Summary with the article: Turn-taking in conversations van Wiemann en Knapp (1975)

When we talk to someone, they have a certain role that we want to respect. One of these roles stands above all other: the role as a human being that deserves respect. In order to get and give respect, people have formed certain interaction rules. These rules are not written down, but everybody still knows them. Two examples of these rules:

• One person speaks at a time
• People take turns in speaking. One persons doesn’t talk de whole time

If people violate these rules, it says something about their relationship and it’s also a sign of disrespect.

According to the article, two researchers (named Cushman and Whiting) have defined two types of rules for communication.

1. Rules that specify the content of a conversation
2. Rules that specify the procedures around the content

If a rule is widely accepted, it’s a standardized rule for communication. If people fail to respond to these rules, they are different than the rest of the group. The rules are already learnt in kindergarten, where a new kid has to learn to raise a hand before they speak. At first it’s still okay if they forget that, there’s a learning period, but after that it’s not tolerated anymore. This shows that people rely on conformity to learn these rules. The article focuses on turn taking, and how people decide who speaks and who is silent.

Turn taking in conversation

The classroom example is an exception to the rule. Normally people don’t pay conscious attention to who speaks and who is quiet. Despite that, we do evaluate interaction according to these unconscious processes. Somebody who interrupts constantly is called ‘rude’. So if you want people to like you, you’d better avoid interrupting or talking all the time. But how do people decide who’s turn it is to talk? A researcher named Duncan differentiated between three aspects:

• Turn yielding cues
  These cues are an indication that the person who was listening, can start to talk. Examples are silence, changes in pitch and changes in intonation. Such cues don’t oblige a listener to speak; he can be silent and send cues back

• Suppression of speaker-turn claims
  These cues make sure that the speaker keeps on speaking by counteracting turn yielding cues.

• Back channel cues
  These are cues that show that the listener doesn’t want to talk yet.

Other researchers have looked at this mechanism. One of them, Wiemann, suggested to add one more rule to these three:

• Turn requesting

These are cues whereby the listener wants to show that he wants to speak

Wiemann also studies turn yielding empirically. He found that the following aspects are important for turn yielding:

• Completion
  Completion means that the speakers finishes a sentence without showing any signs of wanting to continue

• Buffers
  Buffers are little forms of language that don’t have much meaning. Examples: “you know”, “well”.

• Interrogative request
  A request directed at somebody else. If somebody asks you a question, it’s normal to answer it.

• Other directed gaze
  This was the only non-verbal aspect. It means looking at the other person.

Whereas buffers and interrogative requests seem quite natural, it’s harder to explain why completion plays such an important part in turn taking. Authors suggests that it’s the silence after a finished sentence gives certain cues that inform the listener that he may speak. Research from Jaffe and Feldstein has indeed showed that the longer the silence after a sentence, the more likely the other persons is to speak. Their research also showed that the silences have characteristics of the speakers and that the pace stays the same in two different conversations from the same people. It may be that people learn a certain rhythm in which they change from listener to speaker.

After this the author speaks about a couple of more things that are important for turn taking.

• Eye gazing is the most used nonverbal method. Research has shown that at the end of a sentence, people look more at each other. This is probably a search for cues.

• The role of gestures isn’t completely clear. Sometimes it’s significant, but in other researches it isn’t. A few factors are important in the occurrence of gestures. Some topics are not suitable for gestures. Also some situations aren’t good for a lot of gestures (for example the library, in contrast to a busy party).

• Data show that shift in posture is unimportant, but the author thinks slight shifts in posture might make a difference.

• Auditors usually tend to focus on the verbal message for turn taking cues.

• Buffers are very important. Sometimes they are uttered during a sentence or at the end of a sentence, but usually they fall in a silence.

• Head turning plays a major role in turn requestion but not so in turn taking.

The research has shown that small, ritualistic behaviour plays an important role in turn-taking.