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Title:
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Turn-taking in English and Japanese: Projectability in grammar, intonation, and semantics
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Author:
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Hiroko Furo
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Email:
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click here to access email
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Degree Awarded:
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Georgetown University
, Department of Linguistics
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Degree Date:
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1998
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Linguistic Subfield(s):
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Discourse Analysis
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Subject Language(s):
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English
Japanese
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Director(s):
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Deborah Schiffrin
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Abstract:
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This study examines turn-taking in English and Japanese conversations and political news interviews to investigate the relationship between language and interaction. In particular, this study explores: 1) the interrelationship of three linguistic properties (grammar, intonation, and semantics), 2) the occurrences of speaker changes, 3) the relationship between these linguistic properties and speaker changes, 4) cultural influences, and 5) situational influences on turn-taking.
The quantitative data analysis includes the following procedures: First, grammatical, intonational, and semantic completion points are marked in the transcribed data, and the conjunction points among these completion points (CTRPs, Complex Transition Relevance Places, cf. Ford and Thompson 1996) are identified. Second, points of speaker changes are examined as to how frequently and where they take place. Third, the three types of completion points and speaker changes are examined to study how each type of completion point singly and jointly projects transition-relevance places. The qualitative analysis focuses on divergent instances between CTRPs and speaker changes in each data set to understand how and why they take place.
The study has revealed that (1) the data of the same language have a similar interrelationship among grammatical, intonational, and semantic units, (2) speaker changes occur more frequently in the Japanese data than in the English data, and they occur more frequently in the conversation data than in the political news interview data, (3) CTRPs and floor-taking speaker changes are strongly correlated in the order of Japanese political news interviews, Japanese conversation, English conversation, and U.S. political news interviews. Furthermore, the turn-taking systems in the four data sets differ in languages and in situations. These systems are modified by linguistic, cultural, situational constraints as well as by specific interactional 'needs'; however, the modifications are implemented in orderly ways. Therefore, this study concludes that turn-taking is systematically realized and interactionally motivated and that language and culture, as well as situational and interactional contexts, dynamically influence realization of turn-taking.
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