Prosody as an Interactional Resource: Turn-projection and Overlap

TLDR

Turn-competitive incomings are identified by high pitch and loud volume and are positioned before the final major accent, whereas overlapping incomings after the major accent are not treated as turn-competitive. The study aims to identify prosodic resources that allow listeners to monitor a turn in progress and anticipate its completion. By analyzing overlapping talk, combining phonetic analysis with Conversation Analysis techniques, the authors define a transition relevance place (TRP) as the interval between a TRP‑projecting accent and the onset of the next turn, with TRP‑projecting accents being phonetically distinct. TRP provides a robust resource for participants to monitor the upcoming completion of the turn.

Abstract

One aim of current research into talk-in-interaction is to identify the resources that enable recipients to monitor the course of a turn in progress in order to project its upcoming completion. This issue is addressed through analysis of instances of overlapping talk, focusing on their design—that is, their particular prosodic and other linguistic characteristics; their placement—in other words, where precisely they occur in relation to the turn being overlapped; and the subsequent behavior of the coparticipants. Phonetic analysis is combined with interactional techniques developed within Conversation Analysis, to warrant the relevance of categories by reference to the behavior of the participants themselves. As French and Local (1983) found, for an incoming to be treated as turn-competitive, it has to be designed with relatively high pitch and loud volume. These turn-competitive incomings are positioned within the turn in progress, and before the final major accent. By contrast, overlapping incomings positioned after the major accent are not designed as or treated as turn-competitive. On the basis of this analysis, we can define transition relevance place (TRP) as the space between the TRP-projecting accent of the current turn and the onset of the next turn. TRP-projecting accents are identifiable on independent grounds, being phonetically distinct from non-TRP-projecting accents. They thus provide a robust resource for participants to monitor the upcoming completion of the turn.