its importance to gender
conversation decide who is to speak next. It depends on as opposed to other social categories. Studies done by
both cultural factors and subtle cues.
Beattie nd status dierence more important than gender dierence in predicting which speakers interrupted
more.[6]

Overview
3 Cultural variation

The steps involved in the conversational process occur in order to maintain two important elements of
conversation: one person speaking at a time and the space
in which one person stops talking and another begins.[1]
Turn-taking is a part of the structure and systematic organization of conversation. Turn-taking in conversation
is not stereotypical of any type of person, conversation,
or language. Turn-taking is done in most settings, by
any type of person and is not reliant on a set amount of
participants.[1] Turn-taking is not optimized for fairness
or eciency, resulting in variations in how turn-taking
occurs.[2]

Turn-taking is developed from very early on the rst

instances of it in a persons life are the interactions between mother and child but it can still be thought of as
a skill, rather than an attribute.[6] The way in which turntaking occurs is greatly aected by culture. For instance,
Japanese culture is group-oriented, and highly focused on
the importance of social structure and ritual harmony in
interaction. This is reected in the negotiation of turns in
Japanese discourse. During a news interview, Japanese
moderators incorporate many backchannels and reactive
tokens, whereas US interlocutors use hardly any.[7] For
instance, this exchange from the television show Sunday Press between the moderator and Kiichi Miyazawa
(a former Prime Minister) is typical of a Japanese news
interview:

Turn-taking and gender

Turn-taking in male-female interactions is highly salient.

Male interlocutors systematically interrupt females and
tend to dominate conversations, and women are frequently treated in much the same way as children are in
conversations.[3] This interruption, however, is not due to
female interlocutors failure to pursue the oor. Deep
interruption, or interruption at least two syllables before
a potential utterance boundary, is perpetuated more frequently by men, towards women, regardless of ways that
women negotiate them.[4]

Miyazawa: dakara, kore wa dekimasen to

iu tameniwa koredankeno koto wa deki masu
to,
So, in order to say we cannot do this,
Moderator: un.

Language and conversation are primary ways in which so-

Um huh.
1

6 EYE CONTACT AND TURN-TAKING

Miyazawa: iu koto wo kichinto shinai ikenaindanaa tu iu koto wo watakushi wa tukuzuku
kangaeta mondesukara,
I thought we had to do
what we can do
Moderator: un un. un huh un huh
Um huh um huh [7]

This demonstrates culturally dierent oor management

strategies. In Japan, interlocutors invite backchannels in
order to legitimize their right to speak, and in the US,
interlocutors rush through completion points in order to
maintain the oor. Dierence in use of backchannels
could also be explained by the syntactic structures of the
two languages. English word order is subject-verb-object
(SVO), whereas Japanese is subject-object-verb (SOV).
For example, the sentence Where are you from, Fumi?
is rendered in Japanese as
Fumi san te doko kara dakke?
Fumi Ms.
from is [7]

QP (question particle) where

Therefore, in English conversation it is easier for interlocutors to predict and anticipate the transition relevance
points. This demonstrates the interdependency of cultural and linguistic factors in turn-taking.[7]

the turn, and chordal. Terminal overlaps occur when a

one speaker assumes the other speaker has or is about to
nish their turn and begins to speak, thus creating overlap. Continuers are a way of the hearer acknowledging
or understanding what the speaker is saying. As noted by
Scheglo, such examples of the continuers phrases are
mm hm or uh huh. Conditional access to the turn implies that the current speaker yields their turn or invites
another speaker to interject in the conversation, usually
as collaborative eort.[9] Another example that Scheglo
illustrates is a speaker invited another to speak out of turn
when nding a word in a word search. Chordal consists of
a non-serial occurrence of turns; meaning both speakers
turns are occurring at once, such as laughter. It should be
noted that the above types of overlap are considered to be
non-competitive overlap in conversation.[9]

5 Cultural variation of overlap and

timing
Harvey Sacks, one of the rst to study conversation, found
a correlation between keeping only one person speaking at a time and controlling the amount of silences between speakers.[1] Although there is no limit or specic
requirement for the number of speakers in a given conversation, the number of conversations will rise as the
number of participants rise. This is in order to maintain
speech and silences more adequately.[1] This correlation
between speech and silence in conversation diers across
languages and cultures as shown by Jack Sidnells ndings
in Caribbean Creole.[10] The turn-taking process in Creole is in fact orderly, like that of American English. Turntaking occurs at a specic time within the conversation.
In order to continue to be a part of a conversation, participants must listen to the speakers since overlap is common
among Caribbean Creole English speakers. These overlaps show agreement of what is being said, while violation
of overlap shows disagreement.[10]

