Sociolinguistics Symposium 19
Freie Universität Berlin | August 21-24, 2012
Programme: accepted abstracts
Abstract ID: 530
Part of General Poster Session (Other abstracts in this session)
Turn taking and talk distribution in first-encounter conversations for males in UK, US and Australian English varieties: Quantitative and qualitative analyses
Authors: Murata, Yasumi Gee
Submitted by: Murata, Yasumi Gee (Meijo University, Japan)
Turn taking and talk distribution patterns are two of the key factors constituting communication style. The literature indicates that the way people take turns and how much they speak in a conversation varies greatly from language to language and from culture to culture. Most critically, differences in attitudes towards features such as turn taking patterns, pauses, and length of turns are recognized to negatively affect interpersonal relations (FitzGerald 2003).
This study examines turn taking and talk distribution patterns in casual conversations for three major Inner Circle varieties of English. As stated in Clyne (1994), turn change and maintenance are largely determined by power relations and long pauses, which in his data were caused by combination of particular speech acts and cultural styles. To date, however, there has been little research that compares turn taking patterns and talk distribution in interactions within UK, US and Australian regional varieties.
The data analyzed consisted of nine 30-minute casual conversations, with three from each region. Each conversation included three participants who had not met or talked prior to the recording. Participants were adult males with ages ranging between their mid-twenties to mid-forties. They were also controlled for educational level as university graduates or above. Their regional English speaking ‘native’ authenticity was assessed based on self-reporting that their school and home language had always been English. All nine conversations were deemed successful from the follow-up interviews that took place immediately after the conversations’ recording, during which each participant was interviewed alone by the researcher.
The recorded conversations were later transcribed and analyzed for the number of turns and volume of talk for each participant to see; firstly how turns and talk were distributed among the participants, and secondly whether there were any regional differences in the distribution patterns. A qualitative analysis categorizing the types of turn taking was also conducted. I employed Clyne’s (1994) turn classification of ‘turn giving’, ‘turn receiving’, ‘turn maintaining’, ‘turn appropriating’, ‘turn terminating’, ‘turn direction’, ‘turn deflection’ to identify what each participant was actually doing with their turns in the flow of conversation.
The results reveal the extent to which the common Anglo communication style, characterized by the principles of equality and democracy, is reflected in the collected data and whether or not there is any influence from the localized cultural scripts.
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