Additionally, turn-taking can vary in aspects such as

time, overlap, and perception of silence in dierent cultures, but can however, have universal similarities as well.
Stivers et al. (2009) cross-examined ten various languages across the globe to see if there were any similar
underlying foundation in turn-taking. In analyzing these
languages, it was discovered that all the languages had
the same avoidance of wanting to overlap in conversation
and wanting to minimize the silence between turn-taking.
However, depending on the culture, there was variation in
the amount of time taken between turns. Stivers claims 6 Eye contact and turn-taking
that their evidence from examining these languages suggests that there is an underlying universal aspect to turn- During a conversation, turn-taking may involve a cued
taking.[8]
gaze that prompts the listener that it is their turn or that
the speaker is nished talking. There are two gazes
that have been identied and associated with turn-taking.
4 Overlapping talk while turn- The two patterns associated with turn-taking are mutualbreak and mutual-hold. Mutual-break is when there is
taking
a pause in the conversation and both participants use a
momentary break with mutual gaze toward each other
When more than one person is engaging in a conver- and then breaking the gaze, then continuing conversation
sation, there is potential for overlapping or interruption again. This type is correlated with a perceived smoothwhile both or many parties are speaking at the same time. ness due to a decrease in the taking of turns. Mutual-hold
Overlapping in turn-taking can be problematic for the is when the speaker also takes a pause in the conversation
people involved. There are four types of overlap includ- with mutual gaze, but then still holds the gaze as he/she
ing terminal overlaps, continuers, conditional access to starts to speak again. Mutual-hold is associated with less

3
successful turn-taking process, because there are more
turns taken, thus more turns required to complete.[11]
David Langford also argues that turn-taking is an organizational system. Langford examines facial features, eye
contact, and other gestures in order to prove that turntaking is signaled by many gestures, not only a break in
speech. His claims stem from analysis of conversations
through speech, sign language, and technology. His comparisons of English and American Sign Language show
that turn-taking is systematic and universal across languages and cultures. His research concludes that there
is more to turn-taking than simply hearing a pause. As
other researchers have shown, eye gaze is an important
signal for participants of a conversation to pay attention
to. Usually, whoever is speaking will shift their gaze away
from the other participants involved in the conversation.
When they are nished or about to be nished speaking
the speaker will revert their gaze back to the participant
that will speak next.[12]

Timing and turn-taking

and Sex: Dierence and Dominance: 105129.

[4] West, Candace (1979). Against Our Will: Male Interruptions of Females in Cross-Sex Conversation. Language, Sex, and Gender: Does La Dierence Make a
Dierence?: Result of a workshop: New York Academy
of Sciences, 1977 327: 8196. doi:10.1111/j.17496632.1979.tb17755.x.
[5] Scherzer, Joel. 1987. A diversity of voices: mens and
womens speech in ethnographic perspective. Language,
Gender, and Sex in Comparative Perspective. ed. Philips,
Susan U.; Steele, Susan; and Tanz, Christine. 95-120.
Cambridge University Press.
[6] Beattie, Georey (1983). Talk: An Analysis of Speech and
Non-Verbal Behaviour in Conversation. Milton Keynes,
England: Open University Press. pp. 77170.
[7] Furo, Hiroko (2001). Turn-Taking in English and
Japanese: Projectability in Grammar, Intonation, and Semantics. New York: Routledge.
[8] Stivers, T., Eneld, N. J., Brown, P., Englert, C., Hayashi,
M., Heinemann, T., Levinson, S. (2009). Universals and
cultural variation in turn-taking in conversation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(26)

Another cue associated with turn-taking is that of timing. [9] Scheglo, E. (2000). Overlapping talk and the organizaWithin turn-taking, timing may cue the hearer to know
tion of turn-taking for conversation. Language in Society,
29(1), 1-63.
that they have a turn to speak or make an utterance. Due
to the very nature of turn-taking and that it is dependent
[10] Sidnell, Jack (2001). Conversational Turn-Taking in a
on the context, timing varies within a turn and may be
Caribbean English Creole. Journal of Pragmatics 33:
subjective within the conversation. Vocal patterns, such
12631290. doi:10.1016/s0378-2166(00)00062-x.
as pitch, specic to the individual also cue the hearer to
[11] Novick, D.G.; Hansen, B.; Ward, K.; , Coordinating
know how the timing will play out in turn-taking.[13]
turn-taking with gaze, Spoken Language, 1996. ICSLP

Deborah Tannen also shows timing dierences in relation

96. Proceedings., Fourth International Conference on,
to turn-taking. For a particular study, she used a recordvol.3, no., pp.1888-1891 vol.3, 3-6 Oct 1996.
ing of a conversation between a group of her friends at
dinner. The group included men and women from across [12] Langford, David. Analysing talk: Investingating verbal
interaction in English, 1994. London, UK: Macmillan
the United States of mixed ethnicities. She concluded
Press, pp.69-118.
that while the amount of space left between speakers may
dier, it diers most dramatically between people from [13] Cowley, S. (1998). Of timing, turn-taking, and conversadierent regions. For instance, New Yorkers tend to
tions . Journal of Psycholinguistics Research, 27(5), 541overlap in conversation, while Californians tend to leave
571. doi: 10.1023/A:1024948912805
more space between turns and sentences.[14]

See also

References

[1] Sacks, Harvey (1992). Lectures on Conversation. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. pp. 2.3266.
[2] Hirsch, Richard (1989). Argumentation, Information, and
Interaction: Studies in Face-to-face Interactive Argumentation Under Dierent Turn-Taking Conditions. Gothenburg: Gothenburg Monographs in Linguistics.
[3] Zimmerman, Don H.; West, Candace (1975). Sex Roles,
Interruptions, and Silences in Conversation. Language

[14] Tannen, Deborah. 2012. Turn-taking and intercultural

discourse and communication: The handbook of intercultural discourse and communication. ed. Paulston,
Chrstina; Kiesling, Scott; and Rangel, Elizabeth. 135157. Chicester, UK: John Wiley & Sons.

